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The delusion of hubris

Posted on July 22, 2017 by

Today’s Daily Record covers the story we mentioned yesterday about a report from a Scottish Labour campaign group making the pretty factually-uncontestable point that the branch office’s dismal strategy in last month’s election held the UK party back.

And it made the Record really angry.

Because the paper’s editorial leader is a furious rant against the authors of the report, and the column makes some fairly extraordinary claims.

Firstly, of course, there ISN’T a vote tomorrow, nor is there likely to be one until Corbyn is in his 70s. But “knockout blow” is a bold assertion for a party in THIRD place in Scotland, with SEVEN seats out of 59. As far as we’re aware, boxing matches usually only have two contenders. If you’re ranked third you don’t even get into the ring.

After that, though, things got even wilder.

Let’s take the last paragraph first: if there’s division between Scottish Labour and UK Labour, the blame for that lies entirely at the door of Dugdale and her allies, who bitterly opposed Corbyn’s election as leader in both 2015 and 2016, and rubbished him loudly all over the media while backing his opponents, Owen somebody and that other one. (Scotland was the only part of the UK where Corbyn lost the vote in 2016.)

Corbyn refused to get involved in a spat with his Scottish branch office and acted with enormous magnanimity in victory.

But for the Record to then start trumpeting Dugdale’s leadership qualities compared to the “serial electoral failures” of the “Labour left” is a breathtaking piece of truth-reversal even by the Record’s standards.

The left wing of Labour has been in charge of the party for less than two years, for the first time in over 20 years. It has so far fought just one election in 25 years, in which the Labour vote increased by almost 40%. That’s an extremely harsh use of the word “failure”, and a flat-out incorrect use of the word “serial”.

To be precise, Labour’s UK vote increased by 37.8% from 2015 to 2017 – 9.34m votes under Ed Miliband rocketing to 12.88m under Corbyn in the space of 25 months, the party’s second-biggest UK election vote since 1966. (Behind only Tony Blair in 1997.)

In England Labour’s vote was up by 41%, in Wales by 40%. In Scotland, meanwhile, under the apparently brilliant leadership of Kezia Dugdale and helpfully starting from an all-time low point, Labour’s vote increased by just 1%, from 707,000 to 717,000.

Almost all of that came in a single seat (Ian Murray accounted for 7000 of Labour’s 10,000 extra Scottish votes), and that abysmal showing came in an election where the SNP lost 500,000 votes, the vast bulk in seats which Labour had held just two years earlier and might reasonably have been expected to win back in such circumstances.

In fact, had Kezia Dugdale done just a QUARTER as well as Jeremy Corbyn, and boosted Scottish Labour’s dire 2015 vote by a modest 10%, Labour would have held onto second place in Scotland despite the Tory surge, with 15 seats to the Tories’ 13.

(A 10% increase would have recaptured Airdrie & Shotts, Dunfermline & West Fife, Edinburgh North & Leith, Glasgow East, Glasgow South West, Motherwell & Wishaw, Paisley & Renfrewshire North and Paisley & Renfrewshire South from the SNP.)

If she’d done HALF as well as Corbyn – by adding 20% across the board – her party would even have been pushing the SNP hard for victory, reducing the Nats to 23 seats against 19 for Labour. (The other four gains being Glenrothes, Inverclyde, Linlithgow & East Falkirk and West Dunbartonshire, with several other seats on a knife-edge.)

The Daily Record’s been doggedly backing the losing team in every Scottish election since 2007. Long may it carry on.

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  1. 22 07 17 14:56

    The delusion of hubris | speymouth
    Ignored

306 to “The delusion of hubris”

  1. Croompenstein
    Ignored
    says:

    Don’t forget Mcternan Predicts backed the tories as well.. Same as Kez against Jez 🙂

  2. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    Better red than dead. If there’s an election this year, Labour will have the full force of the MSM behind them. Save the Union at all costs.

  3. winifred mccartney
    Ignored
    says:

    Kezia and labour in Scotland have been fighting the wrong enemy all along, many people told them but they persisted in snp baaad and they deserve all that is coming to them. Even JC could see many of their policies were right hence the labour manifesto! It is a pity JC does not think Scotland should be independent principally because he believes only with Scotlands help can labour get into government.

  4. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Excellent analysis from The Rev.

    Record says

    Scottish Labour find themselves in the unexpected position of being poised to deliver a ?knockout blow to nationalism.

    This attitude makes me angry. In my mind it should actually read deliver a ?knockout blow FOR nationalism …. British Nationalism.

    Labour of whatever flavour and region stand for only two significant things … self preservation of their party’s troughing, and the integrity of their wonderful UKOK.

    In all the big issues – defence, constitution, Brexit, Scotland’s place in the world – they are no different from the Tories.

    Aspirations to socialism? A thin veneer to attract the gullible. It’s still rampant British / Greater English Nationalism.

  5. Ian McLean
    Ignored
    says:

    How are the Record’s sales doing these days?

  6. Jack Collatin
    Ignored
    says:

    Brill,Stu.
    The Record is a risible little rag, and this editorial is fiction of the most alarming sort.
    This from the pen of David Clegg?
    Did it make the ‘papers’ review on BBC Radio Shortbread this morning?
    Dugdale is a better leader than Labour Branch Office deserved?
    Who writes this shit with a straight face?
    She couldn’t even win her constituency seat.

  7. Juteman
    Ignored
    says:

    We are such a meek population.
    In most other countries, a rag like the Record would have massive crowds outside demonstrating their feelings.
    Is there any other country that is so passive with its enemies?

  8. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Jack Collatin – she’s a columnist with the Record. Maybe she wrote it herself.

  9. Rev. Stuart Campbell
    Ignored
    says:

    “How are the Record’s sales doing these days?”

    Continuing to plummet. The gap between them and the Scottish Sun gets wider every month, and the Scottish Sun On Sunday is on the verge of overtaking the Sunday Mail as the #1 Sunday paper too.

  10. Geronimo
    Ignored
    says:

    The old socialist maxim Unity Is Strength ???
    Just keep carping away and destroying the Branch office.

  11. Croompenstein
    Ignored
    says:

    The only hope for Labour in Scotland is to go back to their founding principle of Home Rule for Scotland. Although this would play in to their divided and rule as many soft indy would be lured by home rule.

    I do hope they would never do this which makes it a straight fight between union and indy

  12. Arthur thomson
    Ignored
    says:

    Labour’s goal is to destroy the Scottish independence movement. They are desperate to get back to their natural role of owning the poor. They are the pits. Corbyn and Dugdale have this much in common and ultimately they will be publicly reconciled.

  13. JPJ2
    Ignored
    says:

    Torquil Crichton is a dyed in the wool Labourite who actively campaigned for his heavily defeated brother, who was a Labour candidate in the (former) Western Isles in recent times.

    He stopped thinking many years ago, and is an out and out Labour tribalist, totally immune to reason-my party, right or wrong, is his permanent default position.

  14. Jack Murphy
    Ignored
    says:

    The Daily Record as reported in Wikipedia.

    Political involvement:
    “…..Politically, the Daily Record supported the Conservative and Unionist Party until the 1964 general election, when it switched its allegiance to the Labour Party.
    The paper continues to support the Labour Party and has a close relationship with it, including donating £10,000 to the party in 2007.

    It opposes both the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Scottish independence. On the day of the 2007 Scottish Parliament election, it ran a front-page editorial attacking the SNP……”

    “…..For many years there has been a close relationship between Daily Record journalists and Labour Party politicians in Scotland, and a revolving door between newspaper staff and Labour advisers…….”

  15. harry mcaye
    Ignored
    says:

    Hard to fathom folk buying The Sun too. Did you notice Rev, their less than prominent feature on the back page yesterday of your beloved team’s success in Europe? The Record at least gave it the billing it deserved. Bought the Record for my elderly Dad today, (only the fifth or sixth I’ve bought him since the Vow) and there is a cracking letter from an indy supporter. I don’t know how common that is but maybe we should all think about writing in from time to time on the major indy issues of the day. It’s clearly not a waste of time.

  16. colin alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks Stu, hearing it from you, the deluded might finally realise even a half-decent SLab campaign could wipe out much of the SNPs seats.

    As people on here keep telling me: without the SNP any chances of independence will be gone.

    Thank goodness Kezia and her Red Tories sabotaged a Labour revival – this time. You can’t count on being so lucky next time.

    If the reasons for the huge drop in SNP support are not addressed then the SNP, indy and Scottish parliamentary sovereignty will be sunk.

    It also needs to be considered if indyref2 is the best way of achieving Scottish sovereignty when any indyref campaign would be led by a party that has struggled to maintain support and has committed glaring blunders.

    Blunders such as failing to educate themselves and voters on tactical voting in Scot Parliament and Council elections which have a proportional representation aspect – with the result that pro-indy candidates from other parties lost out to pro-Union ones. A blunder in voting WITH the Tories to cut tails off puppies.

    A blunder in making Brexit an issue of EU / Single Market membership rather than mainly an issue of there being no Scottish sovereignty within the Union.

    A blunder in an SNP MSP writing for the Daily Record and so giving it undeserved credibility.

    Demanding Scotland’s voice is listened to is a valid and good – but a powerless – approach as the Scot Govt is powerless.

    So, unless Scottish Parliamentary sovereignty is first established and that sovereignty is used to debate and decide on Scotland’s relationship with Europe, any demands by the Scot Govt are empty words that fall on deaf ears at WM.

  17. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Sounds frantic and desperate.

    Poor Kez. At least her dad’ll always have the kettle on.

    Even Ian Murray, who is a sleekit wee piece to boot, fancied going independent (from SLAB, not proper Independent)

    As for Jeremy Corbyn, there is no saviour of anything at all in him.

    There he was, heading for a peaceful retirement, and by dint of everyone else in the line up stepping backwards two paces while he wasn’t paying attention, the silly auld fool finds himself thrust into an uncomfortable limelight.

    Frankly, there was Jeremy was all limbered up for the alotment and next thing he knows, he’s expected to do some kind of work (so pinches his neighbour’s work and kids on it’s his own, thicko followers swallow that for a while!)

    AND THEN, poor Jerry is even expected to smile for the cameras (not keen) and chant at some festival. Poor bloke.

    NO wonder the Adoring Wreckord has to big him up.

    Shoot, that’s harsh coming from me. Some folk do manage to piss me off.

    Jings, peace and love folks. And yes, I’ll pray for the sorry lot of them.

  18. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    @Capella and @ Jack Collatin.

    Article written by BritNat Propagandist Torcuil Chriton

  19. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Ooop Gish Gallopers back on shit, sorry shift.

    Must be doing something right or they wouldn’t be here = )

  20. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Ooop Gish Gallopers back on shit, sorry shift.

    We must be doing something right or they wouldn’t be here = )

  21. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    Bet Trollin Alexander wishes he could manipulate as well as Professor Andre Spicer

    who managed to get most of the world’s media to report that his daughter had been fined for setting up a lemonade stall.

    Don’t tell anyone, but it was the father who got the fixed penalty fine. And whose deep connections with the media managed to get it overturned.

    http://archive.is/hhKBt

    Lot of work to do before you get to that standard, Trollin.

  22. David
    Ignored
    says:

    Tactical voting, that’s how idiots vote, if you vote for your political enemies, you get what you deserve… A BIG FAT NOTHING !

  23. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    @colin alexander says at 2:04 pm

    Please take your Scottish Parliamentary sovereignty stuff over to ‘Off Topic’ as previously requested by others.

    Thanks.

  24. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    Delusional doesn’t even come close to describing either Labour unionism in Scotland or the anti-Scottish Daily Wrecker.

    I believe both to be very close to extinction.

  25. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    It wasn’t a GE. It was a re-run of a Ref. The Unionists made it so. To try and leave Scotland worse off than before. Young people now know voting Labour brings in Tories in Scotland. A lesson well learnt. Labour supporters in Scotland were even told to vote Tory. It didn’t work. The SNP won. The disaster of Brexit. Labour/Tory. Will bring Independence in the EU as folk realise what they will lose which will cost more. The SNP, the people in Scotland will win again.

    Corbyn coming to Scotland will bring awkward questions for Labour. It will be low key. In fact will anyone notice. It will put the SNP vote up. Corbyn is a hypocrite who has helped the Tories in Westminster on every occasion. Labour could have brought them down. The LibDem support for the Tories caused Brexit. Enabled Cameron. The Westminster unionists are a bunch of dangerous hypocrites. ‘Psycho bastards’. Corbyn supported or abstain every Tory policy. The lying Vow etc. The lying Daily Record. Losing readership big time.

  26. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    I would agree that Kezia is a better leader than SLab deserve

    😉

    On the other hand I think their level of deserving is so low that it is off the scale.

  27. colin alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ghillie @mike cassidy

    Calling me silly names is just diverting things away from political discussion.

    If you won’t listen to me, then listen to Stu. The Red Tories in Labour were more focused on helping the Tories than winning seats for Labour.

    Labour could have won many more seats if they had had a pro-Labour / anti-Tory Govt campaign.

    Those seats would have been taken from the SNP.

    That’s not trolling. That’s a heads up. A warning that should be heeded.

    The SNP are having a review, hopefully to address these issues. If you support the SNP /indy/ Scottish sovereignty, let’s hear the positive things you have to say about improving them instead of just slagging people.

  28. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    I see the article was by Torcuil 🙂

    No further explanation necessary. Blairites vexing themselves that the left are a 5th column in the Labour Party. I said to Colin yesterday that the PLP would rally to the standard and fight off this incursion as they see it. I wasn’t expecting confirmation quite so soon.

  29. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Torquil Crichton and David Begg

    The journalists equivalent of the dodo and a norweigian blue but not necessarily in that order.

  30. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    Hamish100 says 2:52 pm

    “blue”??

    Thought Cleggy was Orange

    😉

  31. colin alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    @Jockanese Wind Talker

    That’s a reasonable and polite request, so I’ve no complaints about your comment.

    But the website rules say it’s an open forum and going off topic is acceptable, BUT only after the first dozen or so comments have been made on topic.

    In this topic, my first comment is largely on topic or relevant. Also, my comment is way down the list of comments, so where it does digress somewhat, it’s not a breach of the rules.

    Is there a dedicated part for off topic comments? Can you give me more information on this? As I am not aware of it.

  32. William Wallace
    Ignored
    says:

    @Colin Alexander 2:47pm.

    Every thread seems to be the Colin Alexander show these days.

    You have made many different statements on the main topics essentially saying the same thing. I’m not going to call you names or a tractor or anything but, do you think you could debate the particular points that your repeatedly raise in the off-topic section?

    Even I can get a bit rowdy and disruptive on here at times but, as a general rule I tend not to derail the main threads. I usually keep my shenanigans in the off topic arena and it might be a good idea if you do the same.

  33. William Wallace
    Ignored
    says:

    My post might have came too late 🙂

    wingsoverscotland.com/off-topic/

  34. colin alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    @HandandShrimp

    Spot on.

    Let’s none of us forget the Red Tories haven’t gone away. In Scotland they again campaigned to help the Tories and across the UK the Blairites were queuing up to undermine Mr Corbyn’s leadership.

    Now the GE is out of the way, the power struggle is back on.

    We’ve already seen Labour’s manifesto contradict Mr Corbyn’s much publicised comments regarding Scottish Parliamentary sovereignty.

    As Stu publicised on Wings, the Labour manifesto had almost nothing to say about Scotland.

    At times Mr Corbyn can come across as a nice guy. I don’t know him personally, maybe he is or maybe he isn’t. But we know behind him, with lots of power, are the Blairites who voted with the Tories to cut benefits for sick and disabled, voted for Trident renewal etc. These people are still there and any support for Labour is a support for these people with their Red Tory policies.

  35. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    colin alexander says at 3:12 pm

    I agree Colin that “it’s an open forum and going off topic is acceptable, BUT only after the first dozen or so comments have been made on topic.”

    But Scottish Parliamentary sovereignty is basically being mentioned on every thread now (and can be quite dry when you get down to the legal nuances).

    I believe OT would be a better place for this (unless it’s the subject of the main article associated with the thread).

    wingsoverscotland.com/off-topic/

    Not my Blog so feel free to ignore.

  36. colin alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    @William Wallace

    I didn’t even know there was an off-topic page.

    So, thanks for the link: wingsoverscotland.com/off-topic/

  37. William Wallace
    Ignored
    says:

    @Colin

    Yw! Look oot fir the drunken Dundonian though. 🙂

  38. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    Neatly done Rev.

  39. dakk
    Ignored
    says:

    Not sure what hubris is(could never be bothered looking it up as it sounds poncie).

    But watever it is,the Daily Record has it in spades.

  40. Iain
    Ignored
    says:

    I wonder why the record is loosing readers.
    It can’t be long till it closes the door.
    Can’t wait.

  41. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    SLabour at war?

    Who knew?

  42. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @dakk says: 22 July, 2017 at 3:56 pm@

    “Not sure what hubris is(could never be bothered looking it up as it sounds poncie).
    But watever it is,the Daily Record has it in spades.”

    Ach! Weel! dakk, ye micht be richt and it micht be poncie.

    Let me try to define it for you and I don’t need to look it up.

    It means being over proud of yourself or perhaps too full of self confidence for your own good.

    It is derived from the classic Greek tragedies where excessive pride toward, or defiance of the gods, would always lead to an nemesis.

    synonyms include:- arrogance, conceit, haughtiness, pride, self-importance, egotism, pomposity, superciliousness and superiority, or, to nail it in modern terms, big-headedness or cockiness.

    The antonyms would probably be:- humility or meekness.

    Sae noo ye ken. ;-))

  43. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    “…to nail it in modern terms, big-headedness or cockiness.”

    In Weegie terms: Gallus as fuck.

  44. Jack Murphy
    Ignored
    says:

    dakk said at 3:56 pm
    “Not sure what hubris is(could never be bothered looking it up as it sounds poncie).

    But whatever it is,the Daily Record has it in spades.”

    Let me do it for you dakk:

    “hubris.
    noun
    excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance.”

    Yep that’s the Daily Record right enough.
    Cheers. 🙂

  45. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Wish I knew what everybody in my party was thinking as well as the whole country I wouldn’t be sitting here typing this I’d be earning big bucks as Mystic Jim instead of being a retired entertainer and teacher of stuff

    See, people don’t take advice they accept it if they want it and only then if it’s delivered in the right spirit
    The more anyone pompously shouts ADVICE the less time folk have for it, especially in Scotland where even the Unionists know they’re mostly lied to, but it’s a habit they’re used to so have become broken apathists without the mental strength to question it

    And it’s why ultimately Labour will lose again and again, and why the SNP will win again and again

    Shouting and threatening wins you a couple of rounds until folk switch off from it and once again persuasion overcomes

  46. Cuilean
    Ignored
    says:

    the 83 yr old mater returned from a shopping expedition with a record.

    ‘I can’t believe you brought that filth into this house’ rose the howls of protest from all the guid fowk, ben the hoose, a bit like latter day Lannisters or Starks. We even have an EU banner fluttering fae the battlements (hinging fae the upstairs windaes).

    ‘Och, I wiz feelin’ nostalgic’ came the prosaic reply. ‘I only buy it once every ten years or so’.

  47. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T:

    Oh! Not again!

    Ochone! Ochone! When will Scotland’s bad luck change?

    Danish Company, Mearsk Oil, has just announce that it is, “on-track”, to deliver the first gas from a major North Sea field in 2019 as they completed foundation work on the development.

    The company has just finished installing the last of three jackets with an overall weight of 22,000 tonnes at the Culzean Field on Thursday. The output of oil equivalents is expected to settle down to a production of between 60,000 to 90,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

    Will this hellish curse of oil and gas that has bedevilled our old country for so long never end?

    Isn’t it great that we have the United Kingdom’s broad shoulders to bear the weight of this curse of Scotland that we Scots could never hope to manage to cope with if we were independent.

    They, Westminster, told us the oil and gas would all run out before 1970. Perhaps they were just being kind and trying to let us down lightly as we might otherwise have thrown in the towel if we had known the real truth back then.

  48. Andy-B
    Ignored
    says:

    And to that I say long may Dugdale remain as leader of the Scottish branch office of London Labour, she’s doing a fantastic job for us nationalists.

    As for the “Vow” shitrag the Record, it has brought to mind that I’m running low on toilet paper.

  49. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Why does an SNP MP (or MSP) give credibility to this anti-independence rag by writing for it?

    Any poster who criticises the likes of the Daily Record, Scotsman, The Herald, the Scottish Daily Mail and at the same time defends SNP politicians making money by writing in those rags is an utter hypocrite.

    Truth Always.

  50. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Dr Jim,

    “And it’s why ultimately Labour will lose again and again, and why the SNP will win again and again”

    The SNP is in great danger of losing in both the Westminster and Scottish elections.

    Admit it or not, the fall in SNP support from 50% to 37% is a major setback to the independence cause.

    Truth Always.

  51. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T

    Come IndyRef2 ScotGov must come out with not so much a ‘White Paper’ but a fully costed ‘Programme for Rebuilding Scotland after Independence’ – a Scotland-wide regeneration programme that cuts across the whole of Scottish society including Army, Navy, Air Force, nationalising train services, social housing, welfare and a thousand other things. (I think Common Weal might have done some work on this).

    The funds for the Rebuilding Scotland programme will be provided by the European Central Bank (or similar if the ScotGov can strike a good deal on interest rates etc).

    But the SotGov should get the programme fully costed and partners on-board RIGHT NOW. That way, when IndyRef2 day arrives, people can see that the programme for Indy has been fully thought through, is fully costed and affordable to the country.

    Go right over the heads of the EU BritNat Establishment. Let’s tell the people of Scotland what CAN be done and WILL be done with Indy. NOT what the BritNats haven’t done and WON’T do for us.

    Often if you want a job done properly it’s just best to roll up the sleeves and do it yourself.

    Come on Scotgov – get the FUNDING for the Rebuilding Scotland Programme in place NOW.

  52. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    Good article in The National by Elliot Bulmer setting out the case for a Scottish constitution. That is something we could all be involved in right now.
    Iceland produced theirs online so that everyone could participate.

    http://archive.li/UmZy8

  53. Richardinho
    Ignored
    says:

    The one thing that I can’t get past in this article is that the SNP lost 500,000 votes. A truly awful statistic. I really wish the SNP had fought the election on UDI as I had called for before the election. A majority of M.P.s was enough in the past as a justification of indy, why not now? The alternative is we tread water endlessly waiting for a referendum that will never come and end up sinking lower and lower.

  54. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Richardinho,

    “The one thing that I can’t get past in this article is that the SNP lost 500,000 votes. A truly awful statistic.”

    Awful indeed, yet many pompous clueless armchair pundits posting here are in denial.

    In my view, it is time the SNP puts independence above governing before it loses the momentum completely.

    Truth Always.

  55. remo
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T For Robert Peffers

    More on Scotland’s terrible oil (and gas) burden.

    I came across this a while ago but it has taken me this long to get really mad about it. It makes interesting reading.

    First gas from Cayley welcomed by Oil & Gas UK
    June 28, 2017
    The announcement today (June 28) from Repsol Sinopec that first gas has been delivered from the Cayley field has been welcomed by Oil & Gas UK.
    Deirdre Michie, Chief Executive of Oil & Gas UK, said: “This is the sixth major development to reach first production so far in 2017 and therefore another very welcome announcement, underlining our belief in the future of the North Sea and the resolve of operators to make the most of the opportunities it still offers.
    “This is a significant development for Repsol Sinopec and for the other fields in the Montrose Area that will also benefit from this investment and redevelopment strategy.
    “There are still billions of barrels of oil and gas in the basin and maximising economic recovery of those protects and sustains many thousands of UK jobs, helps deliver security of supply and significantly bolsters the UK economy.”

  56. Legerwood
    Ignored
    says:

    I don’t know if anyone has mentioned it yet but BBC News Scotland web site has the National displayed on the section about The Papers. Not been aware of them featuring the National before.

    You can see most of the headline on the front page ‘Scottish Labour helps Tories wi..’

  57. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Awful indeed, yet many pompous clueless armchair pundits posting here are in denial.

    Me you mean Rock:D

    If the “lost” SNP vote had actually voted SLab or Colonel Ruth, you’d have a point but they clearly just did’nt vote.

    Who can blame them really. It was pointless for Scots and a very wet Scottish polling day too.

    Say something SNP good, Rock?

    Say some Colonel Ruth bad things maybe?

    But that’s not how it works btl trolling though.

    Bolox always Rock.

  58. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Vote Labour and SSP or peoples republic of Scotchland then @Rock you know you want to, but complaining to me that the SNP aren’t good enough for you or they’ll do till the REAL party comes along wont make it so and I am not in the privileged position of creating the perfection of Socialist dream that’ll suit you, and even if I were I wouldn’t because Scotland ceased to be a Socialist country a long time ago and it’s not likely it will ever return to those days

    Scotland will most likely stay centrist which most people when you break it down pretty much are, which makes you in the minority, not that you’re not entitled to be if you want to but once again that’s why the SNP will continue to endure should they so choose

    Although God help me I don’t know why they bother at all when Scotlands own enemies are always to be found left and right among us, you know the ones, unless all 174 commandments are fulfilled wur no supportin ye

    No political party on the face of the earth will ever please everybody, but in the Independence case is not the aim to just please at least 51% and then try to accommodate the rest from there, after all every one can’t get every thing all of the time, except Tories if we let them, and look at them they’re getting behind and supporting possibly the worst administration to have ever existed since Churchill but in Scotland folk are having difficulty getting behind the only hope we’re ever going to have of extricating ourselves from this fetid stench ridden collection of Inglish Tory Bastirts intent on ripping the guts and finances out of Scotland and over what, something’s no perfect with the best political party we’ve ever had

    You don’t feel that’s a tad unreasonable?

  59. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    SLab never made Corbyn sense. Not so future Lord Ian Murray ended a pretty promising front bench career with horrible JC bad stuff.

    Ian Murray?Verified account
    @IanMurrayMP

    Often asked why I resigned from Shadow Cabinet. Ladies & Gentlemen I give u Jeremy Corbyn. He’s destroying the party that soo many need.
    8:43 AM – 11 Mar 2017

  60. TheItalianJob
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve worked in the Oil and Gas Industry for over 35 years and every country that has vast oil and gas reserves had benefitted. All countries that is except Scotland. Even the state of Alaska has been given oil revenues and benefitted from such as being part of the USA.

    See here why the UK needs our Oil and Gas.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2017-03-28/jim-rogers-asks-if-scotland-pushes-pound-to-0-80-video

  61. Robbo
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Peffers says:
    22 July, 2017 at 4:24 pm
    @dakk says: 22 July, 2017 at 3:56 pm@

    “Not sure what hubris is(could never be bothered looking it up as it sounds poncie).

    Poncie- Kind of sound like fluffy- The man skips around like wan and does absolutely feck all but lie lie lie. Detest the scroat.

  62. Bob p
    Ignored
    says:

    Richardinho 5.31pm. I think when the excrement from Brexit hits the fan. The SG should call a snap election on a democratic mandate for udi. No pi***ng about,no referendums, no time to give the ebc and the msm time to brainwash people 24/7 for months on end. I’m sick of all this sh**e now from these scum who rob and abuse us. It’s time to seize the day.Its time for independence.

  63. Socrates MacSporran
    Ignored
    says:

    Can we have a wee bit of calmness on here, as regards Indyref2?

    Nicola and the SG have their mandate to hold it – they can pick their moment between now and about 2020, or 2021. The Yoons can scream, stamp their feet and say: “No”, or “Now is not the time”, but, stop it they cannot.

    So, they and their media mates have to try everything they can to rock the boat, but, so long as the SG holds firm, they hold the aces.

    Right now, the UK Government is making mistake after mistake, the SG is quite right not to interrupt them.

    Holding Indyref2 before there is an agreement for the EU negotiators to refer back to their 27 individual governments would be a mistake. The Yoon media would simply tell lies and obfuscate.

    But, once the provisional agreement is known and referred back, some time after September next year – then, the truth will out, the Yoon media will be unable to tell lies and muddy the waters, and, when they see what a poor future awaits the UK outside the EU, an awful lot of previous NO voters will switch to YES and Scotland will be Independent.

    Like Mel Gibson in Braveheart, we should be saying: “Hold” and holding ready to strike at the right time, which is still more than a year away.

    Meanwhile, let’s enjoy the spectacle of the Tories and British Labour In Scotland making right erses of themselves.

  64. starlaw
    Ignored
    says:

    Socrates MacSporran 6;57

    Patience is not a virtue bestowed on us all.
    You are right. Its time to wait, not go rushing into a developing situation until the way is clear and facts are known.
    Its time to hold, play the little duck on the millpond, hold and wait.

  65. One_Scot
    Ignored
    says:

    Here is my thought of the day, well to be honest, it has been my thought for some time now.

    The two biggest stumbling blocks preventing Scotland becoming Independent are, Reporting Scotland and STV News. They have unrivalled access to all homes in Scotland, and they know how to manipulated news for their own agenda, that is, keeping Scotland under Westminster control.

    Heck, they even now know how to educate unionist voters to impact on the SNP vote, and that they can get away with it and no one will stop them. And if you think they have not learnt this fact, and that they will not use it again for future elections, you are sadly mistaken.

    Mark my words, unless the SNP and the Independence movement can neutralise these two propaganda unionist outlets, Scotland becoming Independent is a long long time away.

  66. Phronesis
    Ignored
    says:

    Divorce can often be a messy process – one party stalling, dragging the other party through the courts, disputing the fair division of assets and refusing to sign the papers.
    A learned psychological tactic that often reveals a deep rooted anxiety of separation and insecure attachment disorder particularly when the relationship has been so imbalanced and controlling, an unequal partnership that is unhealthy for both parties.
    Thankfully with sensible, pragmatic measures and a gritty determination to see the process through to the end the reality sets in that no matter the extent of posturing and threats, the insults and underhand tactics, the brow beaten spouse will stand up on strong legs and walk away – and won’t look back.

  67. sassenach
    Ignored
    says:

    One_Scot says “Mark my words, unless the SNP and the Independence movement can neutralise these two propaganda unionist outlets, Scotland becoming Independent is a long long time away.”

    I find myself agreeing with those sentiments. I am a long-time supporter, and member, of the SNP (and admire Nicola in particular – we are so lucky to have her) and still think there is a plan being hatched that will take us to independence. But the BBC in Scotland is the ‘big beast’, they have 24/7 access to our homes, and as One_Scot says they know how to use it to their own (Unionist) advantage.

    How we can ever overcome them when they are part of the British Establishment (and THEY know how to control ‘natives’, having done it for generations!), I don’t know – but I think we’d better be concentrating on it forthwith.

  68. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    I know, I know, three times I know, that the Brexit deal has to be known before the referendum is held, but don’t you see how flat and one dimensional that strategy is?

    What if May’s government collapses and there is an interim government seeks a mandate to halt Brexit? Where does that leave ScotRef?

    What if Europe agrees to extend the Article 50 deadline? Where does that leave ScotRef?

    Which criteria in the Brexit settlement are we specifically waiting to learn? What are our trigger issues? What are our lines in the sand beyond which we will not compromise?

    I accept wholeheartedly we cannot make a final decision until we know the Brexit deal, but I do not subscribe to the view that we cannot decide anything until we know the Brexit deal.

    People are mighty judgemental about the issue of sovereignty, but for the very life of me, I cannot perceive any angle or perspective where the hand of the Scottish Government would be weakened in any way by adopting a much grim and grittier attitude towards Scottish sovereignty. Quite the reverse is true. Sovereignty used correctly, understood and judiciously implemented would empower every word which Nicola Sturgeon spoke.

    https://www.snp.org/constitution

    I know before I post the above link that the usual suspects will whine about “SNPbad” and me getting off my arse and do something, but please, look at the SNP’s web page about our Constitution. Read it.

    And while you’re reading it, remember that we have 700 years of de facto written constitution with a holy trinity of founding principles; between the UNESCO Memory of the World 1320 Declaration of Arbroath recognising our popular sovereignty, the 1328 Treaty of Edinburgh/Northampton where the English Sovereign monarch recognised the realm of Scotland in perpetuity, and the 1328 Papal recognition of Scotland as a Sovereign Nation. Yet we dismiss it all, on the back of a poxy vote which is rigged by a bent UK, and distorted beyond measure by the UK’s state monopoly on broadcast propaganda?

    The constitutional building blocks are not irrelevant. It is not archaic curiosity. It is the very foundation upon which the Nation of Scotland is built. It is factual. It is terrestrial. It is real. Patriots down the ages have met their deaths defending it. The documents can be seen and read, and cross referenced through our tumultuous history, and are always and invariably faithful to the truth.

    Please, before whining about being negative about the SNP or stabbing poor wee Nicola in the back, please explain to me how the SNP’s hand in any of these constitutional issues is in anyway weakened or undermined by paying due and appropriate regard to these preambles of sovereignty?

    To my eye and unending frustration, it reads like there is a disturbing lack of understanding and focus about these constitutional non-variables, and all efforts seem focussed upon constructing our Nation based upon new and ephemeral democratic agreements struck when the correct planets are in alignment, rather than resurrecting the ancient and noble Nation of Scotland which wrote its own unalterable contitutional rule book 700 years ago and filled it with such uncanny foresight, which is so canny and apt today that it should properly be giving us all goosebumps.

    It’s the noble, grandaddy Nation of old Scotland which I want to set free, and give back its liberty, dignity, and long overdue just respects. I don’t want a trashy Sevco Scotland that’s as random, abstract and chaotic as its damned parliament building.

    If we proceed down this path and get ourselves a referendum, and godwilling win it, if we haven’t paid due regard to our sovereignty, then what lever or mechanism will free us from a Westminster government which refuses to recognise Scotland’s sovereignty which we don’t even recognise ourselves?

  69. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    This is good for slotting in Scots ref2 timeline.

    Should be interesting watching Project Fear 2, directed by a big fat unemployable slob, try to make Scotland’s EU membership look terrifying, without England to hold Scots little wee handies.

    Imagine a world with no tory arsehole having any say whatsoever in nation state Scotland’s EU membership and CONSTITUTIONAL future, that CONSTITUTION’s in there for old Colin A and his buddie Rock.

    http://www.dw.com/en/talk-in-the-uk-is-misleading-ex-ecj-judge/a-39768691

  70. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Christ picture Brexit England’s timeline, 2027, England holds referendum to rejoin the EU, votes YES. EU waits for Scotland to ratify:D

  71. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Universal Suffrage 1928. Scottish Parliament 2000. SNP in majority power just over 5 years. In coalition 10 years+ IndyRef 2014. Mandate for another IndyRef within two years. Independence in the EU is achievable soon. If the majority vote for it because if Brexit. Thanks to the SNP.

  72. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks (9.25) –

    Hear hear, and slainte.

    I’m no historian, and much of what I currently ‘know’ about Scottish history has been gleaned from links found right here.

    That doesn’t explain why I’ve always been a ‘nationalist’. For as long as I can remember, it just seemed to make sense and I’ve encountered nothing in the past four decades to sway me. If anything, the conviction is greater now than it ever was.

    As a Scot – a Scot who was raised in a ‘Catholic’ family – I’ve always felt like an outsider and, to be frank, I’m fucking sick of it.

    This is ‘my’ country, same way that Ireland ‘belonged’ to the zany dude in Braveheart. Okay, it’s a cheesy comparison, but the sentiment is the same – this nation is ‘mine’ and I don’t, can’t and won’t ever belong anywhere else. I really don’t want to spend whatever years I have left feeling like a second-class citizen in my own country.

  73. Roughian
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve had too much red wine tonight and have decided to tell all unionists to fuck off.

  74. Croompenstein
    Ignored
    says:

    @Roughian

    I’ve had far too much spritzers, I’m listening to The Proclaimers Throw the R Away and have decided to tell all unionists to take a long walk off a short pier or fuck right off.. whatever. 😀

  75. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    The SNP was elected on a manifesto pledge to hold a referendum in the event of a material change in circumstance. BREXIT is one example, but not the only example.

    If Theresa May is treating Scotland like a second class region by, for example, refusing to meet the First Minister on an equal basis, as co-partner in a union of two countries, that is also a material change.

    There could be others. So Nicola may decide to put the question sooner than expected.

  76. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @sassenach says: 22 July, 2017 at 8:36 pm:

    ” … But the BBC in Scotland is the ‘big beast’, they have 24/7 access to our homes”

    What a weak and watery statement that is. They do not have 24/7 access to my home, sassenach.

    That’s because I don’t let them. You see I control the on/off switches on all receivers both on-line and over the airwaves. I also control the channel selectors and the tuning knobs/switches of on-line stuff.

    Thing is I seem to be at least as well informed as many and better informed than most.

  77. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    @heedtracker says at 9:49 pm

    “EU waits for Scotland to ratify”

    Love it.

    🙂

  78. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve had far too much crystal-meth this evening and have been busily – nay methodically – telling Tories here, there and everywhere to go and get themselves permanently and painfully fucked.

    No, wait, actually come to think of it, I haven’t had any crystal meth at all…

    🙁

  79. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Interesting point Capella!

  80. ben madigan
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T to a certain extent folks –
    PM may’s alleged refusal to speak to our first minister
    inspired me to search out these 2 songs, dating back to the Battle of Culloden

    Hope everyone enjoys them and takes heart from them. Even in our darkest days we were able to produce words and music like this

    https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2017/07/22/brexit-culloden-scotland-and-ireland/

  81. scottieDog
    Ignored
    says:

    Corbyn’s priority is to keep scotland in the uk. His policies rely on scotland’s resources.
    The economy IS energy; civilisation is energy.
    Money is simply electronic double entry book keeping, whether by the central bank, treasury or commercial bank.

    Any country can markup an account in its currency but you can’t magic up resources. Money is the key to moving thesee resources around. That’s it really.

    Corbyn needs scotland. He needs our oil, our gas and the massive renewable energy potential we have.
    Without this he has to follow the U.S on more grand tours to pilfer the resources of vulnerable nations.

  82. boris
    Ignored
    says:

    Barnett Formula To Be Abandoned After Brexit – Little Englander Politicians in Scotland Ecstatic At the News

  83. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Without this he has to follow the U.S on more grand tours to pilfer the resources of vulnerable nations.

    PM JC will have to start fracking the life of Englandshire. And shire tories really weally wuv fracking.

  84. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    The Barnett formula will be abandoned after Brexit because Scotland will be Independent in the EU. The Barnett Formula was designed to secretly and illegally take Scottish resources. That will not happen any more. Brexit in Scotland will not happen.

  85. ben madigan
    Ignored
    says:

    @ ian Brotherhood who wrote “That doesn’t explain why I’ve always been a ‘nationalist’. For as long as I can remember, it just seemed to make sense and I’ve encountered nothing in the past four decades to sway me. If anything, the conviction is greater now than it ever was”.

    maybe if you listen to the two songs I posted in https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2017/07/22/brexit-culloden-scotland-and-ireland/
    they will help you get a handle on what’s driving your “nationalist” convictions.
    They show us who our ancestors were and who we come from.

    Personally speaking if you substitute “Republican” in your paragraph instead of “Nationalist” you describe my own feelings.

    i don’t know why i have always been convinced a republican form of government is infinitely better than a monarchy. I mean, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind about this and there never has been all my life.

    As i may have mentioned before I only came to support scottish independence after watching the reconvening of the scottish parliament on TV.

    The hairs literally rose on the back of my neck as I realized “we’re back and this time we’re not going to stop”
    The thought just popped into my mind.

    As a rational person by inclination and training I find it impossible to explain, particularly as I was not in any way interested in the ins and outs of scottish independence at the time.

    Maybe some atavistic race memory (if such a thing exists?) has been re-awakened in both of us by events over our lifetimes?

  86. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    scottieDog at 11.58

    Good post. To the point

  87. Artyhetty
    Ignored
    says:

    re;Heedtracker@12.10am

    Ohhhhohh Corbiinn. Yep, he knows which side of his Inglish bread is buttered, and like the tories his best pals he would throw a few crumbs to them up north, to stop them getting all uppity.

    As for Scotland, the bread, the butter and the jam for inglind, Jezza wants to tell us he loves us, or something.

    Some great comments tonight on Wings, and I am sober, but I will tell any tory and pretendy labour gits to gtf, anytime. Gits, who would see Scotland druven back to the freaking dark ages by their britnat masters, and still blame the SNP. No thanks.

  88. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ian B 10.04pm

    Pretty much same here Ian. Never been into party politics. Didn’t know what being a nationalist meant. (Couldn’t have cared less upon a time either) The history bit came gradually as I walked along the road kinda thing.

    Self determination though? The right and the freedom to choose? Simply treating folk like decent human beings instead of disposable assets? Always just seemed like a no brainer to me. Those things shouldn’t require political allegiance or political process. You don’t require a label, ‘official’ definitions or permission of a policy wonk to give a shit about another person’s plight. To feel empathy or sympathy.

    You listen to politicians or their meeja though? (sigh) Who needs to form an opinion when you can have one made for you?

    Yeah, you can’t be this that or next damn thing unless you wear a rosette, think this way, vote that way… blah, blah, blah. They convinced the population that politics shaped order and society, rather than politics itself reflecting and being shaped by the needs of the population. The public servant (and that goes beyond the political spectrum to any who exercise authority or power), wanted to become the master and that just never sat well wi’ me. An establishment and a political class setting up a cosy little closed shop with one goal in mind.

    The ultimate expression of this twisted philosophy? Well, we’re living in it.

    Politics, government is easy. Put food on our table is about the sum and substance of it. The deal is simplicity itself. People have needs and aspirations. They administer our affairs, care for us when we become infirm or fall on hardship. They’re meant to manage the store, balance the books and keep us safe from harm. Treat us with respect and dignity. We then pay the bills, including their wages.

    Seems like a good deal, right up until those we charge with that task decide to turn responsibility and duty of care into something else entirely. A nice little earner. That closed shop for those and such as those. Y’know… the selfish and self obsessed.

    For me it’s always been about the right to choose, the freedom to choose and returning the service bit to ‘public servant’.

  89. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    Glasgow MP lodges bill to stop unpaid trial shifts in hospitality industry
    http://archive.is/uIEf2

    https://itisintruthnotforglory.wordpress.com/2017/07/22/making-salt/

    https://www.autonomyscotland.org/silence-speaks-louder-than-words/

    Smoke and Mirrors of a Brexit Transition Deal: 10 Key Questions
    https://www.scer.scot/database/ident-3043

  90. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    Nana, thank you for the links – you realise you will be stuck giving links from now until Independence Day?

    I see Mariella Frostrup hs been reduced to ‘agony aunt ‘ in the Guardian – she is advising a Muslim man on marriage – how the mighty have fallen.

  91. sassenach
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert Peffers says, 11-21pm

    “@sassenach says: 22 July, 2017 at 8:36 pm:

    ” … But the BBC in Scotland is the ‘big beast’, they have 24/7 access to our homes”

    What a weak and watery statement that is. They do not have 24/7 access to my home, sassenach.”

    I have to say, I took your criticism of my statement as being ‘weak and watery’ with some displeasure. Previously I have always held you in high regard and have learned much from your previous posts on here, but to get such a statement from you about what is patently true is somewhat galling.

    BBC Scotland may not pervade YOUR home, but, by God, they do the vast number of others – by their TV, radio and websites – and most people still accept them (otherwise, we would be independent already??).

    As you then say, YOU may well be better informed than most, but you are but one vote out of millions. The BBC know exactly what they are doing.

  92. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @heedtracker says: 22 July, 2017 at 6:05 pm:

    IanMurrayMP

    “Often asked why I resigned from Shadow Cabinet. Ladies & Gentlemen I give u Jeremy Corbyn. He’s destroying the party that soo many need.”

    Now it may be that I’m just a cynical old fool but I read the Ian Murray resignation as the Murray numptie mis-reading the actual SLab internal strife situation at that particular time.

    It may have looked to Murray that the leader elected by the grass root party members was about to be defeated by the Parliamentary Labour Party and he thought to set himself up as a likely candidate for the Labour Party Leadership.

    There is absolutely no doubt the present situation is a great divide exists between the Red Tory PLP and the more left wing grassroots Labour Party membership who actually elected Corbyn against the advice of the PLP.

    Labour are now a bit like a rudderless ship, full steam ahead, charted to sail for Westminster Government but, being rudderless, heading instead for a certain shipwreck on the rocky shores of UKexit and Indyref2.

  93. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Happy Globalisation Day: http://wp.me/p4fd9j-hWH

  94. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    These politicians will start getting sued. Taken to Court for their lies.

    Not before time. Many of the rest of them should be in the dock. For killing and maiming vulnerable people and starving people to death. They are complete lying hypocrites. Westminster unionists hypocrites ruining the world economy. If more of them end up in the dock. It will be a deterrent.

  95. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    Good morning Dorothy. Roll on independence, can’t come soon enough. My patience is wearing thin and I just wish I was as thin as my patience, lol

  96. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    The BBC are losing. Losing listeners/viewers. Losing money and losing employees. Now being challenged in the Courts for their duplicity and breaking the Law. Not before time. £3.7Billion for that nonsense. They should hold their head in shame. Less than 1 in 5 viewers in Scotland. For that nonsense. The prima donnas have been outed. Now being cut down to size. Not worth it. Still trying to hide the tax evaded accounts. They will be outed and sued. Hiding Westminster criminality under the Official Secrets Act.

    Never ending repeats of cooking and house nonsense. Beamed to people who can’t afford to eat, afford a house and pay the bills. Totally cynical and out of touch. Just like their Westminster unionist masters. They would deny the truth in every way possible.

  97. PacMan
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s as plain as the nose on your face that in voting for Labour in Scotland, you are letting the Tories in. The simple fact of not wanting a Tory MP elected is to vote for the SNP. This is even more essential in these days where hung parliaments are becoming the norm.

    It is a simple choice for Labour supporters and/or those who oppose the Tories but don’t want independence, vote for SNP at the Gernal election, vote for your party at other elections and vote No at any future indyref.

  98. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Hope the weather improves where I am!

    The Sunday Papers — Princess Diana ?.giv us a break
    3rd gender recognition
    Dementia – fair enough. People living longer the main cause. What’s the alternative.
    Katy price?.. Giv us another back
    Scot shot in Phillipines

    BBC women wanting equal pay. – agree
    Any mention over the fact that the pay is too much. Inequality is with the nurses, the cleaners, the bus drivers, the shop assistants, the hotel staff…..

    Inequality is with those earning £200000 a year.

  99. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @sassenach says: 23 July, 2017 at 8:09 am:

    “BBC Scotland may not pervade YOUR home, but, by God, they do the vast number of others – by their TV, radio and websites – and most people still accept them (otherwise, we would be independent already??).”

    Quite frankly, sassenach, I don’t give a damn if you are offended by what I posted. I’ve just finished a rescan through this particular topic on Wings. As usual it wanders off and on topic as is normal with the overall themes of politics and on Scottish independence in particular. It is, after all a rather complex subject and all intertwined.

    Several things were immediately apparent and one such was the several references in the thread to the Barnett Formula. Thing is the Barnett Formula isn’t really so complex that it cannot be well understood by any person in the street but seems to fly over the heads of Joe & Josephine Public almost as much as it flies over the heads of the vast majority of elected to government people. Yet here it is yet again on Wings showing how poorly it is understood.

    Likewise the MSM & Broadcaster’s place in the bigger scheme of things. Wings has descended into a daily tirade of SNP baad surpassing even the output of the usual, anti-Scottish, Scottish media.

    The point being that Scottish independence supporters have something, that actually costs nothing, that can overcome those who would talk, write and do Scotland down.

    It is called FREE WILL.

    We can choose to read the Dead Tree Press or we can choose NOT to read the Dead Tree Press. They need us but we do not need them.

    We can choose to listen to Radio Jockland or we can choose NOT to listen to it. They need us but we do not need them.

    Likewise with the Westminster owned TV channels- they need us but we do not need them.

    And finally there is the anti-Indy commenters on Wings- They need us but we do not need them. We only need engage with them until their credentials are well established then we can safely ignore them and, without the oxygen of attention, they will go elsewhere in order to breath.

    In all cases we hold the power to not just turn down the volume control but to switch off the receivers. So here’s the point – why are you attempting to tell me I’m wrong but still not using your own free will to switch off the propaganda?

    Which is exactly what the meaning of the people’s sovereignty boils down to. It is the people’s exercising of their sovereignty that will bring about Scottish independence.

    It is not what the SNP do or do not do. It is not what Nicola Sturgeon does or does not do. Westminster does not deprive Scottish independence nor will the SNP reclaim it.

    Only the sovereign free will of the people of Scotland can allow Westminster to rule them and only the free will of the people can regain Scotland’s independence. Yet those people of Scotland cannot even stop listening to the BBC, watching the TV or reading the dead tree press.

    Good grief, many Wingers cannot even stop reading and interacting with well known anti-independence activists right here on Wings.

  100. sassenach
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Peffers @ 9-28am

    “Quite frankly, sassenach, I don’t give a damn if you are offended by what I posted.”

    I’m sure you are not, Robert, and , quite frankly, I now care even less about your views, which (let’s face it) seem to be becoming more self-centred by the day – everybody is wrong but you, I presume is your mantra.

    So be it.

  101. scottieDog
    Ignored
    says:

    Meant to ask whos the WOS flag is as you drive into anster?
    Put a smile on my face on a rainy Saturday..

  102. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Set up a Parliament in Scotland to make the Scots feel they’re somehow involved in decisions until those decisions become unpalatable for Inglands welfare then undermine it using Arse over elbow logic that somehow the point of setting up that Parliament really wasn’t to make decisions that actually apply to anything at all but to undermine whichever party is opposed to Ingland making bad decisions

    And the problem with that plan is a lot of folk in Scotland aren’t stupid and Inglind has been “Funoot” as they say

    Labour Unionists who think they’re happy with Scotlands Parliament being undermined should reflect on the absolute and indisputable fact it’s not just about the SNP being short changed it’s all of us irrespective of political preference

    The Tories in charge will crush Scotland to Inglinds benefit, Labour in charge will do exactly the same thing
    because in the end it’s not about us here in little old Jockland, it’s about what they consider the important bit with the most votes, and that’s Inglind

    Remember we’re only called Scottish because they allow it to make us feel better (Let the buggers think they’ve an identity) it’s politically expedient

    Rule Brittania Brittania waves the rules

  103. gus1940
    Ignored
    says:

    Our wonderful colonialist media are starting to hype up Jeremy Corbyn’s forthcoming Grand Tour of Scotland purported to be covering SNP seats alleged to be under threat from Labour in any future GE.

    There is little doubt that very second of said tour will be shouted from the rooftops by the media fan club in their own inimitable disregard for honest reporting.

    The answer is for Nicola to embark in parallel on a tour of the constituencies lost by The SNP in the recent GE.

    Naturally media coverage of Nicola’s tour will be of the same megaphone variety – NOT and will be a perfect illustration in contrast of the bias in our media.

  104. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    . Wings has descended into a daily tirade of SNP baad surpassing even the output of the usual, anti-Scottish, Scottish media.

    Its been the intention of dudes like Rock for ages, stop chatting about Scotland, socio economics of England’s domination, endless UKOK propaganda all around us, potential an d possibilities of Scotland’s fledgling democracy, that will be destroyed and so on.

    Maybe we should take it as a compliment Robert.

    Another day of The Guardian despises Scottish democracy Kevin Mack style.

    http://archive.is/prTtQ

    When will the SNP tackle Scotland’s shaming poverty?
    Kevin McKenna

    Other side of this is, how can a country like Scotland, unspeakably rich in natural energy alone, have these levels of poverty and inequality, where has the wealth gone, why has industrial potential of Scotland been trashed, is a 10 hour day call centre minimum wage job flogging Sainsbury’s pet insurance, actually a better job that a Norwegian north sea oil platform fabrication craftsperson?

    Fair enough stinky old Graun has just stopped reporting anything Scotland, except SNP bad, red/blue tory good, but its a couple of years since they won their shitting little anti independence campaign, and they’re still pumping out this Guardian style rule Britannia stuff… that’s a GOOD sign.

  105. Robert Kerr
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks Nana for the links.

    I particularly appreciated a new blog for me and recommend all WoSers to read…

    https://thebutterflyrebellion.scot.

    This is very good. An affront to Scotland and to us all.

  106. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    Nana, we wish for the same things most fervently – with regard the physically thin , I have given up!

  107. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    Corbyn is riding two horses. He wants to be right on and motivate the young but he is about as pro Brexit as Nigel Farage.

    These two horses will part company and will do so in the not too distant future.

  108. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Guardian readers are thin in the ground. A few thousand? Blogs get more readership than MSM. The internet does their jobs. Going down the pan.

  109. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Nana – the Opendemocracy article investigates the dark money links to Andrea Leadsom. A related article looks at the dark money funding the Tory surge in Scotland:

    https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/brexitinc/adam-ramsay-peter-geoghegan/dark-money-driving-scottish-tory-surge

    More light needs to be shone on what looks like corrupt political practices. Adam Ramsay and Peter Geoghegan deserve our support. Thx for links.

  110. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    Nana – your back, missed you. Take it easy now and thanks for the links.

  111. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    The SNP are tackling poverty. £100million a year to mitigate Westminster welfare cuts. The bedroom tax, social care, no student fees, funding for students, travel passes. Increased funding for SNHS/Education etc. 100,000 apprenticeships. Low unemployment, high investment, building bridges, schools, railway, roads, and new affordable houses. Minimum pricing coming soon?

    Westminster unionists hold Scotland back. 40% tax on the Oil sector since Jan 2016. Losing Scotland thousands of jobs and revenues. Scotland paying loan repayments on money not borrowed or spent in Scotland. Hinkley Point, HS2, Trident and Heathrow a total waste of public money. Losing £4Billion? in Oil & Gas revenues. Losing EU renewable grants and CAP payments because of Westminster unionist bad indecision. Tax evasion £3? Whisky company pay no tax on vast profits made from Scotland resources. Water and barley etc. £1Billion lost a year on no minimum pricing – £4Billion+ With higher costs for public services social care etc.

    Some ‘journalist’s’ should do more research. Stop telling lies. Falling readership and revenues. Doing thenselves out of a job. Ruining their own industry. In collosal debt.

  112. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m amused today to read that Unionists think it’s OK for anybody in the entire world to comment and pass judgement on Scotlands constitutional affairs but definitely not Stu Campbell of Wings because he lives in Bath and therefore none of his business

    See that’s worse than waving the rules, that’s positively abandoning any semblance of normal human reason and getting down to the real nitty gritty of (We just hate you coz)

  113. John H.
    Ignored
    says:

    Unusually for me these days I watched ten minutes of the Andrew Marr Show this morning. I might as well not have bothered. Panellists reading the newspaper headlines were Anna Soubry, Gisela Stuart, and Toby Young. Special guest Lord Coe.

    It could have been easily mistaken for a Tory Party get together. Led by Soubry, it was all praise for Ruth Davidson, a wonderful woman, future tory leader etc. I turned off. On the bit I heard there was no mention of how Davidson achieved her success in the G.E. Using the O.O. and dividing Scots against each other, aided by Kezia Dugdale too, the Labour leader in Scotland.

    No mention of the cost to Scottish society of opening old sectarian wounds. The main thing is that she won some seats in Scotland for the tories and saved Theresa May’s skin, for a while at least. Just for good measure she also gave the SNP a bit of a kicking. What a woman!

  114. Legerwood
    Ignored
    says:

    heedtracker @ 10.25am

    Just read the McKenna article and commented on it at length listing as many of the SG policies that I could remember that give the lie to the premise of his article.

    He also had an article in the Guardian yesterday about the apparent gangland war in Glasgow at the moment. No comments allowed which is always illuminating in itself because it is an indication that the Guardian know it can be taken to bits by anyone with half a brain. It is happening a lot with most of their Scotland related stories unless they are on the subjects of shortbread and Heather.

  115. Graf Midgehunter
    Ignored
    says:

    From one of Nana’s links this morning:

    “Such a brazen effort to downgrade our First Minister’s relationship with the British state further implies a more comprehensive assault on devolution itself. In fact the groundwork for this siege has already been laid in the draft of the so-called Great Repeal bill. It is the intention of the British government to transfer or repatriate powers from the European Union’s acquis communautaire into UK law by mediaeval fiat – that is the “Henry VIII clauses” or the 1539 Statute of Proclamations granting the government the unlimited and unquestionable right to legislate by dictatorial decree – thus by-passing Scotland as it claims all these powers for London.”

    https://thebutterflyrebellion.scot/2017/07/22/this-affront-to-scotland/ – brilliant post 🙂

    “dictatorial decree” – in other words by the use of a decree in the Kingdom of England, bypassing English law, at a time nearly 200 years before entering onto a “Partnership” with, at that time, independent Kingdom of Scotland.

    Scotland which had and still has an independent legal system.

    So by what Right does it allow the UK PM to impose a Repeal Bill on Scotland, effecting serious devolutionary consequences on our Holyrood Parliament?

    Another reason for NS to VETO any moves by May to undermine Scottish Sovereignty and another to stand up and declare, loud and clear, what Scottish Sovereignty is and means to the Scottish people.

  116. admiral
    Ignored
    says:

    I used to comment on The Guardian, but have now stopped. Too
    many Little Englanders and the (wilfully) ignorant and misinformed.

    The retort to all the “poor, wee Scotland” rubbish is to point out that their criticisms are a massive indictment of the criminal incompetence and negligence and fiscal and economic mismanagement of Scotland as a result of 310 years of “Union” and nothing at all to do with the Scottish Parliament. As well as point out that ALL the major levers of social and economic power are firmly and deliberately kept under the control of the Westminster Parliament and the UK Government.

  117. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    @Nana

    Good to see you back Nana.
    Been missing all those wonderful links lately.

    Take care. 🙂

  118. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Legerwood says:
    23 July, 2017 at 11:39 am
    heedtracker @ 10.25am

    “Let Glasgow Flourish”

    Think I scoped you Graun btl. Nice workLD

    Tis a horrible yoon history, the great catastrophic collapse of the 2nd Empire city. Especially and even loosely considering the staggering oil and gas riches, struck in “British” waters barely 40 years ago.

    1st Empire city London’s boomed with EU membership and not Scots oil and gas revenue. Glasgow and Scotland, sat and watched, as London, England, City, service and public sector middle and upper classes get rich beyond their wildest avarice.

    Ofcourse it makes absolute tory sense, red and blue, to funnel great NOT Scots energy wealth into the heart of England. Its what’s its all about, UKOK yoon culture is immensely proud of it, because when you make your base rich, they vote for you.

    Energy rich Scotland could easily be the next nation state member of the European Union, the world’s richest and most powerful economic bloc, what our imperial masters have just waltzed out of, because as far as their bizarre Graun style liggers are concerned, we’re all going together and its always SNP bad, in the terrible terrible Scotland region of greater England, that no longer exists, really.

    “Let Scotland Flourish”

  119. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Don’t comment on any of them. They are using these articles to try and put up clicks for advertising revenues. To keep them going. It’s not working. They deleted and banned etc to ruin their own websites. Wing’s is for Independence supporters. That is why it is so successful. The rest of them, except the National (increasing – comment on there), are losing readership faster than a sieve loses water. The internet does their ‘job’ for free.

  120. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    Wee Ginger Dug now over the line in his crowd funder. But let’s keep it going folks. Every little helps and we need the Dug to keep biting and Paul to keep writing. Plenty of time left. Spare what you can:

    http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/wee-ginger-crowdfunder-independent-blog#/

  121. Valerie
    Ignored
    says:

    Handandshrimp @ 11.07

    It’s quite unbelievable, the Corbyn facade. Pete Wishart has tweeted that Corbyn says out of single market, so it’s hard Tory Brexit for Labour.

    Her Majesty’s supine Opposition, never knowingly fulfilling the role. Pathetic.

    As an aside, Netflix threw up the original BBC House of Cards featuring Ian Richardson, as Francis Urqhuart. I find it fascinating to watch, as the issues have changed so little.

    It’s all frightfully upper class Tory in behaviour and style, but exposing the quite disgusting behaviour which to this day prevails.

  122. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @ben madigan (12.45) & Macart (5.14) –

    Cheers for responses.

    I’m probably typical of many indy supporters – ‘nationalist, ‘republican’, ‘socialist’, whatever labels they choose, or have thrust upon them – who simply cannot be arsed with all the constitutional wrangling. Others are happy to busy themselves with such stuff. For many of us, it has to be brought back to the fundamentals again and again so that we don’t lose sight of what this movement is all about and become disheartened.

    For me, it’s a simple question of identity. I refuse to have it defined for me by Tories, especially WM Tories who regard me and my kin as nothing more than irksome staff who happen to live in their northern ‘piece of elbow room’.

  123. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert, you are welcome.

    Dorothy never give up, there’s always hope and wishful thinking!

    Capella, I spotted something re this dark money carry on in relation to Australian elections.

    This is an article from February, the one I spotted was more recent, can’t find it.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-01/political-donations-likened-to-money-laundering/8227952

    @Daisy, thank you. We have to get Smallaxe back soon as he’s better.

    I wonder who actually wrote this article, somehow I doubt it’s by Davidson. Shovelling an awful lot of capitalist shite and there’s even a pic of said activity.

    Sorry I can not get this to archive and sorry too as it’s a very long read.
    https://unherd.com/2017/07/ctrl-alt-del-conservatives-must-reboot-capitalism/

  124. Marker Post
    Ignored
    says:

    For those (like me) who have absolutely no idea what is really happening in the Brexit negotiations, the official European Commission website is pretty enlightening. It’s as if Michel Barnier is the professor, and David Davis is the first-year student having his homework reviewed.

    http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-17-2108_en.htm

    “On Ireland, we had a first discussion on the impact of Brexit on two key subjects: the Good Friday Agreement and the Common Travel Area.

    We agree that the important issue of the Good Friday Agreement, in all its dimensions, requires more detailed discussions. In particular, more work needs to be done to protect North-South cooperation between Ireland and Northern Ireland. We need to better understand how the UK intends on ensuring the continuation of this cooperation after Brexit.

    We also agreed that the UK should clarify in the next session how it intends on maintaining the Common Travel Area after leaving the EU.”

    And Davis is the one being touted by the Guardian as the most popular successor to Theresa May, with Boris Johnson second, and even Rees-Mogg in the running too. God help us all.

  125. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Peffers @9:28am

    Robert on some issues there couldn’t be a cigarette paper between us, and in historical knowledge I bow my head and lie prostrate before your knowledge, but when it comes to sovereignty, you and I are not on the same page.

    To briefly paraphrase what you say, (or rather how I interpret what you say), you say Scotland’s sovereignty does not kick in until there is a democratic majority to actually make it kick in. You are saying Scottish sovereignty is something on the other river bank with a river we have to negotiate before we can lay hands on that sovereignty. The metaphorical river we need to cross is winning a democratic majority in favour of Independence.

    I understand that argument. But that argument reflects primacy given to the principles democracy, not sovereignty. As a Nation, we are staking everything and putting all the value on the wrong commodity. We are taking to the streets as acolytes of Democracy, not sovereignty, and that is a big strategic error which threatens to make the prospect of Scottish Independence tenfold more difficult to achieve. Democracy is ephemeral and impressionable. Sovereignty, and only sovereignty, is absolute and constant.

    A democratic vote in Scotland ONLY counts because the people of Scotland are sovereign. That’s a given. It is an absolute condition that cannot be altered. Our laws confirm it. Legal and political writs and documentation observe it, enshrine it’s provenance, and make it more valid, not less. It is not our sovereignty which is the illusion just beyond our reach. It is the mechanism whereby Westminster draws the teeth and claws from Scottish Sovereignty, and creates a false perception that Scotland currently stands removed from control of its own sovereignty pending a democratic vote to take back control of it. That is the myth! That is the bit which is not true! That is the trick which Penn and Teller would expose at the end of their show!

    Are we all so blind that we cannot see that Westminster has “framed” Scotland’s constitutional status as a conundrum for Scotland to solve, a problem we need to overcome, before we go cap in hand to Westminster and ask for constitutional justice?

    Why perplex ourselves over why are apparently are not sovereign when we actually are? Why not perplex Westminster over why they think they are sovereign when they are actually not?

    All I am suggesting is that we look at our Sovereignty, recognise and understand it, and draw the literal meaning from the reality that it cannot be removed from the people of Scotland. It’s like King Arthur and the sword in the stone. Only Scotland can wield its own Scottish Excalibur.

    Don’t wrestle amongst ourselves to see how our interpretations of sovereignty measure up; change the game! Stop flummoxing ourselves about how our Sovereignty is meant to work but doesn’t, and start challenging Westminster to elaborate on the device they employ to extricate Scottish sovereignty from Scotland’s people. That’s “doing the bit that cannae be done”. Why not test that part of the formula to destruction???

    When we take part in Westminster elections, then yes, perhaps we do commit our MP’s to agree to abide by the UK parliament’s ultimate democratic will. That might very well be at odds with every principle of Scottish sovereignty, but it is crucial to understand that it is NOT the mechanism which removes sovereignty from Scotland and delegates it to Westminster.

    We need to change our perspectives. Instead of seeing the MP’s we elect to Westminster as those given the power to wield (or abdicate) our sovereignty, we should instead recognise them as a delegation sent from Scotland to negotiate Scotland’s argument, just as we might send a Trade or Research delegation to some European convention. Yes, we can agree to defer to the consensus delivered by the convention, but it is quite wrong to misconstrue that acquiescence to “go with the majority” as any material compromise of sovereignty, which by definition cannot be compromised.

    It is their sovereignty which gives European nations their “veto” in Europe. It’s not a special power that they have to negotiate to say “No”, it is simply every other Nation’s mutual recognition they cannot compel any sovereign Nation to say yes. You don’t need to say No, because you cannot be compelled to say yes, and the nett result is an EU veto.

    The UK isn’t like the EU however, and Scotland is being shortchanged in the UK because it’s sovereign will can be overturned by Westminster. There is no mutuality, nor any respect for sovereign expression. Unless we can validate our legitimate sovereignty then we are doomed to straightforward subjugation and constitutional status below the level of a sovereign state.

    How do you square that subjugation with our own inalienable sovereignty?

    I’m telling now, even Penn and Teller would say “Ye cannae do that!”

    If Scottish Sovereignty and the United Kingdom cannot occupy the same constitutional space and time, then let us please hold on to our sovereignty and kick the Union into touch, rather than abandon our sovereign heritage and trust our fate to the magnanimity of our corrupt, dysfunctional, and asymmetric Union designed from the outset to hoodwink us.

    Our Sovereignty was hard won, unalterable, and sacred to generation after generation of Scottish patriots. Modern democracy is nothing so noble, and can be bought and sold and influenced by the highest bidder or most beguiling lobbyists. Defend our sovereignty. It is the prize. Democracy is nothing but method, and not even unique in that.

  126. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    @call me dave smiley thingy here

    Re fundraisers

    Now that wee ginger dug has raised his target a wee reminder for Ken’s fundraiser

    https://iscot.scot/appeal/

  127. Robert Kerr
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Nana,

    Yes! Unherd doesn’t archive. I wonder why?

    However Guido’s expose of it does.

    http://archive.is/TxTUC.

    Very interesting.

    Hedge fund money? More Dark Money.

  128. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks @ 12:38,

    I agree with much of what you are saying, the problem though is one of self-realisation and self-actuation. The people are sovereign, yes, but they don’t realise it, and when given the opportunity as in 2014, too many were even afraid to exercise it.

    This is what 300 years of self-suppression does. “Don’t rock the boat for the sake of Unity.” It’s funny, but our English neighbours have never felt the same need to defer.

    “So long as one hundred of us remain alive” is what we (humbly) are. But getting the mass of people to understand and behave as a nation seems to be much harder than it rightfully ought to be. Other countries have been founded or re-founded in the face of the most difficult of conditions, while here too many can’t seem to see that we are in effect third-rate citizens of a UK that basically doesn’t give a toss about us.

    Without a large body of opinion wanting a change, it’s hard to move forward. That’s not to say that some proverbial 60% of support is necessary before we can do anything. But what is necessary is that sufficient leadership (and not just political) is required to highlight issues in a way that makes the true situation starkly clear to all, in order to galvanise the necessary change.

    Sovereignity is virtual; in the modern world it can only be made real through democratic action.

  129. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Nana & Robert Kerr – that Unherd article doesn’t sound like Ruth Davidson at all. Her style is more short sound bite with no intellectual content. Perhaps the new Tory Unherd website has ghost writers to make idiots like RD sound well informed.

    Probably one of the “big team of writers for the start-up” have earned their first crust?

  130. Lochside
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks…I love your take on Sovereignty…but..as I have observed on here before, Alex Salmond unintentionally gambled away our Sovereignty’s status on the Edinburgh Agreement. A specious piece of Westminster flummery designed to achieve this action.

    By tossing a bent coin for a rigged referendum our previously unassailable, but rarely asserted, sovereignty was reduced to a one sided contest between the UK/English State and the parish pump council at Holyrood….And of course we lost the toss of the coin. But more importantly we lost the basis for the unilateral dissolving of the UK without a popular mandate.

    This is the ace card that the English and the Dependency parties along with their media lackeys will employ again and again against any future REF. However, if we had the judiciary that was robust and strong enough, possibly challenging the legal status of the Edinburgh agreement…and therefore the legitimacy of the Referendum might be the way back.

    As you have stated: the Act of Union would and should be a starter for this challenge. I would add in the example of the National Covenant of 1638 which was signed by all classes in Scotland as John Prebble , the historian stated ‘challenged the King’s (defacto State’s) right to the prerogative to make and change the law’, as it ‘rested in the (Scottish) Parliament.only’

    Our Parliament in Holyrood is a devolved institution defined and ruled over by England. If our MPs who are our representatives of the ‘real’ Scottish Parliament which was put in abeyance only, dissolved their association with Westminster and came back to reconstitute and legitimise Holyrood, that would be the second step, once we had legally and constitutionally overturned the Edinburgh Agreement sham.

  131. Shinty
    Ignored
    says:

    OK boys and girls. iScot Magazine needs our help.

    I cannot believe this amazing magazine is still struggling for funding. I understand not everyone can afford a subscription but please make a small sacrifice this week and chuck in £5 or £10.

    We may not have the treasure chest of the Conservatives but we sure as hell cannot allow this magazine to fall.

  132. Jack Collatin
    Ignored
    says:

    Just read the BTL in the Herald’s story about you challenging Ms Dugdale’s rash words.
    I wish to be registered as an official ‘utter bampot’ who contributes occasionally to your excellent blog, Stu.
    We are utter bampots.
    By Christ, they hate the ground you walk on, don’t they?
    I wonder why?
    The Grand Order of WoS Utter Bampots.
    I like that.

  133. Robert Kerr
    Ignored
    says:

    Lochside, Breeks, Robert Peffers and even Man at C and A.

    A link to legal thoughts on sovereignty by one Peter Spiers for a Master’s in Law at Glasgow University. It’s fairly lengthy but worth a speed read or more.

    “Scotland’s challenge to parliamentary sovereignty: can Westminster abolish the Scottish Parliament unilaterally?”

    Link….

    http://theses.gla.ac.uk/6663/1/2015SpeirsLLM%28R%29.pdf.

    A caveat however, the author acknowledges….

    “I would like to thank Professor Adam Tomkins for his invaluable advice, guidance and support, as well as Dr Christopher McCorkindale for helping me start it in the first place.”

    Adam Tomkins is of course the Tory list MSP who is so full of himself!

  134. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @sassenach says: 23 July, 2017 at 9:40 am:

    “I’m sure you are not, Robert, and , quite frankly, I now care even less about your views, which (let’s face it) seem to be becoming more self-centred by the day – everybody is wrong but you, I presume is your mantra.

    So be it.”

    I rather jaloused that would be your view, sassenach. It fits in well with the rest of your views. You accuse me of being increasingly self-centred yet immediately focus entirely upon yourself and your personal views.

    The truth being my views matter not a jot and I have never claimed to know best, or even to know better than others.

    What I have claimed, and will continue claiming, is that I stand firmly behind what the political party that has brought us this far has, democratically , decided to be the policy that will continue to carry Scotland forward to independence.

    I also believe they will continue to do so in the same democratic manner that has brought us this far and will succeed in the end.

    I thus have no time whatsoever for those, here on Wings, perhaps either flying false colours or just over impatient, who want the SNP to act rashly and, in all probability, set Scotland back or even kill the independence movement altogether.

    The road to independence, to date, has always been a surge followed by a setback but the history of the movement has always proven to be a progressive forward movement over the longer term. Just why would that scenario suddenly change now?

    From the formation of the SNP the story has always been one of a surge forward followed by a setback and the setbacks, (and this bit next is only my own opinion), the setbacks have usually followed upon the party becoming over confident that the voters would fall in line with party policy they, the voters, had nothing to do with.

    Just by reading Wings, supposedly the most indy of indy blogs, anyone can deduce the over eager mood that has been the previous forerunner of those disappointment and set-back of the past.

    We have Wingers here screaming for everything from open warfare to really idiotic forms of federation or federalism and forms of declarations of UDI that would most certainly lose any real support from international bodies.

    Why would any real seeker of independence be so vitriolic against the only dedicated political party that has consistently fought for Scottish independence?

    Furthermore, SNP party policy is NOT made by the party leadership, or like the Westminster set-up of the Government leader being virtually a dictator of government policy, SNP policy can only become official party policy if voted for by the delegates sent to National Conference by the branch members.

    Why do you imagine Wings has been invaded by some quite obvious anti-SNP and anti-independence commenters of late?
    It is simply because they see the Wingers, or should that be whingers, criticising the SG and they then jump on the whinger’s band waggon.

    If we cannot stand united behind the only party that is our only hope of ultimate independence we are as well to quit now and thus not prolong the eventual failure of the independence movement.

    Any party member who moans here instead of going to their branch and attempting to get their ideas adopted democratically has a hidden agenda.

    Those who are not SNP party Members who moan here should get whatever organisation to which they belong to do something about it. If they are not a member of any organisation then they have no democratic right to do anything and should either join or start an organisation that supports their views or they obviousl are speaking as individuals.

    That’s not to say they haven’t got a right to be critical of the party but really, in practice, best to do so either from a party that opposes the SNP or make it quite clear they speak for themselves and state what their real motives are when commenting on Wings.

  135. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh Jings!

    https://archive.is/yFYA2

    Mr Corbyn reveals his true colours it appears.

    “The single market is dependent on membership of the EU. What we have said all along is that we want a tariff free trade access to the European market and a partnership with Europe in the future.

    “The two things are inextricably linked so the question then is the kind of trade relationship of the future and we have made it very clear we want a tariff free trade access with the European market.”

    Either Mr Corbyn hasn’t heard of the likes of Norway, Switzerland and Iceland, or he’s woefully misinformed on the nature of European trade. (There is another option, but I’m being magnanimous, mmkay?)

    Regardless, it appears that as far as Mr Corbyn is concerned… wait for it… ‘Brexit means Brexit’.

  136. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert Kerr says at 2:37 pm

    “Man at C and A”

    Nice one 🙂

  137. marydoll
    Ignored
    says:

    Ruth Davidson cannot have written that article. It has been ghost-written. If by any chance she was questioned about it – the SNP bad soundbites would return

  138. Dan Huil
    Ignored
    says:

    Corbyn is just another britnat. Clueless about Scotland. It’s going to be a hard brexit. It’s going to be indyref2.

  139. colin alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert J. Sutherland @Breeks

    We could have left the Union in 2014, the people voted No to independence.

    As we have the sovereignty to leave the union. So, we have the sovereignty to demand changes are made on how our Union operates.

    That’s what Mr Cameron did with the EU: bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35622105

    The UK Govt then were able to present the proposed reforms and allow the UK to choose between reformed membership of the Euro Union v Brexit.

    We have at least a year before any possible indyref2.

    The Scot Govt has focused on Brexit negotiations. They should be focusing on attempting to reform the Union, then whatever results are achieved should be presented to the people of Scotland along with Brexit results.

    If Scotland is told no reforms, then that would be further proof the best option is independence.

  140. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye @Macart says at 2:41 pm

    “Mr Corbyn reveals his true colours it appears.”

    https://archive.is/yFYA2

    Red Tory, Blue Tory, Yellow Tory,

    Same old story,

    For Britannia’s Glory,

    Establishment Rules, UKOK.

  141. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @gus1940 says: 23 July, 2017 at 10:20 am:

    “The answer is for Nicola to embark in parallel on a tour of the constituencies lost by The SNP in the recent GE.”

    Now you may be onto something there gus1940. Though I would think the point would be better made if Nicola made a tour of the English constituencies in which the Tory party is in with a chance of pushing a sitting Labour candidate out.

  142. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    I had to smile at that photo at the head of the article. I looked at it by clicking to enlarge it and had the immediate thought that Nicola was saying, “Who farted”, Major Dumbo was saying, “‘Wasn’t Me”, and Kezia was saying nothing but just looking away all innocent like.

  143. ronnie anderson
    Ignored
    says:

    https://twitter.com/FactCheckScot/status/888424430921273344 They were well warned , they’ll reap as they sowed .

  144. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    @Jockanese Wind Talker
    @Macart

    Red Tory, Blue Tory, Yellow Tory,
    Same old story,
    For Britannia’s Glory,
    Establishment Rules, UKOK.

    Agree completely.

    There is an undertone among many that somehow Corbyn’s Labour wouldn’t be so bad for Scotland as the Tories. In what way do they imagine this to be the case?

    Trident? Brexit? The constitution? Scotland’s relationship with the UK?

    I see no significant difference. All Tories. All working against Scotland’s interests.

  145. Blair Paterson
    Ignored
    says:

    O.t.but I would like to I have answered the people who try to belittle independence by callingseparation break up etc. I to have stopped calling it independence I now call it what really is FREEDOM and my unionist listeners don’t like but hey sauce for the goose etc.,

  146. Meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    John H @11.49

    Obviously Con Party HQ orders are to ‘big up’ Colonel Gadaftie alias tRuthless Davidson this weekend.

    I was listening to Radio 4’s round up of the newspapers this morning when there was a complete 5 minute veneration of tRuthless, a veritable wonder-worker!!!

    Apparently she has told T May to ‘lead or lose’.

    The man went on to say:

    Consider, also, that T May has propped up her Government with the DUP whose ideologies date from the 1950’s; when you see just how well tRuthless did in the last few elections in Scotland bringing the Conservatives back into the fold from the wilderness, it really is crucial that she gets a UK seat as soon as possible since the future of the conservatives could lie with a modernising lesbian.

    Wouldn’t be at all surprised if the notion for T May to bypass Nicola has come from tRuthless Davidson. After all, in the eyes of the tories, TRuthless won the election in Scotland and is the de facto First Minister, so naturally Nicola is not on the same level.
    It’s so obvious when you think like them!

    Bunch of barstewards!

  147. Tony Little
    Ignored
    says:

    @Macart

    “There is another option, but I’m being magnanimous, mmkay?”

    Sorry, but there is NO other option. Unfortunately Corbyn is first and foremost a Unionist. Of all the countries in the world that Corbyn thinks should be Independence, Scotland is not one of them.

    So, I think he is quite prepared to repeat the lies that will try to keep Scotland as a “region” of Greater England.

  148. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    Wouldn’t surprise me @Meg merrilees says at 3:28 pm and John H @11.49

    Colonel Gadaftie is getting lined up for safe seat South of the Border.

    Probably as part of a up and coming Tory Leadership challenge.

    Watch for who is promoting her as a ‘new hope’ etc. Gove’s Missus is it?

    She’ll be SoS for Scotland under the likes of either Gove, Boris or Rees Mogg.

  149. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘The Scot Govt has focused on Brexit negotiations. They should be focusing on attempting to reform the Union,’

    In a nutshell CA reveals his hand. When oh when will wingers realise what he is really about? Since the GE, he has literally taken over the btl.

    The snp Scottish government secured our second Scotref in March this year. When the Brexit negotiations conclude and we see where we are, we will have our referendum. Not before, not after. It’s not in question ‘why’ this is the reality. It is about Brexit.

    Without Brexit we would not have that Scotref on the table. A clear mandate was in place: should there be a material change of circumstance: Scotland being dragged out of the EU against our will, 62% of our population voted to stay in the EU, we had already given the snp the fullest backing to ensure we had a mechanism in place for us to return to the question of our place in this Union.

    To achieve 62% remain, a cross section of Yes and No voters came together to achieve that result.

    Since the GE, the full on anti referendum campaign, most likely financed by dark money and dodgy electoral fraud ensured the SNP took a hit, but, here’s the reality they still won an outstanding majority.

    If we stick to the facts and remain patient and clear, we will secure our independence.

    The relentless focus on ‘if, buts and maybe’s’ whilst intellectually interesting, is in fact merely that.

    We are on the train. It isn’t actually detouring, but people like CA aim to attract the gullible and those less well informed on the Smith commission’s ‘superest duperest most powerfully devolved parly on the planet’ schtick, which as we all painfully watched unfold on our computers, in 2015, was nothing but a sham.

    The very idea that Scotland will get even more of its ‘sovereignty’ handed back to us from Westminster is a total con, espoused by those eager to convince us to pipe the fuck down about our right to self determination.

    We will get it, but we will get it through democratic means, and don’t be fooled that Brexit isn’t a huge factor in turning those formally either wilfully ignorant or just plain not interested, once the total fuck up reaps the pain of loss, ‘that they didn’t see coming’, hard in their pockets. You will see the sea change.

    It’s all about the tipping point now. Do not be distracted by interlopers who ‘sound’ like they are ‘informed’.

    Keep It Simple Scots.

  150. K.A.Mylchreest
    Ignored
    says:

    I don’t know if there are any figures to prove this idea, but it seems to me that if you were basically a middle-of-the-road unionist who’d traditionally voted New Labour, then the Corbyn factor may well have induced you to vote Tory. OTOH perhaps an equal number of folk who were primarily socialists, may have been wooed over from the SNP to Corbyn’s version of New Old Labour.

    Put together it would look like a move from SNP > Tory with Labour support remaining relatively unchanged, whereas in fact I would imagine relatively few voters actually made that shift.

    Is this a credible scenario?

  151. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    The biggest move was from Libdem to Tory, that’s what ensured the snp vote flipped, is my understanding?

  152. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks
    Someone on the National forum advised me to get “Scotland’s Constitution” Edited by Moffat 1993. So I did from abebooks, and one for my son from Amazon (1p + postage).

    Inscription is “This publication is dedicated to the memory of Roland Eugene Muirhead who for seventy five years relentlessly campaigned for an independent Scottish parliament”.

    The Articles are good, but Article 1 is all that’s needed really:

    Article 1: Scotland is a free, independent, democratic nation, the power to rule being vested in the Scottish people and exercised by them through a National Assembly appointed by a free vote of its citizens“.

    I think we already do have a Constitution with that one single article, in the Claim of Right, variously through history, including latterly the Constitutional Convention signed up to by the 3 Unionist parties and the Church of Scotland, and latterly by Holyrood and the SNP in Parliament.

  153. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert J Sutherland “The people are sovereign, yes, but they don’t realise it, and when given the opportunity as in 2014, too many were even afraid to exercise it.

    I would argue that the people, all the people who voted in 2014, 84.6% of eligible voters, DID exercise and assert our self-determination, and voted “Not yet for full Independence”. But that that does assert our Sovereignty, the People of Scotland. Others (can’t think who) have argued the same thing, even including Unionists I think.

  154. colin alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    @ K1

    Oh dear, debate based on attacking the person, suggesting I have a hidden motive.

    However, apart from that:

    I genuinely wish your argument for indy was more persuasive.

    But basically, it seems to be based on: Scotland’s people will be so affected at the provisional results of Brexit negotiations they will vote indy.

    However, opinion polls showed no rise for indy support following the Brexit vote.

    One third of those who voted YES also voted Leave.

    Yet, we are told by Nicola Sturgeon and some Wingers we can be indy to rejoin the EU. Contrary to the will of a third of indy supporters. You’ve lost Jim Sillars vote with that one. How many would follow, I don’t know.

    Those that voted Remain show they have no problems with being in a Union where Scotland has no powers. Just like the UK Union.

    But Brexit is going to be the big vote winner? Possibly. Never say never. I really hope you’re right, but have seen no facts to support your argument.

  155. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Lochside @1:36.

    I hear that point about the Edinburgh agreement, and although I hate to do it, doesn’t it merely put Alex Salmond into a similar position as those Scottish Lords who signed the Act of Union? Sovereignty was never Alex Salmond’s to sign away. He can no more remove it from the people of Scotland than Westminster.

    Robert Kerr @2:37.
    I haven’t read, but I will, however I have my own caveat. What is meant by the Scottish Parliament? Did you happen to read or recall a comment I once wrote about Scottish sovereignty being red from the flesh and blood of the people, English/Westminster sovereignty being white from sacred divinity, which produces Holyrood, an instrument empowered with white sovereignty manned by people of red sovereignty, and posing the question whether the sovereign will of and status of Holyrood was thus red, white, raspberry ripple or pink.

    The long and short of it is that Westminster perhaps can indeed kill off all aspects of white sovereignty, thus killing off any pink or raspberry ripple options too, but they have no jurisdiction to encroach upon matters of red sovereignty. If Scotland has its own parliament empowered by the red sovereignty of the Scottish people, then Westminster cannot touch it. Is that Holyrood? Or some other reinvented Holyrood?

    The whole point of me banging on about this, is that how do we know where we have to go unless we know and understand where we already are?

    Robert Peffers, I’m not in the SNP, I’ve made no secret I have a personal gripe with my local SNP. But that doesn’t impower me, nor does it fuel an acrimonious grudge. I can be critical of the SNP without having a guilty conscience about it, but any and all criticism I do point towards the SNP is intended to expose weakness, not to then exploit that weakness but see it addressed and attended to so there isn’t a weakness any more. I don’t point to weakness in other campaigns because the weaker and crappier they are the better. I don’t want Ruth Davidson to shut up and adopt a low profile. I’m not sure I do want Kez Dugdale seeing the light and coming over to our side.

    I do want Scottish Independence, more than you know, but if I see the SNP under performing, or making mistakes, or missing open goals in strategy, then what am I supposed to do? ScotRef fills me with trepidation, because the alarm bells which were ringing throughout 2013 and 2014 about the media and propagandists agenda were falling upon deaf ears. There were no allowances made, no reactions, no deviance from the very “pedestrian” plan, and we were subsequently handed defeat by a thoroughly discredited and corrupt mainstream media which didn’t even respect us enough even to be good at shovelling the propaganda the shovelled.

    We are now maybe a year to 18 months away from a second attempt at Independence, and frankly, I can’t lie, I am deafened by the alarm bells currently going off. The same media is there, there hasn’t even been any significant change of personnel. It is already f____g with the agenda and pro Indy narrative, and frankly, the SNP looks as lead footed and short of ideas about what it can do about it as it did in 2014. It didn’t listen then, and I’m not sure it’s listening now.

    To quote Wellington speaking about defeating the French, “They came on at us in the same old way, and we stopped them in the same old way”.

    I’m not blowing my own trumpet, but I’ve made numerous suggestions and ideas for initiatives which might have changed the landscape a bit, I’m not going to list them again, only to be ridiculed as being non-grown up ideas, or ideas which undermine the SNP’s hegemony on tactics and strategy. I’m now a tract-or to some don’t ya know? If I didn’t laugh I’d fkn weep.

    If you have any ideas, give them to the SNP then shut up about it. Hey Presto. It’s 2013 all over again, only this time around we don’t even have YES taking up at least some of the slack.

    I can’t finish without the old chestnut that if it wasn’t for the SNP, we wouldn’t be this close to Independence. Credit where it’s due, I think that’s correct, and worthy praise and respect is properly due, but it’s also a double edged sword. If you want to make sure all the eggs are put in SNP basket, then it better be the very, very, best of all possible baskets, and I strongly recommend you introduce a safety valve which allows the disgruntled and unconvinced “eggs” somewhere to air their grumbles without all the wheels falling off the SNP wagon.

    For every 10 who may be happy the SNP brought is the YES referendum in 2014, I would wager there was a small core of hardcore of 1 or 2 rather lukewarm believers who believe the SNP’s indifference towards warnings about the media played a small but important part in the defeat. People were not given the answers they wanted, and time and again, misleading and false media spin went uncorrected and unchallenged. The SNP big howitzers on currency and sovereignty never fired a salvo.

    I’m not looking for an SNP support group nor an SNP tribute act, I’m content for the SNP to be in control, I just hope, as I hoped throughout 2013 and 2014 that they would up their game and take care of the “winning” part rather than being noble and stoic in defeat. FFS just help people understand what the plan is!

    I’m a political nobody. I’ll never be rich, I’ll never be famous, I’ll never have a statue built in my honour, you don’t even know my name, and it’s my intention you never will, but it shouldn’t be down to the likes of me to forcefully nudge the SNP towards towards the only horse trough with sovereignty in it. What’s wrong with them that they can’t smell it themselves?

    I’m not sure the SNP can even be led to sovereignty, never mind encouraged to drink.

    Now if anything above is considered sedition, or likely to damage the SNP, then rejoice, because I’m saying no more. I’m done. I’m out of here. I’m sick of flogging a horse that just refuses to drink, because I know the next part of the story.

  156. colin alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    @Yesindyref2

    Sensible comment.

    In 2014 Scotland exercised self-determination. Sovereignty.

    That right to self-determination or sovereignty remains unchanged whether we vote YES or NO.

  157. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Lochside: “… Alex Salmond unintentionally gambled away our Sovereignty’s status on the Edinburgh Agreement

    He couldn’t or can’t, just the same as you and I can’t, or any individual can’t. Sovereignty is vested in the Scottish People as a whole, not any one individual or assembly, even the FM, Government or Parliament itself.

    Only the people of Scotland as a whole can give away our sovereignty, and for it to be permanent, that would have to be specified explicitly. So any arrangement such as a continuation of the Union, or of Holyrood, is at our pleasure and convenience.

    And so much for “once in a generation”, if we choose to do so, we could have a referendum every week, or a 2.1 million or 2.7 million signature (over 50% of the registered electorate – or population) Declaration to declare our Independence and appoint a government – or dictator – or king or queen – or president – of our choosing.

  158. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    “…people like CA aim to attract the gullible and those less well informed on the Smith commission’s ‘superest duperest most powerfully devolved parly on the planet’ schtick.”

    You mean this parly?

    ‘Rood Almighty
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arv0Mx1S_ho&feature=youtu.be

  159. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks: “I’m saying no more. I’m done. I’m out of here.

  160. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks: “I’m not sure the SNP can even be led to sovereignty, never mind encouraged to drink.

    Can’t say about the SNP as a whole, but as for Sturgeon herself, don’t forget it was her that led the 2012 vote in Holyrood on the Claim of Right, and her that pushed it. Which means her own heart is in the Sovereignty of the People, not parliament. The vote was passed by all but the dreaded anti-independence and even anti-devolution Tories.

    researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CDP-2016-0158/CDP-2016-0158.pdf

    Page 5 – 2.4

    She’s also emphasised this since saying that a future Referendum is in the hands of the People. She, too, is claiming her right for the form of government best suited to he people of Scotland.

    Oh yes, correction to what I said about the Constitutional Convention of the 90s. The Tories of course took no part in that, and were fiercely against even devolution, opposing it by an organised tissue of lies during the Devolution campaign of 1997.

  161. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    sassenach,

    “I’m sure you are not, Robert, and , quite frankly, I now care even less about your views, which (let’s face it) seem to be becoming more self-centred by the day – everybody is wrong but you, I presume is your mantra.”

    Robert Peffers is an aggressive verbal bully here and almost certainly a nasty person in real life.

    Truth Always.

  162. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Colin Alexander: “We could have left the Union in 2014, the people voted No to independence.”

    That’s the myth but not the detail.

    Analysis shows most Scots voted Yes, and many No’s want greater political powers – so, everybody lost.

    And you can’t claim the group of Yes supporters suspicious of the EU won’t vote for independence next referendum if it the opportunity comes with staying in the single market.

  163. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    @Capella.

    Your man did good out the bunker there.

    Eagle has landed for Ramsay at 17th. 🙂

  164. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    That’s actually a very interesting paper, as it’s a Westminster breifing, not a Holyrood one. hope the link works better here:

    http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CDP-2016-0158/CDP-2016-0158.pdf

    I always try to quote a Westminster official source before an SG one to Unionists, on the basis that “It’s YOUR Government said that, not mine”.

  165. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks @4.24pm

    Breeks I would ask that you reconsider your last bit of your post , contrary to what some may think I personally don’t think you undermine in any way the SNP, but merely like others on here try to encourage and educate , your interpretation and views on sovereignty IMO are bang on, the difficulty is on the imposition of that sovereignty. If the reports coming out that treeza will no longer meet or discuss with our elected sovereign FM are correct I personally would recall all SNP MPS’ and declare a GE and run with a mandate of independence.

    If not that I would openly publisize the fact that the wastemonster gov are openly insulting the Scottish people and refuse point blank to meet with the tea boy . To me the insults have gone far enough if Nicola accepts this insult then we truly have no self respect and other countries will think we have no backbone we will be once more humiliated

  166. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    twathater,

    “If not that I would openly publisize the fact that the wastemonster gov are openly insulting the Scottish people and refuse point blank to meet with the tea boy . To me the insults have gone far enough if Nicola accepts this insult then we truly have no self respect and other countries will think we have no backbone we will be once more humiliated”

    The whole world has long known that loud-mouthed “sovereign” Scots have no backbone.

    Why else would Scotland still be a colony of England after 310 years and barely have a majority in favour of independence, if at all?

  167. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    SNP are puir dead brilliant!

    No’ perfect but brilliant.

    Just sayin’.

    PS – And am no’ even a member!!

  168. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @twathater “… if Nicola accepts this insult …”

    Patience, personally I think she has it under control and is doing things in sequence.

  169. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @twathater
    And as far as this latests “Sturgeon must talk to May’s tea-boy” is concerned, it’s the MSM and some anonymous “senior Tories” are stirring that up, not any official Tory or UK Government official like May. If Sturgeon responds at all to that nonsense, which is unlikely unless directly asked, she’s playing their game for them.

  170. Dan Huil
    Ignored
    says:

    Westminster’s idiot britnats show no sign of facing reality when dealing with the EU. Idiot britnats will bring us indyref2.

    Meanwhile keep boycotting the britnat press and don’t pay the bbc tax.

  171. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Ben Madigan July 23rd @ 11.48 pm

    Thank you for that link to those amazing youngsters singing such powerful songs = )

    Partiularly poignant is the link with Ireland and THEIR sorrow at Bonnie Prince Charlie having to leave Scotland and return to France.

    This new generation of young folk singing Scottish and Irish songs in Gaelic, with such beautifuly clear, strong voices and incredible instrumantals is just awesome = )

  172. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Rok @ 5.00pm

    That is a cruel thing to say.

    Not impressed.

  173. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks 4.24
    Can I ask that you reconsider as well..
    Take a break by all means if you need to ,of course you must.
    But there are so very few who can articulate Sovereignty,so I am afraid your Country needs you as they say.

    Can I also point out that I think that you and Robert Peffers are talking about two different things.
    Robert mostly talks about Legal & Political Sovereignty.
    You mostly talk about Popular & Political Sovereignty.

    And Popular Sovereignty is the one that most government’s will try not to let any daylight shine on… mainly because the kind you speak of ” Sovereignty ” in its purest form… we all have it,not just the Scots.

    Even where a population like America know and understand that they have it….the use of it is still “managed”.
    That’s probably why you are getting so frustrated with trying to get it through to the people who should know this stuff.
    There is an argument to be made that Sovereignty of that kind does need managed?
    Mibbi the SNP,do indeed know all about Popular Sovereignty… enough to know,not to unleash it…. without some degree of Political and Leagal control over it, espically in and around all of the circumstances of how we get out of the Treaty.

  174. stewartb
    Ignored
    says:

    Diversion alert! This is a deliberate, overt, unapologetic (contrived) attempt to divert this thread from ‘sovereignty’ … at least, modestly, for a dozen or two lines of text.

    Reading a Guardian article on Saturday 15 July stirred a memory. The article was entitled: “Dublin is streets ahead of EU rivals as City firms plan for Brexit relocation – Its shared language and links with London have made the Irish capital first choice for banks seeking new bases from which to trade in Europe.”

    The Guardian piece notes: ‘Accountants at EY last week said 59 out of the 222 biggest financial services companies in the UK have made public statements about moving staff from Britain to the EU because of Brexit. Dublin, which is still scarred by Ireland’s financial crisis, is the top destination with 19 firms mentioning a possible move to the Irish capital.’

    The Guardian reports: ‘… Dublin appears to be a favourite for many City companies because of its historic links with London and the common language.’ And quoting an EY executive: “Dublin already has some of the back-office operations for some large investment banks and an asset management presence .…”

    So the city of Dublin is gearing up to take advantage of one-off, time-limited major economic and business opportunities from inward investment. The relevant Irish Government’s agency notes in its marketing (http://www.idaireland.com ): “Ireland at the heart of Europe: Ireland is a committed member of the European Union and provides companies with guaranteed access to the European market.”

    And then there is the following from the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar TD when welcoming the very recent announcement that Bank of America has chosen Dublin as its preferred location for its post-Brexit EU entity: “This announcement follows a number of recent announcements by leading global financial institutions and is a strong endorsement of Ireland’s attractiveness as a location for investment, and of the Government’s approach to securing Brexit-related activities.”

    So what did all this good news for Dublin remind me of? On 24 June 2014 The Spectator held a debate in Edinburgh chaired by Andrew Neil. It is reported that 169 members of the audience agreed with the motion that: ‘Independence is the greatest threat to Edinburgh’, with 19 against and 6 undecided (http://events.spectator.co.uk/events/edinburgh/ ). Alex Massie in reporting the debate described the audience as consisting of Edinburgh lawyers, bankers and fund managers. Massie also reported the contribution of Ian Murray MP in agreeing with the ‘greatest threat’ motion: he “… made a narrowly Edinburgh-focused case for the status quo. Auld Reekie is braw, he said, and why risk changing that?”

    I wonder how many in that audience believed the scaremongering in 2014 that a ‘Yes’ vote meant leaving the EU: I wonder how many then voted ‘remain’ in the EU referendum in 2016? I wonder if any of them spend a moment reflecting how people just like them in Dublin are looking with confidence and optimism to exploit new business opportunities for their city? – as Edinburgh (and Glasgow) misses out. Or would an overwhelming majority still put British Nationalism and/or preference for this dependency ‘status quo’ first in a second Indyref? Will the words of Cunninghame Graham from 1934 remain true for ever: “The real enemies (of Scottish independence) are among us, born without imagination”?

  175. colin alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    Grouse Beater said:

    “Analysis shows most Scots voted Yes, and many No’s want greater political powers – so, everybody lost.”

    Totally agree.

    That’s why I suggest the Scot Govt try to reform the Union so Holyrood’s powers are not loaned WM powers, but are powers based on Scotland’s place as equal partners.

    If as most on here expect, that reform would never be agreed.

    So the Scot Govt can say to No voters, we tried to get reform, it didn’t happen.

    I don’t know why anyone mentioned Smith. Smith was just a follow on from Mr Brown’s and The Daily Record’s “The Vow” rubbish AFTER the referendum, not a Scot Govt attempt at reform BEFORE any referendum.

  176. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    It doesn’t add up…

    http://imgur.com/a/c7dGD

  177. sassenach
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Peffers @2-39pm says

    “I rather jaloused that would be your view, sassenach. It fits in well with the rest of your views. You accuse me of being increasingly self-centred yet immediately focus entirely upon yourself and your personal views.

    The truth being my views matter not a jot and I have never claimed to know best, or even to know better than others.

    What I have claimed, and will continue claiming, is that I stand firmly behind what the political party that has brought us this far has, democratically , decided to be the policy that will continue to carry Scotland forward to independence…….I thus have no time whatsoever for those, here on Wings, perhaps either flying false colours or just over impatient, who want the SNP to act rashly and, in all probability, set Scotland back or even kill the independence movement altogether.”

    Pray tell me exactly where and when I have ‘entirely focused on my own views’? You make it up as you go along, I think, if anyone disagrees with you. (I never thought I would say this but Rock was maybe right in his analysis of you at 5pm).

    I am a long-time active member of the SNP (and have even dined with the FM and John Swinney ) so I take great exception to the likes of you suggesting that I do not completely support Nicola and the SNP in their quest for independence.

    Goodnight, sir!

  178. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks says: 23 July, 2017 at 12:38 pm:

    ” … To briefly paraphrase what you say, (or rather how I interpret what you say), you say Scotland’s sovereignty does not kick in until there is a democratic majority to actually make it kick in.”

    Not quite Breeks. It really isn’t complicated at all.

    Go right back to basics and start from there.

    First of all under English law, (and English law applies to all three, “Kingdom of England”, countries). Legal sovereignty rests with the monarch of England and that is the basis of all English Law.

    As I often point out the whole thing is bound up in religious beliefs that God chooses kings/queens and thus Kings/queens have God’s given, “Divine right to rule”. This was the legal system throughout, “Christendom”, and Christendom was basically Europe.

    So the first thing to bear in mind is that all history is bound up in religion and I cannot do better than refer you to Karl Marx’s quotation that, “Religion is the opium of the people”. It is a long and somewhat overly verbose quotation by Marx but here is a Wiki summery:-


    “Marx was making a structural functionalism argument about religion, and particularly about organized religion. Marx believed that religion had certain practical functions in society that were similar to the function of opium in a sick or injured person: it reduced people’s immediate suffering and provided them with pleasant illusions, but it also reduced their energy and their willingness to confront the oppressive, heartless, and soulless reality that capitalism had forced them into.”

    What Marx said was that religion was used by their masters to subjugate the masses. He was right for they, (the rulers), have just proved his point by getting into bed with the Loyal Orange Order.

    So when The Bruce killed the Comyn on the alter steps of Dumfries High Kirk the monarch of England saw a chance to get control over the then independent Kingdom of Scotland by convincing the Pope, (Head of all Christendom), to excommunicate The Bruce as the killing was on concecrated ground.

    Under, “Divine Right of Kings”, The Bruce owned all Scotland and, being sovereign, he owned everyone in Scotland too. So effectively everyone in Scotland was excommunicated and the Pope ordered that every church service in England should begin by cursing Scotland.

    To circumvent this mass excommunication the Scots drew up and petitioned the Pope with, “The Declaration of Arbroath”, that not only declared Scotland as an independent Kingdom but that under Scottish law Bruce was NOT sovereign but only the protector of the people’s sovereignty.

    By this time the Holy Roman Se was falling out with the English Monarchy who was divorcing some of his wives and executing others and as the Holy Roman Se were against divorce the English monarchy, (that Rome had previously made Lord of the Kingdom of Ireland), had forced the Parliament of Ireland to appointed him King of Ireland.

  179. McDuff
    Ignored
    says:

    Rock
    Spot on.
    The absorbing of Scotland into England is well on its way and the population either don’t care or are fast asleep. I was flicking though the 5000 sky channels and with the exception of foreign programs the entire news and entertainment network is English. In fact STV2 has an Irish soap while the BBC has Mrs Browns Boys and some Irish police soap on in the afternoon. The last time I checked Ireland was a foreign country. When I was a lad there were several programs dedicated to Scottish music(Corries etc) and drama which were all networked. Now there is almost nothing.
    And the self service check-outs at supermarkets are all English accented as is BOS and RBS. All the big store radio`s are all English. A Scottish accent is now being seen as embarrassing and parochial rarely heard on tv or radio, in fact you will hear almost as much if not more from the Rep of Ireland in the British media.
    Now am I talking racism here, well yes I am but its towards Scots whose culture and identity is slowly being diluted as its citizens dose by their TV’s.

  180. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ call me dave – thx. I see he is at 22 on the leaderboard. Not bad but not great either. I think it a shame that the BBC almost completely ignore the Scottish players. Par for the course – to coin a phrase 🙁

  181. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Ghillie @ 6.17
    Well said totally agree,and this isn’t the first time either.

    Have you also noticed the side swipe of sarcasm at Smallaxe of all people?

    Did have a wee thing to say about it a few thread’s ago,but wasn’t getting through….
    So just let them get on wi it….it will certainly no bother Smallaxe,if I’m any Judge of character,but it is a tasteless remark to be making once,never mind repeatedly.

    Takes all kinds I suppose thankfully most here a pretty decent and that sort of cruelty is in short supply.
    Glad that’s no whits coming hame tae me as they say,nasty,nasty stuff!

  182. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    In Memory of Bill, shop, taxi and ski instructor, who I found out yesterday sadly passed away 6 weeks ago, after a serious heart attack I did know about at that time. An enthusiastic YESser who gladly took the last few of my wee black books Midge Grafhunter paid for, and a really decent guy. Some may know who I’m talking about, but I respect privacy.

  183. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks says: 23 July, 2017 at 12:38 pm:

    ” … To briefly paraphrase what you say, (or rather how I interpret what you say), you say Scotland’s sovereignty does not kick in until there is a democratic majority to actually make it kick in.”

    Not quite Breeks. It really isn’t complicated at all.

    Go right back to basics and start from there.

    First of all under English law, (and English law applies to all three, “Kingdom of England”, countries). Legal sovereignty rests with the monarch of England and that is the basis of all English Law.

    As I often point out the whole thing is bound up in religious beliefs that God chooses kings/queens and thus Kings/queens have God’s given, “Divine right to rule”. This was the legal system throughout, “Christendom”, and Christendom was basically Europe.

    So the first thing to bear in mind is that all history is bound up in religion and I cannot do better than refer you to Karl Marx’s quotation that, “Religion is the opium of the people”. It is a long and somewhat overly verbose quotation by Marx but here is a Wiki summery:-


    “Marx was making a structural functionalism argument about religion, and particularly about organized religion. Marx believed that religion had certain practical functions in society that were similar to the function of opium in a sick or injured person: it reduced people’s immediate suffering and provided them with pleasant illusions, but it also reduced their energy and their willingness to confront the oppressive, heartless, and soulless reality that capitalism had forced them into.”

    What Marx said was that religion was used by their masters to subjugate the masses. He was right for they, (the rulers), have just proved his point by getting into bed with the Loyal Orange Order.

    So when The Bruce killed the Comyn on the alter steps of Dumfries High Kirk the monarch of England saw a chance to get control over the then independent Kingdom of Scotland by convincing the Pope, (Head of all Christendom), to excommunicate The Bruce as the killing was on concecrated ground.

    Under, “Divine Right of Kings”, The Bruce owned all Scotland and, being sovereign, he owned everyone in Scotland too. So effectively everyone in Scotland was excommunicated and the Pope ordered that every church service in England should begin by cursing Scotland.

    To circumvent this mass excommunication the Scots drew up and petitioned the Pope with, “The Declaration of Arbroath”, that not only declared Scotland as an independent Kingdom but that under Scottish law Bruce was NOT sovereign but only the protector of the people’s sovereignty.

    By this time the Holy Roman Se was falling out with the English Monarchy who was divorcing some of his wives and executing others. The Holy Roman Se were/are against divorce. The English monarchy, (that Rome had previously made Lord of the Kingdom of Ireland), had forced the Parliament of Ireland to appointed him King of Ireland and appointed himself head of the Christian Church of England.

    So Rome accepted the Declaration of Arbroath that Scotland was an independent Kingdom and to, get Bruce of the Hook, that made the people able to sack him – but it is GOD who chooses monarchs so Rome had agreed that the people of Scotland were, “God’s chosen people”, and thus legally sovereign.

    Scotland was thus the odd man out in Europe and no longer under the rule of law, of, “Divine Right of Kings”. The differenced did not, however, stop there. In 1603, due to a marriage of convenience between a royal child of Scotland and a teenage royal of England a Scottish King fell heir to the crown of England.

    The English Problem was that they were still under the rule of law of Divine Right and that meant the Scottish King should just tag the Kingdom of England onto Scotland and all four countries would have become the Kingdom of Scotland and the Englanders were not having that. So they claimed that as James VI was not Sovereign he could not just add Scotland on as part of his existing kingdom. Hence he became James I of England & VI of Scotland and there was no actual Union of the Crowns in 1603 and Scotland continued as an independent kingdom.

    Then, in 1688 the English Parliament rebelled against their rightful monarch and deposed their monarch but imported the foreign King Billy & Queen Mary as the monarchs of the Kingdom of England on condition they legally delegated their Divine right to the Parliament of England. That is the real rebels were the English Parliamentarians and not as they claimed the Jacobites because, as Scotland was still an independent Kingdom, they could not rebel against a king that was not their own.

    So the English parliament needed a Treaty of Union in 1706/7, why would they need a Treaty of Union if, as they claimed, there was a Union of the crowns in 1603? So the Treaty of Union had two Kingdoms agree to join together.

    But as English Law had changed in 1688 to a Constitutional Monarchy and the Law of Scotland had changed to the People being legally Sovereign the two legal systems could never be compatible and thus we have Article of Union No.19 that says the two legal systems must always remain independent.

    This is the thing that first of all legally justifies Scotland claiming back her independence but makes it imperative that the people holding that sovereignty must democratically vote to take back their legal sovereignty.

    If they do not do so then it is a case of an illegal Unilateral Declaration of Independence. We see what happens when such things happen for that is exactly what The Republic of Ireland did in 1937. Before that date the Irish Free State was a legally a dominion of the Kingdom of England. Remember too that the so called Anglo-Irish agreements of 1800/1, could not be a treaty between two independent states as both signatories on that agreement were all still UK citizens thus both fighting a civil war and you cannot make treaties with yourself.

    So them’s the facts. Religious, (divide and Conquer), opiate of the masses, and the legal concepts of sovereignty as a divine right are what it is still all about in a country that is now recognised to no longer be secular.

  184. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Stewartb @ 6.19
    And your post reminds me of something I read about back before Indy ref 1 too.
    Apparently Glasgow could have developed an area/hub/district which could broker international negotiations and deal’s of many descriptions….this is done quite a bit in London (of course it’s always bloody London)

    All you need is a respected established legal system.
    Graduates from decent, ranked universities available.
    A peaceful space unlikely to be caught up in violence.
    Office and accommodation near the Highest Civil Court’s,and (for some reason)the seat of government.
    And an international reputation of value.

    What the article was saying was that Glasgow could provide all of that much much more cheeper than London could,but at no risk of quality,which obviously made Glasgow much better value for money.
    So Glasgow could easily take most of this Business in a very short space of time after Indy.
    With the advantage of not crowding out the Capital and also not having to pay the rates of operating in a Capital, Glasgow was close enough to the Capital to make it an optimum choice.
    Once again something we lost out on in 2014….but mibbi hopefully it’s not too late..

  185. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    K1 @ 3.52 pm

    Gish Gallopers ride Trojan horses = )

  186. bugsbunny
    Ignored
    says:

    Grouse Beater,

    You are correct. Maybe at least as much as 53% of Scots voted Yes in the 2014 Referendum. That is Scots born. Unfortunately if you add rUK born and even those born elsewhere added to that heady mix in 2014, then they, (non Scot’s born) voted overwhelmingly NO resulting in 55% NO……… If I point out the obvious solution to this I will never hear the last of it, so I’m not. But if we repeat the same mistakes as last time giving non Scots Doms ,(Students, holiday home owners), a vote, never mind anything else, then we’re f**cked. “We’re aw Jock Tamson’s bairns”, will be the death knell of Independence. If Cameron really wanted a Remain Vote then not allowing EU nationals a vote scuppered it. Allowing non dom students and holiday makers a vote was the thin edge of the wedge. and if repeated will scupper any future Independence vote.

    I would like to see the % of postal votes today compared to 20 years ago. To many lazy folks use them rather than go to the local school to vote. And I mean by that young healthy folks, not elderly or disabled. Why the hell hasn’t anyone with balls and a legal background never investigated Ruth Davidson’s knowledge of the % NO in the Postal Votes at 4pm on polling day? You can’t have a exit poll for postal votes ffs. They are opened after the polls close at 10pm.

    Why is no one challenging this lying cheating bitch who is holding back Scottish Independence by attracting the scum of the f**cking earth to her petticoat tales? She’s a Quisling.

  187. Fraser Reid
    Ignored
    says:

    Quoting from the first newspaper article in the bit above from Stu…”The overwhelming majority of members are united behind our vision for a Scotland that is part of a United Kingdom which works for the many, not the few.”

    I “Guess” that labour means that the many are those in S.England and the Few are then those in Scotland….

  188. thomas
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Robert Peffers

    Hi Robert

    Whilst i greatly admire your knowledge of late medieval/ early modern scottish history , i cant agree with your interpretation that robert the bruce owned scotland and all within scotland under the divine right of kings pre declaration of arbroath.

    Scotland was governed under the ancient celtic system of common ownership and publicly elected offices of high king , mormaers , earls and barons , which at the time of bruce had become part feudal , but much remaining celtic.

    There was no such thing as primogeniture , divine right of kings or private ownership in celtic society.

    Feudalism and private ownership had been creeping into scotland since the days of malcolm the third and his son david , but if you see the excellent map and work by alexander grant from lancaster university , you will see by the early decades of the 15th century , 80 years after the death of bruce , of the 925 parishes in scotland , two thirds of them were still held under the pre feudal celtic structure.

    When the bruce attempted to privatise much of scotland for example , he gave a feudal charter to his nephew thomas randolph , in Moray ,which then stretched from west to east coast ,the people of moray refused to recognise this feudal structure and remained in a state of open rebellion for centuries.

    Divine right of kings didnt exist in scotland and as william skene put it , the ordinary folk in scotland long clung to the semi communist practices of the gael , for example as late as 1847 in the hebridies , the land was tilled sowed and reaped in common and divided among the workers as it had been for a thousand years or more.

    Bruce certainly intensified the growing process of feudalisation in scotland after his magnificent victory at bannockburn , but no scottish king before or since has ever “owned” scotland and everyone in it , hence why all scottish monarchs are styled kings of scots not scotland , as first among equals rather than conquerors of an enslaved people as william the first , duke of normandy styled himself and his descendants on the taking of england.

    The declaration of arbroath merely re affirms the ancient traditions rather than being a devious means to circumvent mass excommunication.

    Andy Wightmans the poor had no lawyers ,and G.Barrows Robert the bruce and the community of the realm of scotland and much of the work by p.b Ellis on celtic society are good reads on the subject.

    Hence the old celtic laws are the basis of the sovereignty of the scots people , not the declaration of arbroath , which merely recognises our ancient laws and practices.

  189. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Stewartb @ 6.19 pm

    Really good point.

    First, congratulations to Dublin as banks and global financial institutions choose Ireland’s capital = ) Wishing the lovely folk of Ireland great success in the years ahead xxx

    The great ejits of 2014 have alot to answer for.

    Ian Murray’s fearty unambitious and patronising attitude towards Edinburgh and Scotlands’ abilities on the whole are no great surprise. Just gotta love the clever worthies of Morningside for thinking that hopeless wee so and so would be a suitable representative for us in London. Sheesh.

    As for the great and the good at that debate hosted by ‘the Spectator’, sadly, some folk just take a painfuly long time to learn, having first of all lacked the vision and courage to see how Scotland, the Independent Nation would be.

    I think a fair few will be seeing things differently now.

    Independent Scotland, back in the EU, will also be a very attractive location. Soon folks, soon =)

  190. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    thomas @ 8.15 pm

    Fasinating ! Thank you = )

    Did know some of that, appreciate your laying it all out so clearly.

    ‘The people of Moray refused to recognise this feudal structure and remained in a state of open rebellion for centuries’ =)

    And, as William Skene put it ‘ the ordinary folk in Scotland long clung to the semi communist pratices of the Gael’ Love it !

    Explains alot of our cynical approach to authority 🙂

  191. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Liz g @ 6.57 pm

    Some individual tried to take a side swipe of sarcasm at Smallaxe of all people ?!

    That’s pathetic and low.

    But fits.

  192. mike d
    Ignored
    says:

    3.48pm jwt .gadaftie safe seat in engerland yes. Pm never.engerland don’t vote for ‘scotch ‘speaking pm’s.

  193. mike d
    Ignored
    says:

    Bugsbunny 8.03pm. Your spot on with that. And i know what you mean about the rest of the PC sh*t.

  194. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Thomas @ 8.15
    Thanks for that it was fascinating.
    I have always been interested in how the Clan’s organised their way of life.
    I think we might have a lot to learn from it.

    I don’t suppose you would know the name of an Indy supporting professor at Edinburgh, who filmed a bit about the settlement on Orkney and how it might be indicative of the Clan system and the American Indian tribes systems, being so alike that it’s possible that this/these systems date back to when the continents were still joined.

    The point he was making was that if it proved true…..then the destruction of the system at and after Culloden,was a far more significant happening in human history it’s self,as opposed to just Scottish history.
    They may have destroyed one of the earliest examples of civilization!
    I can never mind who he was or which site ran the lecture but it was amazing?

  195. Bob p
    Ignored
    says:

    Heard from my old mum on the phone today,that bikers for yes passed through Maybole ayrshire yesterday. Flying the flag for indy. Fair play to you guys/gals. You gladdened an 86 year old yes voters heart.

  196. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Peffers @7:24

    I agree with all of that Robert, but there is a chronology at play too.

    When Robert, King of Scotland was excommunicated, what you say is correct, and that is indeed why the Declaration of Arbroath, and other letters “lost” in antiquity were written.

    But the Pope however did not reply to the Declaration of Arbroath very promptly. In Scotland’s hour of need to survive the English, the Pope would not reply for 8 years. He did write a letter to Robert, the King of Scotland in 1324, but the formal recognition of the Declaration of Arbroath and lifting of the excommunication did not happen until 1328, after Edward II was dead, and after the peace treaty signed earlier in 1328 by Edward’s wife Isabella, and her lover. You might even argue the Pope was hedging his bets and waiting to see how the battle for Scotland unfolded..

    So in chronological terms, the Scots declared their popular sovereignty and right to depose a monarch, 8 years before England sued for peace with Scotland, with England under peril of starvation from famine, invasion from Scotland, and civil war between jealous Lords set at each other’s throats by Edward II’s divisive reign, and yet the Pope did not formally recognise Scottish popular sovereignty and its right to de-throne an unsuitable monarch until after that monarch had been recognised for all time by the English regent via the Treaty of Edinburgh/Northampton. When the Pope “intervened”, it was all over bar the shouting.

    Thus the Pope recognised in 1328 a popular Scottish sovereignty, superior to the Scottish monarchy, after that monarchy had been recognised in a peace Treaty with England which decreed that Scotland “shall belong to our dearest ally and friend, the magnificent prince, Lord Robert, by God’s grace illustrious King of Scotland, and to his heirs and successors, separate in all things from the kingdom of England, whole, free, and undisturbed in perpetuity, without any kind of subjection, service, claim or demand.”

    The Scottish sovereignty recognised by the Pope in 1328 came after Scotland had already won its war of Independence, had its monarchy and realm recognised by the all powerful English throne as separate in all things and free from the Kindom of England for evermore. England had recognised Scotland as a monarchy under King Robert by God’s grace, but King Robert was already a monarch inferior beneath, not superior above, the grace of the sovereign people of Scotland.

    I agree fully too, that the World of 14th Century Europe was a time and a place where religion was an all important feature of life and government which has no equivalent potency in the modern secular world, but I don’t think that actually matters. In our modern world, international recognition of a new country is a legal, and largely objective, secular affair. But in the 14th Century, contemporary “international recognition” was bound to be couched in terms of God’s will and religious teachings. It doesn’t however make the recognition invalid, merely of its time.

    Yes, perhaps the recognition of Scotland by the Pope did cite a load of religious mumbo jumbo by our modern standards, but by the standards of its day, the recognition of Scotland’s sovereign legitimacy was as entirely appropriate, legitimate, watertight and incontrovertible as any other Nation’s sovereignty, and truth be known, it was almost certainly better defined and articulated than most.

    I hope folks are familiar the the story of the Gordian knot. But if not here’s a wee summary:- http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/what-was-the-gordian-knot

    See I’m not sure that Scotland’s inalienable popular sovereignty is any less of a conundrum for a would-be invader than the Gordian Knot. I don’t suggest it was designed that way, after all, how could Scotland know or anticipate that the English throne would recognise Scotland in perpetuity? Chance has played its part, and circumstances and events have also conspired to create a conundrum every bit as intractable as our very own Gordian knot. If you can’t defeat the puzzle, then Scottish sovereignty will forever elude you. It’s a puzzle that cannot be solved.

    From 1328, right up until then18th Century, that intractable problem of Scotland’s ethereal sovereignty was a royal pain in the backside for the English. How they must have rued the day that Isabella had recognised Scotland as “…separate in all things from the kingdom of England, whole, free, and undisturbed in perpetuity, without any kind of subjection, service, claim or demand”, and on top of that, the arrangement also carried Papal endorsement too.

    Take a moment to think about that… because suddenly, when Scotland is unconquerable under God, with a unique mythical sovereignty which cannot be mastered by conquest, Royal marriage, bribery, coercion or conventional Treaty, then suddenly, the 1707 Act of Union for me takes on a much more sinister significance.

    Let me paraphrase Boromir: “One does not simply walk into Scotland. Its Black Gates are guarded by more than just Jocks. There is sovereignty there that does not sleep, and the Great Eck is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust, the very air you breathe is a poisonous fume. Not with ten thousand men could you secure sovereign control over Scotland. It is folly…”

    Prior to 1707, it was too. So what does a covetous would-be invader do instead? Well if you can’t beat them, join them.

    The Act of Union was the piece of “lateral thinking” akin to Alexander defeating the Gordian knot puzzle by slicing through the knot with a sword. It trapped Scotland’s unconquerable and elusive sovereignty though guile and deception after all previous efforts had failed. Scotland was hoodwinked, misled, and fooled into believing a carefully executed deception. A deception so thorough it remains convincing and in effect to this very day, and the Parliament of Great England has effective control of Scotland’s sovereignty.

    Neither England, nor Westminster can properly wield or overrule Scottish sovereignty. All they can do is con us into believing they can, and they’ve certainly had a lot of practice.

    But well practiced and backed by 300 years of “convention”,….it is still a sham without true legitimacy. England is merely doing what England does best, – getting away with things. It is Scotland which needs to put its house in order before we do anything else. That, above all other things, above Brexit, above Europe, above ScotRef, has to be the primary objective of the Scottish Government. I’m sorry, desperately sorry, but at the moment we’re just not doing it right.

  197. Ian Foulds
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Peffers at 7.24pm

    Forgive my ignorance but, does the following statement you made, mean that the Scottish Kingdom did not have a Sovereign after 1688, if Billy and Mary were only appointed to the English throne?

    ‘Then, in 1688 the English Parliament rebelled against their rightful monarch and deposed their monarch but imported the foreign King Billy & Queen Mary as the monarchs of the Kingdom of England on condition they legally delegated their Divine right to the Parliament of England. That is the real rebels were the English Parliamentarians and not as they claimed the Jacobites because, as Scotland was still an independent Kingdom, they could not rebel against a king that was not their own.’

    Regards,

  198. colin alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    @K1 @ Ghillie

    Argumentum ad hominem.

  199. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    “…does the following statement you made, mean that the Scottish Kingdom did not have a Sovereign after 1688, if Billy and Mary were only appointed to the English throne?”

    Yes we had a Sovereign – the People. Since 1320.

  200. Legerwood
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Peffers @ 7.24pm

    “”So when The Bruce killed the Comyn on the alter steps of Dumfries High Kirk the monarch of England saw a chance to get control over the then independent Kingdom of Scotland by convincing the Pope, (Head of all Christendom), to excommunicate The Bruce as the killing was on concecrated ground.””

    SCOTLAND WAS NOT independent at this point in time. The first wars of independence started 1296 and ended in 1304 when John Comyn negotiated the general Scottish Submission with Edward which effectively left Scotland as a vassal state of England. It was Robert the Bruce who regained Scotland’s Independence- 1314 and all that.
    ………….

    “”Under, “Divine Right of Kings”, The Bruce owned all Scotland and, being sovereign, he owned everyone in Scotland too. So effectively everyone in Scotland was excommunicated and the Pope ordered that every church service in England should begin by cursing Scotland.””

    THE PEOPLE OF Scotland were not excommunicated they were placed under interdict after Robert the Bruce killed John Comyn in 1306 and subsequently crowned king . Interdict, which is ecclesiastical censure, differs from excommunication in that it does not cut people off from the communion of the faithful or from Christian Society. The Bruce received absolution for the murder from the Bishop of Glasgow and this meant he could be crowned before the excommunication was imposed on him . The interdict was placed on Scotland at the same time because the people of Scotland were considered to share the guilt of their King. Not anything to do with the Divine Right of Kings and ‘ownership’ of the people by the king.
    Interdict and excommunication were lifted in 1328 after the signing of the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton in which Edward III renounced his claim to Scotland.
    ……………
    “”To circumvent this mass excommunication the Scots drew up and petitioned the Pope with, “The Declaration of Arbroath”, that not only declared Scotland as an independent Kingdom but that under Scottish law Bruce was NOT sovereign but only the protector of the people’s sovereignty.””
    THE DECLARATION OF Arbroath does not mention the excommunication but was part of a wider diplomatic effort to have Scotland’s independence recognised and the excommunication lifted. The Declaration makes no mention if Scot’s law or the people’s sovereignty. That is an interpretation of one section of the Declaration which could be argued referred to the right of the nobles to remove the king if he did not defend the independence of Scotland.
    …………..

    “”By this time the Holy Roman Se was falling out with the English Monarchy who was divorcing some of his wives and executing others. The Holy Roman Se were/are against divorce. The English monarchy, (that Rome had previously made Lord of the Kingdom of Ireland), had forced the Parliament of Ireland to appointed him King of Ireland and appointed himself head of the Christian Church of England.””

    YOU APPEAR to have jumped forward a couple of hundred years to Henry VIII (1491-1547).

  201. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    “Argumentum ad hominem.”

    Aw diddums.

  202. McDuff
    Ignored
    says:

    bugsbunny 8.15

    In a nutshell.

  203. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Liz g @ 9.44 pm

    THAT is a fascinating !

    Of course the Scottish way of life, the Clan System and that of the tribes of the Indiginous North Americans should be recognised as earlier civilization.

    And it’s dismantling as dispicable.

    It is how the peoples were organised and functioned and flourished.

    I remember from my university days the thinking then was that the people who made their way to what is now the North American continent once the ice had retreated, did so by a land bridge from Russia to Alaska.

    The similarities are there and I too would be very interested in hearing that lecture. Could it have been a visiting Professor speaking at the Rhine Lectures hosted by the department of Archaeology? Or connected to the School of Scottish Studies or Scottish History?

    Oooh you’ve got me all intersted!

  204. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us our King; for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom -for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with his life itself.

    The problem with the Declaration of Arbroath is that Scotland had already been made semi-feudalised, same as the problem with the Claim of Right 1689:

    That all proclamations asserting an absolute power to cass, annul and disable laws . . . are contrary to law.

    http://www.rps.ac.uk/trans/1689/3/108

    is that that too was in semi-feudalist times. The advantage however is that the Claim of Right was entered into the records of the UKSC in the Millar case and the appeal afterwards.

    I doubt it’s the last time we see it, but I think the purpose then was to enter it for later reference, not argue over it.

  205. mike d
    Ignored
    says:

    It always used to put a cynical smile on my face reading about the “year of homecoming ” .why would any expat scot want to return to a subjugated region/country??.other than to visit family. Can anyone imagine the homecoming to celebrate an independent Scotland. The celebrations alone would boost the economy for at least 3/4 years.

  206. Ian Foulds
    Ignored
    says:

    Proud Cybernat,
    at 10.17

    Apologies for my inexactitude.

    I should have used the word monarch and not Sovereign, as indeed we are sovereign and, apparently according to Thomas above, since possibly before 1320.

    Regards,

  207. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Proud Cybernat: “Yes we had a Sovereign – the People. Since 1320.”

    Before that I think, long before.

  208. Legerwood
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Peffers @ 7.24pm
    Robert Peffers @ 7.24 pm

    “”Scotland4 was thus the odd man out in Europe and no longer under the rule of law, of, “Divine Right of Kings”. The differenced did not, however, stop there. In 1603, due to a marriage of convenience between a royal child of Scotland and a teenage royal of England a Scottish King fell heir to the crown of England.
    The English Problem was that they were still under the rule of law of Divine Right and that meant the Scottish King should just tag the Kingdom of England onto Scotland and all four countries would have become the Kingdom of Scotland and the Englanders were not having that. So they claimed that as James VI was not Sovereign he could not just add Scotland on as part of his existing kingdom. Hence he became James I of England & VI of Scotland and there was no actual Union of the Crowns in 1603 and Scotland continued as an independent kingdom.””
    ………..
    At the time of Robert the Bruce and subsequent kings the Divine Right of Kings was not a factor in Scotland.

    The Stuart monarchs, however, were supporters of the Divine Right of Kings and none more so than James the VI who wrote several text books on the subject in 1597-98 BEFORE he went to England where by 1603, the idea was on the wane and not as you state still the law.

    Subsequent Stuart kings were strong adherents of the Divine Right and at least one of them, Charles I, could be said to have lost his head over it. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 was pretty much the end of the application of the Divine Right of Kings for future monarchs although the deposed Stuarts probably still believed in it.

    Definition:
    The divine right of kings, divine right, or God’s mandate is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving the right to rule directly from the will of God.

  209. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    “Before that I think, long before.”

    Possibly. Declaration of Arbroath put it in writing. “…100 of us remain alive…” I don’t think refers just to the Nobles but to ALL Scots.

    Anyway – the people of Scotland were Sovereign BEFORE 1707 is what actually matters as it is THAT FACT which causes the BritNat Establishment so many nightmares.

    We, the PEOPLE of Scotland, are Sovereign. What you gonna do about it, Westminster? Huh?

  210. crazycat
    Ignored
    says:

    @ LIz g/Ghillie

    This is not exactly what you are referring to, but skim-reading it, I think it may cover some of the same ground:

    http://www.electricscotland.com/history/america/american_indians.htm

    Following the link to the book it’s an extract from, I can see it is definitely not the lecture/professor you mentioned, but you still might find it interesting, if a bit wordy!

  211. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Proud Cybernat
    I’m with thomas on the chronology, and Breeks on the imporatance of it. Almost aside though I like this from the Declaration of Arbroath (which I first transcribed onto a webpage on my Demon Tam soon after I set up my homepages):

    . . . the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and,even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since. In their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen of their own royal stock, the line unbroken by a single foreigner.

    and then compare it to Burns:

    There was once a time, but old Time was then young,
    That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line,
    From some of your northern deities sprung,
    (Who knows not that brave Caledonia’s divine ?)
    From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain,
    To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would :
    Her heav’nly relations there fixèd her reign,
    And pledg’d her their godheads to warrant it good

    I’m not convinced that “SUCH A PARCEL OF ROGUES IN A NATION” was just about the Treaty and Acts of Union. Anyway, I digress!

  212. crazycat
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Liz g – sorry, I gave you an extra capital and didn’t manage to stop it in time.

  213. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    This may stimulate debate…

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/weekend-sovereignty-for-dummies/

  214. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @bugsbunny says: 23 July, 2017 at 8:03 pm:

    “You are correct. Maybe at least as much as 53% of Scots voted Yes in the 2014 Referendum. That is Scots born. Unfortunately if you add rUK born and even those born elsewhere added to that heady mix in 2014, then they, (non Scot’s born) voted overwhelmingly NO resulting in 55% NO……… If I point out the obvious solution to this I will never hear the last of it, so I’m not.”

    Let’s not even think of restarting that can of old codswallop again, bugsbunny. It will be obvious to many that there are Scots born people living all over the World. My entire immediate close family including my father, mother, sister and her husband and brood emigrated to Australia in 1962.

    I had a Scottish born Great Aunt who married a section manager of Ford’s Detroit works and three first cousins and their families who became Canadians in the 1960s.

    My first wife was born in Portsmouth of English parents and they came to live in Edinburgh when she was still in the pram. She had an older English born sister and a younger Scots born sister. Many Scottish families are equally mixed up and I personally know quite a few English born and bread people who now vote SNP and for indy.

    The only official bodies that based nationality upon place of birth is the UK sports associations and that was mainly because, up to around the 1960/70s, the main or only internationals were the so called Home Countries.

    By the way there are more than a few SNP members who have been elected as MPs, MSP, Councillors and so on who are NOT Scottish Born.

    The thing about Nationality is that we each choose that for ourselves. Have a wee thought, The former colonies are all mainly populated by either immigrants or descendants of immigrants. Should these be barred from voting in their adopted countries?

    So please do not even mention that stupid idea again. I would believe that when we regain our independence a large percentage of non-Scots born NO voters would remain as Scots and the rest would go home to where ever they came from if they felt strongly about it.

    If you believe you are a Scot then you are a Scot.

  215. Lochside
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks and IndyRef2…really guys?.. respect me and read what I said…not what you think I did. The point I made is that Alex Salmond in’ Realpolitick’ terms stuck our collective heads in a constitutional noose of Westminster’s making…on a gamble. I don’t blame him..but I believed it was wrong at the time…and it allowed the long recognised trigger for an exit to Independence predicated on a simple majority of Scottish MPS, as sufficent, to be eclipsed and rendered redundant in the eyes of the world. We need to return to that principle.

    I am not denying our sovereignty…I am saying that it needs to be untangled from the artifice of the Edinburgh Agreement falsehood by challenging it via the existing Constitutional facts of our sovereign existence i.e. the Act of Union etc. through our separate and equal Scottish legal system. At that point we dissolve the Union at source…Westminster.

    Unless we do it using constitutional means awaiting us, at our disposal, to dissolve the Union legally and in this way…we are stuck in the whole mess of Referendums in slowly decreasing circles…doomed to defeat by obfuscation and lies.

    And please chuck all the nonsense of which monarchical succession came next…it’s distraction. The solution lies in our own hands now , to toss the whole devolution mess back at the UK and denying the Supreme Court, the Edinburgh Agreement, and the Referendum the legitimacy they do not deserve. But first we need strong leadership from our Law Lords and Political leaders.

  216. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @BDTT
    Cracking article, still reading it. Before my time visiting Wings, that didn’t start till 2014, maybe 2013 (as dadsarmy).

    Yes, that’s the stuff all right. Just the DK.

  217. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Michael Forsyth clearly had read Lord Cooper’s judgement, and argued that the potential Scottish Parliament could pass a bill for independence and there would be nothing Westminster could do to stop it. Forsyth understood that in Scottish constitutional law and practice the Scottish Parliament would be empowered by the sovereign Scottish people, in a way Westminster never legitimately was.

    Same guy that said in the House of Lords, that if Scotland left the Union, the Union would cease to exist. Clever guy. Unionist but insisted on accuracy, not a common Unionist trait.

    Still more to go of that great article BDTT.

  218. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    I thought Roger Kirkpatrick killed Comyn.

  219. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @thomas says: 23 July, 2017 at 8:15 pm:

    “Hi Robert
    Whilst i greatly admire your knowledge of late medieval/ early modern scottish history , i cant agree with your interpretation that robert the bruce owned scotland and all within scotland under the divine right of kings pre declaration of arbroath.2

    Sorry if I gave that impression, Thomas. That was not what I intended. I was attempting, in probably too clumsy a way, to say it was how the main body of Christendom first interpreted things in regards to Scotland and how the English monarchy encouraged them to think of it. Which they obviously did as Scotland was first excommunicated and then reprieved.

    In point of fact what you are claiming is very likely to be the main evidence offered to Rome that Scots law had a long history of being different.

    What I was attempting to show was that the Holy Roman Se, egged on by the English Monarchy, were treating the death of the Comyn as a murder or assassination by Bruce in order to gain the crown. When the fact is no one but the Bruce could know the truth because the two contenders for the throne were alone in the Kirk.

    Who initially attacked who could only be known to the survivor. It may well have been a case of self-defence. So apologies if it came across as something else. Furthermore, the alleged words of Kirkpatrick, “Ah’ll mak Siccar”, throws a quite different view upon the matter. If indeed that was fact and not just part of the legend. Rather like the tale of Bruce and the spider. There was no known evidence for such a tale until a very long time after the The Bruce was dead.

  220. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Lochside: “The point I made is that Alex Salmond in’ Realpolitick’ terms stuck our collective heads in a constitutional noose of Westminster’s making…on a gamble.

    Yes I know, and that’s what I answered. He couldn’t and can’t. Realpolitick is still subject to laws.

    As for throwing the whole lot back at the UK, perhaps, and perhaps also including the Act of Union with England itself which, arguably, was against the laws of Scotland, as was the proclamation by the Queen’s envoy dissolving the 1707 Parliament just before the 1st May, after it had only adjourned itself. In theory at least the Act of Union doesn’t need to be repealed, it just needs to be totally disowned by the people of Scotland. We, or our ancestors, didn’t sanction it, and we don’ wan’ it no more.

  221. Legerwood
    Ignored
    says:

    yesindyref2 @ 11.16.

    The statement made by Lord Cooper was neither a judgement nor a ruling but an opinion. In legal terms an obiter dicta – an opinion stated during a case but not directly relevant to the case. The case in question was MacCormick vs The Lord Advocate 1953 about the regnal number to be used by the Queen. They lost the case but took it to appeal. Lord Cooper headed the panel of judges who heard the appeal.

    Obiter dicta:
    “A judge’s expression of opinion uttered in court or in a written judgement, but not essential to the decision and therefore not legally binding as a precedent.”
    “an incidental remark.”

  222. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Legerwood
    Thanks for the correction. Still good though, as it does get referred to, in fact was referred to in the UKSC Millar appeal (I think).

  223. Legerwood
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Peffers @ 11.32pm

    The people of Scotland were not excommunicated in 1306 when Robert the Bruce was excommunicated.

    An interdict was placed on Scotland by the Pope. Different from excommunication although with similarities. See my post at 10.18 which was a reply to one of your earlier posts at 7.24 if I have remembered correctly.

  224. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    Lol Ghillie…indeed 😉

  225. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Lochside says:
    23 July, 2017 at 11:07 pm
    Breeks and IndyRef2…really guys?.. respect me and read what I said…not what you think I did. The point I made is that Alex Salmond in’ Realpolitick

    So what’s your realpolitik plan then?

    How it all really works, tory UK reality.

    http://uk.businessinsider.com/unemployment-in-the-uk-is-now-so-low-its-in-danger-of-exposing-the-lie-used-to-create-the-numbers-2017-7

  226. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    Just remind me, has Brexit ‘happened’ yet?

    Everything ‘about’ what way Scotland votes in Scotref until Brexit has been negotiated is therefore utter speculation.

    There is however a very great probability in light of the current state of political flux underway in the UK regarding Brexit, when the terms are known, if, as it presently seems the most likely scenario of leaving the single market and customs union, that the already dawning realisation from those as I stated who are either ignorant wilfully or not quite switched on, begins to seep in…there will be a clamour for a ‘choice’.

    We speak in a bubble on this site, back channeling and temperature taking and regrouping will be underway, the snp haven’t come this far to now abandon their raison d’etre, neither have they morphed into slab.

    When the campaign begins…we are and will be in a totally different landscape from the 2014 ref. And those Brexit terms will indeed be at the heart of it. Not some promisory devolution deal of whatever stripe can they now throw at us next time round,

    In or out, it’s our shout. And it’s coming, we are long past federalisation…never going to happen.

  227. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    In or out, it’s our shout. And it’s coming, we are long past federalisation…never going to happen.

    Which is why it’s being pumped into WoS btl right the noo.

    “I’m with yous, but lets not be an independent nation fellow Scottish types, lets try something else, like my cunning plan, for sovereignty…”

    They think we’re all idiots.

  228. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Crazycat @ 10.47
    Have just came back in…and am reading backwards,but an extra capital…. don’t be sorry my friend…. I refuse nothing but blows.
    I am so very curious now…. Is this no the best site ever??

  229. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Heed
    It seems Ruth Davidson is getting frustrated with the London Tories, and wants them to get on with it and relaunch capitalism to sort out the younger vote which Labour captured. There’s no way that’ll happen, she doesn’t seem to understand that Westminster Tories have their hands in the pockets of the system as it stands, favouring the rich to get richer including themselves. She went, after all, to Buckhaven High School, not Gangleylands or whatever these private schools are called.

    Which means the only way she’d get her “reboot capitalism” wish in any way is for Scotland, and a much stronger Holyrood with much more devolved powers.

    Or Independence, of course.

    One step at a time, sweet Jesus!

  230. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Ghillie @ 10.24
    This is definitely a Scottish teacher.
    There is a bit (might jog someone’s memory) where he tells of Bonnie Prince Charlie returning well after Culloden…with a Spanish Armada type thing…..the invasion the storm in the channel stopped… I think…
    So sorry my memory is absolutely rubbish.
    He also said that he gets in trouble for going of script,,when he tells of this…
    Sorry at that point in time we were so close to the Vote.. I never recorded the details….and I might have asked later because this was a very impressive lecture….but again if I got an answer !!!!! I am stupid enough to have lost it again.

  231. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ian Foulds says: 23 July, 2017 at 10:06 pm:

    “Forgive my ignorance but, does the following statement you made, mean that the Scottish Kingdom did not have a Sovereign after 1688, if Billy and Mary were only appointed to the English throne?”

    Sorry not to get back on the subject. I lost my internet connection to my home network to a disconnected Ethernet cable. However it seems other have explained it already.

    I was indeed quite clumsy with my potted history. To the best of my knowledge Scotland’s laws have always been different in regard to the monarchy. What I was attempting to say was that Christendom, being ruled by Rome, was mainly under the Divine Right of Kings. That was the norm in Christendom.

    Scotland was different but Rome was greatly involved in sticking its nose into other kingdom’s business and not just the business of Scotland. It was the Holy Roman Se that attempted to influence the Christian Religion of Ireland that differed from that of Rome. To that end Rome appointed the Monarchy of England as Lord of Ireland. The aim seems to have been to force the Roman version of Christianity upon the Christian faith then followed in Ireland.

    There is very little history taught about the Norman Conquest of Ireland but the effects of that Norman Conquest of Ireland are still affecting Ireland’s politics today. You could say that Rome began The Irish Troubles. Consequently the English Monarchy held sway in the parliament of the Kingdom of Ireland and more or less forced the Irish Parliament to pass, “The Crown of Ireland Act”, in 1542, that placed the crown of Ireland upon the English Monarch’s head. As the English had already concurred the Welsh King and forced, “The Statute of Rhuddlan”, upon the Welsh in 1284, England were obviously set upon unifying all Britain under English rule.

    Is it any surprise they also were ambitious to take over Scotland? As to the laws, Scotland itself was somewhat divided but unlike England the Normans never concurred the Scots. Both Bruce and Wallace were Norman Knights but the Normans in Scotland, married and assimilated with the old Gaelic nobility and rulers.

    So Scotland was indeed different. What I was attempting to say was that first, under influence by the English Monarchy, Rome seemed to treat Scotland as if they were under the law of Divine Right of Kings and Rome decreed that Bruce was excommunicated and even directed all English church services should begin by cursing Scotland. This indicates Rome, (and England), were treating Scotland as if the Scots monarchy were sovereign.

    However, Henry the Eighth, was divorcing and executing his many wives and Rome did not hold with divorce, (It still doesn’t). Then Henry declared himself Head of the Protestant Christian Church in England and Rome and England were at loggerheads.

    Which brings us round to the events of what England still claims as, “The Union of the Crowns”, in 1603. However, there never was a union of the crowns in 1603. In the first place the English would not have themselves made Scottish for that was the rule of Divine Right of Kings. If a monarch married into, inherited or defeated another monarchy in war the winner just tagged the other kingdom omto the existing kingdom.

    So James VI of Scots was designated James I & VI because, under Scots law the Monarchy isn’t sovereign. Then, in 1688, the English parliament rebelled against their monarchy, and Scotland in 1688 was still an independent kingdom with her own parliament.
    The English deposed their monarch who also wore the still independent crown of Scotland but as Scotland was still independent that could not depose the king of Scots.

    This was the start of the Jacobite Uprisings that England still claim as a Jacobite Rebellion but you cannot rebel against a monarch not your own so the real rebels were the English Parliamentarians and the Jacobites were fighting for their legitimate monarch. Note that the Treaty of Union was signed in 1607 but the English were still killing innocent Scottish non-combatants at Culloden in 1745 almost 40 years after the treaty was signed.

    So the Treaty of Union, (Article 0f Union No.19), stipulates that Scots and English law shall forever remain sacrosanct and Scots law is based upon the Monarchy NOT being sovereign but as Protector of the People’s Sovereignty.

    While English law changed in 1688 by, “The Glorious Revolution”, when the parliamentarians rebelled and deposed their rightful monarch and imported King Billy & Queen Mary of Orange as joint Monarchs of England but on the condition they both delegated their Divine Right, (Sovereignty), to the Parliament of England. That made only England Wales and Ireland into a Constitutional Monarchy but Scotland was still an independent country in 1688.

    Hence the need for a Treaty of Union by England in 1707. If there actually had been a Union of the Crowns in 1603 – why did they need a Treaty of Union in 1707?

    So as others have pointed out, the People of Scotland are still legally sovereign and Her Majesty is still only Queen of Scots but not Queen of Scotland.

    I’ll state that in a concise form for you.

    Her Majesty is Queen of England and legally sovereign in the English Kingdom but must legally delegate her, “Divine Right to Rule”, (sovereignty), to to Westminster.

    She is legally Queen of Scots in Scotland and has no Divine Right to Rule Scotland, (she is not legally sovereign in Scotland).

    There is absolutely no evidence to show that Her Majesty or Westminster has sovereignty over Scotland other than by Westminster saying, “Because we say so”.

    And that is why the really only legal way for Scotland to regain her sovereignty, (Independence), is for a recognised majority of the legally sovereign people of Scotland to say, “This Union is over because we, the legally sovereign people of Scotland, say it is and let Westminster try to take that through the courts of Scotland and the European Courts or the United Nations.

  232. Ian mhor
    Ignored
    says:

    Yeah, it’s kinda wandered off the Daily Record a bit, I think that was the topic?
    Anyway, press is dying because they alienate.
    The Daily Record is good at that.
    The press can villify minorities (as they perceive) but at some point every reader left falls into their category.
    Giving columnists regular, high profile inches to air personal grievances, becomes, by association, the views of “The Record” not the columnist.

    A couple of decades ago it was ‘bikers’ the Record ran weekly shock-horror and anti ‘biker’ propaganda pieces.
    Except, they forgot they were readers.
    They “Record” turned up at Knockhill one year in a vain attempt to curry favour after sales tanked.
    Every free copy disributed was in the bin.

    What’s your point caller?
    Well, as the “Sun” discovered, when your columnist’s opinions become associated with your paper. You lose readers permanently.
    Like tobacco companies, they desperately strive to replace the lost consumers with new blood.
    The traditional press and TV are haemhorraging readers and viewers. They don’t have the clout many believe.
    There are diehard, core, conservative (small ‘c’) consumers, who believe all, but those others, not yet alienated by vitriolic op-ed pieces, take it with at least a pinch of salt.

    So it’s whip up a new frenzy (in politics it’s a-la-Corbyn) and hope to snare new young blood.

    It’s only anecdotal, but I’ve heard a few 80 year olds arguing over a pint about the relative and alternative realities espoused by RT/Al-Jazeera/CNN etc. and many an argument across demographics too.

    They’re not all glued to the Record and the Beeb.
    General consensus is that traditional media is ok to discover high flats in Royston being demolished and a cat up a tree, but global politics is to be fought over a pint and don’t bring a knife to a gun fight.
    “I read it in the Record” or “heard it on the BBC” doesn’t cut it anymore.

  233. Meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    Fascinating discussion this evening folks. It’s great that so many people understand the constitutional situation we find ourselves in.

    It will be crucial info in the near future.

    Have only been able to dip in and out in the last few weeks but it’s good to see the healthy ongoing discussions. Hope to get time to rejoin you all soon.

    I see from reports in the media that the tank commander, who must be nearing the end of her holiday, has again tried to hog the limelight with her damning remarks about her party leader and southern colleagues.
    She certainly has a brass neck!

    T May should tell her to talk to Fluffy as he’s about her level.
    Wonder what Arlene thinks of the interjections?

  234. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Crazycat @ 10.46
    Thanks…Indeed it isn’t the lecture I am taking about that’s true.
    But, oh my,it’s a great read..and it’s some of what my guy was saying..

    About how the Scottish clans and the American Indians had very similar structures in place for their society.

    The more aggressive Feudal system has gotten control but only in the last couple of centuries,and the Clan/Celtic/Native American way of life was not actually destroyed..

    If this is right and this is how humanity did play out then we.. Scotland ….could be about to recalibrate how the world work’s…….scary stuff!!

  235. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Aweright mike d said last night ~

    “Can anyone imagine the homecoming to celebrate an independent Scotland. The celebrations alone would boost the economy for at least 3/4 years.”

    That times one hundred!

    Party central.

    Scotland.

  236. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    mike d @ 10.25 pm

    It is especially when your loved ones are held in a situation against their will and that is doing them terrible harm, that you would want to visit and dream of the day they are set free.

    Honouring your mother and father.

    Most left because they had to, and some to seek a better life where they could feel free. So that alone tells those who are settled else where and those who stayed that things in the great old UK are NOT good.

    The Homecoming when Scotland is Independent will be so gloriously joyful =)

  237. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Excellent Ghillie.. mike d, you n me must be interconnected 😉

    Scotland to iScotland (‘i’ for independent and international.)

    Let’s go forward to the future in an independent Scotland:
    (The year is 20XX – we launch our space programme)

    Every independence day just keeps getting better.

    Saw WOTPOTA tonight, groovy.

    Love iScotland.

    X.

  238. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Meg merrilees
    The GE put off Sturgeon’s talk to Holyrood about the SG steps in case of refusal by Westminster, and rightly she’s “reset” the Indy Ref as indeed “now is not the time” – a good excuse I think. The intention to carry through has been made plain to the EU-27, but that’s all that was needed. So yeah, the more we know the better, as I suspect there’ll be some controversy over the “next steps”, and there could be a few genuinely worried people to take care of with some hard information not available officially.

    Can’t wait to see what they are, all the same, hope it’s not boring 🙂

    @Mike d / Cactus / Ghillie
    I reckon tourism will go through the roof, and with tourism comes business including the already increasing food and drink sector. Conferences too, plus embassies and HQs and country offices doing a look-see. Every export manager in the world sending reps, including keeping the currently via rUK existing trade. I’d have liked to see a strong counter-argument to project fear on that basis, one perhaps with estimated figures. 10% to even 25% increase in GDP I’d say, for 3 or 4 years.

    Anyway, TW3, so it’s off to snooze for me. Lot to do tomorrow today.

  239. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    See when we set the date for ScotRef and Scotland votes Yes…

    Can we make our independence day the 1st of January..

    Only you can make that happen.

    There be a song:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edH_5gtQjps

  240. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Sure, freedom is usually set to celebrate in late March.

    Could we do something different?

    One of January.

    Together.

    X.

  241. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Afore I go, quick recap as yesindyref2 sees it in a moment of unexpected clarity, or the wrong glasses.

    1). No Holyrood election until 2021
    2). No council elections until 2022
    3). No planned GE until 2022.

    DUP – paid off. Foster can claim glory, and if she has any sense will give in gracefully to some Finn Fein demands and achieve some stability and kudos in NI. She will have no reason to oppose the Tories, if her demands for Brexit are mostly met.

    13 Scottish Tories – will not support any vote of no confidence, and will (mostly) vote with whip. Perhaps not on some non-crucial issue to show how strong they are for Scotland. May if she has any sense will throw some crumbs Davidson’s way so she can claim a full loaf of bread.

    So the chance of an early GE is receding.

    EU-27 – Davis has been told he has no plan for the CTA – Common Travel Area. But the other way of looking at this is since Barnier mentioned it, the CTA is on as far as the EU-27 is concerned. And this is very good news for an iScotland in the EU or single market at least – no more “we’re losing the UK single market”. Wha goes for Ireland into and from NI, goes for iScotland into and from the rUK.

    Single market for the UK? Well, we have to wait and see. That reduces the justification for Indy Ref 2, though there may be other genuine reasons for it to do with Brexit, like EU immigration to Scotland, students, temporary visas and such-like, workers’ rights, human rights even.

    So there’s little need right now for partisan party politics at least as far as elections are concerned. And also since IR2 is not on the immediate horizon (it never was), perhaps a time for meetings of minds over “normal” issues, outside of Indy / anti-Indy bashing.

    Hearts and minds, hearts and minds.

  242. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Sinn Fein, though I rather like Finn Fein all the same. Good pal of mine.

  243. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    What true, proud or passionate Scot could not vote Yes, in the knowing that New Years Day would be their HOME country day. It’s yours, take it.

    What a dedication to Scotland that would be.

    We own New Years Day.

    It’s a holiday!

  244. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Crazycat@ 10.46 pm

    Thank you for that article ! That was really thoughtful = )

    thomas, you started us on this, you might like a read of it too! And Robert Peffers and everyone else too =)

  245. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Hey there Cactus = )

  246. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    We own midnight.

  247. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Hey Ghillie hehe ~

    In an independent Scotland, we can be anything we choose to learn.

    To a learn.

    AyeayeScotland.

  248. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    In our independent Scotland.. I propose that at the stroke of midnight, every night, Auld Lang Syne is aired on our airwaves (other countries can PPView ScoTV too.)

    You may choose to stand if you so do wish.

    Nae spinny planets, just our song.

    Then onto Family Guy.

    Excellent.

  249. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Cactus ! Totally with you on ‘ at stroke of midnight, EVERY night, play Auld Lang Syne’ = )

    Standing an option ?!?

    EHHH ?!

    Definately should all spring into the holding hands, here’s a hand my trusty friend, sharing the love and dancing aboot.

    It’s going to take decades, actualy centuries, for the excitement to calm down enough to decide whether to stand or dance aboot.

    What a brilliant idea 🙂 Traffic would have to come to a standstill every night at midnight so we could all make big circles in the middle of the road and dance and laugh and hug. MY kind of country = )

    And then air Family Guy…really ? Simpsons maybe ? We could discuss that.

    Loving it ! Feels like it is already happening 🙂 I guess in our own way, it already has. Just have a few T’s to dot and I’s to cross = )

  250. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    I second your above bonnie lass xx.

    “Let’s go forward to the future in our independent Scotland:”

    The year is.. name your year..?

    Howsabout “Homer Guy”?

    Compromise?

  251. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Anything can happen through the night…

    Afterall..

    We own midnight.

  252. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye Cactus,we own midnight = )

    Amongst us all, we own it all.

    I think Scotland already is Independent.

    Certainly in our hearts and in our minds.

    Just have to get the vote out to show the World what Scotland is really about.

    Our time is near = )

  253. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Love

    And

    Never

    Die

    X.

    Scotland is complete.

  254. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Lochside says:
    23 July, 2017 at 11:07 pm
    “Breeks and IndyRef2…really guys?.. respect me and read what I said…not what you think I did. The point I made is that Alex Salmond in’ Realpolitick’ terms stuck our collective heads in a constitutional noose of Westminster’s making…on a gamble. I don’t blame him..but I believed it was wrong at the time…and it allowed the long recognised trigger for an exit to Independence predicated on a simple majority of Scottish MPS, as sufficent, to be eclipsed and rendered redundant in the eyes of the world. We need to return to that principle.

    I am not denying our sovereignty…I am saying that it needs to be untangled from the artifice of the Edinburgh Agreement falsehood by challenging it via the existing Constitutional facts of our sovereign existence i.e. the Act of Union etc. through our separate and equal Scottish legal system. At that point we dissolve the Union at source…Westminster.

    Unless we do it using constitutional means awaiting us, at our disposal, to dissolve the Union legally and in this way…we are stuck in the whole mess of Referendums in slowly decreasing circles…doomed to defeat by obfuscation and lies….”

    Apologies Lochside, I did miss the point you were making, whereby the “majority” for Indy became a majority of the people, not a proxy majority of elected MP’s. But that said, I restate what I said in reply. The definition of our sovereignty was not altered by Alex Salmond, but yes, perhaps it is true that conceding a proxy sovereignty of elected MP’s was an unforced concession, and a cul-de-sac from which we now need to reverse.

    I am loathed to call it an error of judgement, because in terms of real politic, I personally think the proxy sovereign Independence declared from a majority of elected MP’s was always going to be a tough sell and something Unionists would cry foul about, even though such a perfunctory exit from the Union would be a darn sight more honest and honourable than Scotland’s entrance into that Union.

    Furthermore, if it was an error of judgement, then it’s an error of judgement Nicola Sturgeon is repeating by championing the cause of democratic majority over humdrum technical legitimacy. Independence by popular choice or technical default? It’s painful to surrender a win by technical default for a loss by popular majority, but if we value peace in our time, it does seem the correct option.

    I do not condemn Alex Salmond, nor Nicola Sturgeon opting to pursue the democratic popular majority of a referendum, and I don’t think you do either Lochside, because anything less would be mired in acrimonious dissent and possible disorder.

    My one personal perspective is support for Nicola Sturgeons backing for a popular referendum in the public realm, but behind closed doors, in closed session with the UK government, every negotiation, argument and political ultimatum should be a constitutional minefield for Westminster.

    It’s nice to persuade ourselves that perhaps that is what is actually happening, especially with ongoing Brexit negotiations, but from the bullish arrogant attitude of Westminster, it is difficult to reconcile their position as one being firmly constrained and frustrated by the intractable nature of Scottish sovereignty. It “feels” like we are not making our sovereign presence felt.

    But therein lies my grievance with the SNP. I am uncomfortable just “persuading” myself the First Minister is playing hardball over Scottish sovereignty. There is barely any reference being made to it at all in SNP literature, the stated policy places it’s faith in securing a democratic majority it does not yet have, and when the sovereign voice of the Scottish people actually is expressed, as it was expressed when it voted to remain in Europe, then the SNP does not appear to consider itself constrained by the absolute nature of the sovereign mandate delivered by the Scottish people. Brexit means Brexit for the UK, but Remain apparently doesn’t mean Remain for Scotland…hmmm.

    I do not want to criticise or damage Nicola Sturgeons leadership or the SNP, quite the reverse, but I genuinely do not understand the SNP’s great reluctance to open the dusty old trunk that contains the medieval instruments of Scottish sovereignty. Rumour has it they are fine instruments indeed for “torturing” a difficult government from South of the Border and constraining its excesses.

    Even when short of the elusive outright majority for Independence, which is don’t forget a modern democratic twist on the whole thorny issue of sovereignty and independence, there must be mechanisms within the tools of Scottish sovereignty to clip the wings of Westminster’s ambitions.

    As Lochside points out, Scotland has conceded that a parliamentary majority for Independence does not deliver a sovereign majority for it, and apparently won very little from that concession. Now is the time to recover some of that “lost” ground by beating Westminster senseless in its Brexit negotiations with the heavy blunt instrument of Scottish sovereignty.

    I’d like to see us a bit less Noel Coward “Don’t let’s be beastly to the Germans”. It is very much appropriate for Nicola Sturgeon to be markedly more “beastly” with the “British”, and downright draconian about defending the principle of sovereignty.

    Sovereignty not only needs to be done, but seen to be done…

    And thanks by the way to the other folks posting some extremely informative comments. I know a little more today than I knew yesterday.

  255. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Have an excellent Monday Scotland.

    Better days are coming.

    Soon.

  256. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    Very much worth reading.

    https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2017/07/23/and-then-we-will-win/

    Right Nana. I’m putting kettle on. 😉

  257. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    Looks like the Hoolets had a good night, interesting stuff. I was taught at the school that Kirkpatrick chibbed the Comyn tae “Mak Siccar!”

    The great pity was that the Scots night raid on the English camp in 1327 at the Battle of Stanhope Park failed to capture Edward III who was hiding under his collapsed tent. Taking him hostage would have shortened the war. Arguably England’s greatest king? he certainly wasn’t a chip off the old block & his paternity’s in some doubt!

    The Moray men supported the MacWilliam’s & were finally defeated at the Battle of Mam Garva in the upper Spey, Galloway also took a bit of persuading. But as for the Divine Right of Kings, James VI, whatever the fancy notions he learned from Henry VIII’s tyranny, had it dinned into him that he was but “God’s sillie vassal!” & survived by the skin of his teeth to inherit the English crown. His mother lost her crown for her high-handedness just as James I & James III lost theirs, not for nothing was his claim that he ruled Scotland with the pen from London, something his ancestors couldn’t manage with the sword. The Scots rejection of this Divine Right of Kings business was the direct cause of the Wars of the Covenant & the English Civil War as Charles II tried to stamp his Anglified notions on the Scots & the English baulked at being taxed to pay for a conflict which saw carnage not experienced again until the Great War. His grandson Charles II was the last monarch to be crowned with the Scottish crown but only after he had his nose put to the grindstone (Dutch cartoon) & signed the Covenant so no divine intervention there! he did what he was telt or no-show!

  258. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    PS, it should be Charles I stamping his Anglified notions, his two sons repeated the experiment!

  259. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    Good morning Macart. in no particular order here are your morning links

    http://scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/logic-problems.html

    http://zelo-street.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/tim-montgomerie-launches-another-flop.html

    Liam Fox ‘open’ to importing US chlorinated chicken
    http://archive.is/uXG06

    Sailing Up Brexit Creek To Disaster
    http://archive.is/fKYIG

  260. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    Yemen cholera to spread with rains; Oxfam sees 600,000 cases
    http://archive.is/YyyCc

    Only 15!
    Fifteen Tory MPs agree to sign no-trust motion against Theresa May: Report
    http://archive.is/7O711

    https://www.thecanary.co/2017/07/23/conservative-partys-shambolic-week-just-ended-fitting-ways-images/

    Corbyn lying through his teeth here on the single market. I just don’t get why no one is calling him out on this.
    https://twitter.com/plasmatron/status/889062552176648192

  261. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert Kerr

    Thanks for the link Sunday 12.53. Had to go out yesterday so apologies for late reply.

    @Capella Re dark money

    In April the CEO of Cambridge Analytica visited Malcolm Turnbull, PM of Australia – watch that space too. Elections & referendums for sale.
    https://twitter.com/acgrayling/status/888509052896120832

  262. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    Putting off the hovering , dusting and shopping to read those links Nana – best excuse ever!

    Cactus , do you ever sleep?
    A song for you,
    youtu.be/X4R3EFfGjeg

    Dream fields is another cracker!

  263. Ian Foulds
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Peffers at 12.56am

    I very much appreciate your detailed response, which will probably take me the rest of the day to digest!

    Using this site, with its broad church of participants (with varied viewpoints) has shown me how Scotland is an interesting and diverse Country – this was certainly not the case at school when I dropped the subject at the end of 3rd year more than 50 years ago.

    Thanks again, especially to you Robert but also to all others who are contributing.

  264. ronnie anderson
    Ignored
    says:

    https://www.thecanary.co/2017/07/23/media-kept-quiet-mays-grubby-golden-handshakes-20-tory-ministers-naming/

    The money tree getting shook for more money for the elite.

  265. bjsalba
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T

    Addition to Nana’s great links is this.

    http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2017/07/24/no-good-choices-for-the-british-government-in-the-brexit-negotiations/

    A really great summation of where the current Brexit negotiations are at.

    And pretty concise for a paper on an academic site.

  266. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Scot Finlayson says: 23 July, 2017 at 11:21 pm.

    I thought Roger Kirkpatrick killed Comyn.”

    No one knows, Scot.

    Which is just the point. The story goes that Bruce and The Comyn were alone together in the Kirk and the rest were outside. So only The Bruce knew who drew the first weapon.

  267. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    heedtracker says:
    24 July, 2017 at 12:05 am
    Lochside says:
    23 July, 2017 at 11:07 pm
    Breeks and IndyRef2…really guys?.. respect me and read what I said…not what you think I did. The point I made is that Alex Salmond in’ Realpolitick

    So what’s your realpolitik plan then?

    So no actual plan then Lochside?

    Or just the usual “why didn’t/doesnt Alex Salmond/someone else do this and that?”

    At the very least, Colin A says he wants a ref on Scottish sov.

  268. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    yesindyref2 says:
    24 July, 2017 at 12:37 am
    @Heed
    It seems Ruth Davidson is getting frustrated with the London Tories,

    Haha! Heard it all farted out by BBC r4 tory gimps yesterday, ALL DAY. Sounded like Colonel Ruth had made some extraordinary and wondrous tory interventionerising.

    But ofcourse, its just tory BBC vote propaganda.

    BBC r4, The Daily Telegraph on the radio.

  269. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    The Tories whisky gang fighting against this country’s battle against drink. Do the Tories support the government and the people?
    No they support the foreign owned whisky cabal.
    They don’t give a toss about people’s suffering.

    Next we will have labour fighting against our battle against sectarianism ……….. Oops James Kelly MSP,and co are doing that already

    Put the interests of Scotland first?

    No chance

  270. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Latest Graun no shit Sherlock economic news,

    “A weaker currency makes exports cheaper and imports dearer, but the latest set of official trade figures found the trade deficit in goods widened. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA

    Larry Elliott Economics editor
    Monday 24 July 2017 06.00 BST
    The sharp fall in sterling triggered by the EU referendum result is having an adverse effect on Britain’s already weak public finances but has yet to bring about the expected improvement in the trade deficit, a Guardian analysis of the economic news of the past month shows.

    In a period in which business confidence took a hit from the government’s loss of its overall majority in the general election, the Guardian’s monthly tracker found little evidence that the impact of a more competitive currency was offsetting a slowdown in consumer spending caused by dearer imports.”

    But that nice Nic Robinson wheezed out this morn that everything is lovely under tory rule. Last night beeb r4 gimps on their “Westminster Hour” vote tory show said Teresa is now more than safe as Dear Leader and that’s all changed from a couple of weeks ago too. Usual total beeb gimp black out of anything or anyone 3rd party SNP.

    Vote BBC toryboy, UKOK all the way.

  271. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Bruce (the father or uncle?) wanted to divide Scotland into three. Divide the lands for each contender to the crown. After Alexander 111 and Maid of Norway died. John Bailliol ‘Tom Tarbard’. Most of the nobles had a foot in both Courts – intermarriage to keep power and control. Normandy/France, England/Scotland (Ireland/Norway) etc. ‘Divine right’ of Kings. Representative of God on earth. They were supposed to be of good virtue and qualities. Considerate and just. Unfortunately many were not.

    The 1WW wiped out the European Royals. In the UK they were German migrants. Always weird where migrants do not like migrants and foreigners. The Tory Royals should stop interfering and keep quiet like they are supposed to. Or bow out. There is a case for a constitutional Monarchy. A head of State with no powers or influence. Again a Presidency which can introduce more corruption and conflict. Nothing gets done because of checks and balance. Stalemate. FPTP one person one vote. Supported by the majority. Usually gives a working majority.

    What kicked off the revolt in Scotland. John Bailliol, a puppet, taken hostage and imprisonment in London. Edward 1, imposition of taxes and conscription for his battles for power and land in Normandy/France. War with France. The ‘raggy roll’. (Illegal Poll tax) Imposition of register of taxes and conscription. Like today. Illegal wars, illegal taxes. Illegal wars costing £Trns. Illegal taxes Oil sector taxed at 40% since Jan 2016. More before that. Everything changes but everything stays the same. Scotland loses £20Billion a year to Westminster unionist mismanagement. Illegal wars, financial fraud and tax evasion. Eventually Edward the 1, the hammer off the Scots, was sent back to think again. Died of ill health, Alnwick. His campaign failed in Normandy and Scotland. Too far extended campaign lines.

    1928 Universal Suffrage. 2000 Scottish Parliament. 5+ year of majority SNP Gov. Nearly ten years including minority Gov. One IndyRef 2014. A mandate for another one within two years. Progress. Over 50%+ support Independrnce. How far Scotland has come in a few years. It is amazing.

    Minimum pricing decision today. To protect the nation’s health and wealth. An educated, healthy society. Finally after five years because the unionists would not vote for it. In the Scottish courts, which deal with the fall out, every day. Another day for celebrations. Scottish affairs dealt with under Scottish Law, The separate legal system.gives the right to sovereignty forever. Or the Union terms are broken. Without agreement from representatives of both countries. Under U.K./EU/International Law.

    To protect Scotland just keep on voting SNP, SNP. Vote for Independence in the EU. For a more equal, healthier, prosperous, happier country.

    Lying politicans can be sued under the Law. They have to make a submission, or settle, Westminster unionists are being taken to Court repeatedly and losing. The Tories rating must be in free fall. Tanking.

  272. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘Divine right of Kings’. Religion was used as a form of control without other means. If people were good and kind they went to heaven. If they were not they burned in hell. A means of keeping control etc. Fear and loathing. Religious teaching of good and evil of confirmation. Based in the Bible’s teachings. The King and court admonished justice in disputes etc. The Scottish King in medieval times took the Court on walk about. Administrating justice to the people. Visited various castles meeting and greeting. Give out justice in disputes. The King/court received a tithe (10th) in return in food, goods etc. A minor administration. Corporal punishment as a deterrent. Mercy of justice etc.

    Edinburgh, Stirling, Perth, Aberdeen, (Dunfermline, St Andrews etc. Old Burghs/towns. Now cities. Sited on rivers (fresh water) cross roads – market towns (trade) Castles for protection. Old universities bases. Seats of learning. Monastries hives of industry and trade. Reading and writing. Recording. Trading with other countries in Europe and beyond. France etc. Culross. Falkland palace. One of the oldest counties in the world. One of the first countries in the world to have tertiary education. The Scottish Enlightenment changed the world. Scotland the country of invention which changed the world. Sport home of tennis and golf. Court at Falkland Palace. Poetry, literature, medicine. Changed the world.

  273. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Ruth Davidson is getting feart. Tanking ratings?

    Liars always get found out.

    It will end in Court. The Westminster unionists have lost so far. For stepping over people’s rights.

    The pleas over the airways falling in barren ground. Being beamed in from everywhere. Countered on the Internet. The unionists despised all round. The world.

  274. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Just waiting for May to be deposed by her compatriots. How long will it take? For the fakes to be exposed.

  275. Legerwood
    Ignored
    says:

    “”yesindyref2 says:
    23 July, 2017 at 11:45 pm
    @Legerwood
    Thanks for the correction. Still good though, as it does get referred to, in fact was referred to in the UKSC Millar appeal (I think).””

    Yes it is still referred to. Obiter dicta once on record can be quoted in future legal cases but how much weight is given to them in such circumstances is debatable.

    In English law some Obiter dicta may be classed as persuasive which may give them more weight but can’t say for sure.

  276. stu mac
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ian Foulds says:
    23 July, 2017 at 10:06 pm
    Robert Peffers at 7.24pm
    ==========================

    The 1688 action placing William and Mary on the throne was a purely English affair but the Scottish Convention of 1689 accepted them as monarchs but under different conditions – the most obvious being the establishment of Presbyterianism as the state religion (but without the monarch being head of the church). So William did become king in Scotland also but under a separate and slightly different agreement.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_of_Estates_(1689)

  277. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    The Scots kings were perpetually skint, the church had the bulk of the best land & the revenue raised by teinds (tithes) supported the church’s building programme plus schools, hospitals & support for the poor. Henry VIII grabbed the English church’s land & wealth to support his fancied role as a European leader. In Scotland its weak monarchy failed to prevent the great land grab by the rapacious nobility at the Reformation, something the Stewarts were unable to reverse. Knox’s church was continually strapped for cash & the poor etc’ suffered. Things could have been very different. The last Abbot of Coupar for example, a son of the earl of Argyll, carved out half a dozen estates for his illegitimate Campbell sons from the abbey’s lands, triggering a range war with the Ogilvy’s, the earl of Cassillis roasted the Abbot of Crossraguel over his own fire until he signed the abbey lands over to the Kennedy’s & the Hamilton’s grabbed much of the abbey of Paisley’s assets. This was repeated right across Scotland, the land was stolen & it’s time we had it back.

  278. Peter McCulloch
    Ignored
    says:

    While I don’t doubt Corbyn’s belief in

  279. colin alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    Re. Breeks 5.49am

    It’s heartening to read that some people can see past the “all the eggs in one basket” approach to activating our Scottish sovereignty, namely Independence via a majority YES vote.

    It’s an error to accept the UK Govt mindset that Scottish sovereignty is something that can only influence how the UK Union operates AFTER a YES vote.

    Too many accept Scottish sovereignty is like a political prisoner caged and shackled by the Union, absolutely powerless, that can only be freed by a majority voting YES to independence.

    It’s plain wrong to accept WM’s view that until Scotland votes YES, only Westminster has sovereignty and can do whatever it wants.

    So, whether you support EU membership or not, I think we are all agreed it’s totally unacceptable that the UK Govt and EU are negotiating away Scotland’s place in the EU and Single Market, as if Scotland’s sovereignty doesn’t exist.

    I believe it’s a false assumption to accept we are powerless to do anything cos of a 2014 NO vote to indy, and only a reversal of that vote gives Scotland any power to exercise sovereignty.

    Nobody has tested those chains. Nobody has tested the limits of Scottish sovereignty within the Union. Even the SNP has never done that.

    “Why do that? It’s just a distraction from indy via indyref2. You’re a Unionist troll” for suggesting anything other than campaigning only for a YES vote in indyref2. is the often quoted responses from many Wingers.

    “You don’t get it: We can’t do anything cos WM says it’s sovereign (including over Scotland).”, I am told.

    How do we know that that’s a fact? Has it ever been tested in modern times?

    To her credit, Nicola Sturgeon HAS repeatedly declared Scotland’s people are sovereign. The Greens and some Labour MSPs have also said this.

    See this article: http://archive.is/3yTsS

    I would argue that Scottish sovereignty should be exercised not just as a means to try and leave the Union, but also to undermine and disprove the teaching of Westminster sovereignty.

    Politicians of Unionist parties would face challenges as to where their loyalties lie: Westminster or the people in Scotland who elected them and who they claim to represent.

    The electorate would face the question: Should Scotland’s PR elected representatives be able to make decisions for Scotland or should UK WM MPs make those decisions for us?

    Why do this?

    It’s a win-win. We may find we can block WM injustices, such as Brexit. We may find we can do more than WM currently allows if we reject the constraints of WM imposed devolution.

    If Scotland’s people see WM use every dirty trick to try and undermine and oppose Scottish sovereignty then how will that look to people in Scotland?

    For those who favour full independence it will probably increase support for independence.

    We can increase support for indy based on facts. An indyref is not the only way to democratically achieve independence.

    We know from experience an independence referendum degenerates into:

    Who has the most convincing economic arguments?

    Project Fear v Project Hope

    Optimism v pessimism about an independent Scotland’s economic prospects.

    The biggest problem there is: You cannot prove the future. You cannot prove independent Scotland will immediately and always be more prosperous than a Scotland within the UK, because you cannot prove something that does not exist. You cannot prove the future, because nobody knows the future.

    Trying to win a campaign based on hope when the UK state can pump out unlimited information to crush hope and create uncertainty is a very risky strategy. We know what happened last time.

    For the last three years Project Fear has continually pumped out the fact that the 2014 Scot Govt Indy White Paper told us Scotland would be prosperous because of high oil prices. That turned out not to be the case.

    Any predictions of Scottish prosperity will be undermined by ” that’s what they told you the last time and we know that wasn’t true”.

    Aye, BT/ PF also told us lots of rubbish.

    However, when people don’t know what do to for the best, they don’t know who to believe, which is the situation created in an indyref, they tend to stick with what they have.

    That’s why I believe sovereignty is something that should exercised now based on the facts of a rotten and corrupt Union and a sovereign Scotland whose democratic will is ignored – which can be proved. It’s an easier case to win than hoping to convince people indy Scotland would be more prosperous than Scotland as part of the UK when that indyref would rely on predictions, estimates and guesswork.

  280. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    The establishment of the joint Protestant monarch was under the terms of the Act of Union. Anne. Shared joint Monarchy. Separate establishment (Protestant) churches, separate Law system, equal, forever. It can’t be changed unless by agreement with representatives of both countries. Or it breaks the Union. Universal Suffrage 1928. Scottish Parliament 2000. Under Scottish/UK/EU/International Law.

    Religious tolerance. 1861. The Churches have rights and privileges above the Law. The equal employment opportunities Laws etc. Charitable trusts etc. NI no religious tolerance breaking the Law. Getting away with it and getting paid for it. Unlawful.

  281. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    Spent a sleepless night due to the heat & worrying about Jackie Bird & whether she is getting a fair crack of the whip anent the current BBC pay scandal. Embalming fluid aint cheap!

  282. Peter McCulloch
    Ignored
    says:

    If the daily stranger supported the Tories in the 1960s before supporting Labour, then surely its support for now Blairites like Dugdale, must mean its returning to its roots.

    When those so called socialists in the Labour party get on their soap box and talk about social justice, fairness and abolishing poverty.

    Then why don’t they begin by explaining why there is such levels of poverty and deprivation still existing in those constituencies which have had Labour MPs and councillors for decades?

    While I don’t doubt Corbyn’s belief in his policies, which would reverse the policies of the previous Blair/Brown Labour governments of privatisation, tuition fees, PFI ect.

    I can’t see the Blairtes in his party allowing him to implement many of them if he made it to No 10

  283. stu mac
    Ignored
    says:

    @Capella says:
    23 July, 2017 at 11:22 am
    @ Nana – the Opendemocracy article
    ================================

    More here .. supposed to be correcting this anomaly but making sure transparency doesn’t apply to May’s dirty deal.
    http://www.private-eye.co.uk/hp-sauce

  284. stu mac
    Ignored
    says:

    @heedtracker says:
    24 July, 2017 at 8:48 am
    Latest Graun no shit Sherlock economic news,

    “A weaker currency makes exports cheaper and imports dearer, but the latest set of official trade figures found the trade deficit in goods widened. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA”

    =========================================

    As others have pointed out here, so much of the materials needed to produce what we export come from abroad that the higher price of imports more than cancels out any advantage gained from the lower pound.

  285. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ stu mac – interesting link. Private Eye does some great investigative journalism. Unfortunately, their website doesn’t carry very much, so well done finding this gem.

    Where are the whistleblowers and Wikileakers when we need them? No doubt Theresa May’s Bill for arresting journalists has them chilled for now.

  286. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Heed
    Yes, the media is bigging up the 13 Scottish Tories at the expense of the 35 SNP.

    But hey, there’s a trap there for the Tories, as the media will want them to produce something they can go goo goo on. Like Scotland being given the power to enforce that deer be kept on a lead, with their licence dangling from their collar. Estimated revenues £50 million per year. But it wouldn’t be long before everyone knew that was a sheer crock of venison.

    So who knows, they might actually have to do something REAL, and there’s a great trap for them in that, in that they’d have to continue to do genuine stuff.

    Good, let them do it. The more they do it, the more they’d be obliged to do more. The more they actually represent Scotland’s interests rather than the idle previous Labour lot back in the day, the less they can get away with just doing nothing but tropp through the Tory lobby at Westminster.

  287. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Regarding Ken500’s postings, yes, the English had their tentacles, at least I think that’s what it was, in Scottish affairs for many centuries one way or another, including indeed, holding hostage members of the families of Scotland’s “nobles”. Some king forget which died of a broken heart because his son was taken hostage – read that at Rothesay castle I think it was (could have been Newark). It’s a line of history not exploited that much in the books, but would make a subject on its own, including the “nobles” themselves spending a lot of time “down south”.

    Nothing changes.

  288. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Indy, it was James I who was captured by the English at sea & sent to the Tower of London, his father Robert, third of the name, died a fortnight later!

  289. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Fred
    Thanks for that, now I remember. It was on one of those wall cards you see in historic monuments, and I was amazed at how brutally frank it was – all credit to Historic Scotland for not playing the Unionist line, but coming up with reality instead. There’s hope for all of us!

    On top of that I never realised the part that both Rothesay Castle and Newark Castle played in our history, well worth a visit. To be there, and to read and absorb.

  290. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Hey Dorothy Devine x ~

    Cheers for the above song, I’ve made it into a linkable link:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4R3EFfGjeg

    I do sleep sometimes, but only when necessary.

    How did you get on with your hovering…

    You still up? 🙂

  291. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Cactus.

    Dorothy Devine hovers??? Like a helicopter? I’d like to see that…

    8=)

  292. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Ghillie,

    “Rok @ 5.00pm

    That is a cruel thing to say.

    Not impressed.”

    If the truth hurts, so be it.

    Truth Always.

  293. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    McDuff,

    “Rock
    Spot on.
    The absorbing of Scotland into England is well on its way and the population either don’t care or are fast asleep.”

    Our worst enemies are the clueless pompous armchair pundits posting here who are incapable of seeing things as they are.

    Screaming and shouting that Scots are “sovereign” will never achieve anything.

    Truth Always.

  294. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Rock.

    Still cruel.

    Comments that are pathetic and low.

    Still not impressed.

    Truth is not in you, at all.

  295. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Ghillie,

    “Rock.

    Still cruel.

    Comments that are pathetic and low.

    Still not impressed.”

    If you consider the truth to be “pathetic and low”, so be it.

    I don’t post here to impress the likes of you.

    Truth Always.

  296. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    You don’t post here to impress the likes of me ?

    That speaks volumes.

    The truth is never pathetic and low, but there is no truth in you.

    Cruelty is pathetic and low.

    Ah well, my sweet wee candy cane, peace and love = )

  297. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    @stu mac
    Thanks for the private eye link. I spotted this tweet yesterday, Ross may be right about where the Tory dirty money is coming from.

    Scotsman is reporting that David Mundell received a campaign donation from Vitol Group, world’s largest oil trading company. Interesting.
    https://twitter.com/rosscolquhoun/status/889448998251233280



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