The End Of The Affair
There’s an interesting piece in the Sunday Times today.
They’re not the only ones.
It’s hard to disagree with the views expressed in the piece by former Tory MSP Adam Tomkins. The Holyrood talent pool is so wretched, and looks set to become so much worse next May, that the article is reduced to suggesting that the most “heavyweight” new recruit might be the galactically useless London reject Alison Thewliss.
To be honest we don’t have much to add to the piece (we’ve already proposed putting Holyrood on the table as the price for a new indyref, so little would it be missed and so miserable are now its ambitions), except to note this passage:
Bizarrely, the main driving force behind the attempt to boost Holyrood’s powers in that area (and in general) is Westminster Tory MP Sir David Davis, partly in the hope that it would assist in revealing the conspiracy against Alex Salmond.
Earlier this month he gave a thoughtful, measured but unsparing speech at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh appraising the first 25 years of the Scottish Parliament, which we’ve been meaning to amplify but have been somewhat caught up in other events. We reproduce it here now in both video and text form, and endorse its contents.
DELIVERING ON DEVOLUTION
REAL POWER FOR THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENTGood afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
May I start by thanking you all for the privilege and pleasure of speaking today. I’m particularly pleased for two reasons:
I’m speaking today in commemoration of a man who was my friend, Alex Salmond, and I’ll be discussing something we agreed on.
You may find it surprising that we agreed on many aspects of how Scotland should be governed, given that he was obviously the leading exponent of Scottish independence in modern times, and I am a dyed-in-the-wool English Conservative UK unionist. The Bruce and Longshanks in agreement, if you like, although we never came to blows.
We both believed Scotland deserved the best possible government, but for various reasons, it’s not getting that. I’ll discuss how I think we can improve it.
I believed in the model of Scottish Parliament that Donald Dewar championed before he was blocked by the legalistic wing of his party. I will argue we should return to Dewar’s model.
I’m also particularly pleased to be speaking in Edinburgh. I’ve always viewed Edinburgh as one of the places where many of the founding principles of modern political economy, empirical philosophy, and human sciences were forged.
From Adam Smith’s free market principles and moral philosophy to David Hume’s inductive science of man, from Thomas Reid’s common-sense realism to the early social scientific histories of Adam Ferguson and William Robertson. Scotland’s thinkers didn’t just shape their time, they reshaped the way Britain, Europe and North America think about society, liberty and government. The influence of that is felt today, in our institutions, curricula, and policies.
Their integrated culture of improvement normalised a commercial, empirical, and civil modernity that endures today and is still the basis of the clearest thinking on modern democracy and modern politics.
In a sentence, the Scottish Enlightenment furnished the core intellectual toolkit of modern thought, from political economy and empirical philosophy, to the new human sciences. What that meant in practice was a political economy for a commercial world (Adam Smith’s articulation of markets, division of labour, and free trade in The Wealth of Nations became the template for modern economics and influenced policy globally), whilst his theory of moral sentiments grounded economic life in a wider moral psychology.
We obtained from the Enlightenment a new empiricism about human nature (David Hume recast philosophy as an inductive “science of man,” advancing radical empiricism and skepticism that shaped later psychology, social science, and secular intellectual culture).
Thomas Reid’s common sense philosophy countered scepticism of David Hume and, via transatlantic networks, became a bedrock of curricula in North American colleges in their founding era.
The social sciences, as it were, before they had that name (Adam Ferguson’s Essay on the History of Civil Society and William Robertson’s History pioneered systematic accounts of civil society progress, comparative history, seeding later sociology, anthropology, and professional historiography).
All this together provided an integrated culture of improvement through universities, clubs, and print. Scottish thinkers linked science, medicine, law, history, and moral philosophy in a practical reform-minded spirit that diffused widely across Europe and the Atlantic world. That is what the modern world owes Scotland.
Today, democracy is struggling. That is not just the true in Scotland: all modern democracies are stumbling in their attempts to deal with a new class of intractable problems across everything from healthcare to warfare, from diplomacy to cultural standards.
And because most modern democracies and most conventional centrist parties are failing in the eyes of the public, we’re seeing the rise of populist and extremist parties across the world.
So, what I say today in some ways is going to be true of all the countries within the United Kingdom and far beyond, too.
But today I’m going to talk specifically about Scotland because Ithink there are acute issues facing this nation which have potential solutions that can be agreed upon by all political parties. Indeed they should be agreed on by all political parties.
When I talk about the problems Scotland faces, you should understand that I speak as an admirer of this nation.
Scottish genius was important for the Scottish Enlightenment, but in many, many other respects, the Scottish nation has helped the United Kingdom and the rest of the world grow and improve in the interests of all citizens. Our union was not one of territorial gain, it was a union of ideas.
It is now a little over 25 years since the Scottish Parliament first met in May 1999. The nation was united behind the new Parliament. Three-quarters of Scots had voted in favour of devolution.
After all that, many of us had high hopes for the Scottish Government’s success in running its affairs. What I say now is not political nor indeed even personal.
I remember Donald Dewar’s speech in the opening day of the Scottish Parliament. “This is about more than our politics and our laws. This is about who we are, how we carry ourselves.”
He was right. But may I respectfully say, the Scottish Parliament has not carried itself with the pride and sense this nation deserves. But we can correct that. The people who care about the Scotland, care less about its constitution and more about how it carries itself.
They care about whether the hospital looks after their ageing parents properly, or delivers their children safely, whether schools give the best educational outcome for their youngsters and the best career prospects, whether taxpayers’ money is spent wisely.
By those measures, given Scotland’s talented population, Scotland should be a resounding success. I am afraid that has not been true.
When I was a young man, Scotland was one of the leading meritocracies in the world. One of its principal exports was incredibly talented and skilled young men and women from all sorts of social backgrounds.
Today it is falling down the International Education League tables, and even Nicola Sturgeon’s recent autobiography, not marked by its modesty, reveals that she failed miserably on the educational attainment gap.
Similarly, when I was a young man, Scotland was home to some of the best hospitals and best doctors in the world. Yet today, the performance of the Scottish health service is falling back even measured against the English NHS.
In 2015/16, funding was cut for alcohol and drugs services, and now Scotland has the highest drug death rate in Europe. The mortality rate in Scotland is now almost 13 times higher than the average in Europe, and above the mortality rate reported in comparable data from the United States.
As for managing the taxpayers’ money, the Scottish Government’s record is unbelievably bad. Whether it is the £600 million on the Ferguson Marine ferry fiasco, the nearly £1 billion spent on the new Glasgow prison, the deposit return scheme collapse, the BiFab bailout, or the never-ending expensive public inquiries: one way or another, the Scottish Government appears to have wasted about £6.7 billion.
It sounds bad in absolute terms but that is an astonishingly big number for a population of 5.5 million, with a working population of just over 3 million. That is £2,300 wasted for every Scottish income taxpayer.
These all might be seen at one level as failures of management, failures to manage the national enterprise properly. But government is about more than just management. Government is about changing society, and fundamental to that is legislation – creating new laws for the future. In that respect, the Scottish Government has had a more spectacular set of failures than most.
Three hugely controversial pieces of legislation stand out:
1. The Gender Recognition Reform Act
2. The Named Persons Bill
3. The Offensive Behaviour At Football Act
All of these failed and were either struck down by the courts or repealed by the government.
Critically, they failed the fundamental test of leadership in that they did not take the population with them in building a new vision of the future for Scotland.
If the Westminster village is often out of step with the rest of the UK, you could say that at times – crucial times – the Holyrood Hamlet does not represent what Scots really care about.
If Holyrood had been a fully effective parliament, some of these failures could have been prevented, and many of them would have been corrected.
Worse even than this, in my view, were the ethical failures of the Scottish Government. There were a number, but the starkest was the treatment of Alex Salmond.
I will not dwell on this in detail here, as I have spoken thousands of words about it in the Westminster Parliament. But let me simply say this: it is a failure that, like the other failures, reflects on the constitutional structure that we gave to the Government of Scotland back in 1999 and a mistake which I have to say that some Scots, most notably Donald Dewar, foresaw at the time.
The government put in place procedures that were described by the Scottish Court as “tainted by apparent bias”. And because of that bias those procedures were struck down in the judicial review.
In many countries of the world, what happened to Salmond might have been unsurprising: the distortion of the legal system, to bring oppressive charges against a previous leader. I have to say I never would have imagined it happening in any of the countries of the UK, certainly not Scotland with its people’s traditional respect for justice.
Of course the fundamentals of the justice system, a majority female jury and a fair minded female judge exonerated him. And I expect that his estate will now succeed in its claim against the government. The delays, the obstruction, the deceit, the spending of large quantities of taxpayers’ money in a deliberate attempt to exhaust his family’s resources. Again the classic behaviour of an unchallenged overmighty state.
What Donald Dewar wanted was for Holyrood to be a modern parliament, but equally important, he wanted it to be a powerful parliament on the model of Westminster.
The reason many parliaments in the world looked to Westminster as a model was because it was a successful parliament, as measured by the quality of government it delivered. The reason that it was a successful parliament, which Donald Dewar understood very well, was that it was a powerful parliament.
Note I say powerful “parliament”, not powerful “government”.
The powers vested in an individual member of Parliament in Westminster amount to almost unfettered freedom of speech because of the rules of privilege, absolute privilege. This matters because the single most powerful driver of democracy is fearless freedom of speech.
So, if as a British member of parliament I want to challenge a powerful entity – be that a government department, or a state, or a court which I think is guilty of a miscarriage of justice, or a wealthy oligarch who is abusing his powers in Britain, or any other entity that is far more powerful than I am – I will use my rights in Westminster parliament.
For example, when the British government of the day wrongly accused two pilots who flew a Chinook helicopter into the Mull of Kintyre of gross misconduct, I was able to challenge them in the House of Commons and expose the government’s behaviour as improper, even arguably corrupt, even though they tried to claim they had military reasons for their misbehaviour.
When Russian oligarchs were abusing the British legal system to crush their opponents, I was able to deal with them in the House of Commons without them being able to use the very same legal system against me. And when an oligarch tried, he failed miserably.
When other potential victims of miscarriages of justice needed their cases exposed to the world, whether it’s Postmasters persecuted by the state due to a faulty computer system, LIBOR traders like Tom Hayes forced to carry the can for the 2007 financial crisis, entrepreneurs like Mike Lynch harassed by the US legal system, or indeed Alex Salmond, I and others could use the House of Commons to highlight their cases without fear of some government or powerful individual or agency trying to take action against us.
Contrast that with the treatment of the Scottish Select Committee that investigated the Scottish Government’s handling of the Alex Salmond affair.
On several occasions, the Committee was informed by civil servants of untrue statements, which subsequently required correction. On other occasions, civil servants simply refused to answer questions on certain issues.
On one occasion, the Lord Advocate threatened the Committee with prosecution if they published some of the evidence that had been provided in that case, even though that evidence had already been published elsewhere in The Spectator newspaper.
Had anything like this been tried against a Westminster Select Committee, the individuals concerned would have been arraigned before the House of Commons. And the select committee would have rejected as ridiculous these attempts to handicap its work.
This shows, in a crystalline way, how important the absolute freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry is for Parliament to hold governments to account.
This, in my view, is why Donald Dewar considered this to be an important right to give to Holyrood. That is the right of absolute parliamentary privilege, so that you could not be either sued or prosecuted for what you said in Holyrood, as in Westminster.
It is also why governments and executives almost never volunteer such powers. Being held to account is almost invariably uncomfortable. It is frequently politically costly or personally embarrassing. And that is why the parliaments themselves often have to seize those powers for themselves, as John Wilkes famously did in Westminster in the late 1700s.
So I repeat: Unfettered free speech is the most powerful motor of effective democracy. The curbing of free speech, the curbing of free information, and the curbing of free access are all contributors to the current poor state of Western democracy. And in particular to the poor state of Scottish democracy.
With that free speech, of course, comes a number of other conditions. The first of these is the duty of candour on the part of government and government agencies. This should not be controversial.
Indeed, the Labour Party or the Labour government in Westminster have promised to impose a duty of candour, the so-called Hillsborough principle, on government, although they have done nothing so far to actually implement it with respect to their own behaviour.
That duty of candour should be imposed on a Scottish government in dealing with a Scottish Parliament, and it should be enforceable in law. It should be matched by a range of other powers that should accrue to ordinary members of Holyrood and, in particular, members of opposition parties in Holyrood.
Back in the 19th century, Gladstone, when he created the Public Accounts Committee, the most powerful committee of the House of Commons, ensured that the chairman was always a member of the opposition, not a member of the governing party. The government could not change that.
I was the Westminster Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee in 1997 – 2001 and I intervened to help ensure that that was the case with the public audit committee when Holyrood was created.
We should do the same with all major committees in Holyrood today to ensure that the role of holding the government to account is carried out without any hesitation, timidity or fear.
That also means enhancing the powers, the remuneration, and the resourcing of the Select Committees, so that they are able to do their job to the full.
In addition, we should reinforce the role of Holyrood by reinforcing and enhancing the role of the Presiding Officer, what we would call the Speaker in Westminster.
This will include a whole series of apparently minor or procedural things which should be much more within the power of the Presiding Officer, such as:
1. The length of speeches should be increased so there can be serious intellectual challenges to government policy, not just a string of tweets and soundbites.
2. The free choice of subjects to debate and the right to summon the relevant minister to those debates, so that Holyrood, not the Scottish Government, decides the issue of the day.
3. Debates themselves should ideally be binding, but should certainly always carry more weight than they do currently.
The virtue of this has been proved in the House of Commons time and time again. A prime example occurred in 2011 when the European Court of Human Rights instructed the British government to grant prisoners the right to vote. I moved a motion in the House of Commons to refuse this instruction, which was carried by a majority of 200 votes. The government did what it was told, and the European Court backed down.
Now, if we accept that principle in Westminster and indeed in Europe, surely, we must accept it here in Scotland.
The voice of Scotland’s elected members must be treated with the same seriousness and force as the votes in the Commons, for only then can we have a balanced democracy.
It’s altogether too easy for governments in London as well as in Holyrood to timetable critical debates at times that deny them coverage and therefore influence. That subtle power alone can cripple the effectiveness of effectiveness of Holyrood.
All of this was made very plain in the debates over the treatment of Alex Salmond and the Select Committee’s unsuccessful attempts to get to the bottom of it. But that issue also highlighted one other thing, which is the lack of separation of powers between the Administration of Justice and the Government of the country.
This is a really serious issue in substantive terms, but it is also serious in that the public at large is losing their faith in the even-handedness of the justice system, in its own ability to rely on being treated fairly and receiving impartial justice.
Under circumstances like that it should not be even imaginable, let alone possible that the head of public prosecution process should be a serving member ofCabinet and itis a matter of urgency in my view that what in England would be an Attorney General and a Director for Public Prosecutions should be split into two different functions:
1. The Attorney General advises the government
2. The Director for Public Prosecutions is appointed independent of the government in power, by an independent process
It is not just true in Scotland. In the rest of the United Kingdom, the accusation of two-tier justice is just about the most toxic accusation you can make about an administration, and it’s happening altogether too much in too many places, even when we do have separation of powers. But independence of the law from government is the first and necessary step, and it is long overdue here.
The final aspect of enhancing Holyrood’s powers relates to the enforcement of accountability. Governments throughout the United Kingdom, and in Scotland in particular, have been generally cavalier about meeting their responsibilities for providing information and responding to parliaments.
This was at its starkest in the Alex Salmond case, where the government keeps refusing to provide or unredact documentation which is critical to the Hamilton Inquiry in particular.
They even essentially ignored the instructions of the Scottish Court of Sessions, as well as the instructions of the Information Commissioner.
It seems to me there should be a mechanism whereby a combination of the Information Commissioner and Parliament should be able to compel Government to release the appropriate documentation legally, and have the powers of summary dismissal of any public servant who refuses to comply – to comply with that irrespective of the stance of ministers.
It is quite apparent in both the current and recent Scottish governments that ministers appear to think that civil servants have a duty only to them and not to parliament.
That is wrong. It’s ignorant, and it’s self-serving. It’s constitutionally improper, and it reinforces a tendency of the Scottish Establishment, I’m afraid like any political establishment, to look after their own at the expense of the public.
Parliament, by which I mean members, individual members of parliament and individual opposition parties, should have the right to initiate binding debates. They should have the right to initiate not just parliamentary inquiries, but also public and judicial inquiries where appropriate. And crucially, they must have the resources available to them – resources that the government should not be able to suppress or withhold.
What we should be looking at in this era of populist revolt around the Western world is to make Holyrood a beacon of democracy. That is, I think, what it was intended to be when it was created back in 1999.
In the last twenty-five years the powers of the Scottish Government have been hugely enhanced. The powers of the Scottish Parliament – of individual MSPs – should be similarly enhanced to hold the Scottish Government to account.
Indeed, given the habit of modern governments of all parties in Westminster to go in the opposite direction, of trying to inhibit and handicap their Parliament’s ability to control government, I would like to see a circumstance in which Holyrood is seen as a better exemplar of democratic practice than Westminster is.
I can say this with a high degree of certainty, having stood on both sides of this line – as a government minister and Cabinet minister for well over a decade in the United Kingdom, as a Select Committee chairman in the most powerful select committee in Westminster, as an individual MP, battling on behalf of various people, trying to deal with the establishment in the Westminster government, but also the Scottish Government, and with a range of other national and international institutions.
More democracy is always better than less democracy. Always. Uncomfortable. But better. What governments will discover to their surprise is that the more powerful their democracy, the more robust their government is in the face of the populist challenges we are seeing today.
The answer to those populist challenges is more democracy, not less. A bolder constitutional experiment, not a more timorous one. More John Wilkes, less Sir Humphrey Appleby.
If Alex Salmond were here today, I am quite sure he would say ‘more bold Braveheart, less hesitant Hamlet’.
So that’s my task. And it’s what I’m going to call on all the parties to do – to make Holyrood a shining beacon of democracy, so that Edinburgh again will, as it once did before, give intellectual leadership to the whole world. Thank you.
Scotland’s brain drain. A scourge sold as benefit.
“When I was a young man, Scotland was one of the leading meritocracies in the world. One of its principal exports was incredibly talented and skilled young men and women from all sorts of social backgrounds.”
…which should be rights have been lessened by the creation of Holyrood, not accelerated.
Aye. That’s the worst of it. That’s the raw agony of it, right there.
”More democracy is always better than less democracy. Always. Uncomfortable. But better. What governments will discover to their surprise is that the more powerful their democracy, the more robust their government is in the face of the populist challenges we are seeing today.
The answer to those populist challenges is more democracy, not less.”
Single Transferable Vote gives politicians the heebiejeebies. Good. Let’s have it. When the voters realise the power it gives them over their representatives it encourages self-education on the issues.
Heaver @ 14.22.
Indeed, STV affords voters such influence that it’s hardly surprising that messrs Dewar and Blair stitched up the devolved administration voting system with not only D’Hondt, but the closed list D’Hondt version. Thus ensuring control of the list candidates within the Party and thus no personal connection with the electorate.
Apart from the statututory jester, Ross Greer, could anyone name another couple of list MSPs …
Sven
The bulk of the Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem’s and ALL of the Green pervert party MSPs..
Jobsworths the lot of them.
Somebody should invent the role of Honourary Scotsman For Life.
Then we could offer it to Sir David Davis. Perhaps with an accompanying gold-plated spurtle or cleek.
We need all the help we can get.
“Falling out of love with Holyrood”.
Their fall well cushioned by farewell, tax free (and funded) payments, pension scheme and doubtless well reimbursed sinecures on Quangos or other publicly funded appointments. Plus guest appearances on talking head TV programmes and articles in newspapers.
Whilst I doubt not that a fresh crop of what Dickens referred to as “Tite -Barnacles” attach themselves firmly to the foundering ship of state.
If the lot we have in Hollyrood is the best Scotland can come up with God help us. Maybe time for Reform?
Damn, if only David Davies wasn’t a Tory or an Englishman he would have been a great asset in Holyrood, he could even be on the opposite side in the chamber, battling wits with Alex Salmond and creating a true parliamentary atmosphere.
A true friend of Scotland which is so weird for me to say but I can acknowledge where he is coming from and may disagree with his views but I fully agree with him on this.
If you are reading this Mr Davis, thank you for being a true friend to Alex Salmond and I appreciate your words regarding how Holyrood should change for the better.
True friend? Don’t kid yourself. Davis is a true friend of the Westminster parliament, dominated by English interests to the detriment of the regions outlying London. His lament is the lack of Scottish shoulders to continue to bolster the system he loves.
It’s highly unlikely he’d spend the political capital, and burn the necessary bridges, but he could stand up and name names anytime he wanted, but, yet, chooses not to do so.
I think you have completely misread my post.
Here is what I said.
“If you are reading this Mr Davis, thank you for being a true friend to Alex Salmond.”
Whilst I agree with lots that David Davis says about Holyrood and the despicable moronic imbeciles that govern and infest it, I must take issue with him holding out WM as a beacon of democracy,fairness,competence,justice, he may believe personally in those things but from my perspective the inhabitants of that menagerie of scum are the absolute opposite of what he believes
I thank him for his friendship with Alex Salmond and his desire to attain justice for him and his family but the reality is that both places WM and HR are the products of self opinionated, self serving,self aggrandising liars whose sole intention is the enrichment of themselves
Totally agree. Westminster is equally as bad. Bit of balance needed from Rev Campbell….his agenda is not clear.
Totally disagree.
Which bit of the article, explaining that in WM, MPs are free to speak whatever they like, without fear or favour, whereas in HR, MSPs must always keep their moos at least partially zipped, did you not understand?
This really is not rocket science!
Sounds like you’re arguing that because Westminster is crap it’s ok for Holyrood to follow suit. Personally I expect better.
Whoa!
Just a minute now folks..
Words, just words. Some fine, some not so.
D’Hondt, as pointed out above with the list MSP mediocracy is a problem as is the built in arithmetical near impossibility under this system of gaining a majority, something Westminster is keen never to adopt for itself.
Powerful committees headed up by members of the opposition? Well that’s going to work just great here with the Brit Gnat blood and soil Imperialists we have as opposition parties eh? I think Goldie was the last Tory who could have been trusted to do a fair job, since, well they are just swivel eyed nut jobs and parochial Scotland haters.
NHS; struggling, yes; but isn’t NHS England and its Welsh counterpart struggling worse?
I think he underestimated the ferries fiascos cost, it’s now up to £750m and counting. However how does that relate to countless grotesque mismanaged projects by the UK government which regularly spaff billions against the wall? How much do they tot up to per head?
Aye Dewar talked the talk but the well known secret is not the heady dreams David mentions in the “Scottish Administrations” creation, Teflon Tony made it clear that it’s artificial insemination was to kill the drive for independence stone dead.
And on pocket money.
David should read some of the posts on this site to see the real problems of the “Regional administration for certain devolved powers” as its now abundantly clear since the creation of the so called Supreme Court, Scotland Act and section 30 order that Longshanks would have been proud of.
Anyway, it was just a University debate – and we know how well student politics works out here in the real world don’t we..
On the plus side; his defence of Big Eck, the rest: just words.
Now Now YL you shouldn’t be doing comparisons,that’s not fair, the money that WM wastes is THEIR money, the money that HR wastes is also THEIR money according to all the Scotland haters on this site, we sweaty socks don’t pay taxes, and we don’t have any gas, electric or oil it is ALL owned either by furriners or the miniscule taxes they pay are given to the good ol uk (engerlish)government treasury to be SPAFFED on visiting statespeople or producing royal pishups
The engerlish prime minister likes to give or gift £3 billion to the yookaraine for charitable reasons but his elderly voters or homeless people can freeze to death
Well off topic but before I get to Mr Davis I would like to say what a wonderful event the ladies world cup rugby union tournament has been. Two worthy finalists and I just hope the final produces a game as fitting climax to what has been a breath of fresh air. As for David Davis MP whether I like his message which I do a lot you have to admire his delivery and debating skills a trait becoming almost absent in the Scottish parliament and in Westminster. I am old enough to remember MPs of various political parties in this area who you could admire despite not agreeing with their outlook but at the moment these days are long gone. I await the sneering oaf to try and link this post to the Middle East or the bother on the Black sea. Knock yourself out.
The Women’s Rugby World cup and the World Athletics Championships have been great to watch.
For an Imperialist, Davies appears ignorant of the institutional realities of a colonial administration, its inherent limitations, and whose interests it is there to serve and protect, which is damn well not the colonized natives.
But, but, but, what does Ceasar, Fanny or another of your heroes say about it all? Disapointed that you have not provided a link to your other mince for everyone to ignore. Have the UN declared Scotland is independent yet?
My My wee Chas is getting very angry and uppity is that because his fellow Scotland hating minders are on their way
Tell me what have you done in your life never mind for Scotland until you’ve done a ounce of what this guys done shut your pie whole.
Chas,
Tell me what have you done in your life never mind for Scotland until you’ve done a ounce of what this guys done shut your pie whole.
“Have the UN declared Scotland is independent yet?”
It’s a perfectly reasonable question, Twat H.
Why don’t you make a stab at answering it?
You’re greetin further up thread about Scots voters freezing to death. You’d think you might be keen to trumpet to us all when the UN, by declaring us independent, would put a stop to this.
How many freezing Scots are going to expire this winter from a lack of hope? You could inspire them, by answering Chas’s question with some indication of the timeline, with the will to cling on long enough to see in the day when we all become rich and comfortable.
“Have the UN declared Scotland is independent yet?”
It’s a perfectly reasonable question, Twat H”
Well no it isn’t, it’s the sneery retort of someone who doesn’t understand what the C24 process is. If you are put on the list of non self governing territories aka colonies, that doesn’t make you independent. It means that decision as to whether to become independent is your own, and the administrating state can’t turn round and say “now is not the time” “no section 30” etc etc.
The UN C24 process doesn’t make you independent, it does remove the Westminster veto on us even asking ourselves whether we wish to be so or not! And it means that other UN members are going to accept you as independent (if a democratic is made by the people) even if UK/Greater England doesn’t accept it!
“it does remove the Westminster veto on us even asking ourselves whether we wish to be so”
There’s never been any WM veto on us deciding to hold a plebiscitary election on Independence.
The only thing ever stopping it happening was fear on the part of the Yes side of losing again. That’s why the next election in 2026 won’t be organised as a plebiscite, despite all the years the Yes side has had to make this happen.
The idea that WM would throw in jail every Scottish MSP declaring UDI following a successful plebiscitary election on Independence doesn’t withstand even five second’s scrutiny.
See for all the time you’ve infested this site with her pish, have you ever actually read ANY of the articles?
A referendum has been REFUSED on multiple occasions. By Mayhem, by Mundell (to Angus B McNeil) & by Bojo. Publicly & officially in writing. They even had stupid slogans even you must remember. “Now is not the time” & “Once in a Generation”
Then there was that big fckn court case, y’know, the one where we were informed we weren’t a colony, we weren’t a dependency either but we couldn’t have a referendum.. Cause, ummmm, Timbuktu, deepest, darkest Peru & some other irrelevant country set some sort of imaginary precedent somewhere once & they all apply to Scotland.
Confused? You will be. Let’s just rule they can’t legislate, but even if they could we’d probably still not honour it. Even tho we recognise the ballot box has authority – what we really mean is that only applies to England. We’ll decide if any vote requires us to just tinker again offering yet more word salad & what consequences it’ll be for England.
So drop her crap it was the YES shitting it. Perfidious Albion struck again. So much time wasting & kicking the can that gave them ample time to infest Holyrood & the SNP with bad faith actors, imbeciles & careerists – then there was the never ending dramas, Brexshit, COVID, Cost of Living & the Gender Woo…
The UK is not a democracy & if you are going to continually bleat on about the UN then at least have the decency to find out what the process is cause you & yer band of parasites just look even more stupid than you already demonstrate on a daily basis.
“… democracy in Scotland… ”
Impossible while Scotland remains a colony!
“… we both [himself and Salmond] believed Scotland deserved the best possible government.”
Well… Scotland, without doubt, surely deserves the best possible government, but is stuck, ultimately, with being governed by England – a foreign power and alien culture ill-disposed towards the Scots and intent on the plunder of their natural wealth.
Davis talks of an enlightened Scotland playing a major role in building the modern world; but an enlightened Scotland’s genius and innovation haven’t served the Scots very well under the boot of his beloved ‘union’… thanks for the consolation prize hat tip, though – very kind of you.
Davis seems like a nice, down-to-earth supporter of the common folk and the colonised; an Englishman who clearly has a soft spot for Scotland – maybe he likes the scenery and taking nice long autumn walks on a pals private estate.
However nice Davis might be and however well-disposed toward the Scots he seems, he is, at heart, this:
“I am a dyed-in-the-wool English Conservative UK unionist (should that be colonialist?). The Bruce and Longshanks in agreement, if you like, although we [himself and Salmond] never came to blows.”
Davis clearly, and I believe genuinely, would like to see the Scots receive better treatment from their colonial masters… as long as they keep to their place and don’t get ideas above their station – ideas like independence, liberation and self-government.
“an enlightened Scotland playing a major role in building the modern world; but an enlightened Scotland’s genius and innovation haven’t served the Scots very well under the boot of his beloved ‘union’…”
Not one of your best, NC. You should have written it in Pictish.
Scotland used to have a great amount going for it. Best educational system in the world, etc. Punching well above its weight, blah, blah, blah. Industries, energy, jobs, prospects, hope.
That has all taken a turn for the worse this century. As David Davis was pointing out, the more self determination we take, the worse things in Scotland get.
You can’t and won’t see that, NC. No matter. A majority of us can. And we’re sick of your fantasies and make believe. So we’re not going to allow you to indefinitely run Scotland further and further into the ground.
Again, you can’t and won’t see this, NC, but this is not a declaration of hostility against Indy per se. It’s a declaration of hostility against the eejits and fuckwits who hijacked Indy something like 16 years ago and right, royally fucked it up.
Wherever Indy might go from here, it will be traveling without you lot of yesterday’s has beens. Or as we can currently see, it won’t be going anywhere.
Feel free to translate that lot into Pictish if it will make you feel better.
“It’s a declaration of hostility… we’re sick of your fantasies and make believe. So we’re not going to allow you to indefinitely run Scotland further and further into the ground… wherever Indy might go from here, it will be traveling without you…”
Holy Christ! Do you have some kind of mental health problem… coming on here and openly threatening folk like that?
Who the fuck do you think you are? You’re a bully, that much is evident.
I don’t, as a principle, respond to your comments.
However, I am genuinely unsettled by this one.
This feels like a real threat – that’s how I perceive it and I’m now seriously considering if I should I should take this matter further.
I have been the victim of a serious assault in the past and your irresponsible comment has triggered some unpleasant memories and I am now genuinely concerned for my safety and wellbeing.
At the very least I feel I need to bring your declaration of hostility against me to the attention of the WoS site moderators – privately, of course.
Jesus Christ, grow up, man!
I’m an 80 year-old with a serious health condition.
You can’t go around threatening folk like that causing them serious distress.
What an idiot!!!
Northcode
It’s absolutely pointless and a waste of time debating with him; there’s something iffy and just not quite right there.
Best to ignore him.
If you do however feel physically threatened then go to the Police.
Well, NC, what can I say?
I am continually harassed, sworn at, called every name under the sun, whatever, and all for the “crime” of posting different ideas and suggestions to what constitutes the norm on Wings BTL.
And not one of you pearl clutchers ever so much as posts an admonitory “steady on lads”.
But now you’ve decided it’s your turn to play the victim card. And the clype card too. Why don’t you tell us the Pictish for clype? Incidentally, that’s something a decent Scotsman never does – clype. He learns that in Primary School, and unlike the habit of screaming Primary School playground insults at people, a habit he grows out of by age 15, he carries to his grave the ingrained understanding that clypers are pathetic lowlife.
Maybe you Picts really were a lesser race.
And YL there – dead eyed, cold killer and BAOR veteran. “Dob him in tae the polis, NC. If we can’t counter his online arguments, we’ll maybes shut him up that way”.
Meanwhile, at 1:54 am, the fragrant Geri agreeing that setting fire to the North Sea rigs is a good idea. Exactly the idea that got that English councilor woman a year in chokey. “Burn them down for all I care” was what she said online too.
But you’ll not be clyping or dobbing on her, eh NC?
And neither will YL.
As I wrote yesterday, it would take a saint to not feel utter hostility to the pathetic picture of Scotland and the Scots you daily go out of your way to paint on here for the entire world to look at, marvel at and mostly pity.
A bunch of primary school kids make believing you’re ready and capable of running my country as a serious nation and country on the world stage?
No way.
NC
See?
I rest my case; just ignore him.
Young Lochinvar
I do see… and I can safely say your case rests soundly in the bosom of truth.
Thanks for your earlier support by the way – it was greatly appreciated.
@ Northcode
I see you have encountered again the positive inclusive bonhomie of Bastard tax Moan,his continuous degrading and derogatory comments are usually supported and echoed by his fellow Scotland haters, I see that he has responded that everybody calls him every name under the sun for JUST posting different ideas and suggestions on WOS, I must have missed them, ALL I ever see is NEGATIVITY and abuse, he loves to berate and insult the ladies especially, and I note he has increased his deviant sexual assertions when he responds to others, I wouldn’t like to see inside his mind,the 77th brigade are known for blaming others it is a well known yoonionist trait
” ALL I ever see is NEGATIVITY and abuse…”
Aye, TH. I suspect if anyone were to offer their genuine good wishes for the day they would get an earfu for their trouble.
Holyrood is a shitwhole and full of deadbeats with no rhythm. I’d shut the place down and demolish it entirely. It looks like a prison (and Labour designed it like that to ridicule the Scots and Scotland) from the outside and to have paid 400 million when its an eye sore, its an insult to Edinburgh and the buildings around it.
The dipstick aren’t reserved for the people who work in Holyrood it also includes the people from other parties also trying to get into Holyrood from other Indy parties, who to be honest are just as bad as the SNP.
I have no idea how many times I’ve heard it including from other Independence supporting parties saying, if you come to Scotland you’re a Scot, even if you come from England, yes your a English Scot! Can’t people realize how stupid this statement is?
So basically Scotland is seeking to be Independent and recognized Country in the world and before we even get our Independence we’ll telling everyone who comes to Scotland to live it doesn’t matter if Scotland becomes Independent you’ll always be an English-Scot or a German-Scot it isn’t exclusively reserved for people who were born in Scotland. For God’s sake can’t you see this diminishes us who are Scottish (and want Independence). Whats wrong with being honest you’re English and when we become Independent you’ll have the right to become a Scottish citizen.
Yes I want Independence I’ve worked for it I’ve given thousands to achieve it and yet next I find myself in a position of having no one to vote for and my best option is to put my vote where it destroys the SNP and stops them from getting into power again. Please don’t say vote for a other Indy party they’re just as bad, if you stand back a listen to them.
I appreciate Mr Davis’ support of Alex Salmond and his desire to expose the political and judicial corruption that sought to destroy him, however.
His statement that England’s NHS performs better than Scotland’s is utter nonsense.
Please see fact check attacked and I can assure you my claim was also checked and proved
On BBC radio.
link to fullfact.org
England does have the number of remote areas such as the Highlands and Islands to support. Scotland has never endured the Doctors or Nurses strikes that England imposed on itself.
The next statement about wasted money is very rich coming from an English Tory.
Tory Brexit according to the London School of economics has cost the U.K. £27 BILLION.
Chris Graylings Brexit ships that never existed cost £50 million.
Just under £1 BILLION wasted here by Tories filling their pockets-
Official records show over £979m of the money wasted by the Tories on unusable VIP lane PPE is yet to be recovered.
HS2 has been a Tory joke since day one.
The length of the line gets reduced and reduced and reduced.
It neither starts nor finishes as they proposed.
Labour have been stupid enough to continuing a part of the line.
The 140 miles between the outskirts of London and Birmingham could save day trippers 15 minutes per journey.This means that the cost would be more than £475 million per mile.
You can hang your hat on the cost escalating if it ever does see completion in the decades to come.
In a to be further updated report, called Completing Crossrail, the NAO has further identified how the programme ran into difficulty, which has so far led to £2.8bn of additional financing for the programme.
Soon Mr Davis Westminster will take U.K. debt closer to £3 TRILLION.
Scotland being an English Colony with zero financial levers has had no influence in this disastrous level of mismanagement but the Tory Party can claim the lions share of the blame.
Effijy
HS2: where does it start and finish?
Well a wee half twist to the track and weld the ends together and you’ve got a Mobius strip that the grandees at the opening service can all get aboard but never get off!
Maybe if it’s as high speed as they say then things outside will appear to slow right down while to us they appear to have just effed off to the future.
One way of getting rid of Starmer and some Royals..
As they whizz past De Glocke the Royals can wave hi to another natsee relic 🙂
“TOARIE Brexit”
Gie’s peace from anti-democratic myths. We left the EU in spite of the Tories and because the majority of people in the UK voted for it in the teeth of Project Fear. No Scottish Nationalist should ever parrot that “we’re too wee, too poor, too stupit” to govern ourselves propaganda.
The rest of your whataboutery is not relevant — we know fine well Westminster is corrupt too — doesn’t change the fact Davis is speaking sweet, beautiful TRUTH. He might be a TOARIE but he’s an honest man. We need more of them.
There was quite a few Scottish Centric articles in the Sunday Times today. We buy a paper copy (Old School). I note that after 25 years Gillian Bowditch is retiring. I like her articles on the SNHS with her husband being a Scottish Doctor they were always spot on and close to the truth. I found her closing piece over optimistic but let’s not quibble. I like the Davies article well informed as you would expect as an Alex Salmond ally but I do wish he would use his Parliamentary privilege to complete some unfinished business in Scotland. Until that happens Holyrood will be stuck in a ditch.
“I do wish he would use his Parliamentary privilege to complete some unfinished business in Scotland”
I’m minded to agree with you.
But there is still a legal action grinding its way along. Perhaps he’s hanging fire until that eventually plays out to a conclusion.
I hope he and the rest of us live long enough to see the verdict!
@Hatey McHateface
The difference between Holyrood and the House of Commons is clear for everyone to see. HoC elected members have power and can use it. Our MSPs are weak beyond all recognition and partisan as a result.The numbers of MSPs quitting tells you everything you need to know. I have abandoned my quest to become an MSP because I am old, male, heterosexual and White never mind I could throw 20 good policies together. Policies don’t matter. Ross Greer will be in Government soon with the Biffa court case awarding £150 million against the Scottish Government thanks to Lorna Slater.
There’s something I am missing in this whole debate. If the current denizens of the Scottish Parliament and Government are an absolute shower (which I most heartily grant) who will run an independent Scotland? Where are they hiding?
They’re hiding in plain sight – on Wings BTL 🙂
I exclude myself from that, on the grounds that I have no illusions about the difficulty, in fact almost certain impossibility, of effecting political and economic change for the better.
Especially in Scotland, where even expert cat herders would struggle to coerce any two Scots to act alike about anything.
Perversely though, by the undeniable logic of politics, my emphatic denial of interest probably makes me the most highly qualified of the lot!
Andy
At the glacial speed Lord Provost Swinney and the Gradualists (sounds like a jazz band) are going then the people in question are probably not yet even glimmers in their fathers eyes..
You are not allowed to ask questions like that on here. The nutters will take offence and call you a heretic. It will happen by magic!
No one takes offense until to start walking piss about the UN decolonization. If you had taken the time and listened to Craig Murray when he came back from New York you’d realize that what you were asking he had already explained, but instead you have ago at Alf, when in fact its Craig Murray who’s our ambassador to Scotland @ the UN.
We Scots are extremely tolerant and if we weren’t, you’d told to fuck off long ago and just simple ignored as irreverent, which you are.
By all means come on here and make a point and we’ll all listen but from what I’ve read who have no point to make that hasn’t already been answered by people.
@100% yes – the decolonisation process is a dead end, as Salvo were formally told in March when the C-24 committee was approached. Hiring a meeting room at the UN does not mean a campaign is endorsed by the UN in any way, especially given its association with sleazy pro-“R” hacks.
“We Scots are extremely tolerant”
Speak for yourself.
I don’t tolerate apologists and cheerleaders for the yellow, lassie torturing scum – the ham assholes.
CM decided of his own free will to make common cause with these subhumans. So now he poisons and tarnishes everything he touches. He can GTF.
No, Aidan, the decolonisation process is not a dead end.
And Salvo were not “formally told” that in March when the C-24 committee was approached.
The process only reaches a dead end if the UN General Assembly votes against a member-sponsored resolution to recognise Scotland as a territory, or if the Fourth Committee and/or UNGA formally refuse to add Scotland to the NSGT list after C-24 has evaluated the petition.
You’ve previously stated on this blog that C-24 “cannot reject the petition on behalf of the UN as a whole.” The most the C-24 could have done is reject it if the petition wasn’t ‘competent’ in some way, but even that isn’t final.
Since I know you know this, why lie about it?
@Xaracen – so a tiny campaign group just needs to persuade the UN General Assembly to fundamentally redraft the UN charter. I think that feels like the very definition of dead end doesn’t it.
No, Aidan, the salt water criterion is only an interpretive guideline from Resolution 1541. It’s not a fundamental requirement of the UN Charter. At most, its removal would require a UNGA resolution; certainly not a redraft of the Charter itself. This is just your typical over-egging of your case.
It was you who explained to me the original purpose of the ‘Salt Water Thesis’ -a shoddy political excuse designed to keep the biggest colonialist offenders, like the USA and the UK, from having to explain themselves to the C-4 and the UNGA.
So, the tiny campaign group does not need “to persuade the UN General Assembly to fundamentally redraft the UN Charter.” It just needs to expose why that ‘thesis’ exists: a political scam; and it and your argument are both textbook examples of the ‘Actuality equals Legitimacy’ fallacy.
Reinterpreting that thesis doesn’t require a fundamental redraft of the UN Charter. It just requires honesty.
You’re right, it would require superseding Resolution 1541, but it would also require repealing Articles 2(4) and 2(7) of the UN Charter, both of which prohibit the UN interfering in the domestic affairs of the UN Charter and with it, fundamentally changing the scope of international law. Would you care to give a percentage figure for the probability you think this has of happening? I’ve given a 0% chance, I’d be interested in hearing from you.
As I’ve said, this is a complete dead end to occupy the attention of a few retirees. It’s not going to happen.
Aidan’s claim:
“Articles 2(4) and 2(7) of the UN Charter prohibit the UN from interfering in the domestic affairs of the Charter itself, fundamentally changing the scope of international law.”
What the Charter Actually Says:
Article 2(4):
“All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”
Article 2(7):
“Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII.”
Exactly – prohibitions on interfering with domestic political matters and interfering with the territorial integrity of the U.K. Both of these articles would need to be repealed as I’ve said out above.
Territorial integrity requires constitutional integrity, Aidan.
You can’t invoke Article 2(4) to protect a territorial claim that was never lawfully grounded.
Any claim that ‘the UK has territorial integrity’ itself lacks integrity, Aidan.
Scotland’s territory belongs exclusively to the sovereign Scots under their still-extant constitution. They never agreed to give it up, and the Treaty doesn’t show that they did.
Which bit of this do you not understand?
The UK only contains Scotland, it does not own it, and the UK government cannot legitimately dispossess the Scots of their own territory. The UK’s ‘territorial integrity’ only allows it to protect UK territory from external threats, not legitimate internal ones.
The United Nations recognises the U.K. (not Scotland, or England) as a state for the purpose of international law. It is therefore prevented by the aforementioned Article 2(7) from considering or acting in any way upon constitutional arguments about the structure of the U.K. As I said, the only way around this is for for the UNGA to repeal 2(7) and to agree to much more expensive powers to intervene in the internal affairs of member states. Again 0% chance.
It was never a territorial union -D’Oh!
The UK can style itself how it likes. It doesn’t make it law. The Union was a political one. Nothing else. That’s why Scotland is a country. Not a region of some new state they created only in their head.
They didn’t even create that because as Robert Black KC so elementary explained – England just saw fit to remain as it was. Therefore no new state was created at all.
Scotland has a constitution of its own & the UK government cannot just overwrite that cause it felt like it.
*Elementary was supposed to say eloquently.
You’re some alleged Scot eh? Gleefully erasing yer own country. Whit a sad sap…
No, Aidan!
Scotland’s constitutional status is not an internal domestic matter. It’s a question of international law, treaty legitimacy, and sovereign inheritance -a key tenet of Article 73.
That brings the UN’s Article 73 into play here, precisely because the UK was created by treaty.
No lawful act of surrender occurred.
The Scots never consented to give up their sovereignty, and the 1707 Treaty contains no clause transferring it, demoting it, or abolishing it.
This means the UK cannot claim legitimate sovereignty over Scotland as if by default. Instead, Scotland’s sovereign inheritance obliges international recognition and oversight -exactly what Article 73 mandates.
Treaties don’t just establish governments; they define the sovereignty and self-determination of peoples.
Without lawful surrender, sovereignty remains intact.
Sovereign inheritance doesn’t mean anything and specifically, doesn’t mean anything in the context of Article 73 which is about supporting the people’s of colonial territories attain their own systems of government.
As I said, the UN recognises the U.K. as a state, so is expressly forbidden by the UN Charter from having any role in adjudicating internal constitutional issues. The fact that your argument on the constitution has been conclusively refuted isn’t in this instance the reason why it fails. The UN has no vires to even consider it.
“The UK can style itself how it likes. It doesn’t make it law.” – but it is law Geri, crystal clear and universally accepted.
Let’s cut to the chase, Aidan; you claimed:
“The decolonisation process is a dead end, as Salvo were formally told in March when the C-24 committee was approached.”
If this is true, please provide the exact document(s) or formal statement(s) from the C-24 committee that support this claim.
@Xaracen – I’ve dug it out for you before, go onto the Salvo/JPTi websites and you’ll see where they state that because C-24 has very strict rules they can’t consider the petition and that the “next step” is for a member state to petition the General Assembly. For the reasons I’ve explained above, that next step is not going to happen.
You seem to be close to Salvo, can’t you ask them to produce the correspondence? We’d all be very keen to see it.
Aidan, your case does not rest on what the C-24 told Salvo. It rests solely on your own interpretation of the relevance of UN Charter Article 73.
Your interpretation presumes that the UK’s Treaty-based origin is not international in nature, but purely domestic, rendering Article 73 irrelevant to Salvo’s petition.
This assessment is both legally untenable and factually irrelevant. All treaties are international agreements by definition, and the Treaty of Union is no exception. The Scots never consented to relinquish their sovereignty, and the 1707 Treaty contains no clause transferring, demoting, or abolishing that sovereignty.
Therefore Westminster’s constitutional overreach is not simply a domestic issue; it is a dispute between two sovereignties, one of which has been unlawfully suppressed by the other. The suppressor has denied the sovereign people of Scotland their right to self-determination without external interference, and is denying them the means of full self-government.
This international treaty framework clearly places Salvo’s case squarely within the scope of Article 73.
“denied the sovereign people of Scotland their right to self-determination”
In the universe where 2014 didn’t happen, that statement may be true. In this universe it’s not.
2026 is about to happen soon. There is nothing whatsoever stopping the Sovereign people of Scotland organising to hold a plebiscitary election in May 2026. The manifesto promise to be that the election of a majority of Independence MSPs will empower them to immediately declare UDI and commence making the arrangements for Scotland to leave the rUK.
Nothing whatsoever, other than a basic lack of gumption and the niggling doubt that the would-be MSPs would be trounced at the polls.
Hence the focus on the undemocratic “cunning plans” – the latest one being an attempt to see if the RF and PRC will persuade some other countries to declare Scotland a colony.
And jeopardise their own colonies? Ah hae ma doots. Verra muckle doots.
2014 was dodgy. It was an open franchise. I’m sure there must be international laws regarding that.
2026 is also an open Franchise.
Scots sovereignty belongs to Scots. Not blow-ins, transient workers & their wee grannies here in a holiday home.
Even the UK GE has a closed franchise.
I think it’d be useful to gather actual signatures. Similar to what happened before because elections can be rigged anyway. Especially by Perfidious Albion.
“2014 was dodgy”
Not at all. An insufficient number of Sovereign Scots were persuaded by the merits of the Indy on offer.
If a sufficient number had been persuaded, all the “blow ins” as you call them would have been resoundingly out-voted.
I note you flatly refuse to engage with the idea of trying again to get a clear democratic majority via a 2026 plebiscitary election.
If you are going to appeal to the “lurkers”, you shouldn’t make it so obvious that you too doubt the existence of a democratic majority of Sovereign Scots in favour of whatever it is that’s on offer now.
I have no doubts at all that Scotland has already voted for independence.
It has also already voted numerous times for a supposedly Pro indy political party giving them various mandates to choose from.
The question of Scotland returning to being an independent Nation isn’t for outsiders to determine. They can bugger off home to their own native countries. Scotland, on the other hand, has to live with the result.
Yoons are big in the mouth about open franchises but not so vocal when it comes to their own elections. They impose restrictions even for General elections. Brexshit too. Funny that.
Scotland will never have independence until it’s referendum is removed completely from a domestic setting & especially one conducted by the very overlord’s that clearly don’t want us to exit & take their cash cow with us. If they’d nothing to fear over a referendum they wouldn’t be so he’ll bent in blocking one.
The SNP has already been captured & every party that rises will be too. That’s the was Perfidious Albion works. It sends forth it’s minions to mingle, disrupt, veer of course anything they see as a threat. They’ve done it throughout the world as well as at home.
Indyref wasn’t conducted properly. It had an open franchise election used by a glorified administration & the three amigos clearly broke rules on Purdah. They could do that because it was conducted in a domestic setting. Something that’d never happen with other countries independence referendums.
“so he’ll bent in blocking”
Pure comedy gold from you, yet again, Barbie!
“Scotland will never have independence” as long as borderline illiterate nasties like you are fecking it all up.
If you really are a proud, patriotic Scot, the very best thing you can do for your country is stop making it and its inhabitants into a laughing stock.
Of course, that means you will have to STFU on here and the other forums you pollute, so it’s a nono.
We’ll just have to console ourselves with the thought that Scotland’s loss is our gain – every time we point at you and laugh.
It’s not “my” interpretation of Article 73, it is a recognition that the exotic legal theories of tiny campaign groups are the preserve of the national judicial system, not international institutions which are rightly duty bound by the UN Charter to respect the territorial integrity of sovereign nations.
The United Kingdom was formed over 300 years ago by two acts of Parliament which implemented the Treaty of Union. The ToU cannot be justiciable as an international treaty because the two parties to it have now extinguished, and aside from that I seriously doubt any treaty of that age would be justiciable today. As Roddy Dunlop rightly put it, it is an important document but a document of his time (he was referring to the claim of right, but the same applies to the ToU). The U.K. is recognised as a state in international law, and therefore the circumstances of its formation and its internal constitutional structure are matters for the domestic legal and political system.
Aidan, your post is built on unverified assertions and doctrinal presumptions.
Let’s have a look, shall we?
“It’s not “my” interpretation of Article 73, it is a recognition that the exotic legal theories of tiny campaign groups are the preserve of the national judicial system, not international institutions,”
An assertion you cannot prove is a bluff, not a fact!
“which are rightly duty bound by the UN Charter to respect the territorial integrity of sovereign nations.”
Which therefore must include the territorial integrity of the sovereign nation of Scotland.
A territorial integrity that Tony Blair and Donald Dewar roundly breached in 1999 when the English/Scottish eastern sea border was angled northwards to hijack ~6000 square miles of Scottish waters and declare it to be English waters, which just ‘happened’ to include several highly productive oil wells.
“The United Kingdom was formed over 300 years ago by two acts of Parliament which implemented the Treaty of Union. The ToU cannot be justiciable as an international treaty because the two parties to it have now extinguished,”
Not true if Scotland’s sovereignty still exists, which it does, and it is still a kingdom, since its sovereign Crown also still exists, formally known in Scotland as ‘The Community of the Realm’. Its monarch also still exists though his throne is vacant.
It’s certainly arguable that England’s sovereignty ceased to exist, as you well know, but its Crown still does because the Treaty says so in Article II. Thus both kingdoms still formally exist today, Aidan. They just don’t govern themselves independently, but jointly, at least in principle if not in fact, which is my primary contention.
It is also not true since both parties to the Treaty are still formally represented as such in the Union’s parliament today!
“and aside from that I seriously doubt any treaty of that age would be justiciable today.”
An assertion you cannot prove is a bluff, not a fact! Your doubts have no more legal standing than mine do.
“As Roddy Dunlop rightly put it, it is an important document but a document of his time (he was referring to the claim of right, but the same applies to the ToU”
An assertion you cannot prove is a bluff, not a fact! And Roddy Dunlop’s statement was an observation with no legal standing. And whose assertion is it that ‘the same applies to the ToU’?
His, or yours?
“The U.K. is recognised as a state in international law, and therefore the circumstances of its formation and its internal constitutional structure are matters for the domestic legal and political system.”
There is much more to it than that, Aidan.
The Treaty of Union is not an abandoned relic, Aidan, it’s a living constitutional instrument as the Lords’ Privileges Committee have confirmed. And Scotland’s sovereign inheritance remains engaged, unextinguished, and internationally relevant.
Shitface, 54% support independence.
Just not the party pretending to be Pro indy.
Suck it up, sweet cheeks.
Change is coming. Inside & outside the UK.
& A quick look at the UN & you’ll see that’s changing too.
How can a diddly wee skint country, who isn’t even a superpower either or have any great population, pretend to represent the United Kingdom when the other half of that Kingdom wants to exit but is denied from doing so by legitimate legal means.
It won’t be on the SC for long. Reform is long past it’s sell by date there too & blighty has clocked up many enemies over the decades.
Tick, tock.
“Change is coming”
I bet you couldn’t tell me what currency our change will be coming in if I gave you all day to answer, eh Barbs?
“the other half of that Kingdom wants to exit but is denied from doing so by legitimate legal means”
Said this before, Barbs, but it bears repetition. You really should have been on the stage.
Anyhoo, thanks for providing me with yet another out-loud guffaw.
Any currency we choose.
Scotland is rich in natural resources & it’ll be open for business. Including to our neighbours who’ll no longer be helping themselves free of charge.
New international payment systems are now completely bypassing the colonisers grip too. A weapon they used once too often to throw their weight around & now it’s heading for the toilet. If I remember correctly that gave you a chuckle too. Stealing reserves was such a hoot. Look who’s chuckling now. It ain’t Trump & the UK lol
Colonisers just aren’t catching a break these days.
Anywhere.
So what you need to be worrying about is what currency Blighty will use when it breaks up. Jellied eels & jam won’t bankroll Blighty & neither will it’s financial services as they’ll be off following the money elsewhere.
Good question.
Another one is: Where will the malign, London-based Civil Service Scotland go?
And another: As English parties such as Labour; Conservative; Reform and Liberal Democrat will become foreign, who/what will take their place?
The main thing is they will be gone.
There will be successor parties if their policies chime with voters, however the important thing is to replace the Westminster appointed civil service, send the “Scotchland” Office packing and start from scratch devoid of Westminster interference or directional manipulation and bias.
And a written constitution placing Scots sovereignty INVIOLATE , its territory permanent and indivisible.
And; police the politicians- no foreign or external special focus group subsidies/ party donations determining government policy.
Defence?
Defend our own, no more; the Swiss model. It can be done.
Freedom!
“a written constitution placing Scots sovereignty INVIOLATE , its territory permanent and indivisible”
You wish!
That remains very much to be seen.
Scotland is as ripe for Balkanisation as many other artificial constructs of countries the world over. Two languages in use for starters. Sectarianism never far from the surface.
An Independent Scotland won’t hold together if the commies and Student Grant types insist on trying to rebuild Bolshevism here. Especially when all the resources are in the small ‘c’ conservative regions.
Just as it won’t hold together if the time warp nutters insist we all have to read and write a useless language the majority of us don’t know and have no interest in ever learning.
Civil wars have been fought over a lot less.
Now, YL. Please mind you lack the smarts to respond to any of my posts and scroll on by. Thanks in advance.
“This matters because the single most powerful driver of democracy is fearless freedom of speech.”
as the actress said to the bishop, AMEN!
There’s no democracy without truth. There’s no truth without freedom to speak. There’s no freedom to speak when policemen are scouring Twitter to arrest Lanarkshire Mums and the comedy writer of Father Ted for telling the truth.
The entity calling itself the Scottish National Party took away our (by then already much diminished) freedom to speak in Humza’s Hate Act. Which is the right name for it because they hate us. They hate you and me. Humza and Nicola even told us they hate the name “Scottish National Party”. Think about what that means.
1997 now seems like a faraway time in a foreign land. Back in the gay 90’s, like many of you good people I traipsed the streets till my feet were blistered to campaign for YES to a Scottish parliament.
If I had known the priorities of the Scottish Parliament would be to strip us of our rights, waste our money, frame innocent men for crimes that never happened and lie to us constantly — I’d have joined that eejit Donald Findlay QC in Thinking Twice. But mibbe I’m the eejit for trusting the SNP.
We need freedom of speech. We need to stop being a society of spineless cowards who are scared to cause “offence”. We need truth and reconciliation. And we need Nicola Sturgeon and her co-conspirators to face good Scottish justice in a court of law.
The truth will set us free, my dear people. If we love Scotland — I think we all claim we love her — we will free her people from the fear of speaking up.
Or do we have to roam the world to prove how much it HURTS?
Ramsay Mac Donald in Socialism: critical and constructive, published in 1921, wrote:
«The Anglification of Scotland has been proceeding apace to the damage of its education, its music, its literature, its genius, and the generation that is growing up under this influence is uprooted from its past»
Vultures picking over the dead meat.
Change the MSPs to those who are capable, principled and are desperate for independence. They won’t kowtow to Westminster, won’t do the wokey-wokey, and will find a way to get us where we want to be.
I would not give up the place entirely because it is at least a place that is filled after a vote of Scotland-only voters. That is a plus. Without it, what can any vote for representation at Westminster achieve?
So the message needs to be – 1. to Alba, SSP and other independence parties: get under the Liberate Scotland;
2. to the public – vote for Liberate Scotland candidates because they are in it for outcomes, not incomes, and for independence, nothing less.
Sorry, sarah, but when you posted something very similar the other day, there was a “nothing more” qualifier in there too.
Is this just an oversight? Please don’t tell me the goalposts have moved already!
If “Independence, nothing more” has already been dropped, I fear the malign interference of the “Scotland in the EU” zealots at work.
And I’ll be damned before I ever vote to unravel 300+ years of foreign rule from London, just to immediately swap it for foreign rule from Brussels.
“get under the Liberate Scotland umbrella” I meant to say.
100% Yes. What I have done in my life is frankly none of your, or anybody else’s business. I am simply fed up of reading the same shite everyday from the rabid nutters who pollute this site. It is said that 60% of Scots would welcome Independence. How many would actually vote for it with all the unknowns that surround the issue? You may disagree, the nutters certainly will, but the most important things are money and the need for an honest competent Government. Where are the projections to show that an Independent Svotland could actually afford szch minor obstacles as pensions, benefits, defence etc etc. Will Scotland take it’s share of the UK National Debt? If yes, how will we service it? If not we will be international pariahs. Patriotism is great on paper but ultimately of no great use in the big bad world
Try reading factual stuff like McCrone, not made up derivative stuff like GERS.
Bet you don’t though, probably not suiting your world view.
As what appears to be a staunch Unionist, can you remember when you first parroted “the oil has run out” line?
Just out of curiosity now that time has passed to allow it to be measured.
Enjoy picking up “soda” cans in supermarket trolleys across the pond by the way, and remember to stay in bed on July 4ths..
We’re equally fed up of yours, Chas. All you do on here is troll or post informing everyone how bored you are.
Does it never occur to you to just leave the site? What kind of eejit continually visit’s a site they dislike.
You aren’t from Scotland because all of your questions have been answered a thousand times already since 2013 so as an outsider it’s absolutely zero to do with you how Scotland will manage her affairs. It’s not for outsiders to demand answers, spreadsheets or guarantees as recently highlighted at the ICJ – it’s against international law to impose criteria they must meet & hoops they have to jump through in order to implement a democratic vote.
But here’s the short answer. It can’t be any more shittier than it is already. Scotland already pays in way more than she gets back & that’s just on the stuff we know about. The UK is a shite hole that can’t even produce a competent government of its own far less demand one anywhere else & Scotland will pay HER share of debts once receipts & proof it was actually spent in or for Scotland’s benefit are provided. It shouldn’t be difficult – fck all happens in Scotland so any development won’t be that hard to spot. On the other hand, looking across the border, we’ve loads of shared assets to divvy up when we leave.
Well said Geri
This site is now infested with self confessed Home Counties tw8ts and blow-ins.
Hell mend ‘em..
“it’s absolutely zero to do with you how Scotland will manage her affairs”
What’s known as the Dad’s Army strategy.
“Don’t tell him, Pike!”
It was funnier in Dad’s Army, because obviously Private Pike already knew the answer to the question.
Whereas with Lucy here …
But let’s be fair. Give or take a year, she can sometimes tell us what day it is!
Geri.
I am a Scot living in Scotland.
You are comparable to having a small stone in your shoe…… Mildly irritating but ultimately harmless.
According to you and you alone, it appears that the answers to my question on finance have been answered one thousand times in the last 12 years. Where? Can you point me in the right direction to find them?
How do you know that ‘Scotland already pays in way more than she gets back & that’s just on the stuff we know about’. Again, can you show me the figures.
You state that ‘Scotland will pay HER share of debts once receipts & proof it was actually spent in or for Scotland’s benefit are provided’. Who told you that? Was it the voices in your head that only you can hear?
You come across as a sad, bitter, fantasist, which are common traits amongst the 10/15 nutters who infest Wings. No concrete answers to anything but an unquestionable belief that all will be fantastic in the land of milk and honey that will be an Independent Scotland.
The overwhelming majority of Scots, thankfully, are not as simple as your goodself and demand answers to a multitude of questions. Nobody is even attempting to provide them.
Keep up with the abuse. It is all you, together with the rest of the loonies, are good for.
“According to you and you alone, it appears that the answers to my question on finance have been answered one thousand times in the last 12 years. Where? Can you point me in the right direction to find them?”
You’re posting on it, ya tit!
Wings has spent the last 11 years plus writing, dissecting, investigating & fact checking every single myth & misinformation regarding Scottish Independence that even you can think of. Go read a few eh? It may help with yer perpetual state of boredom too – killing two birds with one stone.
Or there is Scotlands white paper – a STARTING POINT for indy.
Or there’s the wee Blue book. The wee Black book of lies & bullshit that came to pass after the referendum.
& finally there’s YouTube. Reams & reams of gatherings, speakers, talks & presentations.
I don’t believe you are Scottish because you seem to have missed an entire decade & still wander on here to ask dumb fucking questions.
YES ran a successful campaign last time. Every single question asked & answered. The internet awash with information if you were really that interested in finding answers. Obviously you weren’t. So jog on. You’re fooling no one.
So fck off & use the search function. All Stu’s well written articles are still available & on every topic.
In fact, Chas – Stu has even provided a multitude of links on the front page to various bloggers, YouTube channels & even to his wee books.
If you stopped trolling & following Alf around like a mad stalking freak, you & yer chums would maybe notice them. Or you’d think at the very least you’d remember what site yer on. It has a search feature & even tells you there’s over 6,810 articles on this site alone.
So there ya go, ample information available to answer all yer wee yoon questions. Yer a decade behind. Or go pound dirt.
Young Lochinvar
Aye. I dunno why Stu allows them on here. They’re trolls that serve no purpose. It’s fast becoming like the Daily Fail/Daily racist Express comments section btl.
It’s not cause of free speech either cause ye can’t talk about more pertinent topics on here that are going on in the world right now & some posters have been moderated or banned for far less than the drivel these trolls post on a daily basis.
Ach well, it’s his site.
If you’re in the mood for invoking Rev Stu this morning, Barbs …
Here’s a quote from him on the September 20 thread, “Calm down, lads”:
“nothing happening in Scottish politics anyway”
Of course, if you get arrested and charged with inciting violence due to your post about burning down the oil rigs, that might change things a smidge.
Let’s just hope there’s no creepy clypes or doddering dobbers lurking on here, eh!
Then again, if you’re safely ensconced in Moscow, like some of us suspect, you’ll be grand. Burka Fatso might be safe too.
“It’s fast becoming like the Daily Fail/Daily racist Express comments section btl.”
Aye, Geri.
What a hollowed-out haven for anti-Scots unionists and colonialists this place appears to have become.
But that isn’t the worst of it – I’ve never really taken to the English sense of ‘humour’.
‘Monty Python’ was unfathomably shite for a start and it just got worse from there (remember ‘It Ain’t Half
HotShit, Mum’ ?) – the BBC must have spent a lot of time thanking God for the invention of canned laughter.The English don’t really understand Scots humour (it’s too nuanced and sophisticated for them to comprehend) and their own foreign and quite alien brand of literal ‘laughs’ just isn’t very funny to us.
If the English who flounce about this place were even slightly amusing, a tad more interesting, a smidgeon less thuggish, and a lot less rude they might be tolerable – but, alas, they are not… and so are not.
By the way I always enjoy reading your posts.
Please forgive me if my posts aren’t up to my usual stellar standard – I’m still a bit shaky and doddery and in recovery from the shock of being publicly THREATENED WITH MURDER on here the other day (I’ve been on the phone tae Taggart aboot it – he sayd “Whit, thers awmaist been a MURDER, ye say?”)… the Daily Mail btl section Indeed.
“the shock of being publicly THREATENED WITH MURDER on here”
Didn’t you claim to be 80 YO? It’s still not too late for you to get a life.
But if you don’t feel up to the challenge, here’s something you should still hopefully be able to achieve unaided:
Awa an shite, man!
Quote: ‘I’ve never really taken to the English sense of ‘humour’.
Hi Northcode, me ol’ mucker, Ghost of Basil Brush here; I do hope you are not including me in that! Here’s a good one:
Why do Scottish men wear kilts?
The sheep in the field learned to run when they heard a zipper…
Boom, boom!!
Less of the Boom! Boom! SBS.
NC has had a near death experience and it has left him feeling very fragile. Let’s have some respectful hush, please.
He’s not gonna be very sanguine tomorrow if you startle him so much he spontaneously evacuates.
“Ghost of Basil Brush here…
I’m sure that ‘joke’ was in an episode of ‘It Ain’t half Shit, Mum’.
Northcode
The English idea of a laugh is to always take the piss out of someone else thinking they’re funny. Starting with names then proceeding to try mock accents with a heavy dose of stereotyping others thrown in for good measure. They don’t like it returned tho. They get all uppity & offended, violent & start smashing things up cause ppl don’t see them as they’d like to be seen so they have a major tantrum.
Us Scots have the uncanny ability to laugh at ourselves. Strongly disagree & move on.
The English still harbour a grudge centuries later like it happened just yesterday.
& Before the blow-ins on here get all uppity – I used to live there. They’re not very nice ppl to foreigners & they’re even worse to their neighbours. The so called “Valued Family of Nations” Aye, as demonstrated daily on parliament TV with their mocking attitude.
As Robert Black KC could point out the other day, even in 1707 Scots would be allowed to send a handful of men to Westminster who’d sit there for forms sake but carry no weight at all “other than to be laughed at”. That was a nice welcome to the shiny new Union eh? 300+ yrs later & they haven’t changed much.
“Us Scots have the uncanny ability to laugh at ourselves”
Indeed we do, Lucy.
I like to start my day by logging on here and searching out your latest pearls. As I have said before, you should have gone on the stage.
If you don’t already know the humour of Count Arthur Strong, you should seek him out. What makes him so side-splittingly funny is that HE DOESN’T KNOW HE’S DOING IT.
And neither do you.
@“Geri”
I always regard any serious, (not intentionally) non-humorous sweeping statement stereotyping an entire nation or people as supposedly ALL having attribute X or Y (e.g. a certain disingenuous humour in your example) as being shorthand for the unintelligent – the mark of the embittered thicko.
Northcode: “I’m sure that ‘joke’ was in an episode of ‘It Ain’t half Shit, Mum’”.
Oh dear. How sad. Never mind. SHUT UP!!
Just my little joke. Boom boom!
I loved that ‘Whispering Grass’ single, didn’t you? Lofty and Sgt Major Williams did the nation proud. Enough to bring a tear to an old fox’s eye.
“…the most important things are money and the need for an honest competent Government.”
On that first part, speak for yourself, you miserable cratur.
Chas says:
“I am a Scot living in Scotland”.
Oh, ma sides! Stop it!!
Davis suggests speeches should be longer to allow greater examination of issues. Pointless. Everyone already knows how they will vote and they all want to get away at 5pm.
«Colonialism is the massive fog that has clouded our imaginations regarding who we could be, excised our memories of who we once were, and numbed our understanding of our current existence»
Scotland wears a shroud of «massive fog».
My wife has American folks so she wanted to watch the Charlie Kirk memorial service. Wow the Scottish Hymns right there. Perhaps there is hope for my Asylum case to America. Old, White, Christian, male, heterosexual and as long as the grandchildren come with me. I should be quids in.
Go there. Live there. Very, very quickly you will realise you know nothing much about the place, it’s an insane asylum top to bottom, and it’s only getting worse. You would get charged through the arse for your health and retirement home care, and they would leave you to die in the street of you couldn’t pay them. Place is Hell on earth. Trust me.
A wise choice. America is getting cleared of illegal immigrants and gangs by the tens of thousands. The State is taking back control of inner cities and tracking down the ring leaders. This is on a scale we Scots find impossible to understand.The changes in America are coming here. The world has had enough of the anarchy instilled by the Left. The White Christian Hetrosexual male is what has been missing in our society. Responsibility for your actions is the battle cry of White and Black Americans. it’s now the cry here.
That right, aye?
Average healthcare cost per person in USA is just over $13,000 a year.
Daily living expenses just over $210.
Good luck, George
Average healthcare cost per person in the UK is near $8,000 a year.
To arrive at that figure, I took the UK health and social care budget (£205 billion), divided by the UK population (70 million) and multiplied by 2 (let’s assume half the people don’t get ill in any given year).
Convert from pounds to dollars by multiplying by 1.35.
It’s surprisingly high, quite a bit over half of the US figure.
Of course, the difference is that in the US, the ill person pays.
Whereas in the UK, someone else is usually on the hook.
No doubt this post will be, as always, misinterpreted by the usual axe grinders, but WTF, some questions deserve attention:
Is the ever spiraling cost of UK health care itself a function of the existence of the NHS? By abrogating citizens of any responsibility for their own health, does the NHS effectively conspire to make people more ill? Does it do this consciously, or is it just the inevitable behaviour of any huge bureaucracy as it strives to carve itself an ever larger fiefdom?
To help answer the above, consider how drivers would act on the roads if the state picked up the entire tab for every bump, scrape, dent and write off, and treated the drivers as helpless victims of fate.
So Chas says…
“The overwhelming majority of Scots, thankfully, are not as simple as your goodself and demand answers to a multitude of questions. Nobody is even attempting to provide them.”
:/
Rev, it really is beyond time you consigned Chas to the bin. What a buffoon he is, and more importantly, what an insult to WoS.
comedy : not reported on the main media
– in his speech at the UN, Murray described the UK as “a force of evil” in the world
AND THE PLACE BROKE INTO SPONTANEOUS APPLAUSE
– if it ever comes to a vote, we will walk it; yeah the entire world “has beef” wid da anglo. Pushing at an open door. There is a class action being prepped against the UK from the afro-caribs, it would be nice to get in on that as a co-pursuer rather than as a co-defender. More fun. Murray also said the referendum was rigged, a notion that is strongly suppressed if mentioned – but it stinks worse than a dead fish under the floorboards.
Whatever happens at the UN it at least puts the UK in a bad light – they love to go on and on about “the international community”, and now they will be put on the defensive; it is at least embarrassing, and narcissists with a superiority cannot take that. The other thing is just – laughing at them, taking the piss.
Murrays jibe was almost getting a bit biblical like “enemies of the human race” (but that’s that other lot …)
or even “sons of satan”, which reminds me of the ayatollah’s brilliant meme – while he calls the mighty, terrifying and violent, USA, “the Great Satan”
the UK gets called THE LITTLE SATAN
Sums it all up.
I wonder if Starmer was allowed to spit after his private meeting with Trump? Nah – he looks like a swallower. I bet james savile knew.
One thing I never found a definitive answer to : the shocking rumour about the “welsh stabber” was that his da – from Rwanda, was wanted by them for a bit of the old ultraviolence, actual “gena side”, and tried to deport him and they failed. The dad’s lawyer was a young “human rights specialist” called Keir Starmer. Now it would be tragic, hilarious, dark, if it was true; is it “too good to be true”. Now, around that time Farage was hinting darkly about “things I know, but cannot say”. Why not use it? Maybe he is waiting for the moment. If it is true Kid Stabber has a landmine planted underneath him. He is done. And Nigel has the trigger. Such an event might even end the entire Labour party forever – I am thinking about what happened to Ratners when their boss spilt the beans … the ratner moment. Timing would be the key – you don’t want to get rid of starmer only for him to be replaced by a more capable and popular leader, which right now an empty cornflakes box would probably qualify as.
Clearly you have not noticed the recent obsessive constant attempt to drag Scotland down to England’s level in history, with a fifth column of middle class ethnic racists (often English; ripping white folk apart is a growing sport and academic field in this country) presenting a hyperbolic revisionist retelling of our place in the world morning, noon and night.
Our institutions are being degraded and rewritten with these twisted hateful bastards running them. It’s the same sort of DEI swill that unfortunately helped Trump get elected. Scotland is too white for the modern world, so needs to be cut off at the knees. We’re all racist vermin and we all basically don’t deserve to live.
Come here now, call yourself an African chief ‘reclaiming’ land ‘stolen’ from your ancestors 400 years ago – and see how far you get. You won’t get deported as an illegal immigrant nutcase, you’ll get defended online. Cos being white is out of fashion, because of the American left: we have created every single problem in human history, and here comes ethnic karma for you all.
Shaking my head here sadly.
Sounds like CM missed a trick.
He should have described the ham assholes as a “force for good”. The cheers would have taken the roof off.
Given that the committee members include the most aggressive, imperialist colonisers around, the Orcs and the Covid Spreaders, this behaviour is entirely to be expected.
Ever hung out with the Afro-Caribs, Confused? I have. I once spent a happy day in Jamaica visiting places with Scottish names. A quick shufti at the map reveals dozens of them.
Now, we can’t rule out the possibility that back in the bad old slaving and colonising days, some big, bad English barstewards thought it would be a wizard wheeze to give their plantations Jock names.
But seriously, what are the chances?
And seriously, congrats on toning down the homo-eroticism. Just one reference that I noticed. Well done you.
And seriously still. Scotland is to take lessons from the ayatollah? That’s your vision?
Jesus save us all. Even you.
I’d have thought you’d have more in common with those ham assholes than you care to admit, shiteface.
little old blighty only has to see a dingy on the horizon & they’re ready to lose their tiny mind & deploy the Navy, Border force, Immigration control, the local MP, the council & some randoms off the street to shout obscenities for good measure.
You have to ask yersel why you don’t like blow-ins in yer own country but find it perfectly acceptable to support violent Blow-ins to take over anothers while gleefully cheering them on.
Aren’t these ham assholes only doing what you’d do to defend yersel from an invading, occupying force? Or would you just sit there & take it? Shitting yourself it’ll be your house next.
You project a lot too. It’s yer own side that’s the coloniser & always has been. They’ve no business in that region. None at all.
Things are about to level up & get interesting tho. Pakistan has entered the fray & signed a defence treaty. They come with nukes too – loads of them. There blows the constant threat of the S*mson option against all their neighbours right oot the park.
Maybe holding onto a mate with nukes post indy isn’t such a bad idea after all.
“I’d have thought you’d have more in common with those ham assholes than you care to admit”
Hey! You need to be respectful and deferential if you’re gonna succeed in business.
Once the UN starts dropping cash on them again, they could become good customers for your mobile gas chambers. So mind your P’s and Q’s.
But naw. I’m seeing no circumstances in which I will ever want to play pass-the-parcel with the soft body parts I’ve just carved off a screaming, innocent lassie.
But if that’s your idea of a great day out, post the videos online somewhere and start in recruiting some like-minded folks.
Oh, and Barbie – it’s dinghy, not dingy. Try to at least make it look like you’re at home in the language.
They’re already in a bad light & it’s only gotten worse since Yahoo lost the plot & U conflict.
There’s dossiers & dossiers mounting on everything from terrorist activities in R, Africa & Pakistan to still participating in a genocide they’ve been warned to stay well out of. They’re trying their best to disrupt BRICS countries & it’s being logged.
Starmer has a dossier too. Far too many things coming back to his time as a lawyer. Then there’s the gay models & being dressed by a multimillionaire. They’ve a shit load on him & sometimes various geopolitical sites will hint at far worse to come out about the wooden puppet on a string.
UN telly is comedy gold. The UK rep sits there with only one pre-recorded message “They’ve a right to defend themselves” despite the ICJ ruling. You’d think someone would reboot her & update her software by now.
Oh no Geri you have upset wee Chas so much so that he is now insulting Stuart Campbell by saying his articles are all OBSOLETE, the BALLS of the man, you are to BLAME for telling him to fuck off and do some research, you may not know this but Chas likes his wee game of golf and you suggesting that he do somfing else has just upset him, how dare you suggest that he educate himself
“sometimes various geopolitical sites will hint at far worse to come out”
Well now, that changes everything.
If only you had said earlier, Barbs. How different it would all have ended up.
Geri
Thank you for your response.
You refer to publications which are over 10 years old. It may have escaped your notice that Scotland, the UK and indeed the whole World is now in a slightly different place now to what it was then. Of course, you may not have noticed!
The essence of what you write is that there is not one definitive place or site that gives the required information. I would have thought that if any country was seriously looking to win Independence then said country would pull together various pieces of information/financials/economics and present it to the populace for perusal and discussion. The fact that some people, like you, would not really understand it, is irrelevant. The sane and sensible people would.
Why do you think that the current Government, or any other Independence Party, has not done so?
I would love to see an Independent Scotland but I, along with many others, will not vote for the unknown. People like me will always outvote people like you. Suck it up.
A BUSINESS PLAN FOR INDEPENDENCE?
nice idea but few of the independent states with seats in the UN would pass that test.
What you are saying is without cast iron guarantees for the belt and braces security of your particular future independence is just a pipe dream.
Risk aversion, you can get therapy for that.
@GERI
The benefits of such asymmetrical relationships are similar to serving as a court eunuch in the imperial palace.
Nice environment but something vital is lacking.
TURABDIN
Aye, great description LOL!
“People like me will always outvote people like you.
A didna knaw ther wir sae mony Inglis leevin in Scotlan.
Ye leeve an leern, eh?
But haud oan… wha knaws the trowth o’ whit thon colonialists tell us? Fir wi aw knaw thay canna be trustit tae tell trowth.
Tho if it dae be trow, a’m cuirious tae knaw hou furriners git tae vote oan whit be enteerly maiters fir the Scots(Picts) alane.
Fuck me! I love writing in Scots… which should really be called modern Pictish because the original Scots who came from Ireland spoke the Gaelic and the Picts spoke a variant of the P-Celtic or Brittonic group of languages. Am I Right, Fearghas?
The DSL have it wrong. The language they call Scots is really modern Pictish… so that’s what I’ll call ‘Scots’ henceforth.
Fuck me! I love writing in the Pictish leid.
No, the “Scots” language was brought here by the Angles of Northumbria. Before a medieval rebrand, it was correctly called Inglis or Inglysche.
Pictish was a type of old Welsh.
I thought know in Scots was “ken”, not “knaw”?
Northcode @ 22 Sept, 11.13 am, writes “Am I Right, Fearghas?”
—————
(Sigh) No, you are NOT right. Nowhere near it. I thought we had just very amicably resolved all this. The DSL (Dictionaries of Scottish Language) site is NOT wrong. Neither is Billy Kay wrong in his definitive book: ‘Scots: The Mither Tongue’. Both sources state clearly that the language now known as “Scots” is Germanic. Thus it has absolutely no connection to Pictish.
Why you therefore continue to mention Pictish in almost every post is bewildering. Whether you yourself are conscious of it or not there is some kind of back-swipe at Gaelic implicit in this — more overt in Alf’s posts, though you yourself felt the need on one occasion to assert you felt no identification with Gaelic (fair enough).
But to have Pictish DNA or live in territory once inhabited by Picts has absolutely no direct bearing on the language spoken by the said person. That is so self-evident that spelling it seems pedantic. The crucial factor (and it seems unnecessary to voice this either) would be to discover conclusively historic Pictish words and syntax and use them again in our own day — even post something on Wings in this authentic Pictish.
So to say that “Scots” is “Pictish” is historically erroneous and frankly irresponsible. It is very unhelpfully misleading for you unilaterally (or bi-laterally along with Alf) to designate your (Germanic) “Scots” language as the current embodiment of (Celtic) “Pictish”.
While the precise nature of historical Pictish is certainly still an ongoing academic discussion, any Germanic connection is long discredited. I yet again direct anyone interested in actual factual research about Pictish to read or at least peruse Guto Rhys’s excellent comprehensive historical survey of Pictish studies. Direct free pdf download here:
link to theses.gla.ac.uk
Cut Northcode some slack, Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh.
He’s just had a near death experience.
“The DSL have it wrong. The language they call Scots is really modern Pictish…”
That was a bit of (I thought obvious) cheek… of course Scots as defined by the DSL isn’t derived from Pictish – nobody knows what Pictish was for a start because little trace of it is left to us.
I posted in a previous comment (perhaps on another thread – I can’t be bothered checking) this from the DSL website:
I quite obviously don’t consider the Scots leid to be derived from Pictish.
“Why you therefore continue to mention Pictish in almost every post is bewildering.”
Because I feel like it and I’m descended from the Picts – one of the earliest peoples to live on what is now the Scottish mainland and who were here long before the Irish Scotti rocked up on the scene, that’s why.
The original Scots (from whom I’m guessing you are descended) were Irish and spoke Gaelic.
The Picts were Pictish and spoke a P-Celtic variant now lost to the ancient past.
The two peoples merged and ‘agreed’ to call themselves the Scots.
The Irish Scots – who were essentially foreign colonisers of Pictavia – promoted Gaelic over the Pictish language (it’s what colonisers do – even way back then), but rather than adopt Gaelic the majority of Picts gradually adopted what is now called Scots and Gaelic was pushed further north as the less harsh and rather more melodic and tuneful Scots leid gained favour with that portion of the Scot/Pict amalgamation who were Picts.
Scots as spoken in Scotland now and as defined by the DSL is therefore, in my view, now the language spoken by the descendants of the ancient Picts – my people. Your folk can keep the Gaelic but we Picts are nabbin’ the Scots leid fir oorsels.
Get it?
“there is some kind of back-swipe at Gaelic implicit in this…
You are wrong. I would never disrespect another people’s language.
However, I feel no connection whatsoever to Gaelic – none at all.
And since less than one quarter of one percent of Scots speak it I think those Scots who do should be pretty grateful to the rest of us who aren’t interested – we probably have some genetic memory of being colonised by the Irish Scotti from way back.
Gaelic is taught in our schools and plastered all over our road signs and police cars and official publications and such when no such concession is given to the 43% of the Scottish population who speak Scots.
So give it a rest and stop whining about the poor auld Gaelic lingo being given a back seat in Scotland; because it sits right up front with the driver whereas Scots is stuck at the back of the Scotland bus in the cheap seats.
And give the back-swipes at me and my fellow Pictish descendants a rest, Scotti. We Picts remember what your people took from us all those centuries ago and yet here you are in the 21st century still trying to squeeze mair oot us.
Re Northcode @ 22 Sept, 10.57 pm, 2025
———————
I won’t dignify that tirade of anti-Gaelic distortion and pseudo-Pictish mythology with time-consuming rebuttal. However I will take the opportunity to draw folk’s attention to the following article (it goes into moderation when I add a link, so please find by title-search):
WERE THE SCOTS IRISH? by Ewan Campbell
(Cambridge University Press, 2015)
« To summarize, if there was a mass migration from Ireland to Scotland, there should be some sign of this in the archaeological record, but there is none.
« My reading of the archaeological, historical and linguistic evidence is radically different from the traditional account, but much simpler. I suggest that the people inhabiting Argyll maintained a regional identity from at least the Iron Age through to the medieval period and that throughout this period they were Gaelic speakers.
« In this maritime province, sea communications dominated, and allowed a shared archaic language to be maintained, isolated from linguistic developments which were taking place in the areas of Britain to the east of the Highland massif in the Late Roman period,.
« In conclusion, the Irish migration hypothesis seems to be a classic case of long-held historical beliefs influencing not only the interpretation of documentary sources themselves, but the subsequent invasion paradigm being accepted uncritically in the related disciplines of archaeology and linguistics.
« I believe that none of the evidence is capable of supporting the traditional explanations, and that closer dialogue between historians, linguists and archaeologists can lead to a better understanding of the construction of identity and processes of social change in the early medieval period.
« Indeed, merely by re-labelling the supposed ‘Irish settlers’ as ‘Gaelic speakers’, following the practice of contemporary writers such as Adomnan, the whole issue can be studied in an atmosphere free from the colonialist implications which have distorted the study of early medieval western Britain. »
Re Northcode @ 22 Sept, 10.57 pm, 2025
———————
I won’t dignify your tirade of anti-Gaelic distortion and pseudo-Pictish mythology with time-consuming rebuttal. However I will take the opportunity to draw folk’s attention to the following article (it goes into moderation when I add a link, so please find by title-search):
WERE THE SCOTS IRISH? by Ewan Campbell (Cambridge University Press, 2015)
“The two peoples merged and ‘agreed’ to call themselves the Scots”
Naw. The Scots murdered all the Picts. Or thought they did.
Look out behind you, Northcode!!!
“the language now known as “Scots” is Germanic. Thus it has absolutely no connection to Pictish.”
Neither does Gaelic, Fearghas, which entered Pictland or what we now know as Scotland from what was formerly Scotia, now Ireland.
The Germanic group of languages merely denotes a North Sea connection, Gaelic an Irish Sea connection. An east and west divide if you like.
This does not make Gaelic a superior language or any ‘more’ indigenous than the Scots language, as you and the state funded Gaelic lobby appear to suggest.
“This does not make Gaelic a superior language”
Oh I don’t know, Alf.
Plenty on here never tire of wanging oan aboot the Germanic antecedents of our Royal Family. They believe their Germanic roots render them illegitimate or at the very least, undesirable and inferior.
You should maybes have a confab with them before you start bigging up Scots as Germanic, eh?
Be sure to let us know how that pans out.
Alf,
if both Gaels and Picts were Celtic then they patently did have linguistic affinity.
You now concede (apparently) that Germanic Scots is unrelated to Celtic Pictish. Your whole “Scots is indigenous Pictish but Gaelic is aggressively alien” meme has been relentlessly pushed for as long as I can remember. Your animosity seemed to imply that Gaelic should never have been here in the first place and should die as soon as possible.
Have we heard the end of that now? I guess I doubt it. I suspect there remains some kind of workaround involving DNA and continuity of territory. Perhaps Northcode’s solution that even if Pictish wasn’t Germanic like Scots then a simple declaration can be made that “we the Picts now choose Scots as our language!” Pictish thus reborn via dazzling postmodernist thought.
You denounce an insidiously plotting Gaelic Lobby of which I know nothing. You lump me in with it. The State up to its old Divide and Conquer routine you aver. Could be. Yet when it comes to language, you must admit that polarising is certainly a forte of your own.
Even yet I keep asking myself why we are arguing about something as marginally abstruse as Pictish. Then I realise anew you are persuaded you must have exemplary indigenous forebears who were indigenous colonised victims and never nasty foreign colonisers. Maybe so. I have no way of knowing. Do you?
Maybe not exactly connected, but I have been wondering recently how you might frame the colonial status of the “Ullans” speakers of Northern Ireland.
I would hope you might get round to checking out the above-mentioned article WERE THE SCOTS IRISH? by Ewan Campbell. Not conclusive, but grist etc.
Thanks for the Geneva work, by the way. Truly Impressive.
“…your tirade of anti-Gaelic distortion …”
Your accusation of anti-Gaelic distortion is an anti-Scot distortion.
“…a simple declaration can be made that “we the Picts now choose Scots as our language!”
I thought I’d already made that clear in a previous comment.
The problem for us PIcts – the actual indigenous folk who inhabited what is now mainland Scotland during the Iron age (maist likely afore that, tae) and long before the Scotti showed up – is that our original dialect variation of Brittonic is now extinct and unknown to the remnants of the Pictish people and scholars o’ lingo alike.
The descendants of the Picts have lost the constancy of a very ancient linguistic heritage to lean on in these massively stupid times in a world everchanging and headin’ in the wrang direction – we, ‘the sons and daughters’ of the ancient Picts, have been set adrift on a misty silent sea where not even the echoes of our forbears can be heard and who now cling to a lifebelt made o’ thaim wirds that form the Scots leid; and though it be the very bonniest o’ linguistic lifebelts it’s no the sound we knew at the dawn of our people efter the ice meltit and the watters receded.
And so our lifebelt has become our new leid… and God help ony wha try an tak it frae us – fir we be the Picts wha turnt back the micht o’ Rome and sent her legions scurryin’ hame wi thair gladius atween thair legs – aye, an Pictland wis aw blue agin.
However, I concede that we Picts are now also the Scots, along with our Scotti brothers and sisters who speak thon Gaelic (and a braw fine leid it is tae), and perhaps should identify as such to avoid confusion.
Whatever our origins we Scots should stick thegither in the face o’ that existential threat that is England – oor ancient enemy wha efter mony centuries is still attemptin’ tae kill us aff.
“God help ony wha try an tak it frae us – fir we be the Picts wha turnt back the micht o’ Rome”
Threatening or what?
You want to watch yourself posting the likes of that on here, NC.
YL has added his local plod to speed dial, just so that outbreaks of hate speech like this can be nipped in the bud.
Just as well most of us suspect you’d struggle to “turnt back” the pages of a largish, glossy, coffee table tome.
Hark at you, Northcode, “identifying” as Pictish – a prehistoric, ancient group of peoples harking back to the 3rd century AD or thereabouts, no long, long since subsumed and absorbed by the multi-ethnic Scotland of at least the last ten millennia or perhaps fifteen.
You people are embarrassing, you really are.
“Why do you think that the current Government, or any other Independence Party, has not done so?”
Maybe cause they don’t need to rehash old ground or maybe they’ll just take a leaf out of Brexshit precedent & not bother. You didn’t thump yer keyboard over that did you?
& Maybe, as you say, the world will all change again rendering it useless.
It must be hard work being a yoon. So much hypocrisy & double standards, 24/7.
Scotland will become independent & the beauty of looking outside from time to time is gathering useful info, such as not every country who won their independence needed a majority voted.
No luck for Blow-ins next time around. They’ll be excluded from the vote & it’ll be conducted by UN observers. It’ll be a win too if we are ruled a colony. It means you wee feckers won’t be allowed wall to wall yoon propaganda polluting the airways.
Have you lot ever come up with at least one benefit of the union yet? You’ve had 11 years to think of something – instead you’ve only made the UK a lot worse off, socially, internationally, economically & being more & more despised by the United Nations by the day.
So there’s the case for indy right there. There’s no sense hingin aboot. A warring economy & the draft is the UKs future cause it just can’t keep its nose out of everyone else’s business that’s nothing to do with them. It seems hereditary. A terrible affliction.
As Turabdin suggests – seek help.
“it’ll be conducted by UN observers.”
It won’t, unless the UKG agree to it. The UN has no coercive powers over member states. The UN Charter specifically forbids interference in the internal affairs of any state.
“The UN Charter specifically forbids interference in the internal affairs of any state.”
No it doesn’t. The UN has many delegates & it’s job is to interfere in States with dispute resolution, play mediator/peacekeeper/observer as well as to uphold international law. There’s currently teams of them currently wondering why a certain country is breaking every rule in the book & getting away with it.
It has coercive powers too. They’re called sanctions.
You may be confusing it with the EU.
“You’ve had 11 years to think of something”
Cooking wi gas the day, Barbs.
You even ken fit year it is!
Well there ya go. Twelve hours later & not even Shitface can think of one. That’s cause there is none.
Gie’s a chance, Barbie!
It’s been a wild night. Up until 4 AM celebrating and recognising G@za.
Show me any pic of a giant mound of rubble now and I can tell you straight away if it’s G@za or no.
[HINT: Almost always it is]
Dear Chas, “If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go from us in peace. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you, and may posterity forget that ye were once our countrymen”.
I’ll even buy you a ticket.
The first issue that arises over The devolved Scottish government.
1)
It was offered to Scotland through the parliament of England as a Sub parliament to Englands parliament.
Whilst the Westminster parliament continued as the main parliament of not only the parliament of England and Wales, but also as the parliament of Great Britain which ended in 1800.
At that point Englands union with Scotland ( ended ) to become a England Coloniser of the treaty of union itself, when the supposed shared Parliament of Great Britain became officially the parliament of ( England ) spoken and written out loud in the Anglo- Irish treaty.
For Clarity of the awful way Scottish governance is failing Scots we need only to ask one or two questions.
a) Who suggested it?
The Westminster parliament solely of England and Wales.
b)
Who gave them permission to act in Such a manner that the Parliament of Great Britain had ended in 1800 when they took over a unalterable supposed international treaty of parliamentary union between Scotland and England only to act as, ” We the parliament of England have Agreed”.
c) And then add Scotland on to that English parliament treaty with Ireland as a parliament treaty of Great Britain afterwards.
I have always asserted that to Sort out the modern day position of Scotland we have to go back to the beginning of the treaty of union to investigate why the Westminster parliament England and Wales thought it had remained in a parliament UNION BY ITSELF.
much as Unionist hate Scotland to pose these questions to itself it needs doing.
For the Westminster parliament of England and Wales has presumed for hundreds of Years that the Scotland parliament was dissolved. And only Englands parliament remained active in the treaty….
This is why Westminster then offers Scotland a sub- division parliament of the parliament of England and Wales parliament because it thinks it is the only parliament in the international treaty.
We are either in a voluntary treaty of international relevance as a partner or we are not.
However Westminster parliament of England and Wales has presumed the union did not include the parliament of Scotland but somehow or other gained the territory of Scotland.and that the monarch of England became monarch over Scotland territory and Scots without Scotland being in the international treaty agreement, terms and conditions and articles to that treaty.
And this is why the parliament of England and Wales offers Scotland a sub- parliament controlled by the parliament of England with reservations withheld from Scotland.
The sub devolved parliament sent to Scotland not only sorely breached the terms of the treaty of union articles, terms and conditions,
But emphasises that Westminster parliament had taken possession and Colonised the international treaty of parliamentary union, to presume it had gained the territory of Scotland and the sovereignty of the Scots through the monarch of England,
Which falls flat on its face legally if the monarch is not monarch of both Scotland and England,
And the Great Britain parliament is still the parliament of England and Wales.
The devolved parliament should not exist in Scotland if it is already in a parliamentary union as Great Britain, in a international treaty, further more nor should a different voting system,
And the faux colonised international treaty did not offer the Sovereign people of Scotland or the territory of Scotland as it did not offer the people of England or its territory to Scotland.
Which cannot be colonised.
Is it a deliberate tactic putting a nasty lesbian hate filled ferret in charge of the schools.
The problem with the sub division devolved parliament into Scotland from the parliament of England is it is being run with parties registered in England as a sub branch of the parliament of Englands parliament with matters reserved to the parliament of England and Wales,
The sub parliament excludes Scotland from crossing the borders of Scotland into the rest of Britain,
And yet allows Scots law to be altered, repealed, or be considered obsolete, by the parliament of England and the Supreme Court in England, none of which were meant to be altered according to the articles of the international 1707 treaty, but are being imposed on Scots through the back door of Westminster parliament of Englands tenticle’s controlling the sub-devolved parliament, which also happens to include eroding Scotlands side of pre terms and conditions and articles to the faux treaty.
Free Speech would of course come under “private rights” to hold free Speech in Scotland if Westminster parliament adhered to the treaty of union,
But it stopped doing that away back in history and became the the treaty of union between England and England,
Keep digging James the independence treasure is just a few more Scottish feet away. Keep calm and dig for victory.
Wether the world is a different place or not and the world has moved on, Treaties still Stand as they were originally agreed,
Or they do not,
if they no longer stand in their entirety as a treaty of international agreement, then they are voided.
They can not be altered by one side applying its own interpretation by adding, deleting or repealing additional legislation or Statues at a later date,
A new treaty would be required,
Scotland cannot enter into a new treaty with England at present as it does not have a Scottish parliament in existence.
It only has a sub branch devolved parliament from the Westminster parliament for England and Wales.since 1800.
Any political party that sits in the devolved Scottish government is register in England, including the SNP.
The Wonderful World of Terror.
Do you want to be a Terrorist Groupie? Hang out with the murdering psychopaths. If the answers is yes then why wait..
Start straight away and donate to death. Fly the flag of cowards. Go Deep! Sign up to the death cult and climb on board the ship of fools. Join the SNP.
Every bill to be passed from the devolved Scottish parliament first has to be passed and given royal assent by the monarch of England. That lends and rests its Sovereignty to the Westminster parliament of England and Wales and Ireland since 1800.
Scotland does require a Scottish parliament,
In my opinion the devolved parliament from Westminster parliament does not fit the criteria required or needed.
And has latterly become devolved from the original agreement in the articles of the 1707 treaty of union.
Are we devolved away from from “One and the Same parliament of Great Britain hereafter” ?
And in a different Country from Great Britain parliament Country, due to the devolved parliament government not being able to Cross the Borders of Scotland into Great Britain?
We need to ask these questions to garner the Status of Scotland,
This separation and separate jurisdiction from the treaty of union Great Britain parliament may lend some additional insight in how Scotland could or should go forward on Sovereignty, and on territorial land mass of Scotland as being separate from that of Englands Great Britains.
The reality is we either hold a faux parliament in Scotland full of political parties registered to England, which would make all representatives of Scotland English representatives.
Or we recognise that the devolved parliament with separate border bounderies from the passed 1800 Great Britain parliament could be now classed as reverting back to a Scotland parliament only.
In that case can we re-arrange or throw out all of Englands registered political parties including the SNP. Sitting in a Scottish parliament that cannot cross the borders into England.
They should be registered in Scotland as Scottish representatives of Scots, in a Scottish only parliament bound by borders.
Crossing the jurisdiction borders of Scotlands boundary line for the Scottish parliament politically would apply in both directions.
THE END O AN AULD SANG?
For that entity, or the news worthy bit all talk about, recently given status by the coven of Woke nations the barrier to recognition has been considerably lowered, for Scotland however the barrier can’t be high enough it seems. On that score, so pleased that the National party has its priorities well adjusted.
Now to the real business, how much «aid» on offer Woke nations? We’re talking megabucks guys are we not?
Swiss bank account details to follow very soon cos it aint cheap living in the Gulf.
Davis mentions some of the Scottish government’s failures.
Attainment gap.
The gap is caused by poverty which in a number of ways limits educational development.
Scottish Poverty action Group has a piece about the effect of the two child benefit limit which is only one aspect of many ways the UK gov makes poverty.
link to cpag.org.uk
Last year there were 4.5 million children in poverty. the trend is upwards by 100,000 on the previous year.
Holyrood, whatever the government, cannot close the attainment gap successfully while UK governments continue to push children into poverty.
There are 23% of Scottish children in poverty and 31% of English children in poverty.
“There are 23% of Scottish children in poverty and 31% of English children in poverty”
Awww. I’m welling up here, but I’ll press on.
Without an ethnic breakdown these figures are meaningless.
My people, the indigenous Scots, generally aren’t having children. The people who are having kids are generally immigrants. The people whose jobs rely on making things look bad totally ignore that many of these kids that are so called “living in poverty” think they have won the lottery.
As do their parents.
If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have come here in the first place.
I don’t see it as the job of the Scottish or indeed the UK taxpayer to lift the children of the third world out of poverty.
If you desperately want to though, please dig deep and cover my contribution too. Thanks.
Sarah
21 Sept @ 12.33
The SNP have deliberately picked numpties to stand for the Parliament. These folk are too thick to argue and too ignorant to know enough. They’re nodding donkeys who pick up a wage that they’d never earn elsewhere. Anyone with any intelligence or talent has been deliberately sidelined or removed.
There are lots of very bright, intelligent folk around in Scotland, eg those at Salvo/Liberation, Scottish Sovereignty Research group, Indy-Car, Commonweal, Joanna Cherry, Philippa Whitford, Andy Wightman to name but a few.
So we have to elect those who choose to stand for Parliament, but also find a way to value the contributions of those with expertise who opt not to do so, so that the level of intellectual input Scotland needs can be made, valued and utilised.
MaryB “there are lots of bright, intelligent folk around in Scotland”.
Indeed there are. In my own district in Wester Ross [pop 2500], there are enough to run the Scottish government business a thousand times better than those currently there. The innovations and voluntary work to help the environment and social needs here are unbelievable.
We need decent people in our future Scottish independent government; Direct Democracy to keep them true; and a method of communications to ensure that the expertise available is channelled to the politicians.
MaryB I agree with you wholeheartedly about SALVO/Liberation and SSRG but indy car Gordon was a Sturgeon apologist and sycophant who took years to actually see the damage the Scum Nonce Party were inflicting on Scotland, as for Joanna Cherry and Phillipa Whitford what did they ever do to stand up FOR Scotland and Scots AGAINST the poisoned DWARF and her cabal of scum,Joanna Cherry took ages to speak out against the deviant and perverted policies of HER political party which threatened women and girls and every time she spoke against them it was in the context of how it impacted on Lesbians, Philippa Whitford said nothing and continued to take her salary and contribute to her pension whilst FWS had to beg for funds to fight a legal battle against her deviant party, Andy Wightman attended a WOMEN’S meeting of gender policy opponents and congratulated the speakers at that meeting , he was castigated by woke activists and issued a cringing apology for going to the meeting , the self same Andy Wightman participated in the HR enquiry to determine if the poisoned dwarf had acted illegally in the Alex Salmond STITCHUP he voted alongside the snp scum and cleared her, of ALL these bright,intelligent folk do you believe they have shown ANY INTEGRITY or HONESTY doing what they were paid to do (working on behalf of the people of Scotland and being paid handsomely to do so) or were they self serving party hacks who were too cowardly to publicly expose the vile deviant and perverted policies being pursued by the deviants
Speeches are now available on ‘Scotland’s Right to Self-Determination under International Law’ from the 18th Sept 2025 event held at the United Nations in Geneva:
link to jpti.ch
Thanks, Alf.
Will read.
Thank you Alf, Liberation Scotland going to hold a talk on Wednesday @ IndyScotNews YouTube about the event in Geneva on 18.09.25 to answer question and to inform us of the next steps. For those interested I have no idea of the time just the day 24.09.25.
Mr davis also sought to compared the NHS waiting times in england and Scotland. Not an easy task since they use different means of collecting data.
A look here at England’s waiting lists.
England’s NHS data is notoriously unreliable. In 2014 NAO found half of 650 waiting time records surveyed were unreliable, either lacking documentation or being inaccurate.
Because of antiquated IT systems problems still exist. Of the 400,000 GP referrals each month an estimated 21% vanish. Patients may have to start again with their GPs. The necessary data to track patients is scattered across different IT systems that do not talk to each other. Hospitals are meant to return patients facing such unnecessary delays to the waiting lists. Of 30 hospitals contacted by the BBC in 2024 to ask how regularly this happened only 3 could provide figures. Unrecorded referrals are in the system.
The system can be gamed.Trusts get £33 for every patient who comes off the waiting lists. Some Trusts stop the clock or pause it on waiting times if a patient misses an appointment or there are unecessary delays. Around 8 million outpatient appointments are missed every year.
Labour claims that England’s NHS is cutting waiting times. This may be a result of unreported removal of patients from the waiting lists, says the Nuffield Trust.The waiting lists have gone down while unreported removals have gone up.
Unreported removals, around 245,000 per month, are estimates, They are cases where treatment is not completed. Possible reasons for removal are patients have moved to private treatment; patients have died waiting for treatment; software faults; cleaning because of faulty data collection or recording.
It is impossible to know if waiting lists are falling because of effective treatment or an increase in unreported removals and unrecorded referrals. There is often no reliable data. But data does suggest that more people are being added to the waiting lists than treatment pathways completed. Of 100 referrals only 86 are recorded as completed pathways.
England’s NHS data, can’t be trusted.
Scotland’s NHS waiting list data has been criticized for potential inaccuracies, as some patients may be counted multiple times if they are on more than one waiting list. Additionally, there are concerns that the longest recorded waits may be inflated due to incorrect coding in the system, making it difficult to assess the true scale of waiting times accurately.
And impossible to credit any failure of circumstances to Scotland whilst all its MPs are registered as MPs in England running the Scottish devolved government. Including the SNP.
Where are Scotlands representatives registered in Scotland since 1800?
It also raises issues what the parliament of England and Wales can sell or lease out of Scotland territory when acting as a self declared Parliament of England,
Oil
Defence land,
Licences for other minerals.
Fishing.
Farm land for wind turbines.
Sea bed.
If Scotlands parliament is no longer in the 1707 parliamentary treaty of union because it was dissolved from that treaty very early on, almost immediately to be precise.
Why would one offer Scotland hundreds of years later a sub devolved parliament from Englands 1800 newly created United kingdom parliament if Scotland already had a parliament joined in union with the parliament of England parliament,
Perhaps because when joining the EU “they suggested” that Scotland should have some sort of representation, is what is in the information in the EU meetings.
Jigsaw pieces that are not the same as the picture presented on the on the box lid to Scotland,
Mr Davis also spoke about Scotland’s drug death record being the worst in Europe.
Unmentioned is the fact that the UK government has long treated drug use as criminal matter and barred the way to safer drug consumption places.
Un mentioned also is the role of Uk socioeconomic policies that
were the causes of increased drug use and subsequent deaths in the heavily de-industrialised areas of Scotland and NE England. It is the drug users born in the 60s and 70s who began taking drugs in the Thatcher era that are dying today.
Alarmingly, the cohort of young, chiefly male people, aged 16 to 24 are those dying in large numbers in Scotland and England.
England’s drug death data is no more reliable than its NHS waiting lists or PISA results
“Unmentioned is the fact that the UK government has long treated drug use as criminal matter and barred the way to safer drug consumption places.”
Also unmentioned is the fact that the UK government loves drugs & has used them throughout history to stupify the masses in their colonies. If they spend their days looking for their next fix then they’re not spending it asking questions of government.
Also unmentioned will be the fact they’re in control of the borders of a teeny tiny wee insignificant island & they can’t even seem to manage that effectively.
“stupify the masses”
It’s the stupefied individuals that people notice.
Take the word “stupefy” for example. Some people don’t know how to spell it, even although they are writing it on a device that actually makes it harder to spell any word incorrectly than to spell it correctly.
So are they stupefied, or stupid, or a bit of both?
This link is to a BBC item 6days ago. It concerns years of under reporting of England’s drug deaths.
In Scotland post mortem toxicology reports are available so that the error margin in identifying drug deaths here is consistently around 1.9%.
England does not use toxicology post mortem reports. The reliability of the English data relies on coroner reporting which often do not provide information on drug use deaths.
Had adequate records existed it is said by researchers that more money for public health could have been available in England and consequent knock-on for Scotland.
Over 13,000 opioid-related deaths were missed from official figures between 2011 and 2022. This suggests that the actual number of opioid deaths is more than 50% higher than previously reported.
In 2024, Scotland reported 191 drug misuse deaths per million people, while the North East of England had a rate of 174.3 deaths per million.
I would say that it is the North East of England that has the worst drug deaths in Europe.
Just re-watched the Davis video.
And his underlying message is this: England is blameless for the current condition of Scotland – it is entirely the fault of the Scots themselves that Scotland and its people are in such a sorry state.
Davis’ speech is a fantasy. It’s a speech that carries in its delivery a kernel of gravitas that appears to lend the ideas behind the words that comprise it a sense of possibility, but it’s a fantasy nonetheless.
The ideas presented in this Davis speech are impossible to realise because while Scotland remains a colony its ‘parliament’ is powerless beyond tinkering with some laws and rules and regulations – changes only allowed if England allows them; tho if those changes are bad for the Scots they will often be enacted unchallenged by England – the real supreme power in Scotland.
The main problem with Davis’ speech (other than its patronising tone) is that it’s founded on an entirely false premise – the premise that Scotland is a fully functioning democracy and is self-governing.
Davis’ speech is ultimately nonsense – sounds good, though. And sounding good is one of the arts of rhetorical persuasion. But don’t fall for it my fellow Picts, and thaim wha want tae be cawd Scots tae o’ course, because he speaks with forked tongue.
He talks of giving the Scottish parliament parliamentary privilege as if Scotland actually has a real parliament; he fails to recognise Holyrood’s true function as the mere administrative outpost of an annexed territorial English possession where the only real privileges available to it are the baubles, trinkets, and exceptional pensions handed to its Scottish members for services to the ‘mother country’… many of whom aren’t Scottish at all.
Davis confuses Scotland’s ancient constitution – now petrified after centuries of being captured and caged – with England’s non-constitution (because at heart he is a colonialist – although in his case I suspect he is unaware of this terrible affliction) which is precariously balanced on the shoogly peg of precedence.
I believe Davis is a nice guy, but, ultimately, he is a patriotic English conservative who strongly believes in the union between a filial Scotland and a paternal England in control of Scotland’s pocket money – his speech isn’t really about giving the Scottish parliament more powers… it’s really about trying to persuade England to be a less abusive parent to poor wee Scotland… England’s favourite (it used to be India until that yin grew up and left the nest) and most productive wean.
“it’s a fantasy nonetheless”
Sorry, NC, you lost me.
To what are you referring?
The speech, or the internal monologue in yer heid?
Because conferring parliamentary privilege on the Scottish Parliament would greatly improve the way it would work for the Scottish people who rely on it to manage their everyday lives.
And the hard-pressed Scottish taxpayers who have to pay over the odds for the people representing them there.
Are you one of these ideological purists who just has to trash everybody and every idea that falls short of your impossible to achieve ideals of perfection?
Figures.
You seem to be supremely ignorant of, or perhaps just like a self-absorbed sociopath, completely uncaring about, the simple fact that if HR had parliamentary privilege, the stitch-up that framed the late Alex Salmond would have been dealt with and the perpetrators named and punished lang syne.
What’s the phrase Geri?
Aye, he’s projecting again.
Rattle and teddy bear well and truly launched out the pram..
You crack on NC, you’re doing a fine job and it’s nobody else’s business if they are simply bad faith actors on here desperately seeking a keyboard fight for the sake of it..
Naw. That’s no teddy bear. That’s an Action Man.
The BA version. The one the Yanks marketed as OutOfAction Man.
Excellent post, Northcode.
Link here to the BBC piece on England’s unrecorded drug deaths.
link to bbc.co.uk
There are good educational reasons for regarding the PISA test results across different countries as unreliable or useless.
Even so, politicians and the press like to report their results and, when they can, claim progress.
One of the standards that PISA sets as starting point is that the students that are put forward are a good representation of the whole range of schools and students in the countries tested.
Intentionally or otherwise it seems that England games the system.
Approximately one in three schools and one in four pupils in England refused to participate in the PISA 2022 assessment.
This refusal rate is significantly higher than the OECD’s acceptable threshold of 15%.
The low participation rates raise concerns about the representativeness of the sample.
Higher-performing students may be overrepresented, potentially inflating the results.
Estimates suggest that England’s scores in mathematics and reading could be 7 to 8 points higher than they would be with a fully representative sample.
Scotland’s 2022 PISA score was representative of PISA standards. Scotland put forward 3257 students (England 6300).
Scotland achieved a school response rate of 96.4%, exceeding the OECD’s minimum standard of 85%. The student response rate was 79.4%, slightly below the technical standard of 80%.
Keep going Sam, yer doing a great job.
The Unionist stalkers on here clearly haven’t a clue how to meaningfully challenge your statistics:-)
Keep it up !
There is little in David Davis’ criticisms of Scotland and England’s public service comparisons that should be taken at face value.
England’s data on its drug deaths numbers, its NHS waiting times and its PISA scores are all deeply unreliable.
Scotland’s PISA scores, for what it is worth, seem to meet the assessment criteria.
Scotland’s NHS waiting lists data are flawed and lead to overcounting of waiting lists and some waiting times for treatment.
Scotland’s drug problem was made in England and sustained by policy that criminalised use. Given the substantial undercounting of England’s drug deaths it looks as if it is North East of England that is the worst for drug deaths in Europe.
The attainment gap ( we hardly hear of England’s attainment gap) in Scotland will not close until poverty and food insecurity are ended.
It is notable (not noted by Davis) that Scotland’s child poverty is significantly lower than that of England as a result of the mitigating policies of Scottish governments. It could do more.
We heard nothing from Davis about health inequalities or the different demography in Scotland than England – more old people per head, a greater rural area to cover, more deaths than births in Scotland.
Declining life expectancy is an enormous shock to public health professionals. It happened before only during the 1918 flu epidemic and two World Wars. It is the “gift” of the Tories but the seeds of it go back to Thatcher and all successive UK governments.
A MP, David Davis, a good man, concientious, moral and sympathetic to Scotland cannot look below the surface of the two countries and see that we, in Scotland, are tied to the depths which UK government policy takes us and it is his party that does most of the harm to us.
David Davis shouldn’t be comparing anything. He seems to forget his cronies hold the purse strings.
When England spends less on public services – Scotland gets less too.
It’s a bit rich for our handlers to start moaning we’re not doing better with our pocket money than the neighbours while they hold the keys to Scotlands revenues including oil & Gas while swinging the keys to the treasury & the printing press & have a legion of analysts expertly cooking the books & fudging the figures with estimates.
What kind of peasants do they think we are to insult our intelligence?
I can’t be doing with eejits trying to educate us on where we’re all going wrong with our *allowance*. Fckn cheek of it.
“What kind of peasants do they think we are to insult our intelligence?”
In your case, Barbie, I’d have to say the blonde, bubble-headed kind.
The kind that has no intelligence to insult.
If you ever tried to provide evidence to back up your wildly fantastic claims, you’d quickly come unstuck. For one thing, you’d find that the amounts of money spent on public services just keep on growing with no end in sight.
If your SNP government wasn’t so cack-handed, incompetent, and frankly thick, it wouldn’t be spaffing hundreds of millions of pounds on compensation and failed policies. That wasted hundreds of millions could be better spent on public services.
But then if your SNP government wasn’t cack-handed, incompetent, and frankly thick, you would never have voted for it in the first place, because it wouldn’t have been your kind of people.
I can’t be doing with the eejits who cursed Scotland with the SNP now trying to airbrush their culpability from the historical record.
Holyrood is merely part of the Westminster set up. Holyrood elections? Basically who is the best at managing the pocket money.
Well then hateful one..
A straight question so a straight answer please.
So who exactly did YOU vote for (assuming you actually have the franchise)..
Serious question..
Correct Marie & who is better at rigging elections.
Scotland wants independence & the SNP under Nicolas stewardship were the perfect roadblock in stalling it.
Two stupid things the SNP have done is to keep the administrative outpost going when they had clear mandates on their desk to exit but chose not to use them. Clearly Nicola was a plant but someone within the SNP should have challenged her idiotic & s**cidal strategy of making themselves unelectable & unemployed. Especially the 56 MPs lording it in WM.
Another stupid thing they did was to continue to mitigate English policies out of Scotlands pocket money. Policies no one voted for in Scotland but foisted onto us by another countries government.
I’d love to be a fly on the wall in a rabid yoons hoose the day they finally get what they wish for in Holyrood, a yoon FM, & the first thing that’s axed is all the mitigation & “free stuff” they’ve cried about for years.
Well said, Geri.
Que some action from #SitePrick1’s spittle-flecked keyboard.
England does not unreport its drug deaths, it underreported specifically the number of drugs deaths attributable to opioids (as the article you have quoted yourself) confirmed.
Nobody believes you dobber.
Just words, no facts time and time again.
What is your excuse for national timorousness?
Mater or Pater English or did you just get the cringe drummed into you at private schooling?
Like so many other cowards here, you need fully detailed full financial planning for years ahead that your own sainted Chancer of the Exchequer with a pet money printing press can’t even do for the next six months!
I’ve picked you up for glaring legal and fiscal b0ll0x before, let’s add healthcare propaganda to your resume of rank incompetence.
Honestly; you Tractors, what are you like..
The hour is 5am and on comes the resident bonehead to offer the usual irrelevant babble.
I’m not asking anyone to believe ME, I’m pointing out the text within the article:
“Government data on overall drug deaths, which does not name specific substances, is not affected by the error, but ministers’ decision-making is generally influenced by the more granular statistics”
It’s not surprising that drug deaths are so high in north-east England. The Thatcher years hit their traditional industries very hard. They lost coal mining, shipbuilding and this had a knock on effect to their many engineering businesses, including big employers like British Gas. The only mitigation seems to have been the new car plant at Sunderland. There were retraining schemes but very little employment at the end of them.
By your logic, MaryB, all the millions of immigrants should be junkies, dying off like flies on a poisoned turd.
Nae coal mining and shipbuilding for them either.
Yet they thrive. Makes one wonder if maybe there isn’t something in this wacism idea after all. Only, many people have the wrong idea about which is the wace fittest to survive.
But this must be an awkward post for you. Sorry. Feel free to call me some playground name, complain to Rev Stu, or just ignore it altogether. Whatever makes you feel better about yourself 🙂
“Feel free to call me some playground name”
LOL…
Self styled playground name doesn’t do irony, but if he did…
Doesn’t do self awareness either apparently, or else wouldn’t be wasting time spouting forth, (or is it froth), as though people here needed his advice or valued is opinion.
About as welcome as dog mess on the sole of your trainers, and just as pleasant.
“valued is opinion”
Check out Bob speaking Cockney!
On the subject of irony, why would a lardy-arsed fatberg like yourself need to wear trainers?
You should have stayed in yer comfort zone, Bob, hurling primary school playground names.
LOL…
A classic case of self projection from, presumably, Lardy McLardface!
Someone better padlock the fridge!
Playground names like “Orc”? Hilarious
Like I said, Marie, dinna be sae fecking Scotch.
Push the boat out. Live a little. Get a moby that isn’t billing you by the word for your posts.
Thrift isn’t a virtue, it’s a vice.
The Wokists are in for one almighty loud wake up call.
Upthread the mention of parliamentary privilege is made as a benefit to Holyrood. The thing about parliamentary privilege, and the reason Holyrood won’t be getting it, is that it allows more than freedom of speech without potential legal consequences.
The privilege the UK parliament has includes the right to manage its own affairs without outside interference.
Holyrood is part of the colonisation process so won’t ever be free to manage its own affairs without independence.
A bit negative there, sam.
Twat H should be awake, up and about as compos as he ever gets around 2 this afto. He’ll be having a word.
You do understand that “won’t ever” means the same as “never”. I mean, you must.
That being the case, you need to find yourself something new to do. Something not completely and utterly pointless.
The Ladybird book of Scottish politics.
Yawn… Next!
There must be an election soon we are witnessing the advent of the daily SNP communique on this blog. Nothing about 800 avoidable deaths in A and E though. I will give the SNP some real information on the cause of that free gratis. Cast your mind to when Humza was Health Secretary. He was tasked with the SNHS Recovery Plan. That was the turning point when he a delivered back of a fag packet reforms. So as the BMA would say Doctors with High Intent to Leave started to do just that. Accelerated in the last 2 years with the compound consequences of staff shortage.
George,
More than 250 people in England die each week as a result of A&E waiting times. Same trend as Scotland but higher.
Among the reasons for these deaths are insufficient staffing and poor patient flow through the system.
If you would like to compare what was being done in Scotland’s health care system earlier, please take a look at what Sir Harry Burns was doing as CMO. Search Harry Burns creating wellness.
Nah!
Thatcher! Has to be.
You said it yourself earlier in one of your dreary posts. Don’t you even read them yourself?
@Sam
The Royal College of Emergency Medicine just stated today, 800 A and E deaths in Scotland this year due to waiting times, calling it a National Tragedy. Typical SNP communique. Disingenuous portrayal of the facts and the irrelevant comparison with England (Which I am not interested in). You don’t believe in the exodus of our best Hospital Doctors?. I get first hand information and the real trauma comes from the SNP knowing that to, and doing nothing about it. How is the SNHS Recovery Plan going?
Thatcher is about right. She had everyone reorganise & reorganise as a job creation scheme for management.
We should rest easy. Once the yoons live the dream of being responsible for their own healthcare, just as Thatcher dreamed, & herded off to private that should make the queues move faster.
I wonder how much the Westminster goons (Leslie Evans) have blown through trying to make the NHS down with the kids at the gay disco where females have penises & mem can have smear tests & babies if they want to. It is their right. I’ll hazard a guess that’s why they’d look for alternative employment. Imagine studying for years to be a doctor & then have to deal with fantasists – even in the staff room..lol
I also reckon the Tory hostile environment to immigration, driving about in vans saying go home, Brexshit, COVID debacle & immigration vans are another key factor for shortages.
So will the immigration test on who can answer all the dumb English questions on their specialist subject – Wars.
The *you can come but leave yer family at home* will be another contributing factor.
Lest us Scots forget, we’re not in charge of our own immigration. That’s up to the racists next door.
Yoons love pulling the legs off things & then complain & chuckle when they can’t fly. It’s one of their favourite games.
“complain & chuckle when they can’t fly”
Like the F16s, eh Barbie?
But thanks for the heads-up, yet again, on how desperate you are to see Scotland flooded with your beloved Navids.
Drop any attempts to get immigrants to understand the culture and assimilate. Or to be fluent in spoken and written English.
Open the floodgates to the extended families of immigrants too. So for every potential worker, half a dozen useless eaters for us to pay for.
Ordinary Scots need their eyes opened wide to the dystopia you and your like-minded progressives would create in their towns and streets if you got your way.
A great post, Barbie. Keep them coming. Every day if your handlers will stretch to the wage bill.
A most excellent speech, from a proper parliamentarian and friend of Alex’s.
The Sturgeon creature should never have been allowed anywhere near the same stage as them. I hope she has galloping heartburn, flatulence and toothache every minute of every day for the rest of her miserable life. I hope she gets no sleep.
What Rot @ 09.38.
And, may her next bowel movement be a backwards hedgehog.
The OSF. The Open Society Foundation now linked to Antifa. George Soros one of the directors has donated $32 billion.
“Truth is a dangerous thing when your up against an enemy that don’t want it out. There is no free speech in the United Kingdom.”
There is videos now available @ SSRG Tv on YouTube, the one in Geneva of Ailsa Gray’s Speech is breath taking it really hits at the heart of colonialism.
I would have posted the link but Wings doesn’t allow me.
I totally agree with 100%Yes regarding Alisa Gray’s speech. The sound quality, regretfully is very poor. Subtitles need turned on. If the sound track can’t be cleaned up then please let Alisa record it again as a video or audio. The text of what she says is almost the same as contained in the document linked to below, though she adds a few sentences before the paragraph beginning “In 1954” on page 3 of the PDF. Well done Ailsa. Thank you from all of us.
(If link below unavailable, find pdf of Ailsa’s speech via Alf’s Wings comment below at 22 Sept 2025 7:08 pm)
SCOTLAND A DEPENDENCY NOT A PARTNER – II
Ailsa Gray, BSc, LLB (Scots Law): Corporate lawyer / former Non-Executive Director of Highlands and Islands Enterprise
link to download-files.wixmp.com
Sorry for misspelling Ailsa’s name a couple of times above.
This video link should hopefully work (copy and paste if necessary)
AILSA GRAY (VIDEO): ‘SCOTLAND A DEPENDENCY NOT A PARTNER – II’
youtu.be/EPdvVBCWEgE?si=gLPVrgGoltfrpxTF
@George Ferguson
The remark about SNP comminque is no more than a sneer. I am not much interested in the SNP. Those who actually work in the public sector are the important ones. Much of the good work done earlier than 2014/15 is still embedded, if eroded by events and SNP current policy.
You ought to be interested in what England’s public services look like because it is how they are funded that profoundly affects every aspect of Scotland’s public services.
The NHS budgets in both England and Scotland are under pressure. Staff in both NHS England and Scotland have had to deal with underfunding. For a decade England’s NHS has been underfunded. Annual spending was less than the long term historical average.The cumulative underspend since 2009/10 in England’s NHS runs into hundreds of billions of pounds.
There have been around 335,000 excess deaths in the UK, premature deaths that need not have happened but did as a result of the austerity between 2012 and 2019.Scotland’s death toll in that time was 20,000.
Now, the impact of those UK policies is hitting UK health services in a different way. It is the “deaths of despair” in the 16 to 24 year olds.
Since 2009, the UK NHS workforce has risen but still has not kept pace with demand.
Increased workload, burnout, low staff morale and feeling undervalued due to austerity contribute to staff leaving.
@Sam
The SNHS is devolved. Any insider will tell you it’s not just about funding. So I am interested in what our elected SNP Scottish Government are doing. The SNHS Recovery Plan never really had an impact because of the lack of awareness of how to reform the processes. Throwing £200 million at the problem won’t help, other than employ a few extra Diversity Officers. I get triggered by the SNP spin because of the lack of them providing solutions. Here is an example. Allegation: Doctors are leaving Scottish Hospitals. SNP spin answer we have done an analysis which shows that 2 years after graduation 97% of Scottish Doctors are retained. Reality, they are selecting FY 1 and FY 2 Doctors. They are called Foundation Doctors for a reason . They are still learning their trade and are not potential employees to employers abroad and have to do the mandatory 2 Foundation Years in any event!. So who are we losing? Senior Registrars, ST4 and ST5s on the cusp of becoming Consultants. Spin versus the reality. But have hope Sam the SNP will win the 2026 elections. Identity politics rules OK! (And having a big payroll)
The SNHS is indeed devolved, but it’s budget isn’t.
The largest religious group suffering persecution in the world today is Christianity.
@Mark Beggan
Well the last time I saw the First Minister John Swinney he was up with the Lord High Commissioner at the General Assembly. The difference between him and me, was I had a voting card on all the debates. So he got the privileges and I had the power. Back to normal now, my 15 minutes of fame is over. We might be closing down a lot of C of S churches but I can see we have reached the bottom and on our way back up. In the meantime we have lost a lot of young Scottish males who have gone abroad. But that’s more to do with the SNP toxic cultural environment than Christianity.
You hearing the voices again, Mark?
I was at a function the other evening and was seated, at dinner, with the editors of Vogue and Hello magazines. I reluctantly confessed that I read neither of their publications. Both asked what I read. I stated that I was an avid reader of all types of books and from time to time read a blog called Wings Over Scotland. Both had heard of Wings and enquired if I knew the poster boy called James. ‘Thankfully I did not’ I replied. Both were fascinated by your photie James. They were of the opinion that anyone who posted a picture of himself as a dosser on a park bench would, in reality, be sartorially elegant, possess amazing good looks, be highly intelligent and be worthy of a feature in their respective magazines.
The Vogue editor thought along the lines Of James in a kilt, posing provocatively. James in a sharp suit being the epitome of elegance. James combing his flowing locks. James gazing longingly at a bottle of Buckfast and smacking his freshly botoxed lips in anticipation. The latter being just what you would associate with all lifelong SNP supporters.
The Hello editor preferred of a feature in your humble abode. James in the lounge casually picking his nose. James in his boudoir energetically scratching his ample erse. James in his front lawn, knee high in uncut grass but with old mattresses, deed dugs and broken kitchen electrical appliances still visible.
What do you think James? Would you be up for it? Just let me know and I will inform the respective editors. We could maybe include similar lifestyle fashion gurus and deep thinkers as Geri, Cheyne, Confused and the Twat in some of the pics. It could be your big chance for stardom.
Aw, Chas. Did I touch a nerve earlier, petal?
Aye & most of it by the UK government & they’re quite proud of it too. They stand shoulder to shoulder with the tyrants, terrorists & head choppers doing the persecuting.
The latest substack from Craig is a belter..
So the G@zans are followers of the Risen Christ?
Dearie me, Barbie! For your own safety, you better find a new dealer. The junk you’re buying right now is frying yer brains.
Showing yer ignorance again, Shitface.
Yes there are Palestinian Christians, there’s also Christians in G@za strip & the West bank.
The UK backed head choppers are also having a bloodthirsty time of it with Syrian Christians too.
There you go, shiteface, every day a school day for you eh?
“Showing yer ignorance again”
Hey, that’s an interesting and original thought.
Has to be an accident, but credit where due, Barbie, you’ve raised a philosophical conundrum.
Can one who is irredeemably ignorant diagnose ignorance in others?
The answer is an obvious no. But you’ll be unable to see that, for obvious reasons, eh?
How goes it anyway in your favourite part of the world – the part where it’s the sixteenth century every day, the value of women and girls is reckoned in donkeys, and a reasonable response to a woman who irks you is to beat her to death, then dump her body on her dad’s doorstep?
Probably keeping her donkey as recompense for all the effort she put you through.
The western propaganda is strong in you.
Hark at the hypocritter banging on about women & girls while around 200k have either died, been maimed & injured or were buried alive under rubble from cowards with planes who then run away. UK is wanted for it’s part in reporting which areas will have the most targets along with other wee missions out of Cyprus.
It’s always the same with you, shitface. Prove you wrong & you respond with insults or launch into one of her racist rants. There are Christians living there. They were perfectly happy. I bet you were about to reach for the smelling salts before you remembered they’d most likely be Brown Christians so that’s okay, as you were.
Yer as thick as pig shit on every single topic.
“The western propaganda is strong in you”
Mea culpa, Barbie, you have shown me the path of truth.
The killing of sassy teenage lassies by the “morality police” – all lies.
The dousing of unwanted wives in paraffin to burn them to death – Reform propaganda.
The slaying of sisters and daughters for stepping out with a boy from the wrong ethnic group – extreme right myths.
The organised abuse and rape of under-aged white girls in cities up and down our land – just lurid tabloid click-bait.
Then there’s all that sickening medieval torture from near two years ago, filmed and posted online to the greater glory of God – AI deep fakes.
I nearly forgot the donkey abuse – charities spreading falsehoods to milk gullible western patsies.
My eternal gratitude, Barbs, for opening my eyes. I know you will always carry a burning torch for poot. But. Seeing as he swiped left, would you have my baby instead?
It’s the least I can do.
“cowards with planes who then run away”
Any objections if I send this to Count Arthur Strong?
It’s at least as good as the top 20% of his own material!
Give us stats on all of that, shiteface.
I’m not denying there’ll be incidents like that but you & yer racist chums do love to over exaggerate that it’s widespread.
Larry Johnson, brilliant at stats, was intrigued by the claims emanating from the UK over the reports of loads of rape gangs, so he did some research, what he found was WHITE males topped the charts when it came to rape crimes & sexual assaults in the UK.
There are also white domestic abusers, murderers, con artists, stalkers, drug dealers, misogynists, etc, etc.
Put things in perspective eh?
Let’s see your source. Don’t bother if it’s the Daily Fail.
George Ferguson
No insider says funding is not a problem. England’s health budget before austerity had an annual increase of 3.7%. With the first austerity round 2010 to 2019 the health budget increased by 1.4%.
That effective cut would be reflected in the Barnett Formula which does not meet Scotland’s needs anyway.
In the second austerity round 2020 to 2024 NHS funding in England effectively remained flat.
During the first austerity Scottish public services were cut about 8%, the NHS budget was cut by 1%. In the second austerity round the NHS budget was cut by £116 million.
If it ( whatever “it” is)is not about funding what is it about? All you mention is money!
According to the Kingsfund Scotland’s NHS will have an increase of £1.6 billion each year. Where do you get your figure of £200 million?
There are recruitment and retention problems. Some of the information in the public domain relies on BMA surveys of the intentions and concerns of NHS staff and may not be entirely reliable.
I don’t know how many consultants left our NHS but I have seen it stated that there are 387 FTE vacancies this year.
GP numbers rose in 2025 by 4% from last year and there is a vacancy rate of 3.8%.
I’m not a member of the SNP and I don’t vote for them. I don’t think you are entirely rational
In 2024
@Sam
I am out Sam you are not listening
sam says………”I’m not a member of the SNP and I don’t vote for them”
And yet you’re here every day posting what are litle more than SNP press releases !
How come ?
Are you getting paid to do it ?
“Are you getting paid to do it” ?
Should we be asking you the same question, matey?
James tries to contribute and be relevant but we can all see he’s tanking.
Sam, I know the education system is a joke now, but
With the first austerity round 2010 to 2019 the health budget increased by 1.4%.
That effective cut
In what universe is a real terms budget increase either ‘austerity’ or ‘effectively a cut’?
In none universe is the answer — you’re telling me the Party has reduced the chocolate ration from 15g to 18g. Like Donald Duck’s broken laptop it disnae compute.
If you want to know why the NHS is broken, 1.5 million legal immigrants a year is the answer. No country can survive that population churn for long. Scottish people will be a minority in Scotland before 2040 if this isn’t stopped soon. A hated minority based on the words of our former First Minister and his wee chum Sarwar. A broken nation, outcasts in our own land.
I guess your answer will be la la la can’t hear you. I’m writing for the benefit of people who want Scotland to exist. People who haven’t forgotten who we are.
By ra way, who knew that all Edward I had to do was call William Wallace a racist, and watch the Scots slink away into the night — beaten men, frightened of words?
Yours for Scotland, always for Scotland.
@Hatey McHateface 7:14pm
The SNP lost the above debate on the SNHS so they brought out their hard man James to ameliorate the debate. A pattern has been developing for 10 years. And Sir Keir is taking their approach as Gospel. Upset everybody and Cowtow them into submission. A double Whammy. The problem with the James of the World is we are all sick to the backtheeth of SNP excuses. You can’t solve anything. Save the £200 million and gave me £2 million to solve the SNHS that’s all it will take. I will give £1 million to the charity of my choice. And spend the rest on my Grandchildrens education the failing public service that doesn’t get a mention.
Well George
Looks like you are providing the hateful one with a soul mate..
That’s COS for you.
PS; try asking him who he actually votes for and good luck getting a coherent believable answer..
Hows it going with the polis, YL?
Did you lodge your complaint?
Or are you worried some of your midnight towpath antics might have given them a DNA sample for their files?
Best steer clear and lie low, eh?
@Young Lochinvar
OK let’s ask him. Who are you going to vote for John Main?. I am myself are thinking about Reform. If they stand on the Constituency and Alba on the list vote who are sitting at 2.5 % vote on the list polls. They might get Alex Salmonds niece in the North East vote but that requires a sentimental vote. But that is the only Independence vote I can see. The SNP and Greens are not Independence parties. Does that answer your question?.
George
Wasn’t asking you, just the creepy hateful-one stalker who gives everyone, no matter what they say grief, but in amongst the rank verbiage gives nothing away about himself.
Wonder why?
Probably ironing his Brown Shirt as I type this!
Hateful one.
Divergence & humourless/ facetious contrarian b0ll0x from you as usual.
Away into the corner and eat some more worms creep..
Reform are independence supporters? LOL!!! When did that happen?
YL
Main is a Tory. He flaps all day about *his* taxes holding the world up. It’s a dead giveaway. Those patriots that’s sold all the family silver to foreigners.
http://www.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DrpWTPyt78Jc
Sir Harry Burns shows there are leaders capable of guiding Scotland.
@Sam
Sir Harry Burns an ex private school Doctor that dived into Public Health at the earliest possible opportunity. He is 77 now and represents the best the SNP have got. Meanwhile hundreds of Scottish Doctors have left the country in the last 3 years. And male Doctors to boot have a think about that?.
Harry Burns was born in Barrhead one of the deprived areas in Barrhead.
I have a friend who is a single parent, working and living in a Council house. he managed to get his son into Strathalmond.
I don’t think for a minute that Harry Burns’ education has much to do with shaping his values.
He was a surgeon and it was his interest in the slower healing of the poor than the better off that got him interested in public health and the effects of social conditions on health.
He still works in research in Glasgow University.
You won’t watch the video talk. I put up a link to it. You would rather try a weak smear on him based on his attendance at a Catholic school and his age.
I have put up figures on the numbers of doctors in the Scottish NHS and unfilled vacancies.
You put up assertions and nothing more.
Reform is a political party with the same base values as Trump. It has no interest in Scottish independence.
The SNP is an administration. A glorified branch office.
That administration was stripped of over 80 powers under Brexshit. One of them being procurement.
Along with our pocket money comes a note with a set of instructions on where it should be spent & on what. We don’t have unlimited funds. Our budget is set by another country & James is correct whether you like it or not. When England spends less on a service, Scotland gets less. The Tories have been on a journey to strip it – a bit at a time so no one will notice. World health care rankings amongst Nations (Commonwealth fund) had UK NHS top of the class but the Tories kept reorganising & bullshitting it was failing cause they want to flog it to their mates for jam today.
It’s constantly underfunded because the English government, over decades, has drained it so they can herd ppl towards private healthcare.
Sam has only provided you with Stats. The same stats that would be under any colour rosette.
Quit complaining. Those Drs & nurses have just came through a pandemic & what was their reward for it from the UK government? A nice round of applause while everyone in government was raiding the treasury for them & their mates.
We’re not in control of our own immigration either. 200 Drs could apply to work here & be refused by another countries government.
Scotland won’t ever have a top of the class, glowing report card on public services or the NHS because it’s not in the colonisers interests. It gives the natives ideas.
The NHS was supposed to be for urgent medical attention at the point of need yet it keeps veering off into the latest brainfart vanity projects from foreign think-tanks & NGOs.
Also, it’s been mentioned before a million times by staff, the biggest cause of wait times is the lack of social care. They can’t just evict the sick & the elderly until they’ve secured care at home or they’ve a place to go on a ward. Brexshit caused a mass exodus of those carers. The nasty parties hostile environment to immigration played a major part.
Hit the nail smack on the head there Geri!
“stripped of over 80 powers under Brexshit”
Didn’t you say it was 800 just the other day, Barbs? Maybe that was biolabs, or military bases. It’s all the same when you just make these numbers up.
Anyhoo, 24 hours later it was down to 700. That was around the time you forgot what year it is.
Here’s what I think is most plausible. Hollyrood was stripped of SFA because of Brexit. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Zip.
The UK voted for Brexit, Barbs. Get over it. In particular, stop trying to blame everything, up to and including your crows feet and your verbal flatulence, on it.
Scotland won’t ever have top class anything as long as fantasists, eejits and abusive schemies like yourself continue to vote more SNP fantasists, eejits and abusive schemies into power. More and more Scots are seeing this.
Get over that too.
Dear Readers
The above message has been brought to you by the Oswald Mosley appreciation society with gratefully acknowledged assistance from the Monster Raving Loony Party..
Matron!
The Hateful one is let loose with his mobile again!
The more the panic the longer the paragraphs. The more the reality the nastier the reply. The more the arguments lost the wilder the reach. The more the change the weaker the case. A patchwork of selfish causes splintered by agendas.
80 powers, Sunshine.
One was procurement which will affect SNHS on everything from sourcing drugs to building hospitals (or bridges). Others included; Scottish water, agriculture, environment, fishing, food standards, animal welfare, GM crops, Scottish branding & FRACKING..
Holyrood is not the same Holyrood Alex Salmond left.
Maybe someone who does links can post Phantom Powers excellent vid “The Great British Power Grab” for a good recap.
Which reminds me. Where the fuck is the Brexit Bonanza for Scotland that they promised us? I’ve not seen it..
Sticking wi 80 then, Barbie?
Big mistake! When you’re making up numbers, you must always choose numbers that are easy to remember. Such as 57, or 69. Then, when you’re scrambling around to remember what you lied about earlier, there’s less chance of you coming up with a different number.
Like your claims about the military bases for example, where you said it was 800 one day and 700 the next.
Good list BTW. I count 12, but maybes you will want to post something about 12 being the new 80.
Strangely, care in the community is missing. Odd that something so personally important to you should have slipped your mind, eh Barbs?
Geri I worked in the NHS for years and you’ve been misinformed.
The situation is a lot worse than the public knows. It frightens me to think of what the future holds because we don’t have a pot to pee in. Nobody who deals with budgets primarily blames Westminster for this one because it’s mostly the Scottish government’s fault. Holyrood — whit a joke eh? holy — has been running down the NHS and local authorities for a long time now. The chickens are saying it’s roosting time.
Cannae blame the English for what Nicola and her wee pals did over a number of years and people did warn them but they’ve never cared.
On the subject of carers, if you are Scottish you won’t get a job in care. The greedy private companies making fat profits out of this only want the cheapest obedient staff from the cheapest countries. That’s why 80 year old grannies with dementia are having to get used to being cared for by Zimbabweans or Libyans who speak little English. The care providers treat their foreign scab labour like crap. If they complain, they’re threatened with being sacked and deported.
We the taxpayer are funding all this. Madness.
Another wee point I wanted to let you know about. You know about Sandie Peggy right? It wasn’t Westminster who brought the woke tranny stuff into our NHS. It wasn’t the English who put confused Scottish weans on puberty blockers. Please don’t get me wrong Geri. I have wanted us to get free of the Union since I was a wee boy learning about Bruce and Wallace.
Bruce and Wallace would tell you that it was never the English who were our most dangerous enemy. It was always our own parcel of rogues. If we aren’t honest with ourselves, how can things get better?
Leslie Evans, the permanent secretary to Holyrood brought us the gender woo. Her boss is the Prime Minister of England. Not the SNP.
The branch office gets to pick which preselected English approved Permanent secretary they want.
Asshole 1. or Asshole 2.
They don’t get to pick one themselves.
Leslie Evans was a big fan of the gender woo, Stonewall was her church & the UN was her target. She bedazzled Nicola with tales of all the gay awards they could win if they raced to be first. That’s why it polluted our schools (as well as everyone else’s in the West) Scotland has always been the guinea pig for the English to test. Tho Posy Parker would argue it’s been equal cause she’s been fighting it for years under the Let Women Speak/ Woman – adult human female campaign.
Geri,
You are right about bed blocking. I have stats on that somewhere.
But to begin at the beginning. the problems with social care across the UK began with the privatisation of care homes under Thatcher.This led to underfunding, staffing shortages, and a decline in care quality. This shift has resulted in a system where care is more often driven by profit not the needs of individuals.
It has helped to make more inequalities and limit access.
There is a huge churn in employment in care homes because the working conditions are so poor.
The largest care homes provide poorer quality care than the smaller ones and those running them engage in stripping out profits at every turn.
There is a series of good posts on this behaviour here.
link to chpi.org.uk
Thatcher privatised the cleaning services in hospitals. The immediate result was a drop in the quality of cleaning and an increase in deaths due to hospital acquired infections. My mother was a victim who died.
There were newspaper reports at the time about rats in operating theatres and cockroach infestations.
there are 131,000 social care vacancies in England. I can’t yet find the figures for Scotland.
Sam
I’m sorry about your Mum.
I posted last night but it disappeared.
I asked ppl to remember what the SNHS was like under Labour & by coincidence I mentioned the super bugs along with PFI, crumbling Hospitals & paying to park.
I’ve just caught up with yesterday’s Double Down News over Labours secret dodgy donations & secret club that helped bring Corbyn down & to steer the party to the right. One of these donors is a hedge fund manager looking to privatise the NHS.
You are absolutely correct about profit driven. That’s all these companies care about. What they can strip out to feather their own nests & keep their shareholders happy.
Ppl need to be careful what the wish for cause private healthcare doesn’t always translate into better care. People may be seen faster but it’s a conveyor belt, in & out as fast as possible & then go cause it’s someone else’s turn. My sister went private to have major surgery & nearly died. She ended up with sepsis. Something they missed cause she was discharged way too soon & they didn’t want her back when she called to complain she didn’t feel well. The advice was to call NHS24. My Mum got her in the car & took her straight to the private hospital to demand they see her immediately. The Dr was horrified at how ill she was. In the end it was the NHS that saved her life & she was in hospital for weeks to recover. So she basically paid to make herself worse & it was the NHS who ended up treating her anyway. The private hospital wriggled out of it claiming because she’d been home 24 hours so she was no longer under their care & their responsibility or some such bullshit.
The link I gave to Sir Harry’s talk is broken. This one should work. This should help explain why independence is needed.
link to middlewaysociety.org
You think you have problems. My immediate neighbour is an Aberdeen supporter he went to the match tonight. I didn’t although, I told him it would be an United win. The UN, the EU and all the Palestine Wokists don’t understand the basics. What do I say to my neighbour tomorrow?. My tactic is nothing!. The new religion is football. The last bastion of the working class in Scotland. That’s a male bastion or whats left of it.First World problems? I wanted an even approach to the middle East War. That hasn’t happened. And the 2 State solution looks further away than ever thanks to Sir Keir.
One interesting little wrinkle that follows on from recognising a sea of rubble as a state, and a herd of yellow, underground hiding, lassie torturing scum as its government, is that nobody can any longer claim there’s an asymmetry between a state and an “insurgency”.
It’s state on state. Each state is entitled under international law to fight on until one is utterly crushed and its governing scum dispatched to explain themselves to The Big Man upstairs. Unconditional surrender in other words – one state to another state – death to the losing elite untermensch – just like Berlin in 1945 and Nuremberg after.
Extraordinary how on a place like this, which never fails to find a conspiracy every time somebody sneezes, that this new reality has slipped under the radar.
Perhaps Trump, Starmer and the rest aren’t so daft after all!
“Scottish Budget likely delayed until January, says Finance Secretary”
Expect the biggest give away budget in the history of the SNP before the election.
We will all be rolling in it and if we are not it will be the UK government’s fault.
Not as if Westminster parties would do such things before elections eh??
I’ll keep this simple: Tw8t!
Ah, c’moan noo, x.
Awa wi yer negativity. Tak a leaf from the books of the usual suspects.
Learn to treat make believe as if it is gospel truth. Once you’ve mastered the skill, believing you’re filthy rich is a dawdle!
I see that from last week people over 65 are now restricted as to how much money they can withdraw from their bank accounts.
Seems that the most cash that the banks will dispense is £300 with an overall weekly limit of £1,200.
Any more than that you will have to visit a bricks and mortar branch to not just explain why, but also to show secondary ID such as passport, drivers licence or other. Over 65s may also need to give advance notic of their intended visit to a physical branch.
For me this restriction in being able to access one’s own cash shows how the over 65s are but poor rats in a trap.
Denial of access to ones own money who would have thought it. Money folks have worked for, saved for, its truly Orwellian.
The next WM budget is going to be a ball breaker. As usual, the socialist fantasists have managed to make things much worse, and so there is no alternative other than to attempt to screw yet more money out of workers, savers and those with “fat cat” assets, such as a home or vehicle.
The MSM has been running articles on how savvy people should try to restructure their financial affairs for weeks.
Perhaps the banks are wary of a run starting, as savers cotton on that their money will be safer under the mattress than in a place where Rachel from accounts gets first dibs.
Restrictions on money transfers overseas from the UK are also being mooted. Capital flight is a real risk.
It’s always the same when Labour get in. Eventually, they always run short of other people’s money. This latest episode has been spectacularly disastrous though, even for them.
“Ah, but if we were Independent …” somebody will start in a mo.
Shite. The same eejits, pursuing the same disastrous policies, with the same end results would ensue.
Because that’s exactly the kind of people the usual suspects and their deluded ilk can’t stop themselves voting for.
It’s a desperate shame. The finances of both the UK and Scotland are on unsustainable trajectories. Neither electorate is prepared to countenance the hard choices that must be made to salvage the most from the oncoming train wreck.
By making this decision – essentially hoping to be dead before the train wreck happens – both electorates are just ensuring that the train wreck, when it comes, will be far worse.
The penny will only drop on the day there’s no cash in the banks at all, and the pension and benefits direct debits haven’t appeared in a month.
All that wasted effort by the Hateful McHate in attempting to bless us with his insightfulness, yet right minded folk just scroll on by.
Shame really… perhaps it’s the name? Too much whiff of the playground to be taken seriously I suppose; a heady combination of stale pish, bleach and pigeon shit. Bless…
Under the Tory’s the UK National debt rose from £800 billion to £2.6 trillion. An Independent Scotland would simply have to take it’s share of the debt, despite what the nutters, who will be along shortly, will say. Approx £280 billion of debt, which would have to be serviced, in sterling I assume. There would of course be a 10% share to Scotland of UK assets but good luck in calculating that. We might get some planes or ships or simply offset the assets against the borrowing.
I wonder who would do the negotiating on behalf of an Independent Scotland? I do not see anyone who is capable. No doubt we would employ teams of lawyers. All on £5000 a day with the incentive of stringing things out for as long as possible.
Only one of the myriad of questions that have to be answered but the fantasists will undoubtedly disagree. Everything will turn out fantastic by magic!
Chas, go sit down & give yer head a rest.
Scotlands oil paid for the refurbishment of London. We even have yoons on tape saying so. London was looking pretty shabby before a stroke of oil came ashore. Did refurbishing London benefit Scotland in any way, shape or form? The answer is No.
Does Scotland go pick fights around the world it can’t win? No.
Refurbish Buck Palace? No.
Westminster refurb? No.
London Bridge refurb? No.
Wembley refurb?
Euro Tunnel?
Can you see a pattern here?
Royal Weddings? No.
So there’s a great big chunk of change to divvy up. Georgie Porgie spent it all on himself.
“right minded folk”
Ah c’moan noo, Bob. Fit right minded fowk div ye ken?
“scroll on by”
It never ceases to amaze me, the posters who take the time to say a post is shit and also that they scroll on by.
It’s like logic, actions and consequences, or cause and effect, are all mysteries to them.
What’s the bet Bob sets fire to himself every single time he organises a barbecue but still hasn’t managed to work out how?
“Does Scotland go pick fights around the world it can’t win?”
Are you a Scot?
Then yes it does.
Holyrood = bunch of over emotional women and beta males.
Ex President Xiden @ 06.35.
Many of whom seem intent on swapping gender (self) identities on a frequent basis, in defiance of biological, UK & God’s law.
Geri , went looking and found an excellent Grousebeater article from 2019 with the same title.
Thanks – I’ll go have a look.
“The failed experiment of open borders has failed..your countries are going to hell. If you don’t get away from this Green scam your country is going to fail.”
“This is a new era, Bidens gone the UN is feckless and Trump is giving the world the play book, the MAGA model. And Putin’s been put on notice”
Does anyone know what time Norrie Hunter Show starts?
Can I start the ball rolling at the UN about independence for Wiltshire? After all, there is no legally watertight reason for our subjugation to Wessex, then England, then the UK. And if it was never there it can’t be repealed. Ipso Fatso.
Wiltshire is a REGION. Not a country.
Do English schools not teach the difference?
Fair enough on Wiltshire. So what about Cornwall, Essex, Sussex, Kent, East Anglia…? All former kingdoms.
@Andy Wiltshire
My favourite is the Kingdom of Northumbria.
At its heyday, you could get to it from Edinburgh by exiting through the Edinburgh city gates. Then you were in Northumbria.
It’s once the reality of things like that sink in that we realise just how artificial and temporary the countries we today call Scotland and England really are.
Scotland itself is an amalgam of historically diverse and often hostile areas. Once the UK starts to fission, I see no compelling reason why Scotland shouldn’t further break up.
And a few good reasons why it should – particularly when you recognise the advantages that will accrue to the well-favoured regions when they dump the shitholes.
Heh. “Wings over Wiltshire” is an actual thing, too.
Maybe they’d appreciate someone saying “allllroight boy, where is thy zider” and the. claiming it as a bona fide, sacred language; some loon who insists he’s an Ancient Briton and a bunch of 4am nutcases sputtering their endless drivel at the void.
Actually, probably not.
“Wings over Wiltshire” is an actual thing
Maybe so… but we all know, as does God himself I suspect, that it really really shouldn’t be, don’t we?
What a rude wee military middle-rank, hole-dwelling colonialist you are, Inglis.
I wonder if you sport the appearance of a well-known – I was going to write popular, but you aren’t on here – Tolkienian character who also lives in a hole in the ground.
Aww Northie. Bless your little flowery socks.
Home truths, huh.
Recently been re-reading each morning this Isaiah 40 passage in the poignantly poetic 1981 Irish translation:
« “Sólás, beirigí sólás chuig mo mhuintir,” a deir bhur nDia. “Labhraigí le croí Iarúsailéim agus fógraígí di go bhfuil aimsir a seirbhíse istigh, go bhfuil a peaca maite, go bhfuair sí ó láimh an Tiarna pionós faoi dhó ina cionta go léir.” Tá glór ag fógairt: “Réitigí cosán san fhásach le haghaidh an Tiarna. Déanaigí díreach thar an machaire bealach mór dár nDia. Líontar isteach gach gleann, agus íslítear gach sliabh agus gach cnoc; déantar achréidh de na hailteanna agus míntír den gharbhchríoch. Ansin foilseofar glóir an Tiarna agus feicfidh an uile fheoil í in éineacht. Óir tá béal an Tiarna tar éis labhairt.” Deir glór: “Glaoigh!” agus deirimse ar ais: “Cad a ghlaofaidh mé?” –“Tá an uile fheoil mar an féar agus a scéimh ar fad mar bhláth an mhachaire. Feonn an féar, tréigeann an bláth, nuair a shéideann anáil an Tiarna orthu. (Is ea, is é an pobal an féar.) Feonn an féar, tréigeann an bláth, ach seasann briathar ár nDé go deo.” » ??
(Íseáia? ?40?:?1?-?8? ?An Bíobla Naofa)
The Bible is available in Gàidhlig na h-Alba in an updated version, under the supervision of Professor Donald Meek and published by the Scottish Bible Society (formerly the NBSS).
Alasdair,
The Meek spelling-update version (of original Bible) is readily available digitally, but currently is not so easy to purchase physical copies of (correct me if I am wrong). Apparently there is some kind of further update being completed before it is reissued.
However a fresh modern translation of the New Testament was published in 2017, and is available physically, digitally — and the latter has audio facility voiced with a variety of accents.
More info here:
link to scottishbiblesociety.org
I particularly like the start of verse 2 🙂
Not that I can read it in Gaelic. It has to be the KJV for me.
COMPETITION TO GET GIRLS INTO COMPUTING ACCEPTS BOYS WHO IDENTIFY AS FEMALE
A Government-run competition for girls has been accused of acting ‘unlawfully’ for allowing boys who identify as female to enter.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)’s CyberFirst Girls competition is for “all female-identifying students” in Year 8 (ages 12 and 13).
CyberFirst Girls aims to encourage girls to pursue computer studies and was set up to counter concerns that, in the UK, just 17 per cent of cybersecurity jobs are filled by women.
COMPETITION RULES
The competition rules state: “All team members must identify as a girl”.
However, a spokesman for the NCSC commented that it keeps all programmes under review “to ensure they provide impact in helping to make the UK the safest place to live and work online”.
He added: “Over the past decade, the CyberFirst programme has reached more than 450,000 young people in an effort to foster a diverse and talented pipeline of cyber security professionals and we remain committed to expanding access to this vital sector.
EQUALITY LAW
Maya Forstater, Chief Executive of women’s rights group Sex Matters, wrote to the NCSC to request that the rules which breach equality law be “urgently amended”.
She stated: “Setting such eligibility criteria exposes the National Cyber Security Centre and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to the risk of legal action for unlawful discrimination, and for acting outside its statutory powers, procedural impropriety and irrational decision making.”
She demanded that the requirements be changed so that “entry is open only to (biological) girls – that is, people born female”.
(The Christian Institute, 24 Sept 2025)
link to christian.org.uk
@ Xaracen at 4.18: Aidan has been told this umpteen times. He doesn’t want to know that the petition hasn’t been presented and that therefore it can’t have been rejected.
Why doesn’t Aidan want to know this? Why does he prefer to repeat his lies?
Oh so now it hasn’t been presented, my bad sorry I must have been confused. I think what confused me is in the first half of this year every single WoS post was spammed by the same posters telling us all how the petition was being presented in March to C-24 and this would start the decolonisation process. Those posts came through on a nearly hourly basis, so it is somewhat understandable.
WHY does it matter to you Aiden, what happens with THE petition, you have made it abundantly clear on numerous occasions that it will fail and does not stand any chance of being granted
You have also made it perfectly clear that you prefer to be a disrespected, cringing supporter of a regime that openly and wantonly denigrates and despises your nationality if you are even Scottish,the fact that you are content to be considered as subsumed by a (claimed) superior group of people indicates that you are also suffering from severe self worth issues
Because every second post appears to be about this petition, I’d far rather discuss something interesting or useful!
“Aidan”; “…I must have been confused…”
I’ll say; you’re on here endlesslly posing as the font of all knowledge (lol) telling anyone who’ll listen that Scotland can’t do this, that and the next thing and yet….you thought that the region north of the Forth is called “Fifeshire”.
Not so knowledgeable at all then, really?
Away and lie in your inglis piss.
You’re not confused, Aidan, you are dishonest, and that certainly is your bad, because your intention was and is to confuse and misinform others.
The Petition was submitted, not presented. It was always understood by Salvo, because JPTI had told them, that the C-24 would not evaluate it at that point. It would check that it was competent, and then pass it to the C-4 committee. It could have been submitted instead to the UN Secretariat for the same purpose.
It was also understood that it would go no further until an existing UN member state sponsored Scotland via a resolution to the UNGA/C-4 to have Scotland recognised as a territory seeking listing as an NSGT. If successful, this would allow the C-4 to decide whether to instruct the C-24 to evaluate Scotland’s case, and report its conclusions and recommendations back to the C-4 in its annual report.
This is why Craig Murray is spending as much time as he can talking to UN member states to ask or persuade one of them to act as that sponsor.
You knew all this at the time, and yet you spent weeks insisting that the petition was ‘thrown out’ on the first day, and was ‘never coming back’.
Then, when you couldn’t sustain that position any longer, you pretended that you had meant all along that the petition was merely awaiting the completion of other steps.
And now again, you declare on this very page, that “The decolonisation process is a dead end, as Salvo were formally told in March when the C-24 committee was approached.”
So YES, Aidan, you are bad!
@Xaracen – both you and I know that isn’t true thought don’t we, hence why a great fanfair was made around the apparent approach to the UN CDC session in March, which I pointed out was definitely going to fail as the people of West Papua had tried the same thing go a few years earlier.
It’s early in eastern Canada and I have another long flight, but so I can see you’re going to force me to go back through earlier Wings posts and dig the posts out aren’t you?
@James – I don’t know where this “Fifeshire” thing came from. Not from me however. You are a deeply strange man.
I’m not requiring you to do anything, Aidan, except be honest -and all of us on these pages know that isn’t going to happen.
You’ve already shown us that.
“and all of us on these pages know that isn’t going to happen.”
Far from it, Xaracen. You can’t even tell us what a good outcome would be in 6 months or 12 months time (wrt to the UN effort, such as it is), so maybe look to your own glaring deficiencies before (inappropriately) criticising others.
How embarrassing for you.
“…You can’t even tell us what a good outcome would be…”
Who’s “us”?? Do tell.
On the plus side, Sarah..
The more Aidan bangs on the more Xaracen is informing & keeping the lurkers updated.
True! 🙂 🙂
You know how it is with sane, rational, mature people living in the real world, sarah.
If they are told Scotland’s Independence is just a vote at the UN away, they kinda want details, dates, etc. so they can plan.
Should they book a holiday? What happens if they’re stuck abroad with no Scottish passport and the UK one no longer works? What currency should they be asking for their wages to be paid in?
Is it worth moving for a new job? After Indy won’t taxes be so low the current job will pay just grand? Should they be brushing up on their written Scots to make the language transition easier?
All those things. And lots more.
It’s not fair on the lurkers that none of these issues are being dealt with. If I was a lurker, I’d be starting to suspect you’re having a larff. None of these questions are even on your radar because you know damn fine that it’s never gonna happen.
Robin MacAlpine was posting to this effect just the other day. If you don’t feel up to proving me wrong, why not stick it to him instead?
Why are you here, shiteface?
You clearly never read the articles & yer clearly not interested in Independence. You don’t even like the ppl posting btl either.
There’s a want aboot ye, eh?
Are you lonely? Don’t answer. You must be. Yer on here all day. I hope yer getting meals on wheels.
Geri you are a very kind person looking after wee hatey it is considered care in the community when you give attention to some lonely mentally challenged individual who has no friends and nowhere else to go, the fact that he is on here 24/7 and you take the effort to respond to his dribblings indicates that you are a caring kind person,I’m sure hateys carers are happy for you to take that burden on
Twat H
Find some kind person to explain “24/7” to you.
twathater – lol….BINGO!
Pict fans! Breaking news! The Book of Kells is Pictish, not made by Irish monks at Iona but in Pictland. It should be called the Book of Portmahomack. The book is currently in Trinity College, Dublin having long resided in County Meath before that but is now clearly a stolen artefact that should be returned to the Pictish motherland.
link to theguardian.com
Guardian headline is slightly more qualified:
“New research may rewrite origins of the Book of Kells, says academic: Author challenges assumption monks on Iona created manuscript, instead positing its origins are Pictish”
Grouse Beater has related item here:
link to grousebeater.wordpress.com
Grouse Beater has simply reproduced the Guardian article word for word (apart from the stupid first sentence). I suppose this total plagiarism (theft) is common on the internet but to not acknowledge that he has not researched or written anything he published about this topic is wrong, especially given the original is (claimed) to be an exclusive by Dalya Alberge, ‘a writer specialising in the arts, archaeology and history’.