The Decency Charter
This site has spoken a few times, usually in jest, about forming its own political party and contesting elections. But as the UK heads for the biggest democratic trainwreck in its history – a vote which, depending on where you live, is really either a proxy Brexit referendum, a proxy independence referendum, a judgement on the personal character of Jeremy Corbyn or any of half-a-dozen other things – we found ourselves thinking again about what, on the fundamental ideological level, we’d stand for.
It’s a question that existing parties find it remarkably hard to answer. Labour used to define it clearly in its key “Clause IV” – a clear statement of commitment to socialist principles like public ownership and wealth redistribution – before Tony Blair junked it in the 1990s for some woolly neoliberal rubbish from an aspirational Facebook meme.
For the SNP, clearly its primary defining goal is always the democratic pursuit of independence for Scotland. What you might call its day-to-day policies have, like most parties, varied and evolved over time, but it’s always had that one clear unifying and overriding aim. It may have won electoral success through decent governance, but its purpose was never merely competent administration for its own sake.
In the case of the Conservative Party, the turn-of-the-20th-century US economist John Kenneth Galbraith summed up their position pithily and accurately:
(And lest an offended Tory should seek to instantly dismiss him as some flavour of pinko tree-hugging bleeding-heart lefty, he also said: “Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it’s just the opposite.”.)
The Liberal Democrats, of course, stand for being in the middle of Labour and the Conservatives, whatever that means on any given day. (They did briefly experiment in the 2000s with being to the left of Labour, partly because it was hard NOT to be, but the coalition scuppered that and now they’re basically Tory wets.)
But what about us?
As it happens, we’ve always had a simple and clear definition of our political position, and in particular our stance on economics. It goes like this:
“Anyone who works a full 40-hour week, at ANY job, should be able to afford a roof over their head and an acceptable quality of life – including a social and leisure life – without state assistance.”
It has the benefits of being short, easy to understand and very difficult to disagree with. Who could possibly contest the basic, modest notion that full-time work should pay enough to live on? If the entire 20th century achieved anything, it was surely that most minimal of social contracts – work hard and you’ll have a decent life.
Millions of people have no interest in climbing a career ladder (even assuming one should be available in an increasingly service-based economy). Like their parents and grandparents before them, they’re happy to do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, be able to afford the occasional night out or family daytrip and an annual holiday and a nice TV and a second-hand car and a couple of quid tucked away for emergencies and their old age.
It’s not much to ask from a First World society, and more to the point it’s completely achieveable. Despite the challenges of globalisation and outsourcing and such, plenty of countries manage it, most obviously (to the point of cliché) the Nordic ones.
The framework is there waiting to be copied. Their high-wage, high-tax, high-welfare approaches result in healthy economies and the happiest populations in the world.
(Coincidentally, most are also small nations very roughly the size of Scotland. The average population of the top 10 is just 11.7 million, and if you take out Canada and Australia it plummets to 7 million.)
But it’s a goal that the UK – with its low-wage, low-tax, low-welfare ideology shaped primarily for the interests of the shareholders of multinational corporations – comes nowhere near reaching. The minimum wage is comically inadequate in large swathes of the country, including most of the major cities, and hundreds of thousands of working people now rely on food charity just to avoid literally starving to death.
The average rent in London – including one-bedroom and obscene “studio flats” that are basically cupboards with mattresses in them – is now £1,246 a month. Cities like Edinburgh and Aberdeen are catching up fast. The new “national living wage” of £7.50 an hour pays £1,157 a month after deductions for a 40-hour week – in other words, almost £100 short of even covering rent in the nation’s capital, let alone food, clothing, bills, travel costs or anything else.
Rather than tackle the fundamental issues, Labour filled the gap for 13 years with “tax credits” and ever-spiralling housing benefit, effectively massive state subsidies to corporations to pay sub-liveable wages. The Tories have characteristically attacked these “handouts” at the first opportunity, casting struggling workers and families deeper into poverty and misery.
Those out of work, for whatever reasons, have suffered even more brutally. Benefits have been capped and frozen below inflation, those under 35 have been denied the right to non-shared housing and under-21s denied housing full stop, the bedroom tax sought to force the poor out of cities entirely, and huge cuts to disability benefits have imprisoned the vulnerable in their homes and driven many to suicide.
(And if you do kill yourself in desperation, an absolutely massive cut to bereavement benefits will leave your dependents destitute after just 18 months, if that.)
Tory ideology is essentially – and we’re going to be euphemistic here – Darwinist in nature. The strong scoop up all the rewards and the weak are abandoned to charity or death. It’s not just anti-socialist but anti-civilisation, seeking to reverse almost all the social progress of the previous century. Compassion is antithetical to the market. The vulnerable are a burden, and supporting them is “unfair” on the rest.
We’re straining every sinew not to draw the obvious – and reasonable – analogy.
But the terrifying thing is that the people of the UK have been persuaded – chiefly by the right-wing media over a period of several decades, but also by the ideological cowardice of the other political parties – to go along with it. Attacks on benefits are popular even with the working class, and redistributive policies like higher income tax on the wealthy and inheritance tax are strongly resisted by all demographics.
In the latter case (inheritance tax), popular opinion is almost certainly coloured by the fact that most voters are now either of the generation who gained enormously from the Thatcher government’s mass housing giveaway in the 1980s (basically the Baby Boomers), or the one (Generation X) which will inherit that windfall from their parents.
Those two blessed generations, who between them now hoard an vast percentage of the nation’s wealth, have – understandably and naturally – no intention of allowing it to be shared out with everyone else. They intend to hold onto what they have while the ladder is pulled up behind them because economic policy has driven housing out of the reach of people just entering adulthood.
In other words, whichever side of the Great Division of wealth in the 1980s you came out on, the haves or the have-nots, you’re staying there forever. Or at least until you outbreed – and can therefore outvote – the generation before you, and the generation before them dies out.
(Seen in that context, the two-child benefit cap takes on a whole new significance.)
But we’re rambling. The Decency Charter is an ideological principle which could and should be adopted by any party who not only want to fix a lethally broken country, but harness the disillusioned Millennial generation in the interests of securing power.
The Nordic nations and others show it can be done within the modern global economy. It fits neatly on a pledge card (with room for specific policy detail on the back). It’s rhetorically powerful – the validity of any policy could be easily measured and argued according to whether or not it progressed the aims of the Charter, in a manner that would be almost impossible to counter. And the left wing of British politics is currently in such a rock-bottom state that it has nothing to lose.
But most of all, the alternative is simply too terrifying to contemplate.
If only the SNP would call a Scottish Election. That would be a definer. The Brit Nats would have to turn two ways and deviate from English chat show politics. They would have to discuss things on Scotland’s terms.
Well said that man. The lack of anything credible (Greens apart) to vote for in England is nothing short of criminal. What the press have done to Corbyn is also criminal and I’m not sure why he hasn’t sued them.
But then Corbyn is not relevant to Scotland and has had no effect on the local branch party.
This is the country in which the poor are being denied the basic human right to have as many babies as they want. A bid to manipulate the population in future years only Tories can afford babies and there will be a pool of future Tory voters.
Possibility the most powerful article that I have read in a while, here or elsewhere.
“This is the country in which the poor are being denied the basic human right to have as many babies as they want.”
I’m not sure framing that as a “basic human right” is helpful. The point is that if we cut immigration AND reduce population growth, we’ll really struggle to afford to support an ageing population. Which will then become the justification for even greater austerity, etc etc.
That is exactly what I say when I hear anyone bleating about the benefits bill.
It’s not the bill that’s the problem, it is the fact that a person working full-time does not earn enough for basic food and shelter.
The recipients of benefits are the employers and shareholders.
Excellent article. That is all.
This is excellent.
But what about lack of work? Could the state not guarantee 40 hours work a week at a decent wage? I mean work that would be useful to the community and helpful to the workers’ mental health.
And anyone unable to work, for whatever reason, should also receive enough to live on in a decent manner. The UK can afford this, surely.
A late friend of mine used to be the manager of the local Labour Exchange. My friend was an old school Labour member. I always remember that he maintained that someone on the dole should be able to go out for a couple of pints a week. We need to be that kind of country again.
What about a petition calling on political parties to adopt a decency policy in their manifesto. I would sign it!
The Westminster unionist ‘psycho bastards’ would rather bomb the world to bits than take care of their own citizens and others. Illegal wars, financial fraud and tax evasion. Screws the UK/world economy. The Westminster unionists do not care about anyone but themselves.
The UK Union costs Scotland £20Billion a year. Osbourne 6 jobs. The Oil sector unfair, illegal taxes cost Scotland £Billions and 120,000 jobs. There are 120,000 unemployed in Scotland. Scotland could have had full employment. The Westminster crooks would even screw themselves to screw Scotland. Just watch Westminster Question Time. The lying Unionist hypocrites. Their time is nearly up. Voters have had enough of it. Paying off loans on the rest of the UK debt, not borrowed or spent in Scotland. On average £4Billion a year that could be better spent in Scotland. £3Billion? lost through tax evasion etc.
£500Bilion wasted on Hinkley by the sea, HS2, Heathrow and Trident. A total waste of money. With better, credible alternatives. No tax on ‘loss leading’ drink or sugar which could save £Billions and keep people healthier. Starving and killing vulnerable innocent people. People that are supposed to have a responsibility and expectation of care. The Tories are killing off the elderly. Cutting NHS/Education funding. Class sizes are 36 in England. They are trying to reduce them to 31. Unbelievable.
Jackson Carlaw supported Independence. How many lying Unionist troughers in the secrecy of the Ballot Box vote YES. They are contemptible.
The Labour/Unionist do not let OAP use their (bus) travel passes on the Trams. (Unless they are issued in Edinburgh). The pensioners went without to pay for it. The wealthiest City in Scotland has subsidised transport. More buses have to run. In rural areas people can’t get a proper bus service.
Spot on. Rosa Luxembourg got it right IMO – the choice is between socialism or barbarism. What we are facing in the UK today is barbarism. Time to get out.
The SNP can’t call an election. They do have a majority in Holyrood (because of the greens). Holyrood has fixed terms parliaments. To suit the Unionists? Along with the electoral system.
Well said.
Excellent article from the Rev.
The choice for Scotland: fairness or more britnat cruelty.
You Are a resource, in the UK. You must be cheap, numerate, literate sure but above all else, cheap. Blair and Brown went massive on cheap as chips labour, look at their open door immigration for the UK. Now Brexit and look at how anti immigrant, far right England’s gone.
Dear Stu
Excellent article, and I see the motive. Unfortunately, the target is probably not going to grab and use it to re-invigorate the suffrage of so many; though there are signs the young might be rising to that challenge.
Well said, we could have bought into the great Council house give away but we felt that this was wrong, we scraped
together the deposit on a quarter villa instead. The council house was better built.
It is a disgrace that so many working people are actually on the breadline in one of the countries which claims to be one of the wealthiest. Heaven help us when and let us hope not, we are dragged out of Europe, it will surely get worse.
You want to form a political party, if you can get us independence and decency, you are on.
Excellent article. The key ‘policy’ is what any decent party in any decent country subscribes to.
The UK is off at a complete tangent, by western standards. Well on it’s way to the free for all madness of the US.
A wee graph ….
We have a government which is Hell bent in taking us up alongside the US, when we should be moving down among the sane countries!
Right wing versus Left wing? It isn’t so simple. Nordic countries frequently have right wing govennments. Norway currently has a centre-right coalition. Yet they still manage to keep social decency at the centre of politics. Most socially successful countries are not hotbeds of Marxism.
Perhaps it’s a case of their right wing not being in the same place as the UK’s right wing!
Sorry Rev, but this has to be seen:
link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk
@Graham Fordyce says: 23 April, 2017 at 5:12 pm:
“What about a petition calling on political parties to adopt a decency policy in their manifesto. I would sign it!”
So would lots of people – but the government, and that means the Establishment would just ignore it – even if the Westminster part of the Establishment paid it lip service.
Exactly. The non-religious, non-swearing-averse, Cybernat General, Rev. S Campbell preaches a more Christian message, more common sense, humanity and wisdom than Catholic convert Blair, son-of-the-manse Broon, and daughter-of-the-vicarage May could begin to understand. What is the matter with them? What is the matter with us, the citizens who put up with these outrages?
We should all be ashamed of UKOK. London is killing itself. Basic accommodation and quality of life are unattainable. Edinburgh is going the same way, sold out by craven, cringing Councillors to big money and monstrous property schemes. Edinburgh’s Central Library — an example to the world, a gift from Andrew Carnegie — threatened by greed and about to be destroyed by yet another hotel scheme which the people are attempting, against all the odds and big money, to resist via judicial review.
UK manufacturing has been destroyed — all of it except weapons. We continue to excel in the mass production of instruments of death. Well done us. Guarding our food banks with nuclear missiles and selling the latest evil technologies to our dictators of choice.
Scotland has a route out of this hell. If we don’t take it this time Private Fraser was absolutely right, “we’re all doomed”.
So how do we get there? ‘Challenging’ to do it all at once. What comes first? Chicken/egg conundrum.
Ken500
When did Jackson Carlaw “support independence”?
Just asking in case I meet him in the street!
Agree unreservedly. Tablets and Sinai come to mind.
Best article I have read in quite a while – the true impact of tory policy is not really seen in Scotland because of the SNP but we need to remind people over and over again of what is happening in England with the tory government in power and what will happen if they have a large majority.
Alex Rowley on Sunday Politics today at last went for the tories. Maybe, at last they are realising who the real enemy of Scotland and all right minded people is.
They need to get over the snp bad rhetoric and realise it was not snp that lost them their vote it was their own actions, inactions and corruption on a grand scale and they will need to work very hard with some humility and apologise for what they have done to many who previously supported them and whom they have failed.
Aye, Rev. And add the old ‘New Deal’ policy to Tax Credits as another genius idea of using public money to benefit private firms..
But hud on about the baby-boomers, though. They seem to have become a fashionable dog-whistle to attract left-leaning Gen-Y oppobrium in the same way that immigrants causing all societal woes is the dog-whistle for right-leaning older generations – perfect methods to blame the innocent and distract from the real culprits.
I, like you, am Gen-X; my parents worked hard as fuck to pay their mortgage off, experiencing particular problem with insane rates in the late 70s, the same as loads of other young buyers on starting salaries. Amazing that they’re now getting pointed at because they dared to have lived a life that was – as you put it – not much to ask from a first world society.
I would say that though, wouldn’t I? *shifty eyes* Gimme that sweet baby-boomer inheritance, quick, before I have to lose it to these hipster Gen- Y cretins!
I wouldn’t be at all fussed about proper inheritance tax if I thought it was a major blockage to redistribution of wealth, but it isn’t is it? Not even close. And as far as applying the tax in a perfectly egalitarian way, with no escape routes…good luck with that!
Not many seemed to buy into the ‘Cameron is really the good guy’ theory, that he foresaw and tried to forestall the takeover by the nazi hive.
Anyone changed their minds on that yet?
Still expecting him, Clarke and others to speak up at some point, but depends how much dirt they have on them and on their personal courage.
No decent human being could disagree with any of what you have written. Labour should be ashamed of themselves at what they have become. The msn are like the Tories they are beyond feeling shame.
Thank you
@Capella says: 23 April, 2017 at 5:18 pm:
“Spot on. Rosa Luxembourg got it right IMO – the choice is between socialism or barbarism. What we are facing in the UK today is barbarism. Time to get out.”
History has this habit of repeating itself at irregular intervals, Capella.
However there is usually a twist in its tail.
A cycle of the social battles between the rich & poor goes on constantly but it eventually leads to open warfare and whatever starts this becomes the moment for revolution to begin. The same, or very similar, events the World over will see the revolution beginning.
“Let them eat cake,” for example characterises the French version.
Will the United Kingdom/British version be characterised by the mealy mouthed phrase, “Non-Consensual Pregnancy” a.k.a. “Rape Clause”?
When the rich become so uncaring that they starve people of food, shelter, medical care and hope then the parts are all in place for the revolution to begin. One of the main signs of the revolt being about to start is when there are inhuman acts being propagated by the poor on the poor.
There have been some rather inhuman acts carried out fairly recently. Acid attacks have suddenly increased. Are all those claimed, “Terrorist”, crimes actually terrorist crime? Old people robbed in their own homes.
Are we sitting om a powder keg that is about to explode?
When life becomes so bad and poor people have no hope of improved circumstances it becomes a case of survival of the fittest before the poor get together and revolt against the system and sweep it away.
I hope we can all agree, if someone discovers time-travel, they need to go back and abort Milton Friedman.
I suggested the other day that WOS readers should take a look at Michael Moore’s latest film “Where To Invade Next” and see for themselves what an independent Scotland might look like. After reading this excellent piece from the rev. I’m now able to say (with all due modesty) I told you so!
Great article.
Uk politics needs a Brewsters Millions style “None of the Above” campaign..in all 591 non Scottish seats.
£500 (deposits) × 591 seats = £295,500.
Uk wide crowdfunding could cover that, then all we need is a national slogan.
“Vote “none of the above”, because the they are all heartless bastards who hate you”.
Sorted…when do we start…?
[…] Wings Over Scotland The Decency Charter This site has spoken a few times, usually in jest, about forming its own political […]
BBC national TV news waives the general election rules again. Six thirty bulletin has campaign points from Tories Labour Lib Democrats and even UKIP with no MPs. Zilch from Greens or that other party with 54 MPs
When less is more…
link to imgur.com
@seanair says: 23 April, 2017 at 6:10 pm:
“When did Jackson Carlaw “support independence”?
I wouldn’t know about that, seanair, but I was just reading the BBC text news and it reports:-
So there you go, seanair, both the leader and deputy leader of the Scottish Conservatives are in favour of imposing the rape clause.
Superb article Rev and a whole series of nails hit squarely on the head.
@ proud Cybernat
Watch that Tory total surge as baby-boomers and gen-X read this latest article, though. But ixnay boutaay axingtay illionnairesbay *wink* That’s how smart politics is done.
Like fuck! Where are my politics of envy? Screw this.
I’d sign up to that maxim right now.
This is how far society has moved inch by inch, day by day over the past 40 years: when i was a student 40 years ago, I would also by necessity have had to be homeless.
What chance have young people now?
None.
Great article Rev. Hope open minded folk across the UK have the opportunity to read it and reflect. Thank you.
They have introduced the tax credit two two children while at the same time given the tax from the sale of Sanitary products or the so called Tampon tax to anti abortion charities. so not only do you get punished for having another child you will get punished if you try to stop a pregnancy. The government is playing a game of back to the 1950’s when everything was Rosie when in fact it wasn’t are food bank the same as rationing like we had in the early 1950’s it does make you wonder.
Tory Election Fraud. Massive details of fraud investigation – culprits (incl Mundell) – constituencies – planners – evidence. We’re Tory, we make our own rules. A lot of information & reading. Apologies if shown previously.
link to isbuc.co.uk
“The Decency Charter is an ideological principle which could and should be adopted by any party who not only want to fix a lethally broken country, but harness the disillusioned Millennial generation in the interests of securing power.”
Under the ‘First Past The Post’ voting system, no decent party with a decent ideological principle can ever come to power in the UK.
The only chance for Scotland is full independence.
Well said.
I work ‘full-time’ 5 days a week as a Pupil Support Assistant at a high school – the one I attended as a teen actually.
Of course, it is not really ‘full-time’ – it is part-time as the hours are now 28.3 per week. We get paid from the minute the 1st Period starts (09.17 most days) after Registration class. In the past the PSAs got paid from before 09.00 as one needs time to plan what pupils need help in which classes, if there are exams we need to help out in and time to check eMails etc.
Now that we work 28.3 hours I (my colleagues are all married women) do not qualify for ‘working tax credits’ as a minimum of 30 hrs are required to qualify. Of course, we still have to plan each day and work well before the official working time to do so. I’m always in before 8.30.
We are not teachers so have to contribute towards any school holidays that are above the ‘normal’ standard holiday entitlement.
This means my Fife Council take home pay for 4 weeks is around £700. My council tax & rent are £380 and I pay £40 per month towards a mistake made by payroll.
Gas and electric are around £120. Landline/internet £30 p/m, mobile £13 p/m. This leaves around £30 per week. I do not have a TV licence, any insurance, and cannot afford to go out socially if any cost is involved. I usually get a lift to work but have had to walk (4 miles?) in the past.
I use (when I can get a lift) a foodbank.
I do not get free dental care because I am not on ‘benefits’ so my Doctor has prescribed me pain killers for the toothache I have (my teeth are falling out). I earn less now than I did in 1987 but love my job so can only hope something political happens that means PSAs get paid a wage that affords a ‘life’.
(moan over)
This sets out a very obvious way forward for Scotland.
Two things convincing enough people it’s the right way. Too many in a North East and south Scotland have made enough to think they don’t want to share.
Another group are too frightened of change.
Canvassing for SNP SON has brought this clearer to mind. So evolution is more likely than revolution.
SNP a&e constitutionally commuted to another referendum as way to Independence and I don’t seriously think we have enough people persuaded of the benefits of this type of society to vote for it.
In reality that is the real Eason we dI’d not get independence in 2014.
So if not now when? I hope soon.
@Geoff Huijer –
That’s not a ‘moan’. It’s personal testimony, and it’s important.
These Tory bastards will grind each and every one of us into the deck if they get the chance. Only by maintaining a class system can they remain at the top of it.
Revolutions cannot happen when people are demoralised, starving and desperate. That’s what Tories fear, and if Scotland continually elects a government which puts ‘common decency’ at the heart of its policy-making then citizens in the rUK will – surprise surprise! – want the same. That’s why we have to be punished again and again, for even daring to voice desire for an alternative.
They are already killing the weakest of us, and if we don’t stop them they’ll keep going until we give up hope.
I posted this before but we should keep spreading it Damien Green thinks the SNP Government is a RAGBAG party
@Ian McCubbin
Thats similar to my view. I believe there are around 30% core yoons. Made up of 2 groups – because its served them well financially so far or they are ideologically in love with it.
Everyone else leans towards indy, but some are frightened.
Thats the natural majority Salmond spoke of.
A positive campaigns works – but it helps if the other option is pain & despair. Project Fear wasn’t painful enough – but it will be soon. Their trick will be to try and keep it just hurting not too much, so that folk still fear indy more.
A good hard brexit & some slashing & burning of public services. Its a shame that it requires bitter experience, but its what will finally tip some voters away from union. They need to feel it hurting. No, they want to feel it hurting.
We must be ready with the positive option.
the new fife housing plan,
this map of each settlement in fife, highlights where the council believes that houses can be built. eg around my town, the map highlights in blue 25 acres where 250 houses can be built.
this map, drawn by nobody knows who, has just gifted 25 million quid to the landowner(who he?) of these fields
this has just happened all over fife and has gifted billions to the landowner.
thing is, this makes all housing more expensive, private, social, council, affordable etc, with the average plot being about 70k.
the solution is andy wightmans land reform and the intoduction of a LVT
eg, increase the blue highlighted area on the map from 25 acreas to 100,000 acres, and increase the houses allowed to 5000.
the value of land upon which one can build a house will drop off a cliff. and so will the cost of a house.
30k can buy a very comfortable scandanavian wooden house, and that will include the cost of the land and the cost of it to be built.
“Tory ideology is essentially – and we’re going to be euphemistic here – Darwinist in nature.”
Yes, I have made that point before. The base justification for Neoliberalism/Neofeudalism/”Anglo-American Economic Lunacy” boils down to a belief that humanity still has some evolving to do.
Statistically, this cannot happen by natural selection with populations of size. It would simply take too long to propagate any new advantageous gene which evolved.
Patrick Matthew, one of the Scottish adherents to the theory of natural selection, which had been around in one form or other in Scotland for about a hundred years before Darwin came up to do his degree at Edinburgh, clearly understood this in ‘his’ theory of natural selection published decades before OTOS. He stated that some event which drastically reduced the population of a species would be required for any further significant evolutionary advance.
Equally clearly (he admitted as much in correspondence) Darwin failed to grasp why Matthew believed that. Darwin wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer according to his Scottish lecturers.
However, his less famous second cousin Francis Galton, did. Which lead to the creation of eugenics (unnatural selection) a theory exported to Germany and elsewhere in Europe by his acolytes.
It therefore follows, that any who believe further physiological evolutionary progress is required for humanity must also believe in and promote the methods of unnatural selection i.e. breeding, sterlization, genetic engineering OR envisage a scenario where the World’s human population can be greatly reduced in size.
I, of course, do not. It is my belief that the future evolution of civilization can be through intellectual development. Our brains are designed to evolve in a different way, through neural pathways reconfiguration.
Education, connectivity and discourse are enough.
Great article.
..’Attacks on benefits are popular even with the working class, and redistributive policies like higher income tax on the wealthy and inheritance tax are strongly resisted by all demographics.’
.. THATCHERISM in a nutshell.
@Geoff Huijer,
Therein lies the problem Geoff. You work, you do your damndest to stay in work and off benefits and to what avail?
What local authority do you work for if I may ask? The very least the bastards could do is give you all the 30 hours required for working families tax credit. Certainly it looks like something that should be raised with any new council administrations after May 7th.
I can not for the life of me think that the Scottish government intended for this to happen. It is pure and simple petty mindedness on the part of your local council.
As to the “high tax, high social spending” economies, I have lived and worked in both Norway and the Netherlands. Were I 20 years younger and single, I doubt I would ever have come back from either of them. The work / life balance is perfect. In Holland, 55hrs per week is the maximum allowed for anyone to work. In Norway, after 3.30pm on a Friday forget about trying to contact them before Monday am. It’s the weekend and they are off hire and with their family. And don’t even try to find them in July!
From WoS Twitter …
link to archive.is
… when it comes to workers on low income affording housing, the US is like the UK, shit.
And this is the model the Brexiteers actually want.
An excellent and well-illustrated article which reminds us that the (Red&Blue) Tory-dominated UK is a sick society which stigmatises its economic victims.
Ironically, while on a day out yesterday we had the car radio on and heard Paddy Ashdown on Any Questions? intone: “Progressive taxation is the price of a civilised society.”
Agreed.
Then he went on to tell us how wonderful the Tory/LibDem Coalition was and we switched off.
Seven very important weeks coming up.
If you can, get out and help to GOTV. If not, engage with people you meet and counter the lies, help to plant the seeds.
@Geoff Huijer spells it out — and it’s scandalous. Someone doing a worthwhile job which he loves, literally unable to afford dentistry and needing foodbanks (and help to get to them) in 21st-century UKOK.
Mark Frankland in Dumfries (Mundell territory) set up the “Donald Fund” so that sanctioned and struggling people could have their electricity bills paid and not need to shiver in the cold and the dark.
Perhaps it’s time to extend the idea and create a Scotland-wide fund. Well remunerated people could contribute a percentage of their income to a new social enterprise: the Fund to Undo Conservative Cruelty (FUCC).
MSPs and MPs could and should take the lead. Detailed accounts would be kept and a monthly bulletin would be published revealing the truth about the effects of Tory policies.
Your demographics I believe are spot on.
At 58 I see a wealth gap involving pensions and property equity that never before existed and people are determined to vote against anything that endangers that difference. Your agenda now seems our only hope.
schrodingers cat says:
If the land was agricultural then the landowner should have been paid/compensated agricultural land prices, not some inflated speculative house building rate.
If a field is sold for houses it could be worth millions, if sold for animal grazing it will be a tiny fraction of that. Land is land, and prices should be controlled and fixed.
Brilliant article stuart, you always give us plenty to think about. Thank you.
As usual the head of the nail has been well and truly hit full square on by Stu.
I may not have a solution to the whole problem here but I think there are a couple of ideas that could/should be implemented that would go a long way to reversing the current trend in ever more people being forced to go to foodbanks.
1) increase “Living Wage” to a MINIMUM of £10 per hour.
2) Introduce a Basic Income for all. (I believe Fife and Glasgow are looking at running trials of U.B.I link to archive.is )
3) if necessary make necessary adjustments to tax bands
I know these ideas together are not the silver bullet to solve all our benefit and other financial problems but put together they must surely be a pretty good starting point.
As I understand it at the moment only option 2 can be fully achieved by the Scottish government options 1 and 3 are, at least in a large part, still controlled by Westminster.
Another well known quote by John Kenneth Galbraith..
““The process by which money is created is so simple that the mind is repelled.”
The tories lapped up the monetarist economics of Milton Friedman and erroneously believed that the central bank controlled the money supply. Friedman also believed that government spending was the reason for the inflation of the 70s – forgetting about suppliy side oil shocks of OPEC.
So the obsession with reducing govt deficits meant that they passed the deficits over to the private sector…
Being stuck with limiting beliefs that fractional reserve banking still existed they embarked on a programme of bank deregulation believing that this was a good way to grow the economy. So began the credit bubble.
As Galbraith alludes to banks don’t require any deposits or reserves to lend. Banks create money when they lend. LOANS CREATE DEPOSITS. Most mainstream economists simply don’t understand this fact.
The Banks were given free reign to create as much as they liked but also crucially where they lent to. Most of bank lending (90%) leading up to the financial crisis was into housing and financial speculation. It was the banks who pushed the prices of housing up threefold in just 15 years and of course real wages were never goin to keep step with bank money creation. This is why homes are unaffordable for the young.
The OBR are still forecasting that household debt will climb over the next 5 years risking another financial crisis. Of course the banks are really just part public establishments. They are safe in the knowledge that the public sector will bail them out.
Note that private debt levels stand a time £5 trillion.
Household debt is roughly the same as the national debt.
The Bank of England now owns 1/4 of UK debt – achieved simply by marking up the number of reserves on the central bank computer and purchasing gilts from pension funds.
The uk gov simply can’t become insolvent with respect to its own currency.
BBC Radio 4 “More or Less ” this evening.
Institute of Fiscal Studies state that Middle and richer income people will see a “modest” increase in income over the next few years.
The bottom 1/5th of Income earners will see “…cuts in real incomes in the main due to reductions in benefit and tax credits”
Over to TORY Davidson and gutter press to blame it on those 3rd borns.
The GE campaign should be about the maintenance of the Welfare State as seen through Scots eyes rather than the Tory version of it.
Pensioners should be forewarned of the threat to their pensions increases, bus passes, heating allowance etc to the dangers that the Tories want to reduced the powers of the Scottish Parliament.
Many pensioners don’t have lavish pensions as the right wing press like to tell us and are living from hand to mouth and just get by. The NHS in Scotland should be the battleground as we should defend it against the Tory obsession with selling off bits of it to their friends. Does anyone want to pay to see their doctor in the future despite paying taxes all their life?
Bravo, Stuart, bravo.
The stupid, really stupid, thing is that the bulk of the lunatic Westminster ‘austerity’ cuts actually cost the taxpayer more money. Example: the Bedroom Tax
link to speye.wordpress.com
Added in new information. Projected impact of the
early polls much reduced by spread-over in Scotland. Still 8 seats under threat
link to caltonjock.com
Apologies for O/T here but The Canary has an interesting wee piece about voter registrations.
link to thecanary.co
Boris,
Interesting that is based on uniform swings. However what it does not and cannot take into account is the personal vote of the sitting MP’s.
winifred mccartney @6:25 pm
“…. the true impact of tory policy is not really seen in Scotland because of the SNP but we need to remind people over and over again of what is happening in England with the tory government in power and what will happen if they have a large majority.”
This is so right, Winifred. The problem is that given the current constitutional arrangement in the UK, a really quite complex, nuanced narrative is required when setting out the linkage between (i) a GE vote made in Scotland; (ii) the subsequent election of an MP in Scotland; and (iii) how this then impacts on the nature of the Westminster government and its ability to pursue policies that affect Scotland.
There may be a direct impact on the elected government in Westminster i.e. on reserved matters that affect all of the UK. Then there is the ‘indirect’ (two-step) impact of the Westminster government’s policies which translate into Barnett formula implications and thus on Scotland’s share of UK tax receipts. (But I recall seeing statistics that indicate that how Scotland votes has been only rarely critical over the past c. 50 years in influencing who actually governs the UK.)
The narrative is even more complex at this time when new, partial powers over welfare and bits of personal taxation have just or are about to be devolved to the Scottish parliament. And of course a ‘complex, nuanced narrative’ is far, far from ideal in election campaigning!
Personally, on reserved matters, I’d vote against the Tories (just) on: their active support for Saudi action in Yemen (I’ve have never voted for Labour since Blair’s Iraq War, so for me foreign policy is important); their support for Trident renewal; and their approach to social security. But in terms of the disastrous Tory track-record on the English NHS and (IMHO) their divisive policies on English school education, plus the bedroom tax and university student fees etc., the Scottish Government has indeed taken a different path: as you note, voters in Scotland have not had to come to terms with any of the latter.
It is a real challenge to ensure that the Scottish electorate understand the impact on all our lives in Scotland of the party that has a governing majority in the de facto English Parliament at Westminster – and the impact of this specifically on what our government in Holyrood can realistically do to ‘protect’ us.
This is especially challenging when Scottish Labour seems to be more concerned with promoting ‘SNP Bad’ than ‘Tory Bad’. Why? Because there seems in the Scottish Labour leadership’s view only one thing worse than having a Tory-based vision for the UK being implemented well into the 2020’s and that is the establishment of a social democratic, progressive, inclusive INDEPENDENT Scotland which sustains an economic and social partnership with Europe – and as a spin-off, provides an exemplar of a different, progressive country, post-independence, to our nearest friends and neighbours in the rUK. Without such an example, it looks right now as if a majority of people in England see no alternative to a Tory vision of the future.
……
Great post from Stu. Thanks. It is a very good thing to reflect and communicate what we wish to achieve through independence for Scotland and not just critique what our opponents write and say. I hope this positive theme becomes something we all return to here time and time again over the coming months.
@chic
link to bestthinking.com
patrick matthews, another great from the pages of scotlands history…….forgotten by the british state
One of your best yet Rev, if you did run for any political seat I would vote for you as would many others.
Your Decency Charter strikes a chord with me.
It’s painful to watch the approach to eradicating poverty especially child poverty which requires a very joined up ethical politics across a number of domains e.g. health, welfare, housing, parental employment in a small country like Norway and then look aghast at what’s happening in the UKOK political scene where child poverty rates are expected to increase to 5 million by 2020.
‘Norway’s approach to eradicate poverty is based on the universalistic Nordic welfare model. The Nordic countries along with some other European countries are recognised as societies with relatively small income gaps, quite extensive redistribution of income and wealth through taxation, and with a small proportion of the population living in poverty. A strong national economy has by large provided a solid protection from the effects of the global financial recession…
The Norwegian National Action plan takes a broad-based, integrated and long-term approach to prevent and eradicate poverty. The Action Plan has three main objectives:
-Opportunities for all to participate in the labour market;
– Opportunities for participation and development for all children and young people;
– Improve living conditions for the most disadvantaged groups…
– Ensure that more individuals who are outside the labour market are included in working life;
– Improve the financial situation and living conditions of those who depend on social assistance for a shorter or longer period;
-Implement a comprehensive restructuring of the housing support system with a view to simplifying it and making it more comprehensive…
-An economic policy that facilitates high employment, stable economic growth and a sustainable welfare system;
– The further development of the Nordic welfare model;
– A broad-based preventive approach;
– Targeted measures against poverty.
link to ec.europa.eu.
‘Big Society’ ‘Built to Last’ ‘Citizens Charter’ ‘Back to Basics’. The Conservatives do love their jingoisms to promote ideologies that are not quite so benign and caring when decoded. And yet- the PM seems to have the answers- so let’s hear more about them. Robotic rhetoric on the campaign trail doesn’t really cut it. The electorate wants to know how the ‘We say no’ Party is going to achieve a stable fair society with equality of outcome and opportunity for all citizens, and uphold the principle of redistribution of wealth and provision of universal services.
In Scotland we definitely say no to an assault on the state through privatisation, lower taxes for the very wealthy, the precarious labour market,unfettered free market capitalism where a select few have access to the finance markets, creating and sustaining inequality, increasing child poverty, the centralisation of power to Whitehall and Trident being parked on our shores.
@Al Dossary
I work for Fife Council (enough said).
The school Business Manager (who has now left) would give me money sneakily sometimes & the woman from HR who came down to see me after being off for ‘mental illness’ was in tears when I told her my predicament.
There are good people out there.
My colleagues brought 3 bags of shopping and dog food to see me over Christmas and also an anonymous £20 in an envelope in my coat pocket at Easter because they knew my gas was about to run out.
I always believed that mentally (at least) it was always better to work but even now going in hungry, angry, lonely and tired I even doubt that. Certainly, I will get dental treatment if unemployed and that would help.
Thanks to all for the concern.
Good article here on a national job guarantee scheme..
link to neweconomicperspectives.org
In calling this election right out of the blue, Treeza May has landed a god right hook on Nicola’s chin. It took us all by surprise.
But we all know Nicola is a fighter and she will not be lying back and accepting this.
The SNP are probably the most organised Political Party in the UK and you can bet your bottom dollar that they will be planning their own counter punch that will knock Treeza and her gang right back on their arse.
C’mon Nicola hit them hard and give us that lift we need to get us through this wee bump in the road.
Excellent work Rev and is something that any sensible minded person would back.
What is happening is ideological not economical and has nothing do to with society or civilization but everything to do with greed.
@ ScottieDog
I sometimes wonder if they do own sterling,their action either say no we do not own it or we have not got a clue that we do or if we do we have no idea how to use it.
It is rather strange maybe i have been watching too much John Perkins but i cant help feeling there are strings pulling the UK government from across the pond.
Is this the truth behind the special relationship,i see our old American friend is back running the tory election campaign,i wonder if he brought his pal to ruin er i mean run the Labour campaign nope i figure i was right the first time.
What do you think Ed lol yea the tombstone looks ace honest go for it you will be PM with that one sucker lol
galamcennalath
agree with your comments
I was just pointing out that land reform would be an effective way of of breaking this divide, that stu highlights in his article, by which the next generation wont be able to afford to buy houses in the way we did. i have a vested interest in this since my children belong to this generation, and if land reform also cause my property’s value to plummet, then so be it.
@caz-m –
Hear hear.
Nicola Sturgeon knows what she stands for – the people she represents, and what they want.
Theresa May doesn’t.
Geoff,
Your story has had a considerable effect on me tonight. It is way beyond indecent what you and others have had to, and still endure for the incalculable service you provide for our children. I for one would wish to see you rewarded properly for everything you do. You have taken me back to the stories my beloved grandmother used to tell me about life in Glasgow during the 1920′ and beyond.
It is the Starkest realisation for me , on this forum that we are regressing back to the stone age rather than moving towards an ideal society where all are equal ,and treated as such.
There must be a better way.
Thank you Rev for one of your very best contributions . I am humbled tonight. I am sad, and I am angry. We can ,and must have a better way. People like Geoff above, deserve no less.
Let us try to make it happen.
schrodingers cat says:
Land isn’t an overly valuable commodity. It’s only when someone plans to build something on it that the value goes through the roof. It is my opinion that land price should be strictly controlled. It should never be high. Whether land is developed is down to planning laws and their implementation by local authorities.
A property may have a high value simply because of the costs of building it, but the plot needn’t have a ridiculous price associated with it.
So called affordable housing has an inbuilt high land price, it shouldn’t have, if land prices were controlled as I suggest.
I’m all for a strict planning regime, but that should be the system which allows genuinely affordable housing to go ahead. And affordable land would make it much easier.
If there is no right to buy let out affordable housing, then it would remain in the public pool. They shouldn’t effect the private housing market.
Clearly low land prices would make houses built to sell off cheaper too.
The trick would be to manage all this over a 10 year period where existing house prices stagnate rather than plummet.
The Nordic dream is an illusion. Scandinavian income taxes raise a lot of revenue because they are actually rather flat. In other words, they tax most people at high rates, not just high-income taxpayers. The top marginal tax rate of 60 percent in Denmark applies to all income over 1.2 times the average income in Denmark. From the Scottish perspective, this means that all income over £27,600 would be taxed at 60 percent.
Sweden and Norway have similarly flat income tax systems. Sweden’s top marginal tax rate of 56.9 percent applies to all income over 1.5 times the average income in Sweden. Norway’s top marginal tax rate of 39 percent applies to all income over 1.6 times the average Norwegian income.
Dividends and capital gains in Denmark are taxed at about the same level as the UK. Only Denmark among the Nordics has any estate or inheritance tax.
The other end, of course, is average income, some £34,800 in Norway, but only c £25,000 in Sweden.
I suggest that the objectives we do not have enough of in Scotland and the UK as a whole are:
– work, both the idea of the social value of it and the moral need to do it. If 600,000 Poles can do it here, why not us? Not because of ‘unattractive’ wages, as the Polish worker is living, paying rent and tax here on just the same possible income. Could we be just a little more motivated?
– school education that realistically recognises the different needs of different students. The much-vaunted Finnish systen is, yes, comprehensive for the first nine years, up to the minimum school-leaving age of 16, but then rigorously divides into academic and vocational tracks.
– post-school education that caters both for those who will really benefit from a university education and for those, probably the great majority, who need a proper training in their chosen trade or calling as what we have now by way of apprenticeship or other vocational training is pathetic. This training should not be the primary business of government, except perhaps providing core funding to technical colleges. It would require regulation (you cannot work as a plumber without serving a properly authenticated apprenticeship, you cannot set up your own business as a plumber unless you are a ‘master’), and material financial investment from employers.
– sensible house building policies: build high density housing for rent in places where people need to live, like city centres, not tacky boxes on green field sites. Housing costs are a measure of supply of space, and of available credit. If proper long-term investors, not buy-to-let spivs, get involved, then there is a chance here.
The cost of these measures would be limited. A small marginal increase in taxation would see to it. The rest is in our minds.
Tomorrow’s National front page:
Tomorrow’s “National” twitter pages:
link to twitter.com
I posted this on the last thread, but realised it is more relevant here. Apologies for repeating but I do have some ideas of what a better society could look like. The UK really does get it wrong, and it’s going to be much worse!
———————-
An OT Sunday morning thought, or ten.
Ten things I want for my country …
1 a written constitution with rights enshrined in law
2 sovereignty with the people, power loaned upwards
3 everyone equal, especially before the law
4 everyone pays their taxes
5 all politics by a common PR system
6 anyone working full time can live acceptably
7 policies to actively roll back inequality
8 a media which enables democracy not undermines it
9 free health & education with a robust ‘social safety net’
10 respect on the world stage
I get absolutely none of those with the UK, nor will I ever IMO.
I could get all of those from an iScotland once the dust settles.
Ian Brotherhood,
And where is the support for the Tories coming from?
Is the the “Jim Sillars” of this world?
Scottish Brexiteers?
Am totally baffled by this Tory surge in Scotland.
I see that some from thee Labour party in Scotland are saying that they will vote Tory in the GE, simply, one assumes, as some kind of ‘revenge’ against the SNP, of which they have a wholly irrational and misplaced hatred.
Here’s the point though, does Labour in Scotland believe for one minute think the voters will forget this frankly childish behaviour? No, we’ will remember people like Labour’s Iain Murray suggesting people vote Tory.
Labour telling people to vote Tory, FFS. You could not make this up.
This alone, makes it clear, Labour in Scotland have zero morality, and are merely self serving careerists, hiding behind a wafer thin veneer of progressive politics. As for Iain Murray? best dig out yer union jack suit again Mr. Murray, and play tory, if you want re-elected in Morningside.
As an SNP supporter, no matter what, I would never advocate anybody voting tory. I cannot believe what has become of the Labour party.
Excellent article. We should expect no less of those in positions of power. The reality of course as we all know is another thing.
Many positive comments. However, there are some, what %, who are actually purely selfish, sadly.
The banker mentality. I have family members, not in the UK, extremely well off, who think that if you are down on your luck, or poor, disabled or homeless, then you are to blame, not society, not the system, just you. It’s the banker mentality.
During more cynical moments, I wonder who I am saving the planet for. Trudging to the recycling bins, cycling, growing my own, switching the lights off, not flying, (can’t afford to go anywhere anyway) using ecover, being vegy, no car pumping out horrendous people killing fumes, cough cough! Who will inherit the earth.
Anyway, fab article, thanks, and lots to ponder, and work on.
@schrodingers cat
Yes, Patrick Matthew from Errol gets scant mention. I too suspect Darwin well knew about Matthew’s article. It was published in Edinburgh and London in the January of the same year Darwin was to set sail in the November on The Beagle.
If you were going on an n-year voyage you would buy as much new reading material as possible, especially on your subject and especially one where the main part was concerned about the right types of timber around the World to use for building and repairing ships.
The book was also serialised in a popular horticultural magazine that year.
But Matthew was not the first in Scotland to propose a natural selection method. James Burnett the eccentric Lord Monboddo, was probably the first, a hundred years before Darwin and Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus, cited Monboddo’s theories in his own work.
On returning to England, Darwin claimed he learned nothing at all in Edinburgh, even though he is on record as having spent more time in Edinburgh University library than any of his contemporaries, attended all the lectures and went on many educational walks with luminaries of Scottish academia with the discussions held, a matter of record.
It is all deja vu from the Gregory-Newton episode.
We forget pernicious Albion at our peril, they invented the dark arts.
I was speaking to a relative the other day , who told me that her Brother in Law despite being an SNP supporter for decades was going to vote Tory as Nicola had lost the plot!
I am really at a loss for words as I have known that person most of my adult life and would never consider him a Tory voter.
Guess the drip drip of propaganda has finally got to him in his seventh decade.
So beware the Tory “surge” may be a real one, let’s hope it’s just a flash in the pan, real or not, we need to get our vote out for both the Local and General Elections.
Sorry being way out there O/T, and probably on a different planet here.
I’ve just read an interesting wee article about a constituent of Feartie McFeartie having a meeting with Feartie McFeartie. At one point during the meeting Fearite said this:
“”She replied that she was a representative and not a “delegate” and was not obliged to be the voice of her constituents.” ?
Now I don’t know about anyone else but I find this rather striking. She is a representative but NOT a “delegate” to be the voice of her constituents … REALLY? 😉
I wonder how the wider area of Maidenhead feel knowing that their M.P. is NOT their “delegate” and will NOT be THEIR voice.
link to theneweuropean.co.uk
@ Lenny Hartley
Getting the vote out is, as ever, the key.
With luck, these polls will encourage that, rather than induce despair.
Lenny Hartley @ 22:56:
That makes me really grind my teeth, that does. The SG have gone out of their way to protect people like him, and this is the thanks they get. STUPID. My guess is he is one of those people energised (ie. distracted & seduced) by the EURef and blame-a-foreigner. Even if it objectively will wreck their own future in the process.
Funnily enough, eldest daughter has a bunch of English friends from a time she lived there and she was telling me just the other day that they had been trying one of those “which party best reflects my views” websites, and all of them had found they should be voting SNP. (Which of course they can’t, unless they do an impossibly quick flit north.)
Caz-m: re “Tory Surge”. Worry ye not.
link to craigmurray.org.uk
…well that cheered me up 🙁
What a horrible future without Independence!
Why do people want this union which delivers the World outlined in the article forever.
@chick
I have been in touch with his great grand daughter, erroll jones, who taught herself to word process at the age of 91 and who wrote a family history. when darwin credited matthews in his 3 edition of otoos, mattews had business cards printed with his name and the words, the founder of natural selection.
all his previous pamphlets, books etc he had authored were immediately banned from all the libraries in perth, dundee and cupar……..:(
he also lobbied the local newspaper arguing that the railbridge should be built further upstream near newburgh, halving the cost which could be spent alleviating the plight of the childen of dundee, 40% of whom died in infancy.
he also complained about the structure of the bridge and the quality of the steel being used.
he died in 1874. in 1879 the tay bridge collapsed taking the lives of 75 people.
he became known as the seer of gourdiehill
i have grafted scions from the last pear tree in his once great orchard of 10,000 trees
link to denmylne.wordpress.com
galamcennalath says:
Land isn’t an overly valuable commodity. It’s only when someone plans to build something on it that the value goes through the roof.
——————————
it is the process by which planning permission is limited to such small areas which is responsable for the cost of land upon which one can built. this is the control means by which cost is kept high.
it is also the source of the greatest corruption in local councils.
eg, the plans in fife council have gifted 2 billion to landlords in fife, yet no one knows who drew up the plans or who these landlords are.
andy wightman has been highlighting this for years, that is why the establishment are suing him.
increase the area where houses can be built and the number of houses which can be built there, then return planning permission control to community councils and the property market across the whole of scotland will crash overnight
A must read before voting in the GE
link to caltonjock.com
FFS that woke me from my stupour.
Can’t say how much that resonates.
Given that Macron looks a shoe in for President in France after setting up his part only one year ago,I would say go for it Stuart.
But if you get in the way of Scotland’s independence from the
arrogant, hypocritical, warmongering British then you could be a problem for us 🙂
Just drop it.
@schrodingers cat
That is so cool.
I knew about his reservations about the Tay bridge and his prediction that it would collapse but at his advanced age by then, who listens? 🙁
I seem to remember he also invented a steam hammer.
BTW my neighbour in Kirrie has such a remarkable facial resemblance to Patrick Matthew I asked if he was related. Not so far as he knows.
SUNDAY, APRIL 23, 2017
Terror strikes Tyrannical Theresa as astonishing BMG poll suggests Yes has practically drawn level. Pop over and have a keek.
link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk
Not much to read yet but details to follow.
PS:
Read every post this weekend including the tetchy ones. 🙂
Well done everyone excellent x-section of views.
This article struck such a chord that I couldn’t post until now.
Why do we allow this to happen right in front of our eyes? I will not say anymore as I’m ashamed and I hope most of you reading are too.
Geoff
If yer unemployed on the day of your dental check up (summer hols?) , the whole course of treatment is on the NHS. Even if you start work the next day.
It’s a rubbish idea Stuart,gonnae just drap it OK ?
The British would never allow a swearing,beardy,spikey haired PM anyway.
Jist git oan wie the day job OK?
OK peeps lets get this moving BIG time
link to petition.parliament.uk
The tory pollsters are trying it on.
They lie and they deceive.
Its what they do.
Be confident. We have the right to govern ourselves and they know it.
Maybe being a small country is central to developing a decent society. Less scope to play the big man/woman and more visibility of what’s going on. Mind you Germany has always impressed me whenever I’ve been there, so any link with being a small country is obviously not cast in stone. But it clearly is a strong point.
Ian @12.38
Agree that a being a small country is a bonus. Germany is a federal state and those regions have more autonomy than we have in Scotland.
Federalism will never happen in the UK so the only way we will have autonomy is with independence.
Great post Rev Stu – totally in agreement but will never happen in UK. Too many vested interests.
O/T
Bad language but searing stuff
youtu.be/cNOIkFYfJqc
Tory happy dreams:
If you keep telling the just about managings folk they’re being held back by the sponging poor so it’s OK to take from them to make the “Jams” better off then wait a little while till taxes and the cost of living goes up then repeat the process all over again you actually never have to make anybody from the middle income down better off in real terms
while the high earners keep increasing their holdings until one day you have total Utopia for the rich then bring in an immigration policy such as we’re now getting rid of to bring in even cheaper workers than the ones we have in absolute poverty then you can blame the absolute poverty on the cheap labour immigrants
Then follow that all up with a referendum to throw those immigrant folk out and maybe call it Worldxit which will take the absolute poverty folks minds off what you’ve been doing for the last two paragraphs
But if you’re rich, the main thing is barring idiocy with your wealth you’ll never ever be poorer
And start again!
Asylum seekers benefit is £35 per week and they’re not allowed to work, now that definitely needs to be lowered to zero then the food banks could be put to proper use instead of feeding these different people and we could get slavery properly working for us all the way it used to do
Plus there must be more use that we can put the dead the dying and the soon to be dead to instead of wasting ground or energy disposing of them, or animals there are lots of them, fuel maybe? if only we could get away with this stuff but the bleeding heart lefties are a nuisance, Oooh now there’s another thought
Dave McEwen Hill, your link…and yes ‘searing stuff’ but good tae see such passion exposing the utter horror of US (and UK) foreign policy…
link to youtube.com
Agree with this.
Hi Cat and Chick!
My maiden name is Matthew. My father’s family were all from Edinburgh.
Do I get a grafted pear sapling for being nearly related ?
O/T youtu.be/ORIucGdJsU0
Important issues discussed here but the time delay completely undermines the message.
Maybe I’m being paranoid but when was the last time you saw a unionist MP being interviewed with such a serious satellite time delay.
This could be done in an independent Scotland.
To get there it would take 20 to 30 years. To do a ‘Nordic’ we would need to grow the economy by investing in business that sells overseas to make money and also make our public sector more efficient. This means government and the financial institutions taking the long term view on returns and actively investing in people.
In a different time when the UK had much more industry than today businesses were given tax breaks and grants to train staff. The new workforce on leaving education had a network of colleges to train in skills that industry needed. Sadly a Labour government scrapped these at the end of the 1970’s duo to the cost cutting to pay back a bail out IMF loan.
In a new world were large industries are gone this is still needed to meet a future growing business sector be that finance, manufacturing, services or the charity sector. I believe the structures of the councils needs to radically change with an elected trained management structure to run them. No more cumbersome committee style boards of people with no appropriate experience.
If future governments carried out these changes and built social support services in a high tax regime then your dream could be true Rev. Let’s go Nordic.
Kind of connected is @dakk’s point about Macron. The Brexiteers have been hailing the far right movements in France and Germany to support their position that the EU is “disintegrating”, but with Macron and Le Pen the two remaining, poll transfers have it as Macron with 60% to 64% of the vote. He’s centrist, so bye bye far right in France hopefully.
In Germany the AfD are down from 15% to 10% and are moving even further far to the right. The CDU / CSU + SPD, the current coalition, which were as low as 53% total at the start of the year in the polls, are back to around 65%, with Merkel’s CDU still in front by 5%. So hopefully bye bye far right in Germany.
The German election isn’t till September, but the French 2nd and final round is on May 7th – a month before the General Election. So it’s possible the far right UK Tories will look even further right in comparison, and the argument the EU is “disintegrating” become very unrealistic. In addition Macron is seeking EU reforms, no idea what they are though.
But all in all it could make the dread far right Tories look even more dread – and isolated.
The petition which Arbroath1320 put up is against the deportation of the Zeilsdorf family, who totally revived the shop at Laggan.
link to petition.parliament.uk
It’s bloody awful after all the work they have put into the place. This UK government is despicable.
BBC Radio 4 extolling Truthie and organising tactical voting in Scotland this morning
cearc/Arbroath 1320:
Petition signed.
Peace Always
Arbroath 1320 petition signed. The Tory’s do not speak for me.
I’m someone who is right in between the end of generation X and the beginning of millennials. I’ve been renting for about 10 years, 7 of those with my partner. I earn roughly living wage and she works part time. We don’t drink or smoke. We have been on exactly 1 holiday together. We have few expensive possessions. We don’t have any kids yet. It will probably still be another decade before we can afford a deposit on a house.
We will inherit our parents houses, but that could be 20-30 years away, and will have to be split with siblingsm Even then, both our fathers were made redundant in their 50s and struggled to find work. Both families downsized significantly when we moved out and have been living mostly off the proceeds of their house sales until retirement.
Everyone is fucked, not just millennials.
Reaction to this shows that it is one of the Rev’s most powerful and important pieces ever.
Can we get it printed and circulated far and wide?
In leaflet form, along with a few other striking observations and perhaps personal experiences such as Geoff’s, it has the potential to open the eyes and minds of those who believe what the MSM and BBC tell them.
We need to move fast, before June 8.
It’s now 10 days remaining to go, when we get to vote in our locals.
Been looking around and not seeing ANY ‘vote for me’ posters?
Plenty of Scotland flags are up, aye, always time for more.
Imagine if SNP123 gained a record for the locals vote…
That positive energy going into the EGE vote.
‘Looks busy, independence is coming.’
Great Greg Moodie cartoon strip in The National on red Tory Union Jacket Ian Murrray whose exhortations to vote Tory might rebound in his own seat as latest polls predict Tories could win Edinburgh South but hopefully the SNP will come through the middle particularly if the Greens don’t stand.
From WoS Twitter ….
“Irish economist David McWilliams describes true power of the Scottish economy”
link to youtube.com
…. that got the week of to a good start! 🙂
Am I the only one that can see a massive opportunity with this GE? When the Rev writes “depending on where you live, (the GE) is really either a proxy Brexit referendum, a proxy independence referendum, a judgement on the personal character of Jeremy Corbyn or any of half-a-dozen other things”.
Why proxy independence referendum? If the SNP makes its manifesto ” A vote for the SNP is a vote for independence” and nothing else the GE becomes a Scottish referendum that does not require Westminsters authority. All it needs is 30 SNP MPs to be returned.
‘Rape clause’ is awkward, says Scottish Tories’ deputy leader
I note that there is no comments allowed on this article by the BBC,I wonder why every Tory standing should be asked if they support it.
‘The Locals‘
This is the vote for the party that delivers to your doorstep.
The SNP123 are holding 3 of the 4 bases for Scotland.
The locals is the last one, to get to that HOME Run.
Ye aye hear about people going tae there ‘local..’
SO let’s keep it local.
Let’s play ball.
Links
link to indyref2.scot
link to newsnet.scot
link to indyref2.scot
link to welfareweekly.com
If everyone who has been victimised by the Tories votes in the general election
link to archive.is
link to thecanary.co
link to euronews.com
link to evolvepolitics.com
Ha, there their.
Have a good Monday, Scotland.
You’re Number 1.
Good Morning, Nana, another nice day here. Thank You, for your links. Kettle’s on
🙂
Peace Always
Ignoring some of the more “extreme” characterisations of everyone else in the UK – other than those that appear on WIngs – I agree with the basic premise. Someone who works a 40 hour week should be able to look after themselves.
When the minimum wage first arrived, my belief was that it should be a minimum wage for the most unskilled of jobs. I now see adverts for jobs which are offering the minimum wage where the employer is looking for people that are “passionate” about whatever product or service is relevant and that they want people that are experienced, or “dedicated and determined to succeed in a competitive market place”.
… which is a nonsense. In addition, as has been discussed, the taxpayer should not be “subsidising” the low wages offered by large multi-nationals through the tax credit or benefit system.
I don’t pretend to know all the answers, but they are laudable aims. I do not believe though that the answer lies in some sort diluted communism where it comes solely from taking from area of society and giving it to the other.
It was also nice to see the Rev acknowledge some of the very negative financial issues of living darn sarf. To rent a two down, 3 up semi in my town is now around £1600 per month. In essence, the first £24000 per annum of what someone earns only pays the rent. Add on the Council tax, utility bills, food and transport costs and unless someone is earning over £40k per annum they have got no chance.
So, please remember those numbers when characterising the average rich southerner on their enormous salaries.
Very,very good article Rev, if only, if only we could make it happen.Never within this greedy,immoral Union, whereas Scotland has the required resources, brains and a more social attitude to make a better place for all it’s people.
First we must, hammer the Tories here, as a first step.
Heard a wee joke at a SNP event last night:-
Theresa May is discussing a speech with her speechwriter and thinks it needs more words.
Speechwriter : “NO, FEWER ! FEWER!”
May: “You Can’t call me that yet”
Best said quickly for fuller effect tbh.
@Robert J Sutherland
I have had the same experience re my son ( at Cambridge) and an employee at Plymouth uni both telling me yesterday that they and many friends are coming out as SNP voters on that ‘which party best reflects my view’ website’.
There is a glimmer of hope (maybe) for the RUK. Although this article does feel spot on here in DDD.
Here is the link for anyone wanting to give it a go.
http://uk.isidewith.com
Great piece over on WGD.
link to weegingerdug.wordpress.com
@ Nana
Some good reading there Nana. Hope you’re keeping well. 🙂
So, please remember those numbers when characterising the average rich southerner on their enormous salaries.
All UK govs have focused entirely on making the south of England rich sensibledave. And its worked really well too, for your average English tory voter, you. Lucky you English southerners, in England.
A giant splash of mega bucks vomited all over the southern English, from UK gov was the 2012? Olympic Games sensibedave, mmmm, tasty, very very southern England tasty.
Meindevon says:
I did it a few days ago and came out a little more Labour than SNP. If I were English, that might have been true.
I emailed them to suggest they really need some constitutional questions relating to the different nations of the UK to differentiate between the various national progressive parties i.e. SNP, Plaid Cymru, and Sinn Féin. They need questions about independence and Irish reunification.
That last link to the Matthew Parris article is particularly scary. I’m praying for a miracle in this G.E. The only real solution though for Scotland is independence.
Good morning Smallaxe
Late this morning, was reading the above article and comments.
Was chatting to a pal earlier, she has swung more folks to the snp by showing them this
link to m.facebook.com
Spread it far folks
A couple more links
What are the options for differentiating the UK’s immigration system? Cttee publish Dr Eve Hepburn’s report
link to parliament.scot
link to epw.in
Anti-EU ministers show ‘invincible ignorance’ over European Court, says top ex-judge
link to archive.is
Sleekit Mundell’s dodgy expenses
link to isbuc.co.uk
eedtracker 18 am
You wrote: “All UK govs have focused entirely on making the south of England rich sensibledave. And its worked really well too, for your average English tory voter, you. Lucky you English southerners, in England.”
I note that you either can’t read or are an idiot Heedy. Which is it?
Based upon the information provided by the Rev, you should have understood that a person living near me probably incurs housing costs that require them to earn £12,000 pa more – to end up in the same position as people in less expensive parts of the country. This situation is exacerbated by the higher rate of income tax which affects the higher salary (which is only paying the increased housing costs).
Its about disposable income HeedY – but I know that you are too thick to “get” that.
Scot Goes Pop:
UPDATE II : Having applied a magnifying glass to a screenshot of the Herald front page, I’ve finally been able to work out what the BMG figures are with Don’t Knows excluded…
Should Scotland be an independent country? (BMG)
Yes 49% (+1)
No 51% (-1)
So with Don’t Knows included, the Yes vote is up 2%, and with Don’t Knows excluded, it’s up 1%. Let me just gently observe that this renders the Herald’s choice of headline (“Independence support fails to rise”) more than a touch bizarre!
link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk
Back this morning for another read at this article, good stuff!
Anyone who doesn’t know the difference between its and it’s should not be calling anyone an idiot.
The collapse of Europe is Brexiteer’s wishful thinking, and I’d include the BBC in that mob.
La Pen is an alarm bell to the French, symbolic of a reactionary backlash against the established ruling elite, but having delivered that warning, it has served its purpose. The landscape of French politics is alert to the concerns, but even La Pen toned down her demands for Frexit after the rank stupidity of Brexit, introducing an important caveat that Frexit would be the last resort if EU reforms failed.
Geert Wilders threatened Dutch Euro-stability, but the Dutch rejected him. The AFD is Germany which threatened German Euro-stability seems to be in retreat and disarray, and while La Pen has made it to the French Presidential run offs for the French Presidency, the defeated candidates are nearly all bound to throw their weight behind Macron.
Only in the UK did the flickering of reactionary right wing xenophobia meet with the pure oxygen of BBC media backing and create for Britain the catastrophic disaster of populist act of lunacy that is Brexit.
Heads up BBC, Daily Mail, Daily Express, it is YOU who bear the responsibility for the “success” of Brexit; the success that will condemn the UK economy to shrinkage and misery, plunge many of its people into despair and economic hardship, while the country’s dwindling resources are plundered by the greedy.
Europe isn’t going to collapse, and fracture so that every Euro nation finds itself up to its neck in shite like the UK, because Europe is spared having such a brainless amalgamation of headless chickens running its popular media and manipulating its political landscape which Britain suffers, which is a pernicious toxic blight on the whole United Kingdom. Britain has its political agenda squeezed by the BBC which is blind deaf and dumb when it comes to perverts in its ranks, gross misconduct of sanctified individuals, Middle Eastern duplicity, warmongering invective, and withering gratuitous smears and malignant scorn poured upon diligent and morally responsible arguments and people.
The xenophobia behind Brexit is not the UK’s disease, it’s the symptom. The festering cancer which Britain suffers from is its propagandising blood and soil media, running out of control and promoting British Imperialist exceptionalism to an angry population abused, robbed, and humiliated by the crooked parasites in power. It is a dangerous cocktail Britain.
Europe is not so very different from the UK. Left unchecked and manipulated by evil the human condition responds in the same predictable way, but right now Europe is listening to its common sense while the UK is deaf to it.
Scotland MUST listen to its own common sense and secure its capacity for unilateral thought and action, and vital freedom to ally ourselves with the stability of Europe and cut ourselves loose from the political tragedy unfolding south of the Border.
It worries me greatly. We seem to be setting out our stall for a sunny Summer’s day, where we have a Marquee booked for a garden party, cucumber sandwiches and a jazz quartet, and an independence referendum which will be such fun. But in my dreams, all I see is an Independence seized hastily in a near state of emergency to escape and save our Scotland from an imploding UK.
I hope you are right and I am wrong, but beg for us to be ready and prepared for both possible outcomes.
galamcennalath says 8.29am.
A brilliant link telling the truth about the Scottish economy. I’m spreading it around already. 🙂
I note that you either can’t read or are an idiot Heedy. Which is it?
Both sensible. But I have ears, listened to toryboy’s like Fallon and neo fascist Nic Robinson this morn on BBC r4, both waffling on about “perfect markets” and tory reprobates really weally want, nae love those perfect markets.
Who knows how many hundreds of billions have been pumped into the southern England zone by countless UK govs, red and blue tory sensibledave, or that perfect tory market, of southern Englishness.
@Macart
I’m okay Sam, thank you for asking.
I posted some more links, hopefully appear soon.
In the meantime, these torys are mad
link to archive.is
and now that I’ve been over at the torygraph, I must go find the carbolic
link to archive.is
It’s still only five years since the English riots and burnings.
Time is on our side
@galamcennalath
Loved that link upthread. 🙂
Good moaning Scotland shortbread discussing the return of Tony Blair being predicted by J McTernan…As the saviour of Big Labour darn Sarf. Thought I had driven into the twilight zone in Glenrothes. FGS!
Doing your links now Nana.
Breeks says:
24 April, 2017 at 9:38 am
The collapse of Europe is Brexiteer’s wishful thinking, and I’d include the BBC in that mob.
I quite enjoy watching assorted BBC tory creep show in France, trying to get the French to go neo fascist Le Pen. Jim Naughty was at it in Paris this morn, neo fascist BBC r4 style, oozing his neo fascist thing, ooh lala the French do like Le Pen simpered the git, but the French dont listen to the BBC, so its clearly all for us suckers ofcourse and not quite an exercise in futility. Its the BBC’s underlying frustration that the EU wont die, that’s odd to watch though.
Do the French vote UKIPer and tory UKOK style, like beeb gimps say? Non.
Is there a French tv nutter like Ligger Neil, sliming around French mass media politics though? No idea.
The Irish view of the English general election
(none of the rest of you matter)
link to enright.ie
heedtracker 9:45 am
Both sensible. But I have ears, listened to toryboy’s like Fallon and neo fascist Nic Robinson this morn on BBC r4, both waffling on about “perfect markets” and tory reprobates really weally want, nae love those perfect markets.
…. Nic Robinson – the neo fascist!?!? You are such a T*t!
The thing is Heedy, the difference between you and I is that I vote for the party, imperfect as they may be, that on the day, best reflects my personal view for the way forward.
You however, will vote for a dog turd if its wearing an SNP rosette!
Given that the SNP have demonstrated that they agree with the Tory in come tax regime (i.e. given all of the things they can do, they have chosen the same as them nasty Tories), are you now Scottory?
I have no allegiance to any political party, that is the difference between you and I. If I don’t like a Tory Party policy I will tell you. If I like an SNP policy I will tell you.
You see, its not blind faith with me Heedy. Its not dog whistle politics with me Heedy. I will disagree with politicians in the Tory party and agree with politicians in other parties. In fact a lot of of Tory and Labour politicians disagree with their own party policy and vote against it.
When did an SNP MP last disagree with a party policy?
…. I must follow order, I must follow orders, I must follow orders.
This would be the path to follow for an Independent Scotland.The British Government of whatever hue would never go down this path.
What would happen to the Elitists!
Good Government is not what Westminster is about. Caring for its citizens that are in dire need, is not what Westminster is about either.
Power and money is at the heart of Westminster so to have a different way of life, Scotland has to vote for Independence.
When did an SNP MP last disagree with a party policy?
…. I must follow order, I must follow orders, I must follow orders.
Yes sensible, you vote tory because they pump hundreds of billions into the southern English economy and that makes you wealthy.
We get it sensibledave. Why are U so mortified when other parts of your precious precious union are now saying, let’s change the southern England focused economics a bit, lets maybe take back some of the massive amounts of dosh being pumped into the south of England and then, maybe invest it in our Scottish economy, where a lot of not Scots resources are syphoned off, out and over our heads, to be funnelled into the southern England economy?
Maybe we’re all just tory roasters like you sensibledave?
Anyway, most mental stuff around your rule Britannia southern England only economics, UK gov borrowing hundreds of billions, with Scotland on their books, for it all. I know, shut up, you’ll get yours, in those Barnett consequentials, if you’re nice and loyal jocks, you’re worse than Greece too, so dont even think about it, vile seps.
Fuck all that sensibledave, now:D
The media talking up Marine le Pen. A fellow sub fascist traveller, so to be expected, I suppose.
She will be turfed out in the second round when socialists rally to the centr and vote against her.
Another loony right winger nutter will bite the dust.
Chances of England doing the same on 8th June? Nope. The nutters are too entrenched now in the US 51st state in the making.
@Shinty says: 24 April, 2017 at 3:08 am:
“Maybe I’m being paranoid but when was the last time you saw a unionist MP being interviewed with such a serious satellite time delay.”
No! You are not being paranoid, Shinty.
Note the very first, “delay”, on that clip and how Angus’s lips are moving long before the sound mixer wakes up and fades in the actual audio. It’s a dead giveaway that the delay is NOT a satellite delay but a broadcaster induced delay.
You do not get the video part of any signal arriving from the satellite before the audio signal because the signal from the satellite is a composite audio/video signal carried on a higher frequency broadcast signal. They both arrive together.
A Satellite delay is caused by the time for that composite signal to travel up to and back down from the satellite.
What’s more you don’t need to fade the audio in on the already received composite signal you are re-broadcasting to domestic TVs.
I don’t know if you are aware of this but the BBC uses a delay system on all their broadcasts in order to be able to cut out anything they do not want the viewers or listeners to hear and/or see.
The guys & gals behind the glass window in the control rooms get whatever is being broadcast before it is sent to the transmitter.
This has various advantages for the broadcaster. For example – how do you think they can, “bleep”, out a swearie word in what is claimed to be a, “live”, broadcast?
Put yourself in the seat of a sound mixer engineer – someone is talking and they swear. By the time you have hear it the signal is already on air. You cannot stop it being broadcast. Only by having an artificial delay where you hear the sound before it is broadcast can you, “bleep”, out the bad word.
Here’s another clue for you – if you can hear and see the stuff before it is broadcast then it is child’s play to fade-in or out applause or booing and fade in the opposite from canned sounds.
Go on YouTube and search for some of the old comedy shows. For example the Goonshow.
The applause and laughter is all canned stuff added by the guys behind the soundproof glass windows and we all know that laughter is infectious. BTW: Before those days there used to be a person who stood facing the studio audience with large flash cards. The actually used to cue the studio audiences to applaud and boo on cue.
OK – If Gina Miller is to (possibly) stand against Mayhem in Maidenhead, who should the Rev stand against (in England, of course)?
Greg Moodie: The Wonder Of Ian.
link to thenational.scot
Heedy, 10.21
Whilst, as you know, I am ambivalent as to whether Scotland stays or leaves the UK, I am interested in your interpretation of how the SNP is doing and is going to do in the GE.
You appear to interpret the current situation as being that an indyref2 is going to happen before Brexit and that the referendum will result in Scotland leaving the UK?
Everything I read, see and hear seems to suggest the opposite? What am I missing? Given the SNP’s stunning success at the last GE, it will be very hard to improve or repeat that outcome. The evidence seems to suggest that the SNP could lose a few seats as Labour fall away and the scottish Tories become the actual opposition up there (who’d of thought?).
I can’t see the SNP increasing its share of the vote so its hard to see how Ms Sturgeon could claim that there is increased evidence that the SCots have are more likely to vote for Independence. Surely, she will not hold another indyref knowing she is going to lose it?
“I can’t see the SNP increasing its share of the vote…”
Of course you can’t. Duh!
Proud Cybernat 10:49 am
I don’t profess to have the gift of perfect foresight Cybie but are you saying the that the SNP share of the vote is going to go up?
Surely, she will not hold another indyref knowing she is going to lose it?
Hopeless divert sensible. You’re a ferocious yoon tory sensible, you would sell your soul to keep England’s control of Scotland, because syphoning off not Scots oil and gas alone, has made the southern English rich beyond their wildest dreams. Not all of you, but the majority, cash rich, capital rich, and very very tory greedy, ofcourse.
Fair enough dear tory roaster, maybe you can keep English control of Scotland for a wee while longer but don’t bet the farm on it sensibledave.
@Nana
Yeah, clocked that Fallon had gone mental over pre-emptive strike use. Corbyn says strategic defence review and Fallon claims weak on defence.
Maybe just me, but I don’t think Mr Fallon is aware of the definition of the word defence:
the action of defending from or resisting attack.
“methods of defence against this kind of attack”
synonyms: protection, shielding, safeguarding, guarding; security, fortification, cover, shelter, screen, resistance, deterrent “the defence of fortresses against enemies”
vindication, justification, support, advocacy, approval, endorsement, promotion;apology, apologia, explanation, explication, excuse, extenuation, exoneration, palliation
“he planned to speak in defence of his old chief”
Pre-emptive:
serving or intended to pre-empt or forestall something, especially to prevent attack by disabling the enemy.
Or basically, we think you’re up to no good, so we’ll use weapons of mass and indicriminate destruction. Decimate a city or two, wipe out the odd population… just in case.
That’s pretty much what we’ve come to in political discourse today. Who can carries the biggest threat of extreme prejudice wins.
Dear God. Do we actually deserve a civilization?
“I don’t profess to have the gift of perfect foresight…”
Should’ve gone to SpecSavers.
How’s your wife, BTW? Still got the OMO in the windae?
I used to be of a socialist mindset. I still believe in state funded education and healthcare,and a decent living allowance for the truly disabled/handicapped but thats about it.
Everything else is absolute nonsense and does nothing except encourage inactivity and the kind of entitled idiots who have done nothing for anyone but think others owe them a living. If you want kids then you can pay for them, if you dont or cant pay for them then dont f***ing have them.
I eventually realised that most ‘socialists’ are just the same as billionaires, except without the billions. Its self interest driving the ideals of both in general – take every penny and asset from the billionaire and he will probably look favorably on social housing, give your typical welfare claimant a straight billion in his bank and theres a good chance that within a few months he’ll be ready to puke at the amount of tax he’s eligible to pay.
Its all pure self interest for 95%+ of people, it just depends how honest they are about it.
I think it should be a 35 hour week. With automation, it might be better to have a 30 hour week and share the work around better. That should still entitle you to a decent standard of living.
I’m also in favour of a Basic Living Wage and Land Value Tax.
Finally, could we have the traditional county system back, with smaller local units the size of parishes, to make our local government more democratic.
‘…he said that he would seek a “fair execution” of Brexit and would not allow May to secure any “undue advantages.”
link to bloomberg.com
‘…and suggested he would seek to revise the Le Touquet agreement’ – The people of Dover will be delighted! It is also a big vote winner in France, the Calais camps are an embarassment to France.
@Andy Anderson says: 24 April, 2017 at 3:53 am:
” … If future governments carried out these changes and built social support services in a high tax regime then your dream could be true Rev. Let’s go Nordic.”
You may not be aware, Andy, that the SNP SG have been doing what you are suggesting for a considerable time but without that, “High tax regime”, you favour.
For example they actively support more apprenticeships and small business start ups as well as many other things within the very strict restraints that the Westminster Establishment forces upon them.
Yet in spite of those very strict Westminster Establishment restraints, our still mainly unionist party run local councils are fighting against these innovative programmes at every level.
This transparent opposition is mirrored at Holyrood and Westminster by all unionist parties who, quite obviously, do not have the best interests of Scots & Scotland as their first priorities.
We have to ask ourselves why those unionists we elect do not put Scotland and Scottish interests first.
Just read any of the Unionist party Local election leaflets now dropping through our letterboxes and see the parcel of lies that they carry. I got yet another from Wee liar Ruth this very morning.
It had not a single word about local issues but only made erroneous claims at the level of Westminster and General Election matters. Yet that poor apology for a human being, Davidson, has the effrontery to claim the SNP are the ones obsessed with Scottish Independence.
If Ruth were to tell the truth she would admit that she and her masters at Westminster are worried to obsession by Scotland’s impending independence and their own inability to prevent it happening.
Excellent article Rev.
If that vulture May and her fascist tory turds win the election the NHS as we know it will disappear and THAT IS TERRIFYING.
WE WILL HAVE TO PAY FOR ALL MEDICAL TREATMENTS AND HOSPITALISATION,
IF YOU CANNOT PAY YOU WILL DIE,
NO MONEY AND YOU WILL DIE,
ACCIDENT VICTIMS DIE,
CHILDREN DIE,
PREGNANT MOTHERS DIE,
Grandparents DIE. etc etc.
And @ £7.20 per hour there is no hope for millions of people. Only QUACK REMEDIES will be affordable.
Oliver Twist is alive and well.
David @11.11
Very cynical, and whilst I agree there is a considerable % of selfish among us, it’s not as high as 95%, certainly not in Scotland.
I live on my own, I’m self sufficient, I watch my money, but I’m not at a food bank. I have no dependents, so my working for SNP and independence is not for any relatives etc, it’s because of the wider society/country I want to live in.
There are many like me in the Indy movement, genuinely upset by inequality and what’s happening in the UK.
What about this article? How can people read it, and say, well that’s ok, it’s not affecting me? I felt sick and upset, making my way down the Revs post, then I came to Geoff’s post, and felt tears pricking, at the monumental unfairness of his situation.
This is a social conscience, looking beyond your door, doing what you can, when you can, for others.
Ian Brotherhood is spot on, when society is broken, can’t question, either through lack of education, opportunity or a dictatorial gov’t, then people turn inward, understandably, for survival.
If people actually put some thought into it, who wants to live in a broken society? The kind of slide just started south of the Border? That will be Scotland if we vote No next time.
We are in a pivotal moment.
Here is good news BBC style from Business Editor Simon Jack…
“The second is a wider point [about a Macron win], about the security of the European project.
Fears that the UK’s vote to leave the EU would inspire anti-EU sentiment right across Europe now seem to be fading.
Geert Wilders’ far right party in the Netherlands failed to live up to pre-election hype while its counterpart in Germany, Alternative fur Deutschland, is in disarray.
The UK’s antipathy to the EU has, so far, failed to catch on elsewhere.
With that in mind, there is less reason to punish the UK in upcoming negotiations as a deterrent to other would-be leavers”.
Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha! Less reason to punish the UK eh Mr Jack?
Britain will be very lucky indeed if EU doesn’t punish Brexit stupidity just for the sheer fun of it; a kind of “best served chilled” revenge for decades of eurosceptic stereotypes and caricature, and EU wrecking rhetoric, much of which coming from the BBC itself…
@cearc says: 24 April, 2017 at 6:34 am:
“The petition which Arbroath1320 put up is against the deportation of the Zeilsdorf family, who totally revived the shop at Laggan.
link to petition.parliament.uk
It’s bloody awful after all the work they have put into the place. This UK government is despicable.”
I thank you, cearc, for your reminder and I second every word you say on that score. There is little doubt that in the Highlands and Southern Upland areas of Scotland those wee local stores are a vital part of the community and when they go the community begins to die.
I don’t give a damn where anyone came from to Scotland but I do care how they assimilate when they get here. We Scots are well known for welcoming others to Scotland and our willingness to accept those who do so with the intention of making Scotland their home.
There is all the difference in the World between these and the ones who come to Scotland to use Scotland as their holiday home, their Sporting estate or to attempt to, “civilise”, the natives and, such as the Zeilsdorf family, who I regard as more my fellow Scots than those, “Loyalists”, who are loyal to the Queen of England rather than the Queen of Scots.
Please Wingers sign that petition even, if like myself, you believe that such petitions will be treated by the Establishment with their utter contempt for all things Scottish.
@ Valerie
I share these sympathies. But my own work and travels has taken me to places where to not have money is to die. Young people dead from freely treated healthcare in our country, young people with unrealized ambition and working 12 hours a day for a pittance who would dream of free education so they can realise their potential.
But then we have this place ‘Wha’s gonna pay fur ma weans?’ Forgetting what they have at their doorstep and the fact they are too much of a cretin to do anything even with that.
Brutal and a poor generalization, but you know there’s truth to it because we mostly all know people like that.
Honestly, 1st world problems. They are so cute.
BBC Politics Lunchtime show, Ligger’s day off, kicks off new toryboy BBC week with beeb gimp, somewhere in Scotland and “peak nat has passed,” he explains, its Ruth D all the way, UKOK. That’s enough of those tory creeps for one day at least:D
link to petition.parliament.uk
Yes, signed that. Have talked to the guy a couple of times a couple of years back, put a lot of work into the house and shop converting to cafe and boutique shop, and a nice guy. The previous owners ran a good shop, coffee, tea, hot food unit, popular stop off, but retired. They too built it up from a previous I think community shop.
Crying shame and a heartless and irresponsible UK Gov – as per usual for the far far right immigration obsessed nasty Tories.
‘Peak Nat has passed’says JoCo on the Daily Politics ‘to borrow a phrase from Ruth Davidson’. One of many no doubt, probably written for her by the BBC.
Davidson is to give the Orwell Society lecture where no doubt she will regurgitate spliced, out of context quotes a la Rowling to make her case against nasty Nats.
Davidson is definitely the saviour of the Union as far as the BBC is concerned. We are through the looking glass and our media, in its present state, does not allow a way back.
The Westminster Conservative Government is stripping away our humanity our ability to have compassion, love, understanding and empathy for the less fortunate then ourselves.
They have no Compassion
They have no Love
They have no Understanding
&
They have no Empathy
You could say they do not have a clue about those who are frail, disabled, elderly, young disenfranchised of society they think only of themselves.
They do not speak for me.
Oh dear God I read the BBC analaysis of the Macron likelihood for presidency.
First from one article about France “the country is deeply divided”, the BBC’s obsessive theme with anything that doesn’t fit their agenda and preferences (clearly they would ahve preferred Le Pen). But then this as someone else pointed out:
“With that in mind, there is less reason to punish the UK in upcoming negotiations as a deterrent to other would-be leavers.”
That might be true, but also true would be this:
“If an incoming UK Government decided to cancel Article 50 there is less reason for the EU to refuse to do so, and more reason for them to accept”.
That’s something perhaps Corbyn – and an unlikely progressive alliance – could play with if they had the guts.
Pal of mine just told me his postal vote has been sent off.
Listen Up Roothie-Babes (seein’ as you are not known as the Peek Tories for nothin’ you might want to know this) – he ranked you party candidate LAST (9th).
Poor guy though – had to give him a bunch of hankies to wipe the boak from his mouth.
Craig Fraser says:
“You could say they do not have a clue about those who are frail, disabled, elderly, young disenfranchised of society they think only of themselves.
They do not speak for me.”
They have more than a clue, Craig, they have an agenda to impoverish, kill off and disenfranchise all those who you mention in your post. They also do not speak for me, or the vast majority of the people who post on WoS.
Peace Always
About those village shops by the way, it’s often incomers that do keep them going. It’s hard continuous work even outside shop opening hours, and nobody is going to make their millions with them, it’s a lifestyle way to make a living. Which is why in rural areas there are so many English people keeping them going as well – gave up the rat-race for quality of life. Sell the high price house down south somewhere (including Yorkshire), buy a small business and house in Scotland. And probably become active in the community council as well.
The good thing is that at least the English (and Northern Irish) are safe even while Scotland is in the UK, and just as safe with the inclusive philosophy of the SNP (and other pro-Indy parties). But there are other nationalities own such small businesses as well, and they are at risk with the manic Tories as are their businesses.
@Proud Cybernat
Yes, my postal vote posted on Saturday. I’m rarely around for any summer elections, often in far-flung places in Scotland by Thursdays, so have had one for years. Tory 6th and last but I didn’t have to boak, he’s a decent enough guy, it’s his party stinks.
I guess “hug a Tory” is on the shelf till after the General Election 😎
@Yesindyref
Yes, I’ve clocked some of the coverage over the French elections and it’s been pretty dire throughout the UK mainstream broadcasts.
Basically, they’re pooping themselves over the thought of a Macron victory. If Macron wins the second ballot, (and he stands a very good chance of doing so), he’s pro EU and populist progressive. The Uk’s ‘deal’ and the right’s hopes of an EU break up look grim.
So far all European elections this year have rejected the UK’s rightward march and the final vote in Germany will have a whole new gravity for Brexit. Should France and Germany both reject the far right and bolster the EU project, Brexit Britain will indeed seem to be a cold and isolated outpost off the coast of continental Europe.
Is Grahame Smith, STUC general secretary, competing to be the very dimmest public figure in Scotland? There’s a fair bit if competition with Kezia Dugdale, Ruth Davidson, Iain Gray, Anas Sarwar and Murdo Fraser.
He insists T May give Scotland more powers over immigration and employment laws. Let that sink in.
Labour opposed then voted down all SNP proposals for those powers to be transferred to Holyrood. VOTED DOWN.
Trade union membership falls and falls and the Tories are going to do even more to remove TU powers and workers rights over the next few years. T May doesn’t hear what TU say, she doesn’t care if they are even speaking.
The ONLY way those powers are coming to Scotland is with Independence. We need new words to describe the density of Labour stupidity.
It would be best if SLabour and TU leaders stop insulting our intelligence.
I’ve long advocated a points based voting system based on life expectancy, thus ensuring the people who have to live longest with the consequences have the greatest say.
i.e
Age 20 = 60 voting points
Age 40 = 40 voting points
Age 60 = 20 voting points
It has its benefits – no Tories, no Brexit, Yes to Indy, action on climate change, houses for under 50’s.
Just sayin’
Oh how the Britnats are wetting themselves with delight in the hope that Marine Le Pen might win in France thereby justifying the whole Brexit debacle
Is that it then, is that the best they’ve got, to hope for somebody else to break up the EU so’s you can smirk about it (we were right we were right)
Isn’t it funny how Le Pen breaking the EU is good but Nicola Sturgeon breaking the UK is Baad
Remember when David Cameron “offered” a referendum to break up the EU
But Nicola Sturgeon “Threatens” a referendum
They’re all still getting away with diverting the worlds attention from the fact that THE BANKS ROBBED US…the freaking BANKS DID IT with the happy assistance of the rich elitist government
But yes they’ve succeeded in erasing the short memories of the bewildered and the downright stupid by inventing slogans and sound bites and getting the idiots to vote for their crap
Let’s make friends in the world by insulting them and telling them they’re the stupid ones
Re Sinky says at 8:20 am on Ian Murray urging folk to vote Tory.
The Tories have selected Stephanie Smith as their candidate for Edinburgh South but she is also standing as a council candidate for the Liberton/Gilmerton ward on 4th May.
This is an outrage to all voters in Liberton Gilmerton as she is obviously not interested in the council seat and if successful in June would cause an immediate council by election.
Elsewhere the Tories are struggling for Westminster candidates as list MSPs like Miles Briggs are standing for Westminster.
There is still time to apply as a Conservative candidate as on their Edinburgh website the only qualifications are:
• To hold the SNP to account
• To focus on the issues that matter
• To oppose a 2nd independence referendum
re;David@12.06
As anyone with an ounce of intelligence knows. poverty is relative. Are you saying that to have to walk to a food bank, not be able to feed your kids or yourself, to be homeless, or sick or disabled, is cute? The UK is a RICH country! No one should be living on the streets or starving. If you want to slag anyone, make sure it’s the rich, selfish, tax avoiding troughers!
It is a well known fact that so called, ‘benefits’, have always been underclaimed. Particularly disability ‘benefits’. DLA was always 1/3 underclaimed. The one third of the pot of money for that just sat there, people were not given information about DLA, even though they would have been completely eligible. This caused untold suffering to some people with disabilities and their carers.
The real scroungers, those on massive benefits, real living in luxury benefits, (not the type the state deems is enough to live on, ie eat or stay warm), are the ones who falsely claim expenses in their job, ie unionist politicians, or those who dodge paying tax. Not just a few £s either, but millions if not billions.
To say that any suffering is ‘cute’ is beyond cruel and beyond foregiveness. It must take a stone cold heart in any human being that says things like that.
Dr Jim says:
24 April, 2017 at 1:34 pm
Oh how the Britnats are wetting themselves with delight in the hope that Marine Le Pen might win in France thereby justifying the whole Brexit debacle”
BBC r4 on lunchtime news on now is just one long party political broadcast on behalf of Brexit Conservative party. Its been really tory corrupt bias like this before on Scottish democracy for example but this is the worst tory bias yet from them, this morning:D
heedtracker 10:59 am
You wrote: “You’re a ferocious yoon tory sensible, you would sell your soul to keep England’s control of Scotland, because syphoning off not Scots oil and gas alone, has made the southern English rich beyond their wildest dreams. Not all of you, but the majority, cash rich, capital rich, and very very tory greedy, ofcourse.
I could beat about the bush- but I can sum up your entire paragraph by saying you lied at least 6 times.
I am not a yoon. I have no desire to control Scotland. I therefore wouldn’t sell my soul to keep that control. The “English” are certainly not rich beyond their wildest dreams and certainly not the majority. “English” folk are no more or less greedy than any normal folk in SCotland or any other country.
It appears to me Heedy that you are now claiming that a subset of Scottish society, i.e. SNP voters, are actually the Master Race. Only SNP voters have the breeding, values or morals you deem acceptable and all others are inferior. I recall someone else in history that went with that meme. You are a t*t.
You are a
yesindyref2
1.06pm
The problem is these incomers from England and Nr Ireland will almost certainly have voted No in the`14 referendum and will do so again.
@call me dave says: 24 April, 2017 at 9:53 am:
” … Good moaning Scotland shortbread discussing the return of Tony Blair being predicted by J McTernan…As the saviour of Big Labour darn Sarf.”
Aye! Me too. I thought that, in my lifetime of listening to unionist sheer idiocy, the worst that I’d heard could never be surpassed. Only today to hear the McTernan Fantasia going at full throttle on the BEEB.
So with still aching ribs I flashed up Microsoft Edge and read sensibledave’s attempts to out fantasise McTernan’s Fantasia.
I though to myself, “If this goes on much longer I’ll need medical attention”, and then Postie called and I got an election leaflet from Ruth the Mooth.
Now, Guys n Gals, I’m in real pain – good job I’ve got a tube of Ibugel(TM), handy and it will ease the Arthritis while it’s doing its other job on my ribs. (Note the spelling of, it’s.BTW)
” … Thought I had driven into the twilight zone in Glenrothes. FGS!”
If you have then it extends all the way over to Kelty, call me dave.
On a news flash last night Macron is heavily tipped to be the next French President and he does not like Britain. This is not what Farage and company told us would happen, they said the EU would disintegrate with the British Empire mark 2. leading the charge.
@Artyhetty
I was going to respond to David, but you have it covered.
Of course I want an independent Scotland to play as good a part as it can, and already is doing, particularly in Malawi, and with the project to train women in from war zones, in conflict resolution, not to mention we have taken in more than our allotted % of refugees.
The fact that life is very bad in other countries is NO reason to treat our citizens like chaff. We all have a right to life, shelter, food and more.
I worked in social housing for decades. I worked there deliberately, because you are working with social issues and people. You are not an estate agent.
Very few are completely feckless, not wanting to work, but many are fallen on hard times for a myriad of reasons.
Never, ever mock people, David, it could happen to you.
Our country should be judged on our provision and care for the neediest among us.
Kinda makes me chuckle that if Brexit had any effect in the French election, it was probably to reduce La Pen’s share of the vote and bolster Macron. I’m fairly sure it was Brexit which prompted La Pen to take a step back from demanding a Frexit referendum, and demand EU reform first.
The French have also been saying for months, that heaven forbid the wrong planets lined up and La Pen actually did win the Presidency, she still could not form a government. I’m no expert on French politics, but La Pen’s party enjoys charismatic leadership which applies itself to a populist agenda, which sounds a bit UKIPlike, but also like UKIP, it lacks sufficient substance and depth to form a credible government.
There is also the irony that once again like UKIP, EU politicians are not taken as seriously as National politicians, and voters attach less risk to voting for far left or far right candidates in European elections. The French National Front, like UKIP enjoys electoral support, exposure, and party funding from the very European Union it dedicates itself against.
What we are seeing in France is “probably” fairly close to what David Cameron envisaged happening in the UK with his Brexit referendum, but he simply misread the writing on the wall and got it all very wrong indeed.
MiserableDave – you seem a bit tetchy? Wife give you a knockback last night? (Nudge, nudge – wink, wink).
@McDuff 1.44pm
“The problem is these incomers from England and Nr Ireland will almost certainly have voted No in the`14 referendum and will do so again.”
I believe you are wrong about this. It is my experience that most English who move to Scotland and really get involved in the local community end up supporting Scottish independence.
I further believe that the English Scots for Yes group is a powerful force to influence that demographic in the coming struggle.
It is not the incomers you should be demonising, it is the complacent establishment-teat-sucking Tory fawning Proud ScotButs.
@Macart
Yes. The irony is it’s very likely Brexit is pushing the rest of the EU back from the brink of far right support, and also Brexit that seems to be pushing the agenda of closer political union back as well – and perhaps encouraging reforms. I certainly hope so.
@McDuff
I think that’s a very sweeping assumption. Some, perhaps many, are benefitting from the ScotGov Small business rates relief which is 100% up to £10,000 rateable value, and are part of the community, so would likely vote the same way as the community. Big cities could be different, I don’t know.
@Brian Powell
I’ve watched the STUC closely since 2012, and remembering that it has to represent all its union members, it’s been as close to Indy as it can get, but has consistently supported more powers for Scotland, up to Devo-Max / FFA, but excluding corporation tax because of Salmond’s intention to cut by 3%. I don’t think Sturgeon has a similar intention. In my opinion Graeme Smith is one of the good guys, following a difficult path, and should be supported.
I’m always interested in any programmes on life in the Scandinavian countries, because I like to see their ideas on education, paternity leave etc.
There is a certain type of culture among some of the populace, where they have a much wider view of society, and a belief that having too much is embarrassing.
I think it’s the Dutch that have a special word for it, which means ‘enough/sufficient’.
@starlaw
Personally, were I anything to do with French or German broadcasting, I’d simply play a vid of Farage’s EU Brexit speech on a loop until the last ballot is cast. (cough)
Apologies if this has been posted already:
link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk
@sensibledave says: 24 April, 2017 at 10:43 am:
” … I can’t see the SNP increasing its share of the vote”
Oh! Dear! sensibledave has not been doing his homework … again.
Only yesterday I pointed out that the usual media suspects were either missing the point or, as usual, telling porkies.
If the, (never precise), opinion poll figures show, what the MSM claim they do, the obvious conclusion is not what the MSM says are their significance.
Here it is again – if the SNP figures are holding up and the Scottish Labour accountancy unit’s support is down and the Scottish Tory & Unionist vote is up then the conclusion is that unionist Labour voters are moving to Tory and thus the overall result, if viewed as being a vote on independence, is that there is as yet no overall change.
In terms of independence the position remains static. Thing is, it is not a vote on independence – it is a vote on electing representation at the Westminster de facto Parliament of England.
Proud Cybernat 1:58 pm
You wrote “MiserableDave – you seem a bit tetchy? Wife give you a knockback last night? (Nudge, nudge – wink, wink).”
Whato Cybie! Certainly not tetchy today Cybie. If you are referring to my comments to Heedy then there is no point in attempting nuanced argument with him. He is a brainless idiot. I don’t know whether he actually believes the stuff he writes but he seems to work on the basis that everyone that is “English” is a rich yoon hell bent on oppressing chippy jocks.
Next, he will be suggesting that Scotland will beat England at football. I think he has gone over the edge.
Anyway how are you Cybie? … Still expecting an increased share of the popular vote for the SNP at the GE?
sensibledave says:
24 April, 2017 at 1:42 pm
heedtracker 10:59 am
You’re the archetypal tory roaster sensibleD. Currently you’re all going, “I’m not a Brexiteer neo fascist, I am social Conservative.” Which is just as mental.
Southern England is incredibly rich sensibledave. Ofcourse not ALL of you are loaded but majority are. A lot of my generation Scots left school/uni and went straight to London. And why not, best jobs, fantastic city, still affordable, mid to late 80’s, especially Eastend.
Now they are all multi millionaires, just by buying quite nice houses or two in the southern England region of teamGB a quarter of a red and blue tory UK century ago. A couple I know bought their Muswell Hill house and then two next door, to rent about 25 years ago. Now they want to sell up and buy a vineyard in New Zealand, at over £7million. They were teachers.
Kerching! UKOK style sensibledave.
Ah, latest April 2017 bulletin from the ONS about the labour market.
link to ons.gov.uk
Unemployment UK as a whole down to 4.7%. In Scotland even further down at 4.5%.
What the Unionist media won’t tell you – or the dread Tories.
The SNP Government is working for Scotland.
@sensibledave says: 24 April, 2017 at 10:53 am:
” … I don’t profess to have the gift of perfect foresight Cybie but are you saying the that the SNP share of the vote is going to go up?”
Best not, sensibledave. Seeing as it is probably the last thing any sane person would accuse you of being.
I’ll explain it to you yet again but first I will correct your far more obvious mistake. The vote being conducted is not a vote upon Scottish Independence.
Like the mentally crippled unionist party leadership in Scotland you seem to imagine the GE is a direct vote for independence. It is not.
In the second place it has already been established here on Wings that factually, and aggregating several polls, the SNP’s vote has actually gone up while the combined unionist vote is down. In both cases the figures are rather chancy as the polls excluded 16 & 17 year old voters some of who will be old enough now to vote.
However, if viewed as a vote for independence the numbers are slightly increased in favour of Scottish independence as the Tory gain are from Labour. However, it is not a vote upon independence but is a vote in a GE.
So it seems you and your unionist cabal are a wee bit misled.
link to bbc.co.uk
Carbuncle rides again. Beeb Scotland gimps skip past any minor past unpleasantness, that was all the fault of group of constituents anyway.
“A group of constituents subsequently launched a legal challenge in an election court over the leak of a memo about First Minister Nicola Sturgeon during the election campaign.
Mr Carmichael survived the legal battle at the Court of Session, although judges were critical of his conduct in their final ruling”
Jings! Here’s a funny thing…just been on Big Auntie’s politics web site and found an SNP free zone. 🙁
How will the folk darn Sarf have any inkling about Scotland…Oh!
But
In a surprise move late on Friday, the Tory Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) lodged a fresh application with the High Court to postpone publication of its draft clean air plan until after the election.
It argued to move was necessary in order to comply with election “purdah” rules limiting government announcements with political implications during the election period.
Aye right purdah! 🙂 Scrupulously fair then.
link to archive.is
O/T. The Liar Carmichael is standing for re-election.
Of course he is. He said he would not. And he is a liar.
@ sensibledave:
There we go, sensibledave, right out of the neoliberal handbook and quoted by you on Wings. Does that make exceptions for, “non-consensual pregnancy”? a.k.a. TORY RAPE CLAUSE.
The Ruth Davidson Tory House of Yoonery.
The National:
“Ruth Davidson urged to probe Tory candidate selection as bigotry of council hopefuls is exposed.”
“A call has been made for Ruth Davidson to investigate the growing scandal around the Scottish Tories’ candidate selection, after the party was forced to suspend several allegedly racist candidates and apologise for a slew of others.
The demand has been made by SNP MSP Humza Yousaf,who claims party leader Davidson has allowed her party to become Scotland’s UKIP.”
That’s exactly what I think. Davidson is running a Rag-Bag of candidates and a Right-Wing party cast in her own image.
Steer well clear of both. 🙁
The National:
link to tinyurl.com
Wee Ginger Dug’s on form today, he reckons this will be the last Westminster election in Scotland. Be nice if he was right.
“Still expecting an increased share of the popular vote for the SNP at the GE?”
“Still”? That suggests a former acceptance of something which you know fine well I never said one way or other. In that regard you operate just like the lying colonial MSM in this country.
Now Risible–I dare you to go and have a wee peek in the middle drawer of your colleague’s desk (the guy with the neck tattoo). Under the pile of CDs he keeps there. The wee black diary. Have a look at last Thursday’s entry, Risible.
(Nudge, nudge – wink, wink).
EVerytime you look, prog liberal Severin o the Graun piles in for the tories
Scottish politics
Scottish Tories back in contention 20 years on from New Labour rout
With party on brink of Westminster revival under Ruth Davidson, the main political dynamic in Scotland is now SNP v Tories
Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson
Scottish Tories have been reinvigorated by combative leader Ruth Davidson. Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA
View more sharing options
Shares
175
Comments
663
Severin Carrell Scotland editor
Monday 24 April 2017 13.20 BST
Even if its partly true, Ruth D’s mob of goons and thugs should be Scots gov by June 9, with just the effort stinky old Graun’s putting in to get her elected FM.
Imagine the actual horror show of a Scottish tory thug like this, as First Minister of their Scotland region.
OT
Just spent the last hour having a tête-à-tête with the Yoons on Scotland in Union.. it is amazing how ignorant they are about simple facts. E.g. –
” no more oil being produced in the Scottish waters from this year, and anyway Scotland would not be entitled to these waters”
“Sturgeon cut taxes for the rich”
“The George square thugs with their Nazi salutes were actually showing the Red Hand of Ulster”
And so on.pitiable really
Robert Peffers
… it seems to me Robert that you are expecting a fall in the SNP vote and you are preparing a pre-justification for relative failure. Are you like one of those politicians being interviewed in the early hours of the morning after an election trying to argue that a fall in your vote and an increased majority for the opposition is actually an indication of increased support for you and that your opposition must be devastated at the outcome?
To be clear Robert, my only interest in the number of SNP MPs there are is solely to do with the type of government that I end up with. I don’t have another house of legislature, the Westminster Parliament is the only one I have. What I do not want is some sort of losers alliance spending all their time (and throwing their principles under the bus) every time the smell an opportunity to outvote the government on anything. We know (via the SNP action on the potential vote on fox hunting laws in England) that some leaders and parties will do anything just to get a bit of attention and seek a bit of publicity.
BTW, How the proposed changes in the fox hunting laws going in SCotland? Are you saying nothing has happened? Are you saying that the laws on fox hunting in Scotland are still more lax than in ENgland. Wouldn’t that just be an example of blatant, opportunist hypocrisy by a leader that lied on national TV to the whole of the UK? Surely not.
Cybie
On the other stuff Cybie, I have no idea what you are going on about. No guys (with or without tattoos) work within 50ft of me! Keep guessing Cybie, whatever track you are on it is the wrong one …. again!
What the British people want:
The English empire was built on violence imposed on everybody who wasn’t strong enough to fight back
Then when they did fight back the English ran away, but not before they had planted the division in the countries they had originally conquered in order to continue trading with those same places, America being the biggest case in point
Scotland is the last of these places, but the English can’t bomb us into submission now the rest of the world won’t allow that behaviour anymore or they’d have kept doing that in Ireland till they won so they work very hard at the division thing to keep fast hold of Scotland
Fear religion and economic threat are the weapons of choice now and when you couple that with stupidity it’s a pretty good formula, but the NO voters should be asking themselves the very serious question of what might the Tories or Labour, for they are the same party, going to do for the next thing they don’t like, or the next people they don’t like, or the next vote they don’t agree with
Scottish independence is no threat to anyone except the the elite rich getting ever richer, so ask yourself how many of those folk live in your street
Ask yourselves how many times have the people you think you’re fighting for ever visited your city, town or village or knocked on your door outwith when they want your vote for London to be in control of your life your money your decisions that they say they’re better placed to make than you
I’m an old SNP voter and I’ve met and talked with loads of the folk who represent me including the FM and former FM and that’s not because I’m special it’s because they live here and have walked up my street to talk to me and asked me what I think and what my opinions are and then I get a vote to decide those things, the SNP don’t tell me stuff, they ask me
How many of you get that with London?
The Tories going apeshit over the latest opinion polls. I suppose that they have every right to be. Having just one MP (if you can call him that) in Scotland there really is nowhere else to go but up. As for the SNP nobody expected them to get 56 MP’s last time out and I would expect them to loose a few.
Polls are predicting the Tories to get between 8 and 12 seats depending on which poll you read and will no doubt make hay over getting a few extra seats, ably abetted by the union propaganda machine ie paper media and the BBC. But their cries of a Tory revival in Scotland are hollow and they no it.
Labour of course will be the real loosers. Their only MP openly stating for people to vote for the Tories. My god how Labour have fallen into utter irrelevancy. The once all powerful Labour machine reduced to a rump and openly supporting the Tories. You couldn’t make it up.
None of the unionist parties have the guts or backbone to run Scotland. They would rather sit back and cede democracy to westminster than run our affairs.
They continue to bend the knee to a foreign country even when that country is running Scotland into the ground.
“No guys (with or without tattoos) work within 50ft of me! “
Risible–THINK. Where did I say he was within 50ft of you?
Besides–when you’re on, he’s usually off. Seeing your missus.
@Capella says: 24 April, 2017 at 11:13 am:
“I think it should be a 35 hour week. With automation, it might be better to have a 30 hour week and share the work around better. That should still entitle you to a decent standard of living.”
Believe it or not, Capella, As a 15 Y.O. apprentice attending the Rosyth Dockyard’s own college, (it taught to third year University level and gave options to start a Uni course in year 2), we used to debate certain things related to our jobs. One such debate in 1952 or perhaps early 1953 we debated how automation and robots would affect the World.
Now remember this :-
We were debating the likely events following robotics several years before the transistor was even invented and long before integrated circuits and when most people hadn’t heard of electronic and computers.
In fact in Scotland TV had only just arrived, (1952), on 12″ B&W screens, (if you were rich enough to afford better than 8″ or 10″ sets).
In fact we apprentices who were involved in the Radar & Sonar Workshop had a wee side-line going converting old multi-battery radios into our own design wireless sets using ex-WD parts we bought on the War Surplus market.
We needed some old radio parts from the old battery sets along with the cabinets and speakers and dial mechanisms. Thing was there were no companies making domestic radios because they were all geared up to producing TV sets.
SensibleD, everyone who cares knows that the Mayhem clownshow is merely trying to outrun the election expenses fraud cops. If they get enough new tory MP’s to cover the ones that are clearly guilty as sin, they’ve stolen UK democracy once again. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
Have you seen the list of tories under investigation sensible? Its huge, although its not clear who are tory MP’s and who are party activists.
If Mike Crick was as much a sleaze bag as any of the massed ranks of BBC liggers, there would be NO snap GE.
Its nice to you lying your arse off for tory UK rule in Scotland especially, but U dont half spout some rubbish sensibleD.
@ Proud Cybernat: “Besides–when you’re on, he’s usually off. Seeing your missus.”
Don’t you think that’s going far too far?
Or imagine sensibledave, the BBC extreme rage, fury, hysteria at the SNP, if they had say, over 40 MP’s under election expenses fraud investigation?
Our telly’s would melt with the sheer explosion of BBC gimpery and outrage, that our blessed and hallowed democratic process had been desecrated by the most evil and cruel party of all time.
But its the tories in the frame, so beeb gimps bury it all. Dark days right now for democracy in these isles sensible, dark, fascist and a deeply corrupt tory BBC. Its not a good thing. Something is going to give.
I’ve just signed up to Scotland in Union to help their cause as……
Michael Mouse, giving completely nonsensical details and email address
I got an automated reply thanking me (Mr Mouse) and assuring me of an email updating me on their future plans
So they are extremely efficient at being diddies
the as ever helpful bbc website re- the carmichael story , manages to highlight no less than three times the two SNP MPs who have not been selected i guess this is for people who have short term memory loss or shortsighted people how obliging dont yh think eh .
as far as i can remember every single mention of the election contains this snp story ,not once every single time it appears .
@Fireproofjim – the Red Hand of Ulster salute was based on the Nazi salute so your Yoon friends were only half wrong there. Suffice to say anybody who uses it is definitely extreme right, and if they’re using the Ulster version probably a supporter of terrorist groups like the UVF or UDA.
Valerie says:
“I think it’s the Dutch that have a special word for it, which means ‘enough/sufficient’”
I’ve just phoned my daughter who is married to a Dutchman (ships engineer) luckily he is home at the moment. I can’t pronounce the word that he said but it is spelt “genoeg”.
Sorry for the late answer Valerie but I’ve just seen your post.
Peace Always
“Don’t you think that’s going far too far?”
Nope.
The cyber war works both ways. Trolls, paid shills, #77 or 14Int wander in here I will take great delight in messing with the feckers heads. I will have their shameless heads spinning so fecking fast they’ll be in danger of docking with the International Space Station.
Dr Jim 3:30 pm
You wrote: “The English empire was built on violence imposed on everybody who wasn’t strong enough to fight back”
What’s going on today? Heedy is off on anti-english rants and now Dr Jim is re-writing history!
Just in case people hold me responsible for what was the “British Empire”, I was actually born well after WWII so “it wasn’t me”! Similarly, I don’t think any current politician of any party can/should be held responsible for any “negativity associated with, what was, the British Empire.
So, to my final point, Dr Jim’s editing of history appears to rule out any involvement of the Scots. I suppose they were english slaves were they? … all those distinguished Scottish gentlemen running India, slaves I tell you, slaves.
Nicola [and others] speaking at the STUC conference in Aviemore
link to pscp.tv
What’s going on today? Heedy is off on anti-english rants and now Dr Jim is re-writing history!
And that’s the last hidy hole of the average sneaky shit tory. Well done sensible, you got there, quicker than usual but even so.
Proud Cybernat:
You’re twistin’ their melons man.
🙂
Peace Always
Look sensible, the great tory fraud on democracy goes on,
link to thecanary.co
Why would tory creeps block teenagers the vote sensibledave, having robbed them of free uni probably, they dont want them to get near a ballot paper and kick the tory creeps out.
The Tory election Fraud enquiry is not complicated , if at any point the people on these Battle busses , handle any literature flyers promotional material with the local candidates name , or engage with voters to endorse the said candidate . At that point they become part of the candidates election expenditure , therefor all expenses incurred by these people are included , hotels , travel indeed anything . That’s how close to the wind the Tories have been sailing ,they took the chance and have been well and truly outed this cant be glossed over . it is a criminal offence .
The only possible way they could have got round this was for every single person to cover their own expenses and act as totally voluntary agents .
The evidence is there because the helpful people on these busses posted on social media their daily exploits , oh dear oops .
@smallaxe
Thanks for that! It was a programme, and the Dutch person was trying to explain to the English presenter that there was no proper straight English translation. Of course, other countries grasp of languages always puts ours to shame, so that’s why the Dutch native explained the ‘sense’ of the word.
I thought it was very revealing, because it was the opposite of greedy acquisition for the sake of it. It was definitely about striving to recognise everyone should have dignity and enough for a decent life.
I’m sure it’s not Utopia, but the philosophy appeals to me. I find this smug, superior, elitist attitude to those with less utterly abhorrent.
Just as a small aside. I was in my local petrol station, just ready to pay for my petrol and some groceries, and the check out lady reached over to take my bag from me, for packing it. I said, oh, thank you very much, and smiled. She said, no problem, to which I replied, that’s nice, I don’t like to assume.
The check out lady then launched into a quiet mini rant, about folk that throw their bags across the counter, and act very superior, up to the point their credit card is refused.
She said lots of customers make it clear they feel superior.
This is in North Lanarkshire, and I find that behaviour very sad and very revealing. I tried to find something positive to say, along the lines of not personal etc.
@Proud Cybernat
I’m sure lurkers and the undecided will be highly impressed by personal smears against other posters, and be convinced to vote YES next time.
The guy in the Laggan Store’s certainly no Tory, a scandal that the Scottish courts can’t decide who gets to live here & his own-make ice-cream is superb!
@David says: 24 April, 2017 at 12:06 pm:
” … But then we have this place ‘Wha’s gonna pay fur ma weans?’ Forgetting what they have at their doorstep and the fact they are too much of a cretin to do anything even with that.”
How can we shame people like you, David?
I’m over 80 and been around a bit. I’ve also done volunteer work among those less able, or less well off, than myself since I was around 11 y.o. Indeed I have met people who were totally greedy and who sponged off others all their lives.
They are, however, a tiny minority among those who need help and support through no fault of their own and who want nothing more than help to get out of their bad situation and most of those who were out & out spongers were far more in need of pity than condemnation.
Believe me, David, I’ve seen it all.
“I’m sure lurkers and the undecided will be highly impressed by personal smears against other posters, and be convinced to vote YES next time.”
I rather doubt my abusing trolls, paid shills and others of HMG will have lurkers and undecideds wondering who they are going to vote for in #scotref. This isn’t a personality contest and that’s not what most folks vote on, especially in a decision as big as Indy. The sensible ones (not you Dave) weigh up policies, pros/cons – that kind of thing. If folks don’t like me abusing known trolls they can skip over.
Here’s the handy list of all those involved in the Tory expenses fraud, with all the various sums allocated to each of them, someone posted this yesterday, sorry can’t recall who…but thanks:
link to isbuc.co.uk
@Proud Cybernat
But it’s not him you’re having a go at, it’s his totally innocent apparent wife who doesn’t even post here, what next, sons and daughters, parents?
If you were to call him, himself, a dickhead I doubt anyone would take offence.
heedtracker 4:16 pm
Why would tory creeps block teenagers the vote sensibledave, having robbed them of free uni probably, they dont want them to get near a ballot paper and kick the tory creeps out.
The subject of the voting age is, in my view, apolitical.
Whether you think a 16 year old should have the right to vote is more to do with your personal view on whether the average 16 year old has enough knowledge and/or experience to contribute sensible opinion in the way the country should be run.
I wouldn’t want the 16 year old me have had the vote. Not unless I wanted to implement policies surrounding mandatory 15 hours sleeping time, free entry to rock venues, minimum numbers of lights and mirrors on a Lambretta and enforced slow dancing by 16 year old girls with 16 year old boys.
I see no evidence that much has changed (although the specific “wish list” may have changed in its detail – probably free mobile phones, computer games and taxis now).
Why do you think a 16 year old should have the vote – and why not a 14 year old or a 12 year old?
Dear sensibledick
The Scots were’nt asked if they would care to fight and die for the English Empire at that time, they were told, just as they were told to get off their own land or they’d be killed or transported to the colonies where they actually ended up fighting and dying for the bloody English anyway
You know the same country, America, who Cameron asked to intervene in Scotlands affairs by telling us not to want Independence from you know the same freaking country that hundreds of thousands of Americans died to get Independence from
So don’t give me the rewriting crap Dicko
Also don’t confuse English with ordinary English people they’re two different things
That’s like saying Scots don’t want Independence when that’s clearly not the case or Scots wouldn’t vote for the SNP in the first place Dicko
I won’t reply again Dicko because as you well know I know what you are and would deal with you in the same way you would like to deal with Scotland, except I’d do it first to your sort with a smile as you kissed your Arse bye bye, a sort of Topped of the morning if you will
I’m old fashioned that way
Valerie,
I know exactly what you mean, I have a “thing” about bad manners, as you may know, I live in Gretna and my wife and I have stood as witnesses to many weddings for couples who arrive here to marry, the registry office is on the other side of the road from our local shops and some couples have waited as long as a half hour asking people if they would oblige.
Not only do they get many refusals, but on some occasions are given abuse because of their nationality (colour). I find this disgusting and gives the town a bad image for the sake of 15 min. of peoples time.
My wife and I consider it a privilege and still keep in touch with many couples for whom we have stood as witnesses.
Peace Always
“But it’s not him you’re having a go at, it’s his totally innocent apparent wife who doesn’t even post here…”
What is this? A tag-team? Why are you offering succor to a KNOWN TROLL who has himself abused numerous folks on this board?
Let me repeat – this isn’t a personality contest. It’s cyber war. It’s about getting into these fecker shills heads – any way you can. And if you think simply calling a paid shill a “dickhead” will have them having second thoughts about ever coming here then you’r kidding yourself.
As I said–if you disapprove of my methods in dealing with these paid shills, you can easily skip over my BTLs.
End of.
Why do you think a 16 year old should have the vote – and why not a 14 year old or a 12 year old?
I shudder to think of a toryboy teenager sensibledave. Teens should be able to vote because life is going to come at them really fast under tory rule, like student fees, sneaked in by and via FidBem backdoor, is all why sensible. NAd its clrearly why a tory crooks have shut them out.
Its a good age to be brainwashed but its also a bad age as young minds are probably more pliable to your appalling BBC vote tory propaganda, and or including, what massed ranks of beeb gimps just do not report, like mass tory election fraud investigation.
BBC tory propaganda also works on foreign stuff too sensible, as we know listening to likes of neo fascists like Nic Robinson, chatting to another vicious little tory Jim Naughty, in Paris this morning.
Usual BBC stuff, ever hopeful that France will go neo fascist like England today, then the EU will collapse, ofcourse not one mention of just how horrific Le Pen actually is. She’s as bad as any UKIPer goon like Farage or Doc Nuttall, but a creep like Naughty aint telling us that.
Funny that teenage sensible.
Sorry I’m late to this one, my t’internet is crap but that’s anbother social divide entirely? Equity, now there’s a word.
This is the kind of thing that human rights are intended to do, provide a legal framework designed to protect people from their own inhumane governments. Of course, it helps if your government abides by the rule-of-law. They would also have to implement and abide by existing human rights legislation. Our beloved HMG is a bit tardy in that respect (either flavour of Tory).
Neo-liberalism can not assist the effort to improve social inclusion, cohesion and sustainability, as it both demands and produces inequality. Scotland is fortunate as we have a choice, independence and the chance to adopt global “best-practice”.
link to sustainabledevelopment.un.org
link to un.org
I know the BBC are occasionally criticised for repeats and with good reason , however their website manages to reach new heights , they have managed to shoehorn into every single story about the up coming election , the fact that the SNP have not chosen Ms Thomson & Ms McGarry as candidates this is always obligingly accompanied with links to this year long SNP bad-fest just in case readers missed the first episodes , arent they nice now ? .
OT folks, my apologies, may be my paranoia but it seems to me that every time theres a speech by Nicola there is noise interference of some kind, helicopters in the back ground or an annoying buzz, it’s happened at least twice now and yet when other “parties” are talking perfect audio….
sensibledave,
Why exactly are you here?
It must be a poor sort of life you have if the best you can do is get some kind of perverse enjoyment from pulling the chains of a few ardent indy supporters, if that’s what it is.
All you can offer seems to be a kind of injured pride – as we saw from south of the border in the latter stages of indyref1, and which has been amplified in a big and rather nasty way since by the Brexiteers – that there are so many people in Scotland who want to totally disengage from your little England.
An undaunted half, despite a relentless torrent of subtle (BBC) and not at all subtle (press) BritNat propaganda that we have to endure day after day, but of which you are sadly unaware.
There was a time when many of us would have been happy to stay in your Union if its leaders had had an ounce of wisdom and decency to willingly concede us a reasonable degree of genuine autonomy. But they couldn’t, and so we have no alternative left but indy. It’s that serious. So your valiant solo efforts to salve your self-regard, in the face of a democratic iniquity to which you are so patently unaware and insensitive, just don’t cut any ice on here, I’m afraid.
So again I repeat: just why exactly are you here…?
O/T
another one bites the dust
link to thecanary.co
@Proud Cybernat
What I think is that this is in a thread called “The Decency Charter”.
“It’s about getting into these fecker shills heads”
Why should you care about him?
First of all he doesn’t have a vote here, second he wouldn’t vote YES in a million years if he did, and third he’s a Tory supporting a far right Tory party who’ve taken away the mobility scooters from 50,000 disabled, forced people in England to sell their houses if they’re on housing benefit and have “spare” bedrooms, taken the child benefit from the mouths of children if anyone on child tax credit dares to have more than 2 kids, looks like removing the triple lock on pensions and in any case has reduced them, forced the disabled to try to jump though hoops to prove they’re disabled, made the lower paid pay for the tax cuts of the rich, look to remove workers rights, deport anyone they consider to be a foreigner, would probably happily bring in euthanasia for anyone who doesn’t have £100,000 in the bank, are privatising the English NHS as fast they can so maybe soon will be “can’t pay? Then die”, …
and you want to get “into these fecker shills heads”?
Personally I’d prefer to swallow bleach than have anything to do with them. These Tories are far worse than Thatcher, and I lived through her era, as I did through the one before. Thatcher is a saint in comparison.
Le pen won’t get in in France because France knew what it was like to live under nazi rule.engerland hasn’t had that pleasure. YET!
Just had an interesting conversation with a chap from Scottish Tories. He wondered how I had got his number and I told him that it was on their website. He didn’t seem to know that!
I phoned him because we got a fairly standard flier through the letterbox saying vote Ruth to stop a second indy ref etc.
What got my attention was a bar graph showing a Panelbase poll with SNP on 47% and Torys on 28%. The figures given were correct but the heights of the bar graphs were wrong, showing the SNP with a much smaller lead than 19%. What was even more obvious was the bar for Labour at 14% was about a third of the height of the Tory one, rather than a half.
The chap at Scottish Tories said that it was alright to show it like that as it didn’t say that it was to scale!
Maybe I have got this wrong but surely the whole purpose of a bar graph is to show the same information visually as is in the figures?
They wouldn’t be misleading people deliberately, would they? Or maybe they are just incompetent with numbers.
If the Tories do have to face trial over election fraud then just think what was done with that fraudulent vote. Every piece of legislation that was only possible because of an unlawful Tory government. It would make you weep – Brexit, DWP cuts, Two children Tax credit cap, Rape clause – to name a few.
How many lives could have been saved? Would Trump have even had the momentum to win without Brexit?
They cannot get away with it.
Ouc! Wales are in for a tory treat. No doubt beeb Scotland gimps are on it soon, tory Wales, tory Scotland, rejoice for our precious precious tory right to reign over you.
link to independent.co.uk
“Why should you care about him?”
Em – I clearly don’t. I’m the one who happily abuses paid shills/trolls here thereby demonstrably indicating my utter contempt for them and showing my complete lack of “care about him”.
You, on the other hand, offer him succor thereby demonstrating your “care about him”.
Eppy @ 17:25:
Try asking Alistair Carmichael – I’m sure he’s the acknowledged expert on the niceties of electioneering practice!
I still remember my old maths teacher in 1st year of secondary school cautioning about the public deployment of graphs that didn’t have an obvious origin on the vertical axis.
By fudging the starting point, you can make a bar chart appear to signify anything. I just hope that teachers today are as careful in alerting their kids to this kind of manipulation as mine was.
@Proud Cybernat
Eh, read my posting, was there one single piece of “succour” for him? I’d say there was nothing but complete and utter contempt for anybody who could support the far far right Tories as he does.
But we don’t need to descend to the level of the Tories, just tell them what they are themselves – totally heartless and inhumane, not a scrap of care about their fellow human beings.
Came across this, worth a read
link to tompride.wordpress.com
Reading all the posts is like living on a rollercoaster one minute up next minute down.Glad to say that it looks like Macron may win the french elections the thought of Marine Le pen winning was going to make life difficult for all of us living here.
Its still sad to see that there are those living in Scotland that still believe that we are better together but hopefully one day i can return to a free and independent Scotland.
Petition signed for the Zielsdorf family. Letter off to MP also – if he can do much in the remaining time scale.
High time we had control of our own policies on immigration- Our country has a different need for people (families) to come and live and work here – especially in the more rural areas.
“…was there one single piece of “succour” for him?”
Yes. This:
“Don’t you think that’s going far too far?”
Now this little diversion between you and I is, of course, exactly what the shills/trolls want to happen. So, in that sense, we are doing their work for them.
So, if you don’t like my methods in dealing with them then I humbly suggest that you simply skip over my BTLs and allow me to deal with these feckers in the manner I deem most appropriate for them.
Now, back to the discussion…
@ian
Those weekend opinion polls, yes I know, they’re just polls, but they were distressing. The thought that up to 33% of people in Scotland could support the Tories knowing what May, Hammond, Davis, Johnson and the rest of them are like, is enough to make me get the hell out of Scotland (to Ireland probably).
But perhaps if Le Pen is trounced on May 8th, with Germany turning its back on the far right too, some of them will think again.
Anyway, off to work.
The purpose of the Troll is to cause Arguments & Devision + Posting inaccurate information & cause as much disruption on the site as to put people of from visiting the site . Dont give them support or succour on this site or on any other Indy sites .
And the well know Trolls certainly succeed in they’re aims on WoS .
Robert J. Sutherland @ 5.43
Yes, my maths teacher taught me about the starting the y-axis trick not at the origin. But there is no way that moving the origin could make the SNP lead over the Tories look significantly smaller whilst at the same time increasing the gap between the Tories and Labour.
I will try to get someone more skilled in IT to post an image of it later to show what I mean. Unless there is someone else out there who has access to it and can help out?
Still can’t believe that Carmichael has the brass neck/ greed to stand again. Still, what a target.
Eppy @ 18:01,
Hmmm. Yes, that would be a fun little exercise that would be a breeze to do with a spreadsheet. The Tory version vs the correct one, nicely side-by-side. Then post it on Twitter or wherever.
Another useful demonstration of liars at their day job.
Go for it!
Dr Jim:
Thanks for the idea, I’ve just signed up as Hugh Jarse of Larkhall.
🙂
Thank you for registering your support:
To: Hugh Jarse
Scotland In Union
link to scotlandinunion.co.uk
This email was sent to hughjarse@gmail.com. To stop receiving updates on this page, unfollow here.
Scotland In Union · United Kingdom
Peace Always
I’m going to give the new STV2 station a try.
Mind you if the hour long news programme is as bad as their half hour STV news which is on par with BBC Scotland news, I won’t last long.
I watched their magazine programme from 5-6pm and I must say it was nice to hear Scottish voices for a change.
Re:mike d
@ 5.24pm
I rather think that the result of the second round of the French election will be a re-run of the presidential election when her father, Jean Le Pen, stood. He and Blacques Jacques Chirac went through to the second round. Chirac was up to his neck in corruption and it was generally accepted that he had simply stood, despite his disreputable reputation, to fend off being arraigned in the courts. Even knowing this, French voters were encouraged to vote for Chirac in the second round against Le Pen Snr., with the slogan, “Vote for the Crook not the Fascist”. Of course, Le Pen lost.
Since the losing candidates have already given their support to Macron, it looks as though most of the voters who didn’t vote for Marine, will be motivated to vote against her. Our media and RT will be so disappointed.
@yesindyref2 5.22pm
Excellent comments re Tories. The right response to Foxhunter Dave.
Forget the insults guys (though it’s tempting). Just remind Tories what they actually vote for.
Yesindyref2,yup i remember well the thatcher years . and i followed her henchmans (Norman tebbit) advice,had to get on my bike and f**k off to our benefactors land. As no doubt well over half of Scotland will have to do in the next decade or 2 if they are so stupid or bigoted enough to vote tory .
@ Robert Peffers – Hi Robert – just read your post above. I bet you had fun playing with semiconductors! It would be great if automation meant that everyone could have a shorter working week. But I don’t think that’s what our imperial masters have planned for us.
I do say ‘benefactor ‘tongue in cheek.
@sensibledave says: 24 April, 2017 at 3:28 pm:
” … it seems to me Robert that you are expecting a fall in the SNP vote and you are preparing a pre-justification for relative failure.”
Laughable, sensibledave. It seems to you that I’m expecting a fall in the SNP vote. Perhaps you could show on what grounds, “It seems to you”?
All evidence points to exactly what I have posted and not once have I mentioned other that at present the SNP vote has held firm.
I even point out that this is so even taking into account there is no firm base to judge the figures as the polls recently published cannot be compared with those from earlier polls because the earlier polls included 16 and 17 year olds but the latter polls did not.
In fact, therefore, the fact the aggregate of polls, (“poll of polls”, if you like), thus indicates the correct figures show a slight gain in support for independence but I then state that in all cases the differences are within the margins of error.
No claims anywhere on my part that are not 100% based upon the actual facts and figures.
” … Are you like one of those politicians”
Nope! sensibledave,I’m neither a politician nor have I attempted to predict or excuse anything whatsoever. Neither am I likely to do so. I deal in facts, logic and figures.
” … being interviewed in the early hours of the morning after an election trying to argue that a fall in your vote and an increased majority for the opposition is actually an indication of increased support for you and that your opposition must be devastated at the outcome?”
What on Earth are you blethering about, sensibledave? I have made no predictions, made no excuses and made no claims of any sort.
Read it again, sensibledave. I looked at the figures as quoted by the pollsters and corrected several obvious glaring errors of logical conclusions – including yours.
The simple facts are that when looking at the inputs from different pollsters they cannot be compared to the same pollsters previous polls because the do not include 16 & 17 year old voters in both sets of data.
Then I made a logical deduction, (and allowing for error factors), the SNP vote share remained steady. The Tory vote was up and the Labour vote down.
As the only significant change was s very slight gain for the Tory and a loss for Labour with the SNP steady, the only change was a move from Labour to Tory that was small enough to be within the margins of error that equals – no significant change as far as independence claims are concerned and that, in any case, it was a GE – not a Claim for Independence nor even an unofficial referendum to have a referendum.
What is it in that simple and logical analysis that you do not understand, sensibledave?
” … To be clear Robert, my only interest in the number of SNP MPs there are is solely to do with the type of government that I end up with.”
Is that in anyway different from any other UK voter?
” … I don’t have another house of legislature, the Westminster Parliament is the only one I have.”
Yes I know that, sensibledave. That thought is a problem we both share but in different ways.
If I were you I’d be very wary of venturing into that particular argument as not only is it my chosen field of research but it is factually legally a watertight case that there is no legal United Kingdom in fact still in existence.
You and I have a Westminster parliament that is legally the Parliament of a state that is a bipartite union of equally sovereign parliaments. However, it has illegally assumed for itself to be the de facto parliament of ONLY the country of England lording it over the other three countries in a quadratic, but unequal, union of countries with England the Master Race in charge of three English dominions and one of them is their legal partner kingdom.
Be very careful where you choose to take that particular, very large, 45 gallon drum of worms, sensibledave, they may eat you up.
P.S. For example, the “Right to Buy” social housing undermines one of the fundamental principles of international development law (unless the housing stock is replaced sustainably), as it undermines accessibility to a basic human need, the fulfillment of which is required to achieve social inclusion.
Does UKOK not face the most horrendous housing predicament?
How about this for stupendous hypocrisy
link to twitter.com
Great article REV. I turned from a ’90 minute patriot’ (copyright Jim Sillars) into a Scottish nationalist the day I went to Norway over 35 years ago. The scales pinged from my eyeballs when I saw the affluence in such a small country. As I was in the oil industry, I became painfully aware that Norway owned its own oil reserves; hired Norwegians once they were trained up by foreign expertise; had Unionised crews; and had begun to commence an oil fund for the proverbial ‘rainy day’…which has never arrived.
Meanwhile, I worked with a polyglot crew, with barely half Scottish , whilst Unemployment was at a record high at home, as Thatcher started her attrition of skilled manufacturing jobs. Driven by U.S. deep south rednecks who treated like white slaves. I was eventually blacklisted for trying to start a Union on my rig and sent ‘to coventry’ until I eventually got out.
The class of baby boomers of property owning capitalists who are Unionist tories has a very high percentage of English settlers. I lived in London in the 70s and you could buy a flat on a well paid manual wage then. Thatcher created an infrastructure boom…Canary Wharf etc. funded by Scottish maritime oil revenue that allowed many in the S.E. of England to cash in their single ends in Fulham to retire to Scotland, Wales, France and Spain. The spike in these individuals arriving here is there in the census figures. As has been noted by many..the majority of these people are intrinsic tory little Englanders who have never accepted that they are immigrants in a separate country. Their voting patterns have been ‘NO’ or SNP when it suited them for free prescriptions etc. The Brexit vote split them initially but I fear they will return to type.
Our native Tories are the wealthy parasitic land owning farmers in the N.E. with their visible Union Jacks from the M9 and the bitter orange mob last seen at Hampden…cosying up with their pals from Carlisle and Millwall ( yes really!)…both oasis of decent English fair minded folk. This plus the old and the stupid who read the Daily Mail/Metro and prefer to forget Thatcher the bitch and that they are Uncle Toms of the worst sort.They’re the ones that when referred to Norway etc. respond with ‘aye but it’s 18 quid a pint’.
I’m afraid this 30% of our population are selfish bastards that are content to step over the countless helpless and hapless beggars littering our streets… a mute testimony to the hard hearted society that we have become.
SD says:
“Why do you think a 16-year-old should have the vote”
Because in Scotland 16-year-olds can be married.
Simples
🙂
Peace Always
@Dr Jim says: 24 April, 2017 at 3:30 pm:
“I’m an old SNP voter and I’ve met and talked with loads of the folk who represent me including the FM and former FM and that’s not because I’m special it’s because they live here and have walked up my street to talk to me and asked me what I think and what my opinions are and then I get a vote to decide those things, the SNP don’t tell me stuff, they ask me
How many of you get that with London?”
That, Dr Jim, is an absolutely brilliant comment and perhaps the best you have ever made.
@Valerie
Aye it’s a funny old brass necked world innit! 🙁
PS:
Just read.
A mother loses her 7 kids to Cholera that is shocking!
Valerie , words fail me! brass necked hypocrite doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Valerie, Dorothy Devine,
She can get away with almost anything short of murder because the useless media won’t challenge her on an iota of it. Worse than useless, actually – they are woeful collaborators for their chosen Unionist champion, now that their Labour front is totally blown.
This is the product of living within a social environment defined by ideology which submits human will and moral agency, to amoral and irrational market principles and the imperative to ‘create’ profit. Love and empathy can not survive in such an environment.
How does one persuade a population to cooperate once conditions become unbearable and unsupportable? What is Plan-B? What is the long-term strategy for ‘One Nation’ Britain?
@ Robert Peffers
Much respect!
David,
“Its all pure self interest for 95%+ of people, it just depends how honest they are about it.”
I agree with that.
There are very very few who can put their money where there mouths are.
Why should we even be thinking about the “economic case for independence”?
What should matter foremost is our self respect as a people.
Is there anything more stupid in the world than shouting from the rooftops that we are “sovereign” despite being a colony of England for 310 years?
Watched the report on Somalia and wondered how in this so called caring ,sharing world and a famine three years in the making , that there is no organised response unit ready and waiting to prevent starvation and disease.
Damn quick to send young soldiers off to kill folk who couldn’t and wouldn’t want to kill us , but slow to help in dire circumstances .
It was bad enough having to skip over senselessdave’s garbage. Now I’ve got to skip over all the posts engaging with it, from folk who should know better.
@sensibledave
You stick in there and stand up for your rights. 😉
“Come to the Dark side.”
link to youtube.com
A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY.
This is going to turn out to be the most important election for people in this country ever , not just for Scots but for the whole of the country .
I believe this Tory party are intent in completing what Thatcher started , rather than the feeble excuse Mayhem used, of full control over the Brexit negotiations, she is on a mission to change Britain for ever , all the things Thatcher Left unfinished , The health service, the unions , any and all dissent indeed any and all obstacles to do exactly what their funders require .
In short.
A final solution to their problems, who are the problem ? we are, and they intend to pick us off one at a time, Christ they have started already, by Going for the easy targets first, what’s the saying ” First they came for ( insert name ) and I did nothing because I wasn’t a ( insert name) Evil on a grand scale is going to occur if people in England vote for this lot again . And that’s putting it mildly .
just tried the new STV 2 prog. and cannot get it in West Lothian. A friend in Corstorphine is not picking it up either. Wont lose any sleep
ScotsRenewables at 1.58
“I believe you are wrong about this. It is my experience that most English who move to Scotland and really get involved in the local community end up supporting Scottish independence.”
I have seen lots of evidence that would support this.
@Robert Peffers
Odd moments of clarity Robert, odd moments
difficult at times though when you’re surrounded by the haze of confusion confliction and conflation, which obscures the true meaning of what is democracy because so many mix it up with ideology and attempt to label that as democracy as some of the ex Labour folk who have joined up haven’t grasped yet
Here’s hoping they learn being part of the decision is better than being told the result of the question you were never asked
Smallaxe
Valerie
Your little inquiry as to the Dutch word for “enough” rang a bell with me because in German the word is “genug”.
Dutch and German are very similar with many words/expressions being the same, just spellt or pronounced slightly different.
“Wir haben genug / genoeg von silly sensible dave..!”
We’ve had enough of Sensible Dave..!
.. apart from Heedtracker of course who likes to keep him as a pet..! 🙂
re:Smallaxe@6.36
Also, in Scotland, you are legally an adult at 16 years of age. In england it is 18. At 16, you can get married, join the army, and if needing social services etc, you are seen as an adult, though there is a transitional period, 16-18, which actually can cause problems re services.
Anyway, in law, in Scotland, 16 is the age at which you are legally an adult.
I see we will have new channel stv2 on the air soon. No doubt spouting the same snp baaad yoonyinist pish.
Albert herring 7.16pm. Agree Albert. This 77 brigade/14int troll should be ignored.
@sensibledave says: 24 April, 2017 at 4:06 pm:
” … So, to my final point, Dr Jim’s editing of history appears to rule out any involvement of the Scots. I suppose they were english slaves were they? … all those distinguished Scottish gentlemen running India, slaves I tell you, slaves.”
Tell me, sensibledave, are you familiar with the Scottish phrase, “Siccna paircel o rogues in ae Nation”
I’ll owerset yon fir ye intil the Inglis -(I will translate that for you into English)
“Such a parcel of rogues in one Nation”
Have you the slightest notion of what, and who, the words relate to?
BTW: Dr Jim’s history is provably much closer to truth than what is taught in English and Scottish schools as history.
Most of which is very easy to show as total lies and, laughably so by using the actual teaching and exposing how it is logically balderdash.
Here’s just one little fact for an example.
There could not have been a, “Jacobite Rebellion”, that began in 1688 and ended in 1745.
Here’s why The English Monarchy changed dramatically in 1603 when the English monarch died without issue and James VI of Scotland inherited the English Crown, (which already included Wales & Ireland). However James could not establish a United Kingdom for legal reasons and both kingdoms remained independent.
So we will just skip past Charles and on to 1688, when the English Parliament deposed their rightful monarchy in what is referred to in history as, “The Glorious Revolution”.
The English parliamentarians were breaking, not only the civil laws of Christendom, but as the Rule of Law was, “Divine Right of Kings”, were also sinning against God. The Parliament then offered the English Crown to King Billy & Queen Mary of Orange.
So they offered the crown on condition that the pair legally delegated their Divine Right, (sovereignty), to the Parliament of England. The point being that the monarchy were still legally sovereign but forced to legally delegated their, “Divine Right”, to the Parliament of England.
This created a, “Constitutional Monarchy”. in the three country Kingdom of England but got round the, “Sacrilegious”, problem.
However, the two kingdoms were still independent and the English rebels had kicked off the Jacobite Uprisings to this day still claiming the Jacobites were the rebels but you cannot rebel against another kingdom’s monarch and the Scots had nothing to do with the Glorious Revolution.
So there you go two quite obvious lies in one period of History leading up to the actual Union and that also is full of quite obvious lies and all affecting legal sovereignty.
So let’s hear your version of whence came the claimed legal Sovereignty of a Westminster parliament that operates as the de facto parliament of the country of England that treats Scotland as an English dominion instead of as a partner as contracted in the Treaty of Union?
Evening all 🙂
Snowing here and has been off and on all day. Fire on. Feels like December!
Big question….STV2 or Harlots on catch up?
@Sharney Dubs says: 24 April, 2017 at 5:16 pm:
” … may be my paranoia but it seems to me that every time theres a speech by Nicola there is noise interference of some kind, helicopters in the back ground or an annoying buzz, it’s happened at least twice now and yet when other “parties” are talking perfect audio”
Nope! You’re not paranoid, Sharney.
First of all take note that there are several different types on microphone and several attachments that can be used to filter out particular noise effects. For example those fluffy covered mikes are used to cut down on wind noise caused by the wind blowing directly across the business bit of the microphone.
Then there are directional mikes that pick up sound from one, or sometimes two directions. However, just like Photo-shop does with digital pictures so there are programs that deal with digital sounds in the same way. In other words the filters can be switched in or out at will at any time, live or recorded.
Graf Midgehunter:
Danke Mein Freund, Sehr Lustig.
Frieden immer
🙂
@Robert J. Sutherland says: 24 April, 2017 at 5:18 pm
“sensibledave,
Why exactly are you here?”
Robert, I found your lengthy reply to the sensible hilarious. I read it from start to finish and though to myself, “That’s Robert’s polite method of telling sensible to F*&^ O%$.”.
Artyhetty:
Thank you, Artyhetty, my point exactly, a married 16yr old has commitments that an unmarried person doesn’t. I would think at the very least any 16/17yr old married person should have the right to vote in any election.
Peace Always
If you haven’t yet lost the will to live, may I recommend the International Institute of Strategic Studies Fullerton Lecture in Singapore delivered by David Mundell, Secretary of State for Scotland.
Despite his monotonous, rambling and content free rhetoric, Mundell manages to convey virtually nothing except the startling news that Scotland exports oil and gas technology around the world.
One questioner from the floor reveals that Prestwick is a world class international hub of Trans Atlantic and Pacific air traffic. Lucky then that the Scottish Government bought it for a pound.
It’s 51 mins but the questions start at 27 minutes with: will there be a second independence referendum? Answer – no.
https://www.iiss.org/en/events/events/archive/2017-7df9/april-674f/fullerton-lecture—david-mundell-2e43
Robert Peffers:
Who is this Mike that Fluffy is covering up, I think we have the right to be informed.
🙂
Peace Always Sensei
used to deal with an oil and gas company based in Singapore the address was 1 Locked Bag … Seagull Circle … Singapore. wonder if it still exists.
I think the final cards are falling into place that will bring about the circumstances for Scottish Independence. I’m pretty confident that the First Minister knows exactly how this all plays out and May is playing her hand the way way that the FM needs her to.
If UK polls are to be believed the Tories will be in the majority in England and Wales with only Scotland standing firm.This means for the first time since devolution and the first time since 1992 Scotland will face a UK Tory Government with a majority that allows them to do whatever they want.
History shows that when the Tories have a large majority everyone North of Watford suffers and the further North you are the worse it gets. Couple this with the Tories wanting to teach us rebellious Scots who’s boss and its not going to be long before they attack the Scottish Parliament, the poor, the sick and disabled to pay for tax cuts because hey, its the Tories and that’s what they do.
Within 12 months of a Tory landslide induced hard brexit Scotland will be crying out for a referendum and Independence. This to me is what the FM means when she says that May’s refusal of a referendum will become untenable and crumble.
Had one of those unpleasant encounters in the town park walking my dog. I will chat away fine about dogs, but this turned to politics.
The guy had a pedigree Tibetan terrier, not that common, and they are expensive. He started talking about Crufts, blood lines, dogs from abroad etc.
I said, of course that’s all going to be an issue if we leave the EU. How, says he. I said, no cooperation on travel area, Defra, rabies etc.
So Brainiac says, no it won’t – THEY HAVE THEIR PASSPORT.
I pointed to my dog, and said, oh, I know about passports. This is a Spanish Podenco rescue, brought over on her EU PASSPORT.
Well they can sod off, he says. So, not keen on the EU then, says I.
No, all those immigrants coming over here, that’s why all those schools fell down, cheap Labour.
I was getting agitated by this time, so I said, that’s garbage. It’s down to poor inspection by Clerks and Councils passing work, and you are blaming some Polish labourer?
He got in a dig at Nicola, then then jumped to say North Lanarkshire voted Yes in 2014 because half the population are immigrants! No really!
I started laughing, whilst saying he was talking absolute rubbish. He then delivered his killer line – Irish immigrants.
I moved away whilst I shouted at him, I’m Irish, you awful, ignorant man, and hope I never run into you again.
Annoyed to findnot receiving new STV2 channel despite being only a few miles outside Edinburgh. However, I have watched the new 7pm news programme – the first time in Scotland to have Scottish and internaional news – and I think it was excellent.
Capella says:
24 April, 2017 at 8:38 pm
If you haven’t yet lost the will to live, may I recommend the International Institute of Strategic Studies Fullerton Lecture in Singapore delivered by David Mundell, Secretary of State for Scotland.”
He looks half cut but straight in at 28.45, this tory psycho tells the audience that “part of the agreement and part of the arrangements” for that ref in 2014, was that the referendum was a once in a generation event.
That’s enough psycho tory liars from Singapore but Fluffie’s in the frame for election expenses fraud too, so he’s no doubt getting all the biz class junkets going.
Watched the news programme on STV Player I should add!
@Valerie
I know I shouldn’t have but I had a right good laugh with your story, well done on telling him how ignorant he is.
This for me is a big problem, peoples ignorance and if you try to put them right often they will get on their high horse because they know ther’re right. They read in the Express LOL.
We don’t let that get us down there are many many more things such as what is in this article that should get us down. Get us down to the extent of wanting to do something about changing it and not ignoring it.
Don’t stop speaking, in fact do it more, tell them straight if need be. Our voices need to be raised if we’re going to get anywhere. I now welcome every chance I get, not for an argument but as an opportunity to sew the seeds of doubt in some of what many people believe to be true and is in fact a pack of lies.
By the way I’m still chuckling at your great wee story 🙂
Murdo Fraser Retweeted
Iain McGill? @IainMcGill 9m9 minutes ago
Forget the SNP – Tories are making a big comeback in Scotland
Get em, young toryboy wise.
Murdo Fraser?Verified account @murdo_fraser 31m31 minutes ago
Had a SNP canvasser at the door last week. My 9 yr old answered and said: ‘Scottish nose pickers!’ How we laughed! #proud #wisdomofchildren
Is that Cat Renton as one of the front faces for STV2? FFS!
@Capella says: 24 April, 2017 at 6:23 pm:
Arrrgggh! This is the third attempt to answer.
The last two just vanished:
“Hi Robert – just read your post above. I bet you had fun playing with semiconductors! It would be great if automation meant that everyone could have a shorter working week. But I don’t think that’s what our imperial masters have planned for us.”
I’m still usually up to some electronics project or other but what I did not say in the post was that when we debated that robot question in the early 1950s I was on the side that was, in the present time, fairly close to the truth as it stands now.
We saw the problems of joblessness and political strife. Even that there would be wars and a rise in right wing government attempting to cut down the poorer classes.
We visualised something along the lines of this :-
link to imdb.com
and :-
link to youtube.com
Imagine our thoughts when that film came out in the 1970s?
Much too close to out ideas for comfort.
Still creates the shudders and goose bumps.
@Thepnr
A retired UK judge, who is free to speak out now, has coined a brilliant description, about gov’t Ministers discussing the ECJ.
Invincible ignorance.
As you might guess, the guy was well into his 60s, very bitter about his hard life as a former joiner. But, I wondered just how hard, given he travelled to England to buy a pedigree pup that would cost well into 4 figures.
Being generous, he may have saved hard, and like me, his dogs are important, but even then, if you can afford that, why are you so bitter?
He was lecturing me, which I allowed, up to a point, because I hoped to get my points in.
However, I’m quite deceptive (I do it purposefully until I can figure out the person) in that I’m smiley, pleasant, enquiring, and I can turn into a foul mouthed harridan if the occasion warrants.
I was already turning away when he said immigrants because it was clear he was one of Her Majestys loyal subjects, so he wasn’t treated to any colourful language.
BTW, I have several Indy t shirts worn under my fleece, just for dog walking, so due to the Baltic weather, he couldn’t see my Yes t shirt today, or he might have avoided me.
I see Jeremy Corbin was in Scotland today and said he thought ZZZZZzzzzzz…..
Warning from Curry Houses!!! not a joke!
Right that’s it they’ve gone too far now the Bastirts
I just read on teletext the Tories not content with curbing immigration from the EU are targeting Curry chefs from the Orient and India and such places to stop them entering their green and pleasant land and our soaking wet and cold one
And the Tories reason for this, More innovative cuisine in the UK is what they say
See now you can attack me on many fronts and I’ll fight back but try to take away a Scotsmans curry is cause for me to rise up
I’ve taken enough and I’ll take no more, It’s time brothers and sisters to say to these English Tories
Innovate this ya Bastirts
Never mind a “Progressive Alliance”, simply a “Common Decency Alliance” would be a great leap forward. Spot on, Sir.
But who, when and how? Time is short!
Some good laughs on here tonight.
Particularly Valerie @ 8.58 and Dr Jim @ 10.13.
OK ready my plane says Jeremy Corbyn I’m flying up to Scotchland to tell those Jockies how things are going to be when they all vote for me and the Labour revolution I’m fronting
Will you be gone long Mr Corbyn says his party
No won’t be long says Jeremy baby I’m not hanging about that cold arsed place answering any questions from actual Scottys or the Press I never understand a word those haggis munchers say anyway
Has Jeremy gone asks one of his party, who gives a shit comes the unified retort, which incidentally is the only thing the Labour party are unified on
Well that and not opposing the Tories
I find it hard to believe that the Tories are on the rise!! I think it’s all propaganda from the MSN.
Ruth Davidson as First Minister!!! For gods sake. I would want to emigrate.
@ heedtracker – yes he went down like a lead balloon but sprinkled a few fibs in for effect. The audience roused themselves from slumber to ask a few polite questions. What an embarrassment.
@ Robert Peffers – Soylent Green sums it up. There’s a film of the Kazuo Ishiguro novel ” Never Let Me Go” with a similar theme. You only have to read about the Nazi Holocaust to realise that it’s not far fetched at all. There really are some very nasty humans out there.
Sweet dreams everybody!
Alistair Carmichael is such a consummate liar. Many voters in Orkney and Shetlands know this and reject him but yet there are many who cling to the old ways and voting patterns picturing Jo Grimmond in everything Carmichael does. But Carmichael serves himself whilst old Jo served his constituents
BJ @ 22:40,
They could well be, but only by sucking the lifeblood from the “dead man walking” that is the Labour Party in Scotland.
After the coming elections, BLiS will be a political corpse, but it remains to be seen just how many of their former supporters will be able to stomach voting for the Nasty Party. But whatever the numbers turn out to be, we can be sure that the SNP will still be standing proud, and still head and shoulders above the Tories, whatever their propaganda may be claiming at the moment.
@Roboscot says: 24 April, 2017 at 9:02 pm:
“Annoyed to findnot receiving new STV2 channel despite being only a few miles outside Edinburgh.”
Whoa! This isn’t broadcasting on a new frequency Guys n Gals. I don’t bother with TV these days but the change is only STV2 taking over the old Edinburgh programme on Channel 8 on Freeview.
It will also be on whatever the old Glasgow Channel was if you are situated further west across the Forth Clyde Valley.
I used to get the Edinburgh channel here in Kelty when I bothered with TV and I’m in a low lying place with hills all around so had to have a decent outside aerial and aerial amplifier to get a really good picture as without the aerial and amp it didn’t get to the high standards I wanted.
Sorry I cannot be more specific – as I said I just do not watch TV these days. I have enough pain and suffering to contend with without deliberately adding anything more painful to my normal sair bits.
The Tories are not on the rise in Scotland. All they are doing is hoovering up the votes of die hard unionist nutters (the likes of the orange order, and other assorted britnat extremists like the BNP etc..) who in the past would have voted Labour or UKIP. Lovely people.
Meanwhile, Labour clings to the sinking ship Britannia, despite the politics of Scotland having changed over ten years ago. Real head in the sand stuff from Kezia and her red Tory chums.
Let’s all make sure everybody we know votes. No exceptions. Drag them to the polling station if you have to, and make sure that for the council elections they know to use numbers, with Tories last.
Tomorrow’s National front page:
Tomorrow’s “National” twitter pages:
link to twitter.com
@Thepnr says: 24 April, 2017 at 9:11 pm:
“I know I shouldn’t have but I had a right good laugh with your story, well done on telling him how ignorant he is.”
Aye! Thepnr: I found the story amusing too. Well done Valerie.
“This for me is a big problem, peoples ignorance and if you try to put them right often they will get on their high horse because they know ther’re right. They read in the Express LOL.”
As most of you probably know I’ve been at this politics thing a long time and although I don’t really like telling folks how to do things I’ll tell you something I found out from bitter experience.
Try to do more listening than converting. Sounds daft I know but here’s the thing.
These people are so convinced that they are right because, the read it in the Record, saw it on the BBC or on the iPlayer. Yet we all know that what they have been watching, listening to or reading is mostly lies and what isn’t lies is twisted and sometimes has a bit missed out.
So if you let them do most of the talking they will, as sure as shooting, come out with something you know much more about than they do and you can, with a real touch of innocence, (cough!), say, ” but what about —“, and tell them something about whatever it is that they did not know or better still proves their version wrong.
It is much easier to think on your feel when you are not having to concentrate on what you are going to say next.
Let the numpties trip themselves up. Mind you it may not have an immediate visible effect but if they trip themselves up it will certainly make them think about whatever it was that they tripped over.
My old teacher used to say that if you just asked someone for information you only got the brief explanation. If you wanted the best long version then tell them they are wrong and they will bust a gut to prove themselves right.
@ Dr Jim 10.13pm
teletext?
@Valerie says: 24 April, 2017 at 9:52 pm:
” … He was lecturing me, which I allowed, up to a point, because I hoped to get my points in.
However, I’m quite deceptive (I do it purposefully until I can figure out the person) in that I’m smiley, pleasant, enquiring, and I can turn into a foul mouthed harridan if the occasion warrants.”
Yeah! Now I have just been expounding to Thepnr, on his reply to your story and just by chance I was explaining how I also often allow the other person take the lead in order to not only sus them out but to find the weakness, if any, in their arguments. I find it much easier to think on my feet when the other guy is doing the talking.
Seems like we operate in much the same way, Valerie.
I suspect the UK establishment believe they can eventually fashion a unionist majority out of a rising Tory vote but I am sure they are wrong.
At 44/45% the SNP now is exactly where it was in the run-up to the 2015 election when a last minute effort put that up to 49%.
The unionist vote is being redistributed but not actually increasing but I believe the establishment hasn’t worked out that the collapse of the Labour leaving the contest as Scotland against the Tories is exactly what we want.
We have the army the others don’t have and we have to make best use of it. That means in the short time we have huge, obvious and continuous visibility.
@BJ says: 24 April, 2017 at 10:40 pm:
” … Ruth Davidson as First Minister!!! For gods sake. I would want to emigrate.”
No me! Ah’d want her tae emigrate.
@uno mas
Yeah, you stick on any BBC channel press the right button on yer remote and read the BBCs version of what they call news
The First Minister on STV reminding us in polite words that if we allow these rabid nut case Tories a foothold in Scotland they’ll take a delight in having a “Jimmy” all over us and laugh while they’re doing it
NO voters out there should be aware that neither of these elections coming is the Indyref because when that comes if you don’t like it you get to say NO or YES but if we get the Tories you get to say sweet FA except “Aw would you look at what they’ve done to us now sumdy should’ve done sumthin”
Well the First Minister’s just told you, don’t let them in
Dae sumthin!
@Dr Jim says: 24 April, 2017 at 11:51 pm:
“Yeah, you stick on any BBC channel press the right button on yer remote and read the BBCs version of what they call news.”
Weel! Naw, Dr Jim, ye get whit used tae be Ceefax but the BEEB noo ca’s rid pages. Teletext wis ITV an a’body else kis BBC copyrighted the name.
Disna maiter but, wi aa kent whit ye meant.
@Robert Peffers
It’s a reminder of how old you are when you still call a thing the first name you can remember when it came out eh
Everything that’s in writing on the telly I call teletext
Mibbees ahd best start getting some planks of wood ready for ma box in time for ma permanent lie doon
See, if I don’t have a mirror handy I forget whit age I am
OT, sort of. I see from the Rev.’s twitter that Murdo Fraser appears happy to pass on his prejudice to the next generation. Thus “right-mindedness” and Yoonism is transmitted, much like herpes, and structural violence against the poor is perpetuated. Good show.
@Murdo Fraser
By all metrics of public life, you epitomise failure, please don’t handicap your daughter with your own limitations and deficiencies.
Cameron B Brodie @12.34
Just remember that Marine le Pen expelled her father from the party. Perhaps Murdo Fraser’s daughter would do the same.
I would hope so if she was in charge.
Still Positive
He just irritates with his mindless smugness. 🙁
@ Sharney Dubs
& Robert Peffers
With regard to the audio commented on earlier I have also noticed some irregularities or anomalies. I’ve done a bit of studio and live engineering etc but, I would not consider myself any sort of expert on the subject. However it’s clear that something is afoot.
The big fluffy that RP refers to is of course the boom mic. Oft seen dangling in peoples pusses during a media feeding frenzy and quite often used on mobile cranes to get in closer than the general media rabble.
A lot of “around the table” work is done with condenser and anything live is usually done with dynamic (where possible).
They don’t really sound like microphone issues to be honest. They sound more like something that has gone through a time stretching process.
I actually pointed out to my partner a while back that significant pieces of audio seemed to be distorted at critical junctures in speeches of an Indy favourable nature from SNP members and others.
I was watching Paul (Wee Ginger) on a 3 way chat one night too and again I noted the same thing happening. I wondered whether it was a studio issue, data loss on upload issue or general interference from the powers that be.
Then there was the SNP conference and again I saw discrepancies in the audio. I thought “it must be me” or my pc or something.
Then there was Nicola giving a speech a few weeks back and I began to think “hang on a second here”. I even got to the point where I was asking “who is recording down for the SNP at the moment” and do they need looking into.
I tried to dismiss it as tin foil hat but, then I remembered who we are dealing with and thought “nothing is beyond these *****.
The only way I could positively contribute (alongside any others) in going some way toward solving the problem is to have the original source audio and any media released audio made available for further analysis and to search for any discrepancies or anomalies.
Quite happy to waste a few hours playing with sound for the cause. Gives me an excuse to get the rack gear oot the attic withoot complaints aboot space and such like 🙂 It’s fir the cause is like a monopoly get oot eh jail caird. 🙂
Re : NiceConversations? @NiceConvos
You retweeted her heartbreaking story Stu.
Any chance of some kind of small fundraiser or highlighting her story on here even?
Re : NiceConversations? @NiceConvos
You retweeted her heartbreaking story Stu.
Any chance of some kind of small fundraiser or highlighting her story on here even?
Robert J. Sutherland@11:06
Ruth Davidson is not a leader, she’s a bully. I can’t listen to any of her party without cringing. Hope they all get a gunker in the council elections.
I thought I read somewhere that openly supporting another party while being a Labour member gets you thrown out? Why is Ian Murray still even a member?
And urges the people of Scotland to also send a message to May:
“A majority of Pro-indy MP’s means WE DEMAND #Scotref”
@BBC Scotland Tells Lies ~ Aweright, cheers for the daily National cover postings 🙂
Scotland.
There can be only one.
Links
link to news.gov.scot
link to ericjoyce.co.uk
link to randompublicjournal.com
link to welfareweekly.com
link to itisintruthnotforglory.wordpress.com
David Mundell left in a fowl mood
link to archive.is
link to glesgadelic.com
link to commonspace.scot
link to reconnecting-europe.boellblog.org
link to epw.in
link to thecanary.co
Stay off my lawn
link to archive.is
Turned on LBC radio.
A Scottish voice being interviewed.
So I start to tune in, could be interesting.
Turns out to be Rhea Wolfson on the topic of “people taking the power back.”
Sounds ok when she talks about Westminster but rapidly goes down hill when she starts talking about Holyrood being as bad as Westminster. The message being take back power by not voting SNP.
Rhea Wolfson – just another British Nationalist pretending to be working for the people, except the Scottish people because Scots cannot have “the power back” because London rules ok, Rule Britannia and vote Red Tory.
Nana, Good Morning,
Another lovely morning, with lovely links. Thank You, Kettle,s on.
I’m just getting ready for a quack appointment, see you later!
🙂
Peace Always
Good morning Smallaxe, nice day here so far.
A few more links
President of Irish High Court to make ruling on Brexit
link to archive.is
Brexit ‘could bring greatest stripping of workers’ rights in living memory’
link to archive.is
Brexit opposition reaches record high one week after snap election announcement
link to archive.is
UK to continue arms deals with repressive regimes: Analyst
link to archive.is
UK most unequal state in the EU. At least it was in May 2015. Have the Tories reversed that sad state of affairs in the last 2 years?
link to on.rt.com
GMS hard at with poll data from coming on air this morning,guilty by omission and misdirection.They really are the mortal enemies
of Scotland. Nothing will get any better until we change it.
Had Murdo Fraser canvassing at the doorstep last night. How we laughed.
I’m not on Twitter but I do follow Wings. Murdo must think he is being clever using his daughter for cheap laughs when on this very day we hear that kids in this country are missing out on meals.
Then we have Ruthie riding mobility buggies while the Tories take away Motability cars from the disabled.
It’s no laughing matter Murdo, if the Tories win this election, it will get worse for the poor, the sick and the disabled. Tha is the Tory way.
I see Mr Carmichael has decided to stand in Orkney again,
I’m guessing he doesn’t want to let down the voters on Orkney who think that liars are the acceptable face of their constiuancy. Who knows?
Social inclusion is key to achieving a socially just “open society” and a sustainable future. You can’t get much more exclusionery and inequitable than a full-British Brexit, at least from where I’m looking from.
link to tandfonline.com
@Dr Jim says: 25 April, 2017 at 12:19 am:
“It’s a reminder of how old you are when you still call a thing the first name you can remember when it came out eh
Well it shows I’m older than you, Dr Jim, or perhaps it is because I’d been working in electronic back when the World’s very first video text services began for I can remember that it was the BBC that invented it and called it CEEFAX.
I also remember that they used the then BBC Home Computer that competed will the Sinclair, AMSTRAD, Apple and Atari to run the service as PC’s were text only and far too expensive for hobbyists. I believe that old BBC computer was still used for the service almost until digital TV arrived on the scene.
As to that memory failure thing – the long term memory loss is due to your installed, (in yer heid), memory banks being filled up by living a long time and having lots to store. Not to be, err! “confused”, with short term memory loss which is due to one of two quite different causes.
The first, and more likely in your and my case, is a symptom of an active mind doing too many things at once. The other is a sign of Alzheimer’s Disease or Dementia, and although many people wrongly believe these are caused by advanced years, they are not.
There are many younger sufferers. These latter two are diseases that will probably have cures found for in, (hopefully), the not too distant future.
So when you have to get that mirror out, to remember who you are, then think yourself lucky to have such a mentally busy life.
Here’s what I could dig up quickly about the TV CEEFAX text services:-
“CEEFAX was announcement by the BBC on 23 October 1972: Experimental transmissions began in March 1973.: An experimental service, continually updated by a team of editors and researchers began on September 23, 1974: The original idea was intended as an aid for deaf & hard-of- hearing people.
Sae dinna fash, Dr Jim – yer no needin tae plan yer widdin box jist yit.
“We all deserve……… the best schools for all of our children”
Jeremy Corbyn actually had the audacity to say this in a speech in Dunfermline yesterday.
(Re earlier Peter Curran video comment, established that this was an original uploader codec issue, so scratch it. Still looking for more examples of bad audio interviews from them though. They need to be put under scrutiny re this issue as I am hearing more and more people noticing bad quality at “unfortunate” moments for indy minded interviewees.)
@Robert Peffers
If you are interested in oldish electronic history of the BBC then you might be interested in this
link to bbceng.info
It is the old BBC Engineering newsletters from 1980 to 1993 (when the BBC effectively disbanded the engineering group). A number of them cover things that were happening in Scotland.
Robert 5:18 pm
You wrote “Why exactly are you here?”
We’ve done this before on several occasions.
The laws that affect me are determined by the Westminster Parliament.
The MPs that vote to make the laws that affect me represent constituencies throughout the UK.
Various political parties compete to have their representatives elected to be the MPs of the constituencies.
The SNP is one such party. The SNP are different however. The SNP is not interested in making a better UK – it wants Scottish Independece and almost everything they do is designed to achieve that – at whatever cost to the rest of us in the UK.
Every political position they take is a contrary one. Not out of political conviction – just to be contrary.
I have no problem with any of that.
If the SNP and its supporters want to affect my life then, in this modern society, I believe I have the right, and also the means to give my views and comment on them, their views and their policies.
Then there is the issue of democracy. After many years, the Westminster Parliament, made up of MPs from all over the UK representing the spectrum of political opinion voted to hold a referendum in Scotland on the subject of Independence.
The referendum was held. The people of Scotland voted to remain in the UK.
For everyone other than around 1.5 million voters in Scotland the matter was resolved (for a generation?).
Unfortunately, the SNP continues with its contrarianism and seemingly everything it does is designed to create difference and rancour. Not content with having different points of view, they seek to paint others despicable, uncaring and unworthy.
Ms Sturgeon is not elected to any parliament where I have a vote yet she personally seeks to affect my life. She claims to have the support of a majority of Scots as the mandate to do that.
She does not have the majority support. If she did, then I would happily concede her rights to affect my life.
I had huge respect for Ms Sturgeon. Her determination and grit to go after what she believed in was truly admirable.
After the referendum and after the last GE she changed. She became just another lying, disingenuous politician that would do or say anything if she thought she could score a political point.
In a way that no one could have planned we have arrived at a historic juncture following the EU referendum (I voted Remain) and after the last GE.
Astonishingly,the People of Scotland now face an almost binary choice. They can choose a path that will mean they remain part of the UK outside the European Union – or they can vote for a Party that is hell bent on another indyref, Scottish Independence and a future outside of the UK as a full member of the EU (on the assumption that that is actually possible).
In summary Robert, you want to vote in ways that affect the laws that affect me. You want your favoured politicians to affect my life.
You and many others here on Wings write dismissively about voters in England and how dumb, greedy and uncaring we are.
That is your right.
I believe it is my right to challenge and comment in return (subject to demonstrating a degree of decorum) – don’t you?
@William Wallace says: 25 April, 2017 at 1:22 am:
Great post, William. Yes you are on the right tracks.
Here’s a wee bit of further thoughts on the audio matter.
Back in the early days of reel to reel tape recorders, (by the way I still have one of the very first tape machines to come on the market for hobbyists among my old electronics junk. A Philips 4.5″ reel to real machine).
Anyway, we hobbyist would make up Heath-Robinson contraptions that formed an endless belt loop of tape in order to replicate the Studio machines. The length of the loop was the length of the introduced audio delay.
Then came Cassette tapes and we adapted those to do the same job. Now a days it is all much easier with digital signals. There is absolutely no doubts that the TV companies are doctoring stuff to suit their own agendas. Both with audio and video and the point I’m making here is that now it does not require a technical person with audio and video knowledge to manage the effects.
The producers and directors behind the glass screens can operate the switches and sliders to extract or insert or alter any digital audio or video signals just as anyone who has access to Photo-Shop can alter a digital photo. Also remember it is simplicity to take a non-digital photo and digitise it instantly.
There are no finer exponents of the art of electronic propaganda than the BBC and these days they do not even need any training in electronics to do so.
They can manage to achieve any desired effect from the sound proofed control room of any studio or even from their mobile, “Outside Broadcast”, vans and every broadcast programme has a deliberately delayed signal to allow such things between the real event and the broadcast signal to the public.
And, BTW: I’ve never worn a tinfoil hat in my life.
This is not conspiracy theory – it is simply the facts that even rank amateur enthusiasts with a computer and reasonably priced software can do the same video/audio tricks in their own home. Some of it is so simple you just wouldn’t believe it.
Here’s a very old trick shot that anyone with a camcorder can do with ease.
Set up your camcorder, preferably on a tripod, and focus it upon the scene. Now have your subject move into the scene while the camcorder is running. Now stop the machine. Have the subject move to another area of the scene. Now start recording again and continue with these actions as long as you want but finish with the subject off camera.
Played back the video has the subject suddenly vanish and instantly reappear in a different location. You have now a subject recorded teleporting.
They were doing that very same trick with Buster Keaton and the Keystone Cops. They could do it with film and video tape by cutting and joining the film or tape and now they can do it on a computer with any recorded bit on action. Yet people still believe the camera cannot lie.
Given Scotland’s legacy of internal colonisation and a British culture industry dedicated to promoting the concept of Britain as ‘One Nation’, is it any wonder the Prime Minister might think it acceptable to exclude the nation of Scotland from the Brexit process?
link to gsdrc.org
For those of you doubting whether the BBC would constructively doctor raw footage, you need look no further than Nick Robinson and his barefaced lie that Alex Salmond hadn’t answered his question, or if you do need to look further, think back to their “creative” editing of Alex Salmond pulling a face while John Swinney was making an apology.
Does the BBC manipulate its output? Of course it does. To discriminate against the SNP? Hell, yes.
If a lawyer or a policeman was caused tampering with evidence to the same extent the BBC has been caught red handed constructively distorting the footage of Scotland’s First Minister, they would be struck off. We are talking about the BBC who are free to orchestrate opposition to Scotland’s elected government.
I’m going to give Theresa May the benefit of the doubt temporarily, her snap Election has left a lot of people flat footed, largely because it takes a large dollop of creative imagination to see how it makes any sense, but perhaps Theresa May has a plan. Or, if a plan is too much to hope for, at least some kind of logical rationale.
Ducking a haymaker concerning electoral fraud? Could be.
Grinding Labour to dust? I doubt it. Why bother?
Last minute reprieve for Remainers? Nope. May has denied ex-pats a vote.
Could it just be as simple as Theresa May throwing everybody a curve ball just to buy herself time for a quiet little panic attack outside the glare of publicity? Who knows or cares?
The Tory mantra in Scotland is agitating opposition to a referendum which is an 18 month torpedo already launched and running. Win, lose or draw, Scotland is going to have another Independence Referendum, so why on Earth are the Tories fighting an election campaign solely upon an issue they would need a minor miracle and a time machine to alter?
To me this screams distraction. The Tories think they are on safer ground to undermine the ScotRef as an affront to the majority of the 2014 Referendum, because they know very well that Tories are on epically thin ice trying to sell a positive Brexit, positive economic revival, and constructive “we’re all in this together” message to Scotland.
The Conservatives know the next eighteen months will see them walking into an ambush over Brexit and Scotland’s case for sovereign authority to stay where it is in Europe. What people are saying here, and what Nicola is doing is right. She will not be drawn on the issue prematurely.
When Scotland goes to the referendum polls, it will be once Brexit terms agreed with Europe are clear, after the damage Brexit is going to cause to the UK economy is becoming manifest, in an electoral process where it is Holyrood who determines the franchise to include EU citizens and U16’s.
Winning the Referendum argument in June will just leave the ScotRef franchise hostage to a Westminster UK wide majority. A Scottish referendum, called by the Scottish First Minister will be the main event fixture, and where we have the full home advantage.
I fully accept was maybe a bit hasty in calling forward the Indy fighting spirit. But in my defence, I think we would still win.
One last irony however, which is rather delicious frankly, is that after all the lies and broken promises of 2014, about the only serviceable plank the Unionists have left from 2014 verdict is the mandate of the actual result itself. We currently have Ruth Davidson doing us all the great service of exhausting that argument on a largely academic and inconsequential General Election, which by my arithmetic leaves the Unionists facing a ScotRef campaign next year with absolutely nothing whatsoever in their arsenal.
It even looks like the BBC goons won’t even have La Pen to drool about.
Note to self: never, ever, ever, play poker with Nicola Sturgeon.
Sensible Dave
Nothing personal, but I am tired of your presence on this site.
You write:
Ms Sturgeon is not elected to any parliament where I have a vote yet she personally seeks to affect my life. She claims to have the support of a majority of Scots as the mandate to do that.
She does not have the majority support. If she did, then I would happily concede her rights to affect my life.
You don’t actually know if she has a majority or not. Fact.
Kim-Jong-Il is not elected to any Parliament where you have a vote. Fact.
Does he personally seek to affect your life – I’m pretty sure he thinks /knows he is doing what is best for his COUNTRY. Fact.
In truth, he may not actually have the majority support – we are led to believe he has. So do you happily concede his rights to affect your life?
Thought not!
President Trump is elected with a majority ( but NOT the largest number of votes – so an arguable majority in real terms.) Fact.
Do you ‘happily’ concede his right to affect your life – and possibly the entire east Asian peninsula? Possibly even causing WW3…
Tricky one to answer?
Decisions made by the French people and subsequent Government may be about to affect your life and you don’t have a vote there either. Fact.
Why?
…Because it is a different COUNTRY.
When will you understand this about Scotland?
It is a different, sovereign country.
Come to think of it, THeresa May is making decisions that are hugely affecting my life. I supposedly have a vote in this Union of countries but you wouldn’t think so.
Does she rule with a majority vote from the UK people? No- Fact.
Do you happily concede her right to affect my life?
The UK is not a country. Fact.
It is a Union of two Kingdoms, one Province and one Principality. Fact.
You have a choice.
If you are so concerned about Scottish independence and the effect it might have on your life – come and live here and you can have a vote on the matter.
If you don’t make that choice than please stop whingeing and leave this forum.
Meg merrilees 10:24 am
You wrote “Nothing personal, but I am tired of your presence on this site.”
Aww Bless.
Then “Ms Sturgeon is not elected to any parliament where I have a vote yet she personally seeks to affect my life. She claims to have the support of a majority of Scots as the mandate to do that.
She does not have the majority support. If she did, then I would happily concede her rights to affect my life.”
You don’t actually know if she has a majority or not. Fact.
Er there was a referendum. The epople of SCotland spoke, their votes were counted the reult is what it was. FACT!
Then “Kim-Jong-Il is not elected to any Parliament where you have a vote. Fact.
Does he personally seek to affect your life – I’m pretty sure he thinks /knows he is doing what is best for his COUNTRY. Fact.”
KIm Jong Il isnt instructing party colleagues in the Westminster Parliament – a rather obvious and important difference I would have thought Meg. nHe sint trying to change the laws that affect me.
In truth, he may not actually have the majority support – we are led to believe he has. So do you happily concede his rights to affect your life?
Thought not!
… you a really struggling now Meg. If you don’t see the difference between Kim Jong Il and an SNP MP voting at Westminster on laws that affect me in my country – then I am not sure I can help you!
President Trump is elected with a majority ( but NOT the largest number of votes – so an arguable majority in real terms.) Fact.
Do you ‘happily’ concede his right to affect your life – and possibly the entire east Asian peninsula? Possibly even causing WW3…
Tricky one to answer?
… getting really desparate now Meg …. see my previous answer!
Decisions made by the French people and subsequent Government may be about to affect your life and you don’t have a vote there either. Fact.
Why?
getting boring now Meg see previous answer!
…Because it is a different COUNTRY.
When will you understand this about Scotland?
It is a different, sovereign country.
It is part of the UK. It voted to be part of the UK. Its MPs have the same rights as my MP. If and when Scotland votes to be an Independent country then the people of Scotland should run their own affairs without reference to the Westminster Parliament. Until then, I have every right to comment on their politics, policies and actions – a bit like contributors to Wings comment on other parties at Westminster. Isn’t that fair Meg – or is there some other sort democracy that you are advocating?
Come to think of it, THeresa May is making decisions that are hugely affecting my life. I supposedly have a vote in this Union of countries but you wouldn’t think so.
Does she rule with a majority vote from the UK people? No- Fact.
Do you happily concede her right to affect my life?
The people of Scotland voted, by majority, to have that system. FACT. Come on Mg, you are going to have to try harder!
The UK is not a country. Fact.
…… Semantics Meg. In common language, most people will use the word “country” to mean different things at different times and we always understand what they mean.
It is a Union of two Kingdoms, one Province and one Principality. Fact.
You have a choice.
If you are so concerned about Scottish independence and the effect it might have on your life – come and live here and you can have a vote on the matter.
….. No thanks. and BTW, I dont care if Scotland votes to be Independent. I do care if a minority tries to overthrow the will of the majority in Scotland.
If you don’t make that choice than please stop whingeing and leave this forum
I will leave if and when the Rev boots me off – and not until. Do you see Meg? I am not whinging Meg.
Democracy Meg – that is always the answer because no one has come up with anything better. I know you don’t care what about what the majority of Scots said what they want in a referendum. You believe that your passion and desire for something should supersede their rights – because you are right and they are wrong.
History is littered with loonies that held similar views to yours.
@sensibledave says: 25 April, 2017 at 9:27 am:
“You wrote “Why exactly are you here?””
Well actually I didn’t. I only repeated what another commenter wrote as a pointer to what I was replying to.
“We’ve done this before on several occasions.
The laws that affect me are determined by the Westminster Parliament.”
Indeed we have, “done this before”, but we will not be doing them again.
The reason being that while the laws that you claim affect you are made by the Westminster parliament that operates as the, (unelected as such), de facto parliament of the country of England that you belong to, (note that you legally belong to the country of England as one of Her Majesty’s subjects).
As Westminster imposes EVEL upon those who represent me at Westminster but who are subjected to the EVEL rules of Westminster. Then my representatives at Westminster are gagged by your masters at Westminster from actually representing me at Westminster.
“The MPs that vote to make the laws that affect me represent constituencies throughout the UK.”
Not true, sensibledave, that is barefaced lies like everything else you spout at such great lengths.
The MPs that represent you do not represent constituencies throughout the UK – because of EVEL and Westminster operating as the, (unelected as such), de facto parliament
of only England, they represent only the Country of England,(or do they)?
Hence why the legally sovereign people, (under Scots law), in Scotland will legally end the, so called, “United Kingdom”, that long ago ceased to actually be a united kingdom.
There are only two Kingdoms legal signatures on the Treaty of Union and Westminster now operates as the de facto parliament of England and thus is devolving only assumed English powers to three countries it perceives to be English dominions.
Furthermore Westminster does not represent the good people of England, (for which good people, I have nothing but sympathy, and that includes yourself). The reason being that there isn’t a single, “Member of Parliament”, elected to the de facto parliament of England as they, one and all, were legally elected to the United Kingdom Parliament that long ago ceased to operate or exist as such.
It really is very simple, sensibledave.
There is a legally signed contract between only the two equally sovereign British Kingdoms extant in 1707. There were no other Kingdoms in Britain in 1707 because there is a legally signed document called, “The Statute of Rhuddlan”, dated 1284, that annexed, (not united with), Wales as the English Principality that it legally is today.
Note the current Prince of Wales is the Queen of England’s first born son and thus a subject of his mother. Upon her death the current Prince of Wales will become Monarch of England and his first born son will become Prince of Wales.
Then, in 1542, the Kingdom of Ireland Parliament, then under the, (appointed by the Holy Roman Se), lordship of the King of England, passed, “The Crown of Ireland Act”, that thus annexed the Kingdom of Ireland as part of the Kingdom of England. This is yet another legally signed document.
Thus the Treaty of Union of 1707 has only the legal signatures of the two equally sovereign Kingdoms of England & Scotland. To continue to be a legal, “United Kingdom”, Westminster must remain a bipartite union of Kingdoms. It thus no longer is a United Kingdom.
Allow me to direct you to the facts. The Westminster Parliament decided to split the former bipartite United Kingdom up as a quadratic union of four unequal countries.
With Westminster continuing as the, unelected as such, de facto parliament of the country of England. It then illegally proceeded to claim that the Kingdom of Scotland was, “Extinguished”, by the Treaty of Union 1707.
Then it introduce EVEL in order to allow the de facto country of England parliament, that legally has no elected members, to debar all non-English constituency members from interfering in the illegal de facto parliament of England’s assumed business.
Ergo the assumed, (by Westminster), de facto parliament of the country of England has no members elected to legally represent anyone but the Westminster Establishment.
Got it now, sensibledave?
The Westminster Parliament represents only the Westminster Establishment. It has no one elected as a Parliament of England MP. It debars all non-English constituency Members from interfering in what it decides are England Only Matters and it claims that the Kingdom of Scotland is Extinguished.
It doesn’t represent YOU, it doesn’t represent ME and it doesn’t even acknowledge we Scots even exist.
It is, “The Establishment”, and it represents itself. Everyone else, (including you if you are NOT in its employ), they treat as useful idiots who they use to further the interests of, “THE ESTABLISHMENT”
Now, sensibledave, guess who, (only under the law of England), is legally the head of, “THE ESTABLISHMENT.” and it is not Theresa May.
You are talking mince as usual and there is thus no useful purpose in engaging with a deluded idiot like you except for the purpose of showing the commenters on Wings just how much of a lying piece of Tory useful idiot you are.
PLONK!
I’ve mentioned that certain personality types are more susceptible than others to propaganda, specifically those considered authoritarian in nature. Such individuals tend to be prone to holding prejudiced and discriminatory views. These are not genetically formed traits but are learned through informal and institutional structures of social exclusion, e.g. the BBC.
The Mind of the Authoritarian
link to psychologytoday.com
@sensibledave says: :25 April, 2017 at 10:58 am:
“You wrote “Nothing personal, but I am tired of your presence on this site.””
I agree with Meg.
As for the rest of your long winded, totally unbelievably, totally irrelevant, batch of totally illogical pish!
“PLONK”!
Robert – Brilliant! I think you may have sunk HMS Hypocrisy!
I think I can truthfully claim to have debated on many subjects with people from the poorest and most uneducated up to Ministers of State, Learned Academics and even members of the Royal Family itself on many subject.
By the large they mostly attempted, as did I, to offer logical arguments and to cite acknowledged sources of true facts within reasoned debate.
I can honestly claim that I have never come across such a totally illogical, unsubstantiated load of parroted, brainwashed gobbledegook and claptrap as sensibledave has spouted on Wings.
It is a tirade of illogical conclusions drawn from nothing more that British Nationalism and sensibledave’s own sheer personal prejudices and parroted Britnat propaganda.
If sensibledave is useful as anything it is as a gauge of the ever growing unionist desperation and frustration at not having any logical or legal answers to legal and logical arguments.
When did you last get a reasoned and logical answer from a unionist?
It is now getting louder, more strident, more hysterical, more illogical and can only be summed up as being, “Because Westminster says so”.
I get the strangest feeling that, like the myth of Lemmings exploding with sheer excited frustration, sensibledave is very, very close to spontaneously exploding all over our computer screens with one mighty uncontrolled BANG!
It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Robert …. Various Guff above
I have read some rubbish that you have written before Robert – but unbelievably, you have surpassed yourself. I wont respond to your “made-up” history lesson, I will choose a couple of your more outrageous nonsense …
…. I wrote: ““The MPs that vote to make the laws that affect me represent constituencies throughout the UK.”
You Wrote: “Not true, sensibledave, that is barefaced lies like everything else you spout at such great lengths.
Bare faced Lie??? Really??? you are losing it Robert!
Then ….., “The MPs that represent you do not represent constituencies throughout the UK” (BTW THAT IS A MISQUOTE!)
Robert, you seek to deny that which everyone else, bar the odd loonie on here, holds to be true (and the very reason why they seek to have a referendum to end the said status!).
– because of EVEL and Westminster operating as the, (unelected as such), de facto parliament
of only England, they represent only the Country of England,(or do they)?
… you have lost your marbles Robert!
As you know (or damn well should know) EVERY LAW THAT ONLY AFFECTS THE ENGLISH HAS TO BE PASSED BY THE FULL PARLIAMENT INCLUDING NI, WELSH AND SCOTTISH MPs. How you construe that as some affront to the SCots takes some doing Robert. Creating “Grievance” where none exists I think Robert. As matter of interest, could you give me an example where you believe your rights have been affected in actuality by EVEL please? NO? I thought not…. just bulls**t grievance!
In summary, your Guff is at odds to what almost every one of the most ardent Independence supporters here on Wings thinks – and me.
Just one big flaw in your defence Dave…
Do you truly believe that SNP MP’s are able to have an effect on your life?
Give me one example of any effect the WM SNP MP’s have had on your life.
Everything they propose in WM is ignored or voted down.
All amendments to the Brexit bill were defeated; any amendments to the Scotland Act were ignored. I could go on but I won’t.
The reason the SNP MP’s have NO effect on your life is exactly because of the very democracy you uphold.
When there is one country with 6 million (approx) of a population and one country with 58 million (approx) then it is easy for a supposedly balanced Union to become imbalanced.
Devolution is attempting to redress that balance and while Scotland has MP’s at Westminster then they have every right to be there and be instructed by their Scottish Party Leaders Ruth Davidson, Willie Rennie, Kezia Dugdale and by Nicola Sturgeon the First Minister of Scotland.
This is true also for the Welsh, Scottish and N. Irish MP’s who represent parties such as Plaid Cymru, SNP and DUP which are nationwide and not UK wide parties.
It is only through devolved assemblies and parliaments that the people of Wales, N. Ireland and Scotland are able to redress some of the failings of WM democracy as a result of a now flawed Union.
Incidentally, do we only ever get one vote in our lifetime? No.
Why, I’ve voted in several elections in my life time and strangely, it would seem that people change their minds from time to time because we end up with different parties leading the UK. Also, situations change because of events outside our control and people’s views respond to those changes.
Just a final point – they say that when ‘one’ complains, often the things you accuse others of is the worst fault you have too. So perhaps you should reflect on your words to me:
You believe that your passion and desire for something should supersede their rights – because you are right and they are wrong.
Incidentally it would be good if you could debate politely and not use abusive adjectives.
i.e “loonies”
Thank you.
Meg
…. your last point first! If you are concerned about my use of the word “loonies” as being an example of an abusive adjective, I invite you to have a read through the threads where I have “engaged” – you will then see that the word “loonies” would almost be a compliment on the scale of things that I am called!
With respect to the main thrust of your comment, i.e. the SNP’s potential to affect my life in England, the answers are simple. You see the SNP as a political party that wants Independence and the best for Scotland (I have absolutely no problem with that – whatever the majority of Scots want then they should have it). But the SNP has significant representation in the Parliament that makes laws that affect me.
Once again, Ms Sturgeon is talking about working with Labour in a so called “progressive alliance” to try and defeat the Government. Again, that is democracy and the SNP has every right to take that stance – but then don’t pretend that the SNP is not trying to influence laws and policy that affect me – it just demonstrates that you are so blinkered and “single issue” that you can no longer see the wood for the trees.
Next, the UK government (my only legislature) voted to allow a referendum on the subject of the EU. The referendum was had and I ended up on the losing side.
However democracy rules and it looks like we going to “brexit”. It is therefore vital that the UK negotiates the very best deal. What we do not need is the SNP angling to hold indyref2 at the most vital time of the negotiations. Have a referendum next month or wait until after Brexit, I don’t mind. But no, Ms Sturgeon, because of her avowed political objectives, seeks to maximise any political opportunity to cause the rest of the UK as much of a problem as she can.
Again, she is entitled to try and do whatever she wants to do – that is democracy. I don’t like it but I accept it.
At the same time, everyone else is free to do whatever they want to do to achieve their political aims – which is to achieve the best deal possible for Brexit.
Ms Sturgeon contends that “the people of Scotland” want indyref2. I see absolutely no evidence of that – if anything, support appears to be falling.
We have a GE coming on June 8th. Ms Sturgeon, as she does with almost every election or poll, goes out of her way in the build up to say that this election has nothing to do with Scottish Independence. After most of the recent polls she then switches to say that the outcome demonstrates that the people of Scotland want Independence.
She is free to make those claims and I am free to rubbish them.
In my view, if SNP support increases at the GE then that would be an obvious indication that there is support for indyref2 – and another referendum should be had as soon as possible (within 4 months). If SNP support falls in the election then that would be a clear indication that Ms Sturgeon’s claims are completely false and she should be prevented from interfering with the Brexit process. Over 60 million non-Scots future’s rely upon a the best exit possible and 1.5 million noisy activists should not be allowed to screw it up for everyone else when they have no mandate to do so.
Meg, if you disagree with any of the points made above, point to them specifically if we are going to have a sensible discussion.
Dave:
Do you really think that 56 MP’s out of 650(?) is a significant, influential number?
We may have tried to put our views across, as do all parties at WM, but we’re usually ignored or defeated and I can’t think of any vote we have actually won.
I think it’s worth pointing out that the Tories have a really significant representation in the WM Parliament that makes laws that affect me and even although I vote against them, it has no effect. So we’re sort of even on that count.
How would you feel if it was 56 Scottish Lib Dem MP’s or 56 Scottish Labour MP’s?
OK, maybe they don’t want Independence but SLAB wants to get rid of Trident and WM Labour doesn’t. You see, there are differences even in national (UK wide) parties.
I’ve never voted for the tories but they have ruled over 67% of my life. That means that for approx 40 of my 60 years the Tories have made rules that affect me; rules that I abhor:- the rape clause; the bedroom tax; the changes to Pension entitlement for women – which means I have to wait to be 66 before I qualify; the renewal of Trident – I live about 30 miles away from Faslane and nuclear convoys pass very close to my front door on a regular basis.
But that’s democracy and sometimes it’s not very pleasant and we have had to live with it, except now in Scotland, Wales and N. Ireland, there is an alternative and I am genuinely sorry for those people in the rUK who do not have an alternative.
I believe England was asked if it wanted it’s own Parliament/Assembly and said ‘No’.
Pity – maybe that would have ‘evened’ things up a bit.
Again, it’s not just the SNP that seeks to make alliances, we had 5 years of a Lib-Dem Tory coalition gov; Ian Murray, SLAB, is asking Tory electors to vote for him to keep the SNP out. It’s natural for Politicians to seek to form alliances so Nicola isn’t really that odd to suggest a ‘progressive alliance’. This is what happens in our political system and the outcome affects everyone, not just you.
Re support for Independence – we none of us actually know where that stands just now, anymore than we can predict the Tory majority at the present time. It would be foolish to believe any poll.
We both ended up on the ‘wrong’ side of Brexit.
You write Nicola Sturgeon ‘ seeks to cause the rest of the UK as much of a problem as she can Is that what you really think/ Is that how she is represented in the southern media?
I believe that Nicola is acting in the best interests of the people of Scotland whom she is sworn to represent and she is well aware that many of these people voted NO to separation from the UK and many voted to leave the EU.
The Scottish Government ( equal partners in this Union) prepared a lengthy document setting out possible solutions to the Brexit situation that would have been good for the entire UK, a genuine attempt at compromise that T May did not even consider.
T May said she would not trigger Brexit until she had a UK wide consensus and she went ahead without the agreement of Wales, N. Ireland or Scotland, OR Gibraltar.
So who’s causing the problems in the UK?
Look at the mess in N. Ireland – that’s not Nicola’s fault.
Warships in the Mediterranean and sabre rattling about going to war with Spain is not caused by anything Nicola is doing.
And now a snap GE17.
56 out of 59 MP’s is a pretty high score. It equates to approx. 93% of the vote in a WM election – unheard of! That would be difficult for any government to repeat.
Here’s why you would be wrong to use the result of this G Election as an indicator of the strength of feeling re Independence:
In England only people over 18 years of age can vote. You can join the Army at 17 and fight and die for your country but you can’t vote. Isn’t that a bit odd?
In Scotland you can marry at 16, vote at 16, and join the Army at 17 to fight and possibly die for a country you can vote for.
In Scottish elections anyone 16 or older can vote, EU citizens can vote and anyone living in Scotland can vote.
In English/UK elections only 18 year old upwards can vote and no EU citizens can vote.
Support for Independence in 16-18 year olds in Scotland is 75%.
As a result of Brexit, I imagine that many EU citizens will also vote for Independence.
Since this election will only allow 18 year olds upwards and no EU citizens to vote, it will not be a true, accurate demonstration of the actual support for Independence currently held in Scotland and it would be misleading to regard it in this way.
Maybe party politics is dying out in England and it’s time another completely new party was started. That might help bring in a strong opposition because a democracy without opposition is really a plutocracy or worse, an autocracy.
Sorry Dave,
I’ve typed out a lengthy reply twice today to your posting but it has failed to show. Maybe they both will show up tmrw; or maybe the thread is closed.
Really can’t give up anymore time on this.