The Evergreens
It was nice to see an old friend back in the Scottish media today.
How times change.
Because it’s only a few months since this happened:
But on the other hand, “the oil will be gone in 10 years!” has been around much longer.
“Oil and gas will run out by the end of the 1980s.”
(Tory MPs Timothy Eggart and Peter Rost, January 1982)
“Oil will be running out by 1989.”
(Labour MP Jeff Rooker, April 1984)
“The oil will run out by 1994.”
(Labour MP Tony Benn, May 1979)
“By 1995 the North Sea deposits will be exhausted.”
(Patrick Foley, Lloyd’s Bank regional economist, September 1985)
“The oil will run out by 2000.”
(Labour MP Ioan Evans, February 1980)
“North Sea oil could run out by 2018.”
(The Guardian, May 2008)
“Alistair Darling has just told us that the oil will run out sometime around January 2017.”
(July 2013)
If only you could burn Unionist lies, Scotland would power the world.
Oh dearie me … it looks like our dear old unionist opponents have nothing much to say today so they drag out the old faithful “Scotland’s oil will run out in 10 years time.” 😀
WoW! Are there any bigger liars in the western world than Britnat liars in Scotland?
British nationalism scrapes the barrel, again.
It’s a shame really for them. Pretty soon (wthin 5 years I reckon) the role of oil locally (in Scotland) will be a lot less anyway, as a product, so these warnings won’t hold much sway. The last ditch throw of the dice methinks, given the ridiculous timing. They know it has to be this year or there’s no point.
Odd isn’t it that Scotland’s oil will run out in 10 years but Norway’s is predicted to run out in 50 years:
Aye, funny peculiar. Surely it’s about the size of the reserves that matter, not the time it takes to extract those reserves. They could be extracted quickly or slowly or, in Norway’s case, not at all as they may well leave $65 billion in the ground.
How unlucky is Scotland ? That’s at least the 3rd or 4th time that oil has been running out. And its the wrong type too.
10 year’s is that right??
Well that no something that Westminster has to worry about.
We will be long gone before the oil runs out.
Question they should really be lookin at is …how fast can they build a big submarine base?
The problem is you will probably still get people who believe this crap.
Or looked at another way, we always seem to have a rolling 10 years of it left !
The vast amount of the black stuff on the west coast is rarely given a mention either. It can’t be touched till we get rid of Trident from our shores and even then we won’t NEED it. So we can keep it in the ground for a rainy day (or forever)…..a bit like having the key to a treasure chest! What the BritNats can’t understand is that although Scotland is practically floating on oil – we don’t need it – we are a rich country without it – which is why westminster stopped publishing the true income and expenditure figures in 1921…..the amount they were appropriating from us was getting too embarrassing!
Oh dear. I will have to tell my present employer they are wasting the BILLIONS they are spending on the project I am working on, which incidentally has a design life of 40 years.
Scotland’s No voters come first in new poll to find the world’s most gullible electorate.
A survey conducted by the New Sydney Herald of 10,000 readers found that Scotland’s No voters are thought of as being ‘stupid beyond belief’, even more than North Koreans.
72% of those who took the survey voted Scots unionists the worst voters, with N Koreans 2nd and Americans 3rd.
Makes you wonder, doesn’t it.
C’mon “Proud Cybernat”; what would the Norwegians know about energy policy and the rigorous management of resources?
Surely you know they are but a small, mountainous , independent country on the northern fringes of Europe with neither hope nor ambition to be a great World Power with a seat on the Security Council and respected throughout the community of nations.I believe that they don’t even have any aircraft carriers.
Something like that anyway !
I wonder when the Norwegian oil/gas is going to run out. Also no mention of West of Shetland and the whole West Coast down to where our Economic Zone meets that of Ireland and then there is Clyde and Solway oil/gas. Who are these people who can print such obvious lies ‘Sons/Daughters of Crone’?
Also they’ve just spent £billions on up-grading Sullom Voe Terminal (SVT) and they expect it to be still processing oil/gas for at least another 50 years. Don’t these stupid people realise that we have ‘INSIDERS’ in the industry?
Auld Rock
..the amount they were appropriating from us was getting too embarrassing!
Pooling and sharing, pooling and sharing, to make us safe and secure. Must be true, Gordon Brown kept saying it in 2014. Its
certainly a Brown mantra that rehabilitated the most unpopular UKOK prime minister, Gordon Brown.
Loyalty has its rewards in teamGB, just ask Morgan Stanley board member Lord Alistair Darling of Ranaloosh or some such creep out title the idiot thought best befitted his britnat socialism.
I guess this is after GERS being rubbished in Holyrood committee.
As Mrs May is finding out on her scurrying around the world, desperation isn’t the best place to argue from.
I think I live in a time vacuum. I have been hearing this same refrain for at least 30 years. I expect to be dead and buried however before it actually happens.
[…] Wings Over Scotland The Evergreens It was nice to see an old friend back in the Scottish media today. How times change. […]
Just as well renewables will go on forever then and make NS oil look like pocket change.
Just as well too that nobody would be daft enough to win the lottery twice and give the second windfall away too… Isn’t it?
Brilliant news….if oil runs out on 10 short years then there is surely no reason to object to Scottish independence if our supposed primary resource is done.
Bwah har-har…..10 years should be plenty time to build up a world class renewables industry in Scotland and a tidy wee oil fund.
SNP doing more in 10 years than unionists doing in more than 40 years…!
I suppose they don’t read anything apart from the “Scottish’ Office memos, and the latest on Rangers.
Al Gore – inconvenient truth .
Oh dear oh dear , discovering OIL faster than the English Exchequer can give it away must be bloody annoying , The only country on the Planet that has found OIL on its shores and become a total basket case Greece without the SUN .
These tossers believe we are a country full of total idiots .
This lot must be desperate now , having tried every doom laden piece of propaganda out, its finally dawned on them it aint f/n working , so i guess Lies are to be expected from now on , after all who is going to contradict them ? , when the media are 99.99% behind them , How can a whole country be held hostage by a lying media , North Korea could learn from this lot .
Looks like the Unionists won’t run out of gas soon, it comes out their airses every time they make economic predictions for Scotland.
Apparently a theory and now academic evidence has proven that oil production in Scotland is only sustainable for as long as we stay in the union……seemingly, for some unknown reason, academics found that reserves start to diminish when there is any dissension among Scots that could potentially endanger the survival of the union.
Not sure how it works as clearly I am no feckin scientist or oil expert but trust me it is obvs this is a true theory cause the past has dictated that whenever there is any threat to the union e.g. Indy Ref 2014…… then academics have found that oil production is suddenly limited….kinda spooky I know but hey I’m no feckin Einstein.
So if you also believe the above evidence AND you want oil to be abundant again well just feckin shut up about a) second Indy Ref b) Brexit power grab c) Brexit in general and specifically quoting 62% in connection with Scotland’s remain vote d) GERS being crap…… in fact ANYTHING that threatens the union……..then bob is your uncle oil will again increase with an increase in support for the union…..simples……..sorry but with this irrefutable evidence it definitely cannot be disputed the link between oil decreasing when there is an increase in Indy support……… and oil increasing when there is a decrease in Indy support …..well I am certainly feckin convinced anyway ….who knew oil was so sensitive to the mood of the Scottish people….almost seems X file..ish rather than academically scientific does it not.
America is also plagued by UKOK tory style frauds like this one WoS list. Movie maker lefty Michael Moore tries to explain how Norway has somehow coped with a similar and also terrible burden that is NOT Scottish oil and gas reserves,
link to youtube.com
Michael Moore: Norway is unbelievable for Americans
Scots too and lets face it, its all thanks to relentless and unremitting BBC Scotland led too poor, small, stupid UKOK attack propaganda on all Scots.
One thing’s for sure: Oil will run out before the world’s supply of bullshit.
Bullshit is an infinitely renewable resource.
Oil Groundhog Day, MSM style. Are they incapable of ever telling the truth? How can anyone believe this rubbish?
“A survey conducted by the New Sydney Herald of 10,000 readers found that Scotland’s No voters are thought of as being ‘stupid beyond belief’, even more than North Koreans”
Do you have a link to that, manandboy?
So looking forward to Jackie Bird announcing this to the people of Scotland.
Bullshit is also infinitely recyclable it seems.
Knot is now the time…
link to imgur.com
Scotsman trying to say that a 2000 ‘drop’ in SNP membership from 120,000 to around 118,500 is proof of ‘peak SNP’ and is because nationalists are sick of indyref talk…?????
I kid you not !!
………
My response to them (and the band of deranged yoons btl) as follows.
“Typical unionist rag drivel.
SNP membership ‘drops’ by around 1.5% to 118,500 (ish) and this is somehow conflated with a drop in indy support…?????
Dream on, you unionist rag.
Indyref is coming soon, right after the brexit shambles can no longer be hidden from the public and in plenty of time before the 29th march 2019.
Hate Scotland…but utterly desperate to keep us…simply question unionists cannot answer..
Q. If Scotland is as shite and useless as unionists think, why are you so utterly desperate to keep us in the union ?
Now, some fanny will say, its the SNP’s fault, with a labour or Tory government things will improve suddenly…again a simple question…
Q. HOW ?
Tories tried to cut £7,000,000,000 from the Scottish budget last year.
How much would taxes be raised to cover such a sum or where would the tories find £7,000,000,000 of cuts in Scotland ?
That is a serious question you fucktard unionists need to answer, as the tories ACTUALLY TRIED TO DO THIS last year, but the SNP told them to bolt after seeing the trap in the fiscal framework talks. Did you unionist fuckers THANK the SNP for defending Scottish interests ?
Did ye fuck.
As for labour…..one word…WALES.
No thanks labour. 80 years of failure in Scotland already .
As for waning support and burst bubbles…take it you missed the latest polling which showed a RISE of support for independence AND a sharp rise in electoral support for the SNP in the poll of voting intentions, an increase which would add AT LEAST another 10 SNP MP’s if there was a GE tomorrow. (6 from labour btw..putting them back on ONE).
THE PEOPLE OF SCOTLAND have spoken clearly for 10 years now, they reject unionist political parties and are FULLY and MASSIVELY behind the SNP and what they are doing for Scotland.
These are FACTS, easily backed up by ELECTORAL REALITY.
If the SNP are shit, why are labour or the tories struggling to win seats ?
(59 Scottish MP’s)
SNP = 35 (60%)
TORY = 13 (22%)
LABOUR = 7 (12%)
LIBDEM = 4 (6%).
FACTS not unionist fantasy.
If only you could burn Unionist lies, Scotland would power the world.
If only you could burn unionists, Scotland could sleep a lot easier at night.
link to opendemocracy.net
Commenting on this story, Duncan Hames, director of policy at Transparency International UK highlighted the role of dark money in the Brexit referendum.
“Far from being the people’s plebiscite, the facts show the referendum campaigns were dominated by big money on either side of the debate. Our research found that over half of reported donations to referendum campaigners came from just ten people, with only a hundred donors accounting for almost all of the reported contributions that were made.
“Our electoral law is of no use if it is not enforced in practice.”
It beggars belief that the consensus among Yes/SNP supporters and the SG remains that IndyRef14 was open and above board.
Are the Tories even capable of operating openly, honestly and above board.
Alistair @ 3.23
That wouldn’t work…. Scotland disnay actually have any Unionists !
We only have people who aren’t Yes yet!
@ Liz g at 2:44pm …. “Question they should really be lookin at is …. how fast can they build a big submarine base.”
Ha, ha, ha love it. Get right down to the nitty, gritty Liz.
Love it as they don’t have anywhere else to put it now other than NIreland. Woooo. Scary or what? Even Gibraltor / Spain told their visitors from the Admiralty to sling their hook in January 2015. Shame, eh!
……
On my IPad so can’t post links such as data from Prof Robertson, Oil and Gas site etc. Data that highlights that there’s a number of liars operating within the UK MSM.
Here’s something to think about 1 trillion would cover the SG budget for 35 years not including interest. With interest 55 years (estimated) depending on rates 3-8%. Another way to look at it is- ever since oil has been discovered it has been funding the SG every year, with the rest of Scottish income going to westminster.
If Labour, Tory and Libdem parties here in Scotland, claim they are Scottish and independent/separate of their UK parties.
Then there should be no cross border funding for these parties either from Northern Ireland or England and it should be against the law for them to receive any such funding.
We really should stop calling pro-Brits “Unionists” – they like that appellation. And let’s face it, the term ‘Union’, in many cases, can be a good thing. ‘Unionist’ sounds reasonable but many of these people are far from reasonable or even rational. They are British Nationalists (BritNats), unthinking supporters of a right wing, self-harming British State.
The term ‘Unionist’ (just like the term ‘British’) must be traduced at every possible opportunity, to the point where, in the minds of most people across Scotland, they are pejorative terms.
@ Geeo at 3:23pm …. “Drop in SNP membership.”
How they, the BritNats, just love it, eh? It’ll be on the BBC / STV next. Big news as the world’s imploding.
If you haven’t joined the SNP get online and do it ASAP.
AND SHUT THEM UP.
Scotlands Oil will only last 10 years and is the wrong kind of oil to make petrol .. I was told this by Newspapers in 1979 and I believed it.
So now that it finished in 1989 it can’t run out its gone… Every Newspaper knows that, perhaps they live in hope.
Even if the oil was running out what’s it got to do with Scotland? We never had the use of it anyway
Oh the jobs the jobs! I don’t see the big giant queue lined up outside job centres in Aberdeen with the hundreds of thousands of unemployed folk looking for jobs who are out of the oil industry, why? because they weren’t all Scottish in the first place
Och, Piffle and Tosh crap rotten to the core lies the British Nationalists spit out time after time in the hope of falling on the ears of the greater Scottish Tit and bewildered pensioner
Scotlands economy is ready to burst at the seams with good stuff given the chance and it’s exactly what these Bastirts DON’T want to happen because it’ll show their rotten fetid stench of a UK Government up for what they are
Rapists of countries!
The Rev says
Indeed.
A ton of BULL SHIT can produce about 450 M3 of Biogas.
1 m3 of gas can produce about 2.8 KWh of Energy.
Therefore a ton produces about 1260 KWhs of energy.
The total annual energy consumption of Scotland is about 150TWh.
I make that about 120,000 tons of UNIONIST BULL SHIT, and anything above that is for export.
We can do this!
(Apologies in advance if my decimal place is all wrong 🙂 )
Tinto Chiel: “Do you have a link to that, manandboy?”
I appreciate your interest, TC, but that particular link is buried among a pile of links to mostly pieces of BritNat fiction about Scotland’s impenetrable poverty and absence of resources.
Tho’ we do of course have a superabundance of thoroughly brainwashed No voters. Some day England will come and take them to the place where they belong.
Ps. Link or no link, the world was aghast at Scotland rejecting Independence in 2014, while European political leaders and financial institutions heaved a huge sigh of relief. Never forget that.
If you haven’t read “Plundering the Public Sector” by
David Craig, I recommend it.
If only “Experts” were required to lodge a bond to cover their predictions they might be a wee bit more careful in trying to fool the public .
As stated they totally ignore the untapped oil and gas in the Clyde just about a hundred yards of shore no big pipelines or helicopters to take the workers out and in thus making the price cheaper I would hope and if the yoons don’t like what the SNP have been doing then they can protest by paying prescription charges student fees and all the other things the SNP have done for the people of Scotland which you seem to find a bad thing ., we would never have had any of these things under labour or the tortes or holy willies party and that is TRUE fact
Aye, the only things running out are the number of lies the britnats can make up p, about Scotland’s economic viability.
Luckily we have a more forward thinking government at Holyrood who are doing their damndest to invest in renewables in Scotland. Against huge UKOKian odds of course.
If only we could be like Norway. Sigh. No voting friends actually said this just prior to the 2014 independence referendum. What can one sat to that eh, just, sigh.
What I cannot fathom is why Scottish unionists in the north British Labour branch still perpetuate this utter tosh about the oil. It really is ridiculous.
When growing up in Edinburgh, it was ‘accepted’ wisdom’ that firstly the oil from Scotland was very poor quality. and secondly that it was going to run out within ten years. It was a total lie then and it is a total lie now.
Why Scots do not ALL want independence from these bare faced liars just on that one issue alone, is beyond me. They sit back knowing full well their own country is being impoverished whilst England takes our oil, while calling us subsidy junkies.
Everybody knows their is still real potential for the oil from Scotland. A case in point, being the rather massive find by Hurricane energy recently.
But no, listen to unionists or the BBC and you will think, as I did when at School, that Scotland’s oil is still rubbish, and will still run out in just ten years, so we’d best give it to England for free, just in case.
It makes no sense. None at all. It is a big fat stinking lie.
Oh, and the oil fund in Norway (who had smaller oil and gas reserves than Scotland) is now worth over a trillion USD. Check the live fund value, and weep.
LINK : link to nbim.no
“lies and the worst type of propaganda” Print it and they will believe it!
Except the recent oil fields to come on line are so bountiful some are actually immeasurable too! If we develop the deeper oil fields and eventually turn down the West Coast when these parasites take away their ships of doom, maybe, just maybe, we can live with the revenue for decades (tens) to come.
Too poor ma’ ass!
I’m no geologist but if you draw a line diagonally in a SW direction from the main N. Sea oilfields through the Highland Fault line it takes one to The Clyde and Western Approaches.
That would suggest the possibilty that the geology along said line was similar pointing to Oil & Gas deposits.
What has puzzled me for years, unless I am mistake, is that no Onshore Areas have ever been licensed for exploration.
Is it possible that possible onshore resources along The Highland Fault and elsewhere are being held in reserve and that there may be vast quantities there which would be easy to exploit.
Feel free to shoot down the above speculation.
I don’t know where my post went in response to Liz g’s ‘submarine base’ post which gave me a right laugh. Short post, no links – just disappeared.
Anyway I’m on my IPad so can’t post links but there’s loads of data on the Oil and Gas site and others such as Talking up Scotland including ‘Wave of new jobs hits the North Sea – Talking-Up Scotland’ that highlights that the UK MSM seems to employ a bunch of liars. I’ll need start putting that one on my CV. Strange don’t you think, if the oil industry is finished in Scotland why do they have to keep telling us so? Over and over and over again. One also wonders what the oil workers make of the porkies? Then again from what I’ve heard very few Scots are employed in the industry now. Another grand way to keep the lid on things. You have to give them 10 out of 10 for doing a good job no doubt through having hundreds of years of experience of being experts in the art of subjugating people.
link to caltonjock.com
The Rev is a blessing to the cause of Scottish independence. His finger is firmly on the pulse of Scottish politics.
link to indyref2.scot
Bird Man of Pravda Quay…
link to imgur.com
I’m looking forward to “experts” predicting that the wind will only last another 10 years and the waves will stop waving. It’s the wrong type of wind and wave.
Oops – O/T – A wee spanner follows regarding the EU .
The Italian Government has just been overruled by the EU , The EU has backed an Italian farmer in his 15 year bid to plant GM crops on his land.
This despite the farmer being warned the proposed seeds and subsequent crops posed a danger to surrounding farmers, and was specifically forbidden to use any GM seeds that are banned throughout Italy .
My gripe with the EU before the referendum was because of the farcical secrecy employed during its TTIP negotiations with the USA , It now looks like Mayhem is going to resurrect these talks, the talks that have now been abandoned by the EU due to pressure from the French I believe .
Why do these organisations and institutions keep moving the goalposts and changing the rules ? , it’s bleedn confusing A sensible move by the EU ditching TTIP , followed by stupidity allowing GM seeds to be planted and overruling a Sovereign Government, This move looks like a disguised TTIP , when corporations have more power than national governments.
Confused of Morningside .
Don’t all rush at once….
Dear Croomp,
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Snake Oil bastirts..
Shocking behaviour by the Spanish towards Catalonia. I hope the eyes of Europe are on Madrid.
All this stuff is a big yawn. We’ll kill your aspirations with groundless fear. Worked in the past, will probably work again for we are the masters of your will; that old Unionist trick of messing with your mind.
One thing is absolutety necessary Scottish nationalism needs more strings to its bow. Playing constantly on the single utilitarian string of economics is an oversimplification of our case. This springs from an interpretation of our history, a Unionist interpretation given the authors of the standard texts, which strips our culture of any ‘finesse’ and promotes a theme of tartan clad, romanticised ‘noble’ failure. Scottish nationalism is a sophisticated broad spectrum affair. Check out its history. This needs to be explored, refreshed and developed.
Gus1940 u got it in one regarding the Highland Fault line , however think that Coal is what you will find under the land, as you will know coal comes from pressurised forrests,mosses etc under the sea there were no trees but lots of beasties and plants which turned into Oil. There may be areas of mainland Scotland which were huge lochs in days gone by but I don’t know of any.
They’re going to pay for this.
Have the Yoon media got insider info about Indy Ref2?
Sure as shit the gullible will fall into line again believing this garbage.
They say once bitten twice shy, (not when it comes to the Scots.)
Putting the wind up them…
link to imgur.com
Englands resources never run dry. They never had any
O/T Again- The debate on the loss of jobs in HRMC offices accompanied by crocodile tears from all sides, Neil Findly is being fair as usual, he gives equal distain to the Tory government as he does the SNP , yes f/n clever Neil you and your scabby Labour Party stood side by side with the rest of them in better together , hand on heart promised, ships, tax jobs, everything under the bloody sun to protect a Union that hasn’t served Scots since its enforcement.
A brass neck doesn’t come even close to the pish Findlay was spouting,
Why do these clowns think it’s the Scottish governments job to extinguish the fires they themselves started. a disgusting disgrace the lot of them , this lot who gifted the One Billion Pound bill for their bloody PFI debacle + Edinburgh Trams + the 10 times over cost Parliament building, and they have the cheek to blame the SNP for not fixing their f/ups quickly enough , Breathtaking Hippocrates .
Actually, the amount of recoverable oil in Scottish waters is largely irrelevant, provided that what is available on a realistic tinescale can be re-invested by a Scottish Government via appropriate taxation and development policy into a full push for renewables.
Even onshore wind turbines are essentially a short-term bridging option, because the real future lies in tidal power. Although the power of high wind can be very impressive, as recent events in the Caribbean show, the amount of energy contained in moving water is far greater in general than in moving air. And we here have plenty of moving water both inland and offshore.
But it can only be done by a far-seeing government of an independent Scotland.
By contrast, in an eerie updating of the old clearances, the ideal “solution” from a British Nationalist point of view would be to shed as many inconvenient troublesome people as possible from across the land and leave it instead in the hands of energy-generating mutinationals paying rent to London.
A no-brainer of a choice for us, wouldn’t you say…?
September 19, 2017
Commenting on Edinburgh University’s oil and gas study published today, Deirdre Michie, Chief Executive of Oil & Gas UK, said:
“There are up to 20 billion barrels of oil and gas resources still to be recovered on the UK Continental Shelf, based on production forecasts provided by the Oil and Gas Authority.
“Production has increased over the last two years and we expect that to continue to rise. Significant new capacity has been added to the UKCS. Nine new fields began production in 2016 and a further seven started producing in the first half of this year – most of which will still be producing in 2030. A further 12 are due on-stream by the end of next year. Some notably large developments will still be producing towards 2050. Advances in technologies are also presenting fresh opportunities and helping make discoveries commercially viable.
“To ensure the remaining potential of the UKCS is realised, we need to keep operating costs low, bring in new investment and maintain a relentless focus on exploration and enhanced recovery.
“The UK Government forecasts that two thirds of the UK’s energy will come from oil and gas in 2035. We must maximise recovery of our domestic resources so that we can continue to help to meet the UK’s energy needs and safeguard the 300,00 UK jobs our industry supports.”
Fairy Nuff, manandboy @4.08. Certainly wouldn’t want to plough my way through all that MSM dreck.
“Some day England will come and take them to the place where they belong.”
If only!
Mibbies Slough or Gravesend?
Seriously, I do wonder what our Mad Walkers/BA kissers will do when the apron strings to Nanny England get cut. The English certainly won’t want “these types”.
Great posts above regarding renewables.
In Scotland, the Wind blows regularly, but the tide goes in and out twice a day, without fail.
The tide goes out…produces a flow, comes in…produces a flow.
Power generated constantly, day and night, 24/7 regardless of other weather.
I imagine a day in the future where an indy Scotland has 100% renewable energy generation, and we decide that we can STOP producing oil from our waters as we do not need it any longer in any great quantities, not even for making plastics, as our recycling industry is finally fully supported by a forward thinking government.
These things are not pipe dreams, they are easily within our reach in a few short years, all we have to do is vote Yes.
With less and less Scots being employed directly with the oil Industry these Project Fear stories become more and more irrelevant.
Scotland is a diverse Nation with a diverse economy.
Roll on IndyRef2
It’s a curious “study” that’s for sure. Published in a magazine aimed at amateur geologists and non-specialists, there’s nowhere to find the any supporting references or the data the author’s pronouncements are based on. They are, it seems, on thin ground anyway, apparently resulting from the author’s very own estimate of total oil&gas reserves which is itself based on some mid-nineties estimate, without even a glancing acknowledgement of the uncomfortable truth that many of those were just plain wrong.
The text refers to Norway only once, in reference to the Piper Alpha disaster which resulted in a dip in production in the UK but not there. Not a word otherwise about the equally optimistic forecasts of Norwegian reserves or North Sea industry experts. But his beef is with the SNP, and referring to either of those would have weakened his point, I’m sure.
And last but not least he wastes not one letter on recent oil field discoveries. Calling oil fields like Brent “truly giant” he doesn’t even acknowledge that Hurricane Energy’s discovery of the Lancaster and Halifax fields are now estimated to be one giant field just as big as Brent. Or that the West Coast hasn’t been explored to the same amount (due to much harsher conditions, to be sure, but that doesn’t mean it’s entirely unfeasible).
It looks to me as if the author started with a conclusion in mind and left out anything that would throw doubt on it. Pretty poor effort, but let’s not forget this is aimed at amateurs. I’m not sure this paper would have passed muster with peer-reviewed publications aimed at industry professionals or actual geologists.
Anyone who wants to look for themselves, the paper is here:
link to edinburghgeolsoc.org
Goody 🙂
They’ll not be wanting to hang to us then !
Am loast fur words when it comes tae Main Stream Media & British Nationalists in general noo , look ah canny even speil B%*&$£+! rite .
Re;Petra@4..55pm
Petra you definitely can copy and paste to post links, even on ipad. Just keep your finger on the search bar, it should show up highlighted in blue, then click ‘copy’, then go to where you want to paste, hold your finger on where you would be typing, or in the box you want it to appear in, and click on ‘paste’. If the address does not show as highlighted in the search bar, click ‘select all’ then copy, then paste, even in another ‘tab’/page. Much more annoying than on a laptop or pc, but doable.
Anyway, we were out for a walk up the Pentlands yesterday. Very nice when not too busy!
Noticed loads new builds along the water of Leith, Balerno and those areas. My god would you need some big dosh to afford these houses, many state of the art, grass on the roof etc, some with huge solar panels. No wind mills as yet! I do wonder whose land it is to sell for these massive new houses being built, really. Anyway my point being the rich can afford to save money on fuel bills, probably making money in some cases from feeding into the English controlled ‘national’ grid.
Dodgy when your neighbour can click a switch and reduce or cut off your power supply anytime they like. Network rail, English controlled, the Internet network, English controlled. They really are on a win win aren’t they. Thing is, they have to now work so hard at bluffing. More and more people can see how Scotland has been, and is still being shafted by their neighbours south of the border. The britnats have to come to terms with the fact that change is inevitable, and it can’t be a one way street for much longer.
Barcelona FC takes a stand for Catalonia. Well done them. Do you think Scottish teams would do the same?
link to twitter.com
re;Marin@6.53
Great will look at the link.
No big company would even dream of putting money into prospecting for oil and gas, unless they thought there’s a damn good chance it will pay off, big time. It’s just not worth their going exploring without pretty good evidence, that they will strike gold, so to speak.
Remember Cameron’s little trek up to Shetland prior to 2014 independence referendum? They tried to keep it quiet on the one hand, but it was also a message to Scotland. Any oil here, is ours you sweaty jocks so get your paws off my oil! Aye the britnats are very light fingered, taking anything they want, preferably when no one is looking, but doesn’t matter either way. Nah ni nah, nah nah nah…
Laughing all the way to the, bank, though who’s bank and where?
@ Juan P at 6:25pm …… “Oil and Gas Study.”
Thanks for that Juan. Well that just sums it up, highlights the TRUE situation in relation to the oil and gas industry and a copy of that should be sent out to every newspaper, the BBC, STV etc. What a bunch of bl**dy, blatant liars.
…………
Meanwhile STV (I’m John MacKay. This is the STV news LIES from Glasgow) reported that fifty odd high rise buildings in Scotland (Glasgow?) are potential ‘Grenfells’ and the SG is withholding this information from the public, the Named Person Policy is cr*p and people are paying through the nose for properties in good school catchment areas. They then had the brass neck to question (poor, beleaguered) John Swinney on the latter. I mean to say that’s his fault too. Isn’t it? Absolutely scunnered with the whole blooming MSM kit and caboodle.
@Capella
The tweets below are rather interesting in their negative attitude to the Catalan language and aspirations on the part of los Castellanos.
No obstant això…visca Catalunya lliure!
I and my colleague [1] at the University of the Clyde [off the shelf degrees available for a small fee] have finished a study of historical oil data and plotted them on the Plonker Curve, and our conclusions are that North Sea oil ran out in 1812.
[1] She works for pouches, miaouw
Gary45% says:
20 September, 2017 at 5:50 pm
“Have the Yoon media got insider info about Indy Ref2?
Sure as shit the gullible will fall into line again believing this garbage.
They say once bitten twice shy, (not when it comes to the Scots.)”
That’s one of the big failings of referendums, compared to an election manifesto.
The referendum question might be only one wee question, so all the rest of it is left to campaigns that bear no link with what is asked on the ballot paper.
As indyref1 and EU Ref showed, the most dishonest claims can be made and there’s nothing we can do about it.
Read this in the Herald today and it took about 20 seconds to figure it out as bollocks. To be fair to the Herald their analysis agreed it was nonsense.
@Capella 7:09pm
When Liz kicks the bucket I expect the “queen’s eleven” to through themselves onto her funeral pyre. [They’re all good at diving after all].
O/T
Mundell’s out in South America supposedly promoting business and cultural links with Scotland. God would he no put you right off? As it happens Scottish firms already do substantial trade with countries like Argentina and Paraguay but it looks as though numpty head is trying to jigger it up by telling (lying) people that the Scottish economy lags behind the rest of the UK.
Linda Fabiani said “David Mundell claims to have gone to South America to drum up investment for Scotland so why is he going out of his way to talk down Scotland as a thriving and attractive place to do business. He should be telling potential foreign business partners about Scotland’s highly skilled and educated workforce, our excellent infrastructure, our excellent track record in attracting foreign investment and our close links with Europe. Instead he inexplicably seems to be claiming to them that we are the UKs weak link – what sort of message is that to give people?”
That David Mundell’s Scotland’s weakest link and he’s out of a job when we get our Independence because Westminster disnae want him either?
“If only you could burn Unionist lies, Scotland would power the world.”
They only get away with it because stupid, selfish, spineless, “sovereign” Scots let them get away with it.
Compare these pathetic people with the brave and informed people of Catalonia who are ready to go to jail for a referendum.
We can’t blame the unionist media – has the internet not reached Scotland yet?
Capella,
“Barcelona FC takes a stand for Catalonia. Well done them. Do you think Scottish teams would do the same?”
Andy Murray did make a late opportunist stand last time when it looked like Yes was going to win.
@ Artyhetty at 7:04pm ….. “Posting links from an IPad.”
Thanks a million for taking the time to outline this information for me AH. I’ll take a note of it and try it out X
@Artyhetty
As a minor adhoc supplier to the “oil industry”, it’s steady, never really dropped.
I see that the comedy duo, the Mike and Bernie Winters of Wings over Scotland are back again at the usual time imparting their profound wisdom for the benefit of the great unwashed Wings reader.
There’s an old story about the Winters appearing in the Glasgow Empire in the 60’s that I seem to remember Billy Conelly telling.
“Mike came on stage first, playing his clarinet. The Weegie audience was unimpressed and when Bernie, wearing an old-fashioned coat and a bowler hat shoved his face out between the curtains with his usual grin and ‘eeeeeeeeeeeee’ noise, one jakey in the front row was heard to shout, ‘Christ, there’s two of them!’”
link to nettiethomson.com
For the many that might be too young to have heard of Mike and Bertie Winters here’s their anti nuclear bomb song from 1961, maybe they were an alright pair after all.
link to youtube.com
I’m going to make a bit of an attempt at the oil industry, from a jack of all trades point of view and my previous life.
What happens when demand exceeds supply is of course the price goes up, and so the costs can rise the same way and still make a profit. You get intense competition between suppliers, not just to send to the market, but also to have the workers, the best workers, the best resources, the best infrastructure, So for instance a supply boat gets engine trouble, buy another one fast while the other one is fixed. Vehicles? Top of the range and fast to attract workers. At $120 per barrel, it doesn;t matter if it costs even as much as $70 to extract, it’s a big profit. You can be as wasteful as you like, feel the profits.
Then the price drops to $80, so the total cost has to drop to $40. It’s relatively easy, as the whole operation is still inefficient, but nobody cares, there’s plenty of profit. Then it drops to $50, and at $40 it’s way too much, so the economies really have to come in now, down to $30 is still reasonably easy, but it needs to drop more.
Some companies don’t run that sort of lean organisation, they’re geared up to big operations and waste, so they sell out. Other leaner companies move in, but also those that are left work hard to get leaner. Well, this costs money, including whatever is the rquivalent these days of Business Process Re-engineering, usually outside consultancy and work, so the balance sheet shows actual losses. But the effective cost drops to $20, then to $15, and is on its way to near $10 per barrel. That’s where we are now.
When the price goes up these companies are well geared up to handle the operations, but of course if it really goes up will have to spend like there’s no tomorrow to get back up to the way it was before. They’ll have to compete for workers, supplies, equipment.
And so it goes with boom and bust. But it seems to me Scotland is ready for the next boom. And there will be one.
@Proud Cybernat and abody else who might know about this –
Is there still going to be an Anti-Ruth demo outside the Scottish Parliament tomorrow when FMQs is on?
Just want to know any available details so I can punt it via The Twitter.
😉
P.S. @ Alex Clark – aye, cheers for reminding me about Mike and Bernie Winters. Only took me 40 years to forget them. 🙁
Poor old Scotland, cursed with the problem of all this oil and whats worse they keep discovering more of the dammed stuff.
I have heard that the north Atlantic Ridge is the biggest oil field in the world and keeps getting better with every discovery of more oil.
If only some neighbouring country could manage our oil for us and give us some crumbs of pocket money.
Oh wait!
Capella @7.09: I wonder what FC Espanyol are saying to it, The Queen’s XI of Barcelona?
At least my Wee Diddy Team fly the saltire, have SNP trackside advertising and have had an SNP MSP on the board.
Unfortunately, most Scottish teams are run by the Blazerati of The Exotic Handshake, with pictures of Brenda in the trophy cabinet.
It’s a funny old game, Saint.
While I’m at it, and before I have my tea, an indicator perhaps of Scotland’s future fearless economy is Babcock, one to keep an eye on. It evolves as it needs, from Babcock and Wilcox Ltd at Clydebank and Renfrew, through oil and defence and Doosan Babcock, and now to container port at Rosyth. They are also tendering for the T31 with the much-liked Venator design, though they will build anywhere in co-operation.
But you could ask – is Babcock afraid for its life of Independent Scotland?
Apparently not.
I said: “And so it goes with boom and bust. But it seems to me Scotland is ready for the next boom. And there will be one.”
Mmm, preferably not until we’re Independent and get 100% of revenues, with, naturally, HQs moving to Scotland under Scots Law, perhaps also research, or at the very least, sparking off subsidiaries IN scotland. Business doesn’t care about politics, just profit.
And by the way, those decomissioning costs? Perhaps CCS will cut the cost and even need for them.
The text of Mundell’s speech on what was supposed to be a trade promotion visit to Paraguay can be found here: link to gov.uk .
In various places in his speech, and despite addressing an audience in a foreign country that is a potential customer for our goods and services, and perhaps even a source of investment in Scotland, Mundell uses the occasion to play his (domestic) political games.
This extract (with my EMPHASIS) shows up that we have the wrong man representing Scotland overseas, saying inappropriate things at the wrong time and place.
“The fact is, until the recent election in June, the Brexit debate in Scotland was deliberately conflated with the question of Scottish independence. Despite the passage of only three short years – and despite the decisive result – there has been an attempt to use Brexit to re-open the issue that DIVIDED OUR COUNTRY SO BADLY.”
Their (the SNP’s) attempt WAS ROUNDLY REJECTED in the recent general election so we now need the issues to be de-coupled for good. The First Minister Nicola Sturgeon could put that to bed once and for all by ruling out a second independence referendum at her conference this autumn, and I hope she does.”
What on earth will a Paraguayan audience make of Scotland after this performance by our Governor General?
The only resources, after it had
chopped and burned it’s forests
and coal, that England ever had,
belonged to someone else, hence
the state of the world today.
Blind-faithed furiously-capitalist expansionists don’t need their
own natural resources.
They stride the planet, blind to
others burdens, with royal amnesty, plundering all that is good.
To this very day, setting up systems that guarantee wars.
Snorbitz!
Petra@7.59
Just one thing, when you go to copy from the search bar, just click on it quickly in fact, that should highlight it, and give you the copy option. When you go to paste it, hold your finger on the screen until you see ‘paste’. Good luck!
On the subject of oil, I notice the daily recorder says ‘the Scottish oil industry’. You know the amount of times I have heard it said, including by people in England, ‘wi aye but what would you’s do now the oil’s run oot?’ (geordie accent!) You could lose the will with the blinkered at times.
@Dorothy Devine
🙂
“What on earth will a Paraguayan audience make of Scotland after this performance by our Governor General?”
I don’t know the Spanish for “Scottish Cringer”, stewartb, but I’m sure it covers it.
Or the Spanish for Grima Wormtongue, of course.
@ stewartb at 9:9pm …. “Mundell.”
He should be carted off in a straitjacket when he returns home. There’s definitely a screw loose.
So Mundell was in Latin America talking down his own country and the democratically elected government of that country. What the actual fcuk! Must get over to teleSURtv and see if it’s reported there. What an utter disgrace, Mundell is another one with a false status propped up by the UKGov and the britnat state.
I am sure that there are many who would welcome Nicola Sturgeon in Latin America. I mean, Mundell? What an utter embarassment for Scotland!
That’s real Scottish Cringe for you – David Mundell representing Scotland to the world.
Petra
Also, if you want to copy, or spell check, or replace a word on anything you have typed, click on it really quickly twice, should give you various options and maybe even if you are lucky, ‘select all’ option, then copy. Really, ipad is good for some things but not for word processing in general.
Och, I’m so sad. Interview with Sturgeon in the New Statesman, and with Chris Deerin in the Herald. And the quote from Heed’s Slovenian girl-friend “For the nationalists their dream is over – they know another divisive and disruptive independence referendum is not going to happen in their lifetime.”
Boo hoo, that’s it then, and I’m surprised the Dynamic Duo aren’t all over this like wasps over flypaper. 😶
So that’s it then, with Indy support having dropped for a while but coming back up again during the summer with no talk of Indy Ref 2, now Indy Ref 2 is totally off the agenda we’ll just have to watch it rise steadily, above 50% and up with total frustration and angst 😰
I’m devastated 😎
Mundell is a truly slimy wee shite, but he’s in good company with Sarwar etc.
Well seeing as we don’t actually make any revenue from it, who gives a .. cares?
Re ‘Fluffy Does Paraguay’ –
Never underestimate the ability of peoples worldwide to swiftly identify disreputable characters.
Beyond parody! Yet some Scots believe it. Despite being told 20 years ago it would run out in 10. You can’t help the terminally gullible I suppose.
Thanks Artyhetty. I’ll copy your instructions out tomorrow when I’m on my computer and then (step by step) try it out!
……………………………..
I wonder how much support we’ll get from University professors in Scotland / from around the World if Westminster turns real nasty?
Just reading that a pro-Independence website that contained over 1000 signatures from university professors, researchers etc, mainly working in Catalonia but also from universities worldwide, has been shut down.
They had signed a manifesto which stated:
“We want Catalonia to be among the most scientific and technologically advanced Nations which contributes with their efforts to make the world – the entire world – a better place to live in, in order to build a better future for ourselves and our children. We ask our fellow citizens to vote ‘Yes’ and ignore the threats from those whose sole argument is the use of force.”
I am hugely encouraged at the moment. The Labour Party sub-office in Scotland is choosing between two candidates who will both damage the party in the views of any informed Scot and Ruth Davidson’s position is going down the tubes (as it always would if people saw enough of her).
It is not only Labour which has no appropriate leadership material but the Tories have even less choice in the Scottish parliament.
The attack on Devolution and the actual Scottish Parliament that commenced last week seems to have evaporated in the face of anger across all but the Tories in Scotland. They do not understand Scotland.
Immediately an independence campaign gets going the pressure on what is left of Labour in Scotland becomes very severe. Lots of it is not very far away from an independence position and lots of it will be sitting examining options at the moment.
Who’ll be first across the bridge?
@ yesindyref2 Nicola Sturgeon was misquoted by both Herald and New Statesman.
On no oil left nonsense just Wait for Yoon letters saying Indy dead.
Not surprised that Labour Hustings Chairman refuses to take questions on leadership contender’s finances etc.
And on lack of democracy BBC National TV News has lengthy piece about England’s womens football manager being sacked but not a word about England’s oldest ally’s behaviour in Cataluyna.
Remember when Mr Rajoy was the toast of Better Together in 2014.
BBC blah, blah, blah News reporting on the Kurds quest for an Independence referendum. Not a peep about Catalonia. The presenter’s final comment on the situation was “a new State could be born into conflict.”
…………..
Catalan situation on BBC 2.
Westminster unionists tax the Scottish Oil & Gas sector at 40% since Jan 2016. Lowering production. Fracked Gas is imported from the US and £Billions of Gas is imported from Norway. Putting up the balance of payments and the debt. Losing £Billions.
The Producers have stated there is more than 100 years left. Scotland is one of the best places in the world for renewables. Turbines printing money. Scotland is surplus in fuel and energy. Electric cars are 4 times cheaper to run.
link to bbc.co.uk
Sturgeon ‘doesn’t know’ if she will call Indyref 2 apparently…(It might happen without her then!)
Yesterday they said the oil and gas will run out in ten years.
Tomorrow they’ll be telling us that Scotland’s wind and sunshine will cease in 3 months because of climate change.
You don’t know what they’ll lie about next.
They’re trying every possible angle!
@Sinky
Indeed, good ain’t it? You’d think she’d know that would happen with it being Deering and the Statesman, tsk tsk 🙂
@Petra –
Radio Scotland did do a piece on Catalonia, approx 16.50 today if memory serves, and it seemed to be fairly balanced, tried to explain why what’s happening is controversial etc. It lasted roughly five minutes and seemed to be a mixture of recorded and live material. I couldn’t listen to whole show so don’t know if it was repeated, or if Reporting Scotland did anything similar.
What I do remember ‘taking away’ from that package was a final comment from the correspondent in Spain (Mike someone) that the referendum would’ve been won by ‘No’ if called just a few weeks ago – now, with all the shite that’s happening (not his expression), it’s ‘too close to call’ (his expression) and a Yes vote becomes likelier the longer State intimidation continues.
Here’s hoping we can all take lessons from this, no matter how it pans out.
In Independent Scotland:
1a). Oil will run out and Scotland will be doomed
1b). There’ll be so much oil it will leak out all over the place
2a). The currency will go bust with a run on it
2b). The currency will go through the roof and Scotland will be flooded with cheap imports putting everyone out of work
3a). The Central Bank will be emptied to try to keep the currency sound
3b). The Central Bank will have to buy so much foreign currency to keep the expensive groat at a resonably low level they’ll have to build a much bigger one and that will cost billions
4a). Scotland will be out of the EU
4b). Scotland will have to hand up all its powers to Brussels
5a). There’ll be no sun and no wind and Scotland will run out of green energy there’ll be brownouts
5b). It’ll be constantly sunny and Scotland will be a dustbowl, and the grid will burn up, there’ll be brownouts
6a). The Martians will invade defenceless Scotland
6b). Why bother invading Scotland, it’s a basket case!
I was just watching two people from Catalonia being interviewed on BBC 2. A female who is pro-Independence and a guy who was a former Spanish politician.
The presenter said to the woman “holding a referendum involves two sides, does it not?” The woman replied quite indignantly “what do you mean by TWO sides? We live in a democracy and want to hold a referendum.” That shut her up.
The politician who’s against the referendum reckoned that the Spanish Government were being too heavy handed, should have got into talks (treated the Catalonians with respect) years ago and said “it looks as though it’s too late now.” The presenter asked if he thought that they should have been “allowed” a referendum like Scotland a few years ago. He immediately mentioned that their Constitution was different from the UKs and as he uttered the word ‘Scotland’ the interview was brought to an abrupt halt.
@Sinky
Unless I’ve misunderstood you, England’s oldest ally is Portugal not Spain
Yesinderef2
The oil decommissioning costs will be met by those who benefitted from the profits. Not paid for by a new Scottish Government.
The Westminster treasury may squeal about that but we will hold the aces – e.g. We can just take it out of our share of the National debt, for example. Or we can claim back say 9% of the £600 billion the Treasury took. That will decommission a few platforms.
After Independence we will make our own arrangements at the end of platform life, in say fifty or sixty years, according to BP and others.
@ Dave at 10:22pm ….. “Tories and Labour have no leadership material.”
Now Dave stop exaggerating. What about Annie Wells and James Kelly? Did you forget about them?
……………………….
@ Ian at 10:56pm ……. “Radio Scotland – Catalonia.”
I missed that Ian but it’s typical to hear that the Spanish ‘interventions’ – way beyond a joke – could have a real impact on people now. Which way it will go is anyone’s guess. Hopefully win.
You’re right to say we can all take a lesson from this and that includes Westminster. If you read my last post the Spanish politician was basically saying that burying your head in the sand and ignoring a whole nation of people doesn’t work. Their desire for independence doesn’t go away. Westminster should have realised that in 2014 and not gone done the route of EVEL, broken promises, overturned amendments, trying to rip us off to the tune of £7 billion and handing us a tax-raising poisoned chalice. They really botched that one up thinking that they had us over a barrel for decades to come (for evermore) and could do what they like, but of course had no idea that Brexit would open that door for us again, so soon. Theresa May’s obviously learned nothing at all, as she’s still at it.
You mention that Mike said that if they’d held the referendum a few weeks ago No would have won. I remember reading (Edinburgh Uni Research) that if our referendum had been held just one week later we would have won. Oh for a week, eh?
Hearing from Catalonia that the hospital computer systems in Barcelona are down and there’s shipload of riot police in the harbour.
Also that the Catalonia rep in the Spanish Parliament accused Rajoy of Francoism and quit as there was no point in being there since democracy was dead. Applauded by the other reps.
From a Catalonian facebook so not confirmed. BBC missing in action of course.
I’ve just tried to post a response to Dave and Ian but it looks as though it’s disappeared into the ether like a couple earlier. I don’t know what’s going on here but it’s very disheartening to say the least. Off to get on with some paperwork.
Re. Mundell
The man’s a total FUD and clearly unable to distinguish between a country and a unitary state. Promoted way above his station? He is a complete liability to the future of Scotland and appears eager to allow a far-right England impose colonial rule over Scotland (EU withdrawal), with the like subsequent severe degradation of Scotland’s economy and social fabric.
Can you guess what label of patriotism he wears?
I’ve just tried to send a post to Dave and Ian but like a couple of posts earlier it’s just disappeared into the ether. Second try at this too!
It’s very disheartening (and time wasting) to say the least. Off to get on with some paperwork.
@Petra –
I can see two messages from you, same one repeated, at 11.51 & 11.56.
OT
When Scotland leaves and Ulster rejoins Ireland the rump English state will probably have to give up its permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
It will have no more right to it than say Poland or New Zealand. Perhaps the EU will be chosen in its place as a more suitable delegate.
Maybe they will then take a more realistic view of their place in the world as a modestly sized country with no need to have nuclear weapons or vulnerable aircraft carriers. In the end they will be happier and our good neighbours, but the current lot of politicians are impossible, dreaming of Britannia still ruling the waves, long after that ship sailed.
The Catalan minister’s address in the Madrid parliament was videod by Livestream from Glasgow but can’t find link on their website. All the Catalan deputies walked out and everyone else applauded. Except Rajoy, of course.
@ Petra
Eh kin see yir post @ 11:11pm
Copy paste afore posting in case it breaks doon then post it again. That’s what eh dae. Much to Stu’s annoyance nae doubt. 🙂
These oil and gas folk must be really thick, imagine investing billions of £s in the stuff and there’s none there
I mean there’s never really been much it’s amazing its lasted this long, are they thinning it out, how do they do it and still make Fukcing Squillions of money when there’s no money in it any more
They said so a thousand times and those stupid oil people wont listen they just keep investing money, why dont they understand when the British Nationalists say something it’s a clear fact everybody knows that
Dont they?
Capella at 12:12 and others:
Try here for the Livestream video
link to m.youtube.com
Happy to say I got a year’s subscription to iScot magazine, courtesy of my sons, for my birthday, now yesterday, and I also got the August edition.
Here’s some humorous light relief
If Brexit is so popular and Nigel Farage is everybodys hero there were NO registered births in the UK with the name Nigel last year
So not only has Nigel Farage helped to destroy Britain he’s single handedly destroyed the use of the name Nigel in Britain
making it less popular than the name Adolph in Germany
I suppose that might make him popular in some circles though
You guys just don’t get it
If Westminster can’t run a competent government then Scotland definitely can’t do it.
Norwegians are foreigners and so they don’t count.
We are plagued with bad oil, bad whisky, bad gin, bad wind and bad waves oh aye and bad genetic programming
We are lucky we have England to keep us grounded
Brexit, it seems, is far from over.
link to rte.ie
“After his meetings in Belfast, Mr Verhofstadt posted a Twitter video in which he stressed the need to secure the success of the peace process.
“Every solution inside Brexit needs to take into account that the peace process and Good Friday Agreement is secure and there is no hard border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland,” he said.
“It is something that is a concern that is not sufficiently present around the negotiating table.”
We’re only making plans for Nigel
He has his future in a British steel
We’re only making plans for Nigel
Nigel’s whole future is as good as sealed
And if young Nigel says he’s happy
He must be happy
He must be happy
He must be happy in his work
According to Frankie Boyle, the Brexit negotiating team will end up paying full price on a DFS sofa.
I see Tom Hunter is rattling his gums again, with the Herald dragging him out of the closet saying he set up a neutral Indy website for 2014. No he didn’t, the most neutral advisor in it was David Bell, who did try at times but was clearly a NO voter who thought Indy Scotland would be a basket case. His website had no balance, though it pretended to put both sides views.
I have enormous respect for Hunter and his foundation, but absolute zero, minus 273 degrees centigrade, for a man who pretends to be neutral, but even uses unionist language like “one of the most powerful devolved parliaments in the world” (no it isn’t), and effectively “get on with the day job” (they are, what does he think they’re doing?.
Perhaps he’s fooling himself if he thinks he’s neutral, he sure as hell doesn’t fool anyone else.
Just to get things in perspective.
Oil is the feedstock for a hell of a lot of products including detergents, textiles and plastics. It will still be in demand after we stop burning it as a fuel.
However, if we don’t stop burning it as a fuel it won’t matter a damn anyway because we will have ended mankind’s tenure here on Planet Earth if not ending all life as we know it today.
If we stop burning it as a fuel then what we have in reserve will be available for a very long time.
Still positive at 1256am,
Aye, iScot Magazine is quite excellent. Made in Scotland. The kind of thing you leave sitting out when your unionist friends drop by… 🙂
link to iscot.scot
You would think they would check before spouting verbal diarhea. They are starting to sound like comical ali.
link to en.m.wikipedia.org
link to offshore-technology.com
link to oilandgaspeople.com
link to oilandgaspeople.com
link to archive.is
link to uk.businessinsider.com
link to insider.co.uk
Tom Hunter is a unionist pure and simple. Also some allegedly concerns about the charitable foundations. Raising money elsewhere but not contributing. Allegedly making money out of Charitable status. Evading tax? Getting donations from unionists ? Like the Labour Party. In Scotland funded by unionists money.
yesindyref2 says: @ 5.50 am.
Red Tory MP for Edinburgh South repeats the myth that the Scottish Parliament is one of the strongest in the world in to-day’s Edinburgh Evening News.
Another great front page in The National this morning. Shortly I will be down to local supermarket to remove whatever paper is hiding the only pro Indy newspaper.
Some of these charitable trusts should have their books examined. Charitable trusts or another way of scamming public money and tax evasion. For large remuneration etc. UK Law fraud. A scam. Defrauding money and tax evadion. How much are they helping others and how much are they helping themselves to line their own pockets. Worth the watching.
@ GrahamB 12.46 – thx – that’s the video I was trying to get a link for. The bold Gabriel Rufian challenging Rajoy then walking out.
link to youtube.com
Links
link to news.gov.scot
Radio Scotland midday news. Listen to how the UK Govt ‘power grab’ is described. Quite brazen isn’t it
link to twitter.com
Devolution after Brexit: ‘Power Grab’ or a ‘Significant Increase in Decision-making Power’?
link to scer.scot
link to cablemagazine.scot
link to indyref2.scot
Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee – 19 September 2017
link to youtube.com
Don’t get too excited!
link to barrheadboy.wordpress.com
Emergency Rally: Edinburgh Stands With Catalonia And Democracy
link to facebook.com
Turkish Delight: The UK & Recklessness in the Gulf
link to youtube.com
New expenses scandal
link to archive.is
Theresa May Delivered Her Big United Nations Speech To A Pretty Empty Room
link to archive.is
My thoughts after meeting all the political forces in Northern Ireland involved in #Brexit here in Belfast today
link to twitter.com
Lloyd’s of London firm moves European base to Dublin over Brexit
link to archive.is
link to irishtimes.com
As Catalonia Independence Referendum Nears, Madrid Escalates Tensions
link to archive.is
link to elnacional.cat
Front page of the Herald today has a story about Faslane. Apparently it as risk from rising sea levels…in 70 years time.
FM says re next indieref…’I don’t know’
A ‘leadership’ statement that is more than a little depressing.
The SNP having lost Westminster seats and slipping in the polls has plainly nothing to offer its supporters.
Independence has made little progress since 2014 and now seems static. A pro-independence party that appears to have lost its drive, even raison d’être and in mortal danger of trashing ‘the cause’.
Time for a re-fresh.
Ughh. More on que Gish Galloping.
What a bore.
Hopefully before 70 years. Sometime soon Scotland will be Ibdependent in the EU. Trident will be gone and a naval based can be sited anywhere in Scotland. Even if the tide has risen.
There are reports that London S/E could be flooded if tides rises. Westminster could eventually be under water. Rats in Thames recycled waters.
The way things are going the tides will not be rising so dramatically. The ebb is subsiding. Available contraception and major renewable advances.
@Abulhaq
We are all very well aware the media will twist Nicola’s words.
link to twitter.com
link to twitter.com
Is there still a demo outside Scottish parliament today to shout at Ruthy D while FMQs is on?
I’m not going, but just wondering if it’s something we should be listening out for…’the sound of drum’ as Eddie Grant might’ve put it…
😉
Decyphering the blurovision on the second picture gets you the phrase, “UK’s original reserves”.
Think about that for a moment.
It’s not total reserves as that would be a fucking stupid statement for any academic to make as it just begs for a new discovery.
Surprise, surprise. Nicola misquoted as usual and some folk fell for it. Without checking. More fool them.
MSM just about every word they utter is a lie.
Just keep on voting SNP/SNP. Vote for Independence in the EU. It’s simple. To protect and stand up for Scotland. Donate and do everything to help where ever possible. Don’t let the ‘psycho bastards’ get people down. Their own description.
There’s an easy way to win any argument on economy with the Union. Thats if Scots were to drop their illusions of socialism.
If everyone had to pay their way except for the clinically disabled, mentally ill/depressed etc then there would be no argument against it.
Its trying to have society pay for every able bodied feckless loser who wont clean a toilet, or serve a coffee, or keep their legs shut until they have some sort of stability that is the problem.
@Abulhaq, utter gibberish.
Have you not been paying attention ?
There will be a referendum after the uk deal (or no deal) is known, and before brexit on March 29th 2019.
This is the most common of common knowledge.
Unionist media will continually ask when, when, when will the referendum be, but they also KNOW WHEN.
..
As for “slipping in the polls”…what poll was that then ?
There has only been one recent poll, and SNP support was UP (GE voting intentions..showed a 10 seat SNP GAIN) and support was UP for independence.
Mid to high 40’s BEFORE even a date has been set for the referendum, BEFORE the campaign has officially began, and DESPITE an already non stop attack on indy/SNP for 5 years solid.
Things are just dandy at the moment, with brexit effects really beginning to bite over the next 12 months, those numbers will only improve.
So away take a hedgehog shaped shite tae yersel.
@Ian Brotherhood,
“Roothy, Moothy, nae Truthie, Pout, Pout, Pout” ?
The Oil producers – companies. Those who know have previously stated that the Oil reserves would last for 100 years and beyond. If that is necessary. The production costs depend on the tax. At present set by the Westminster Treasury. Since 2010 too high to benefit more production. Since Jan 2016 it has been 40%. Tge higher tax imposed 2010 another 11% (£2Billion) taxed at up to 80% when prices were falling. Lead to a decline in production.
People in the Oil industry are doing 3 jobs instead of 1. Wages and conditions have been cut. Leading to more stress in the industry and less production. Too high taxation in relationship to price. Leading to a decline in production. £4Billion a year, Over 7 years = £28Billion lost. More fracked US Gas is imported and Gas from Norway. Increasing importation costs and puts up the balance of payment deficit. Putting up the debt. Losing 120,000 jobs in Scotland because of Westminster fiscal mismanagement.
Decommissioning is totally (corporation) tax free. There are also investment (EU?) Grants and support for it. Whoever does it. EU investment helps renewable projects. Wind turbines etc are like printing money with low production costs.
Here is the truth of the matter and why they are so desperate about our oil. Watch the panic in the interviewers, as in, he was not supposed to say that!
link to bloomberg.com
This guy is a billionaire and knows pretty well all about finance.
There are of course very many other reasons they need Scotland.
Do we need to put up with these corrupt liars? er NO!
Noted last night, I see Reporting Shiteland, referred to the ‘Great Power Grab Bill’ as the ‘so called power grab’. Once again playing its WM role of sowing doubt in the viewers mind about the SG and WELSH governments position.
The BBC should be aware if someone takes something that is currently devolved, it is a removal of power, no ‘so called’ about it.
The claim it is currently under EU control is bogus since the UK can veto changes, a power that won’t be available to Scotland. Even if we were given a veto can you image the ermine enthralled Labour party ever using it in the nightmare scenario of them becoming the SG.
Troll alert. Troll alert. A kipper has invaded the site,
Dave, @9.12am, nice trolling. Blaming women and the disadvantaged will surely make you many friends. Not just here, but in life.
For anyone wanting to follow what is happening in Catalonia, this twitter account is excellent.
link to twitter.com
link to twitter.com
Julian Assange has also been tweeting info as well as pictures
link to twitter.com
Thing is that at the moment some of the powers being talked about are under the control of the EU but we elect MEPs on a PR basis. There are two directions those powers could reach once we no longer have MEPs. According to devolution the default should be Holyrood. However there’s an exemption for EU matters. Post Brexit any EU deal might involve the same areas. So once again Holyrood will have control over devolved matters overridden.
The essential difference is that now we in Scotland are directly represented in the EU. Ideally post Brexit we should be represented by Holyrood on those issues but Westminster is hell bent on being our misrepresentative.
yesindyref2 at 11.07pm
Make a good leaflet in my “half Wit Factor” series
@ian murray says: 21 September, 2017 at 2:09 am:
“We are plagued with bad oil, bad whisky, bad gin, bad wind and bad waves oh aye and bad genetic programming …
Aye! but!
We can do something about the bad wind – When you go out to vote choose a Rennie – That’s a cure for bad wind – is it not?
Abulhaq at 8.40
You don’t honestly believe that Nicola was going to give them the date they want to get or the confirmation that they are shitting themselves about that we are having another referendum,do you.
Independence is bubbling away nicely, rising in the polls, and they have fired most of their weapons to very little effect and we haven’t even started yet
Set up a charity, employ your family/friends on massive salaries,house them feed them pay for cars, holidays, all the comforts of la dolce vita,
get a few photos every year with some starving kid (actor) or endangered species for the idiot hack press to punt,
no taxes to pay,you look like a good guy/gal,
easy peasy.
Has anybody ever looked at a map of Scotland’s West Coast with its numerous sea lochs and calculated how many BILLIONS of tons of water enter and leave that lot twice a day.
Ignoring Tidal Flow generation as is being developed in The Pentland Firth just imagine if some or all of said sea lochs had tidal barrages built across their entrances how much electricity could be generated if said BILLIONS of tons of water had to pass through turbines in barrages 4 times a day (twice in and twice out).
Not only would they provide all of Scotland’s electricity needs there would be plenty left over for export to what’s left of The UK after Independence.
A bonus would be roads on top of the barrages which would improve communications.
If access was still required by shipping the relevant barrages could have bifurcated sections containing locks.
If such a scheme were to go ahead any crisis real or imagined caused by the demise of our oil and gas resources
would not exist.
@Abulhaq says: 21 September, 2017 at 8:40 am:
“FM says re next indieref…’I don’t know’
A ‘leadership’ statement that is more than a little depressing.”
Utter YoonYoonist pish, Abulhaq.
The FM hasn’t changed her views one iota.
But, of course, YoonYoonist propaganda will continue to claim otherwise and numpties, like you, will continue to propagate the YoonYoonist propaganda for the YoonYoonists and the YoonYoonist propaganda will thus have done its work and caused such as you to be depressed.
I was recently “forced” to buy new plumbing equipment and was gobsmacked to read how much VAT I had to pay. Generally you overlook this 20% but on a big value item it screams out at you.
My thought was with this kind of money Scotland could afford the best public services in the world but my canny wife reminded me Scotland does not see directly a penny of the VAT collected.Even under Barnett only a fraction of what we raise is returned.
No wonder support for independence is increasing as we see how we are cheated.BTW we do not need Trident,high speed rail nowhere near us,crossrail nowhere near us,London sewers nowhere near us,illegal wars nowhere near us and certainly not a Secretary of State For Scotland travelling the world telling everyone Scotland is shite and WE pay for this.
I read that Nicola is lost in indecision because it’s all going pear-shaped for the Baad SNP but it’s only reported on the BBC Scotland page NOT on the main home page – wonder why?
News is news…
Presume someone will comment today at FMQ’s, too good a false flag to ignore.
——–
Concerning reports coming out of Barcelona. 10 days to go – time for the UN to rein in the Spanish Gov?
——–
WM should be worried about this.. apparently Faslane is at risk from threat of rising sea levels
link to bbc.co.uk
Interesting article and heartening that the Scottish Government is planning ahead to minimise impact for those who live on the Clyde coast.
Would have to agree with many, Nicola will carry on with the day job, demonstrating decisive and competent Government, while the shambles of Brexit unfolds before our eyes, and when it is finalized she will then ask Scotland,’Is this what you want, or do you want a better future?’
I believe by the time that point arrives, the stampede towards the UK exit will not only remove the door, but also take out the wall.
OMG!!!
If Norwegian oil will last 50 years but Scottish oil only 10 years, that can only mean one thing – the Norwegians must drill at an angle and steal Scotland’s oil!!!
Abulhaq
I would not be too concerned by the media spin. The so called BBC and others are hardly bastions of truth.
Nicola is right to say that everything is uncertain at the moment. The UK attempts at Brexit negotiation are laughable and chaotic and the Tory Party are at each others throats behind closed doors (and a increasingly in public). People need to know what they are voting for and an independence vote against the backdrop of the car crash of Brexit will sharpen the focus. However, given the chaos of the negotiations, putting an exact timescale on that is impossible. Nicola was being what the media is incapable of…honest.
@Ghillie says: 21 September, 2017 at 8:46 am:
“Ughh. More on que Gish Galloping.
What a bore.”
Take heart, Ghillie, the YoonYoonists are really desperate when they post such claptrap. The fact that increasing numbers of such posters are being deployed to post on Wings is testament of their desperation.
Not a single word of the FM’s view has changed.
We will still have the referendum when the FM chooses to hold it and that is the bit she, “doesn’t know”, and that is the bit she didn’t know, and can’t know, because it is dependent upon what Theresa and her minions decide to do and when they decide to do it.
The good side of such posts on Wings is it allows us to identify the, as you describe them, Gish Galloping, false flag, posters.
link to twitter.com
Hey there Robert = )
Never a truer word spoke !
Most definitly, the more ridiculous they get, the closer we are to our goal 🙂
Now. If they were to go silent…
And the media to report the news as it happens… oooh, THEN I’d be worried.
Prof Robertson:
‘An Edinburgh University Professor says North Sea oil and gas has only ten years left while the Wall Street Journal describes it as an ‘oil hot spot’ and Oil and Gas UK doesn’t recognise his figures. Who’s right?’
link to thoughtcontrolscotland.com
……………………………..
‘Alex Salmond BfS Keynote video: Scotland to join EFTA to avoid Brexit pain.’
link to youtube.com
………………………………
@ William Wallace says at 12:23 am …. ”Petra Eh kin see yir post @ 11:11pm. Copy paste afore posting in case it breaks doon then post it again. That’s what eh dae. Much to Stu’s annoyance nae doubt.”
Thanks William. It was actually another post that had disappeared, responding to Dave McEwan Hill and Ian Brotherhood. Anyway gone noo! Doon the stank, lol. I was on my Ipad and I’ve still to figure out how to copy, paste etc. I’ll be trying it out later thanks to Artyhetty.
Thanks for the cataloniadirect links, Nana.
So, just to be clear (he brewered): the eyes of the world are on Catalunya, excluding the BBC’s?
Mmmmm.
How no’?
So I’m a numpty and a sucker for Unionist propaganda? Oh well, fine. But I assure you my head is not in floaty Nat clouds of wishful thinking and neither does Unionist media propaganda penetrate my teflon coating. The quote came from the supposedly Nat leaning journal The National by the way.
It is a fact that since the traumatic election our National party has appeared to be treading water or worse has been stunned like the clichéd rabbit in headlights. The FM and her government are not the ‘tout’ SNP. It would be delightful if some of the ‘rank and file’ could offer a critique or what the French call a ‘tour d’horizon’ in this period of troublingly deafening silence. Assuming that is they have not all been ‘got at’ by party managers.
If the likes of Davidson are being born aloft by the media it might have something to do with the above. Nothing much else to report. The SNP at the moment is like a toothless sheep at a time when politics, from our standpoint, offers rich pasture.
Thank heaven for the stimulating news from Catalonia.
Most of front pages running with Nicola ‘climb down’ on Independence referendum. Hope it’s not true as not having a vote before 2021 could result in not having a vote for a long, long time.
Gus1940 , yup and don’t forget the Pentland Firth, one of the strongest Tidal races in the Planet. One of my mates worked out over a decade ago if you started building a bridge to Orkney and had turbines under the spans you would generate enough electrickery to power Scotland. The Turbines could easily be raised up for maintenance etc.
o/t . again.
A strange beast this Labour in Scotland lot, Last nights debate in Holyrood regarding closures of the Tax Offices ,the same offices they said would close if we voted YES in 2014 ,
The debate reminded folk and highlighted the many faces of Labour , At Holyrood labour attack the SNP rather than the Tories , meanwhile the SNP work well with Labour in Wales,
Labour in Scotland castigate the SNP for being unable or in their view are unwilling to reverse Tory cuts , these cuts Their MPs when they had quite a few in westminster voted with the tories in order to pass the tory austerity programme.
A strange and confused party facing all ways at once .
With the probable election of Sarwar, this Comedy act will provide hours of fun , it will be totally over the top theater giving the BBC in Scotland new ammunition to fire at the SNP, a truly joyous occasion for all at Pacific Heights .or as its usually known Comedy Central .
Why on Earth would any true Independence seeking person see the SNP as anything other than a quietly watching and poised tiger = )
The National carried a great front page yesterday highlighting every one of the 111 powers that the Tories are planning to knock.
And Wee Ginger Dug contributed with: ‘Here’s why we’re going to win the next referendum.’
link to thenational.scot
………………………………………….
Plus a long letter from Brendan Dick, Director, BT Scotland. Just shows that they must be reading the newspaper!
‘Scotland is leading the UK with impressive broadband speeds.’
‘RECENT headlines suggesting Scotland’s “poor” digital infrastructure could threaten the economy, underestimate the country’s digital capabilities and miss the real issue (Call to future-proof digital Scotland, The National, August 30).
The new Queensferry Crossing is a magnificent achievement and is rightly praised – but the roll-out of fibre broadband across the whole of Scotland is an equally successful civil engineering project on a similar scale. It’s on time, on budget and, indeed, has delivered more coverage at higher speeds than originally planned, with work ongoing.
So why do we constantly sell ourselves short to the world, and potential inward investors, by claiming our infrastructure isn’t up to the job?
Independent analysis by Thinkbroadband shows that more than 90 per cent of Scottish households and business premises can now order broadband at speeds of 30Mbps and above. To put this in context, the UK’s independent Broadband Stakeholder Group has previously suggested the average household will require a maximum of 19Mbps by 2023.
New independent research has revealed that Scotland has the fastest average broadband speeds in the UK.
In a breakdown of results for the four UK nations, Scotland’s fixed broadband speeds were 36.8 per cent faster than the UK average, hitting a mean of 66.77Mbps when the UK average was 48.81Mbps. Scotland also led the field for the median (most commonly occurring) speeds, at a rate of 45.78Mbps compared with the UK’s 29.23Mbps.
So far, only around a third of premises have upgraded to the faster fibre-based speeds. Thinkbroadband estimates that if everyone in Scotland was to buy the fastest service now available to them over any network, the maximum mean download speed would rise to more than 150Mbps.
The Scottish economy would benefit most from greater exploitation of the internet capacities that are available right now. Thousands of small and medium-sized businesses, with average bandwidth needs, have access to Openreach’s fibre-based network at speeds of up to 80Mbps.
Meanwhile, any organisation with significant bandwidth demands can buy dedicated ultrafast services from BT and other services providers. We work with businesses to deliver what they need, where they need it most – not just in city centres.
But the story doesn’t end there. Openreach is now at the start of a new roll-out of next-generation ultrafast broadband infrastructure, using both fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) and its new, fast technology. The latter builds on the existing network so can be rolled out very quickly, without the need to dig up roads.
Openreach is currently deploying FTTP in the very rural communities of Skerray and Altnaharra in a trial looking at how such delivery can be made more efficient. And it is working to build FTTP connectivity for free into all new developments of 30 houses or more.
The bottom line is that Scotland can have whatever technology it wants from Shetland to Stranraer, but there is a cost. Detractors, who do not have to contribute to these costs, have said little about how they imagine such services will be paid for.
The geographic challenges – and associated costs – of laying fibre across Scotland are immense. Most people don’t live in easily wired apartment blocks.
At BT we’re always open to a respectful conversation about infrastructure. Unlike some of our detractors, we’re investing in the digital future for all of Scotland. But as a nation, we need to focus our efforts on making the most of the significant digital capabilities already in place right now, across all sectors of the economy.
Brendan Dick, Director, BT Scotland.’
link to thenational.scot
@ Old Pete One thing you need to learn Dont believe the Corporate Media pish & Dont buy they’re papers .
Thank heaven for the stimulating news from Catalonia.
Look people, there is NO guarantee that Catalonia will vote YES. Or at least that’s what the good folks at BBC r4 vote tory gimp network say.
They have a point.
Abulhaq says:
21 September, 2017 at 10:42 am
So I’m a numpty and a sucker for Unionist propaganda?
Also, Scotland voted NO, 2014. SNP Scots gov clearly respects that.
Yoon culture is also clearly delivering the UKOK coup de grace on Scotland but its been a many decades long campaign of ferocious BBC Scotland anti Scotland/Scotland indy attack propaganda.
So we’re clearly living through the BBC Scotland led media’s final stages of turning Scotland completely into a region of greater England?
They know they probably can’t ever get an FM Colonel Ruth or FM Anas, but its certainly not slowing them down.
This is how democracy works in their Scotland region. They’re living the tory dream, red and blue, where Scots elections dont mean anything.
And how many Scots voters simply didnt show up last snap GE?
Chris Deerin’s piece has a post script note at the end.
Author’s note: Shortly after this interview went to print, the SNP got in touch to say that Nicola Sturgeon’s comment, ‘the honest answer to that is: I don’t know’, was about the timescale of the next independence referendum and not whether there would be one. The misinterpretation was mine.
Just so the Yoonishly inclined know 🙂
The awful Graun lying hypocrites go vox pop in Spain, or maybe soon not Spain
link to archive.is
MARTA CASADO FELIU, 19
Studying to be an interpreter
Barcelona
Although it’s the first time I’ll be able to vote I have my doubts about doing so. The majority of Catalans want a referendum, but this one is illegal. Furthermore, although the secessionists have a majority in parliament they represent only 47.8% of the popular vote and they appear to be acting alone on behalf of less than half the population.
ROSA MARCúS, 53
Secondary school teacher Sitges
I will vote Yes because in an independent Catalonia we will have to take responsibility for what we do, including our mistakes, without always blaming Spain. We are an adult society. For a long time now Spain and Catalonia haven’t had a common project. It’s like a marriage where you only stay together because of the mortgage. Spain doesn’t invest in Catalonia, and a lot of the money wasted on high-speed trains that go from nowhere to nowhere, or on corruption, comes from here. I hope that we can all, whether Yes or No, get to vote, then we’ll see what happens.
I do not know if Spain is plagued by a BBC style tory creep show, but its probably not. Nowhere in the west is.
From William (Wallace) last article.
Come on all you gals and gals on here. Get your dancing shoes on and turn the music up full bung. Get going with birling that hoover, flicking that duster, slamming the lunch plates on to the table and repeat over and over again in unison
‘NOW IS THE TIME (Mrs May).’
Scott Brown – Now Is The Time
link to youtube.com
LIVE from Pravda Quay:
link to imgur.com
link to imgur.com
@gus1940 says: 21 September, 2017 at 9:56 am:
“Has anybody ever looked at a map of Scotland’s West Coast with its numerous sea lochs and calculated how many BILLIONS of tons of water enter and leave that lot twice a day.”
Yes Gus1940, in the early 1950s I was serving a 5 year apprenticeship at HM Dockyard Rosyth. The Dockyard then had its own college that taught to second year Uni standards. If an Apprentice opted to go to Uni, (paid for by the Admiralty), they entered the university course at the start of year three.
We Apprentices had 1 hours study every morning and two days college and two nights night school per week and part of our studies was debates on cutting edge science/engineering matters.
One such debate was what were the chances of a Moon Landing. It did happen on July 20, 1969, some five or six years later. Another such debate was on both tidal & sea current powered turbines and we are now seeing these being built in Scotland.
However, you have great gaps in your thinking. First of all sea currents are far more likely than tidal basin creation as they require far less civil engineering projects. You simply anchor the turbines to the sea bottom in the sea currents. However it is also feasible to operate tidal generation without the construction of a barrage across the mouth of a firth.
To get that in perspective let us consider Scotland in relation to the so called, “Gulf Stream”, that only came to be after what we now call, “Doggerland”, became flooded when the rocky ridge that held back the cold polar waters ruptured and formed the North Sea.
What then developed was a cold water current flowing round the northern area of Scotland before heading across the Atlantic and being warmed in tropical seas.
Obviously, when cold water is flowing out it will be replaced by warmer water flowing in. That warmer water is the Gulf Stream.
So Northern Scotland has both a cold water stream and a warmer water stream flowing 24/7/365 and that can have as many water driven turbines in it as you can fit without destroying the current flow.
Sea current is far more feasible than tidal barrage but in fact with a very simple set of tidal operated gates, that open and close by the flow of the tide itself, the tidal flow can be made to operate in whatever direction the tidal flow is travelling.
No doubt that a barrage system is much more efficient but is also a costlier system to install. BTW: By far the greatest flow of fresh water into the sea in Britain is by the River Spey.
So your question of has anyone looked at maps of Scotland with a view to the question of water power the answer is yes many have an from many years ago.
Gus 1940
Ive long though about tidal barrages, and having been caught in a small boat in the tidal race at Stromme Ferry if ever a spot called out for such a barrage this is it. a tidal barrage with a road on top plus small lock for the sea borne traffic there would be a God Send to that area whose vital road rout along Loch Carron is often closed due to landslides, turbines could easily be installed on such a barrage and building material is in no short supply.
If there is not a Scottish Independence referendum before the next Scottish parliament elections in 2021 then I doubt if we will have one for a long while after.
The SNP definitely performed very poorly in both elections this year. If they don’t start pushing for Independence once more I fear we will not achieve our goal. I felt very confident up until the recent elections, now I am not so sure.
“The SNP definitely performed very poorly in both elections this year…”
Except for the inconvenient fact that the SNP WON both those elections in Scotland.
Don’t worry yourself about IndyRef2. It’s coming. Nothing surer.
Old Pete, don’t worry, there will be a referendum before the next election.
If anyone tries to tell you any different, they are either the Scottish/UK unionist media, or they are a Yoon troll pretending to support Independence.
I felt very confident up until the recent elections, now I am not so sure.
But Old Pete, why did you feel very confident up to the recent elections then?
This is probably part of the what and why big mistakes happen, people like you get ideas in your head and that’s that. It all has to be a thing that happens.
3 years Scots vote NO to keep Scotland in and under the control of England and their 500 MP’s, 850+Lords.
Nothing poll wise has changed in 3 years Old Pete, despite Brexit.
SNP won that last snap GE. That’s all you need to know. Was it a ref2 mandate? maybe.
Does it mean ref2 is winnable?
Keep it real:D
Tom Hunter is no different to other successful people elevated beyond their intelligence
Donald Trump might head a list of those people
Care to add?
you missed one nana
lol
BREAKING: Scotland welcome to remain says Federation of Planets. @NicolSturgeon’s EU visit nets unexpected result.
link to t.co
@ Abulhaq
Yes you must be a numpty and a yoon if you dont follow the exact line as many of the idiots on this comment section.
You simply cannot want independence AND have a different opinion of the appearance/flavor of that independence, ok? If you do then you are a ‘yoon troll’.
Neither can you say anything negative (realistic) about the British establishments willingness to allow another independence referendum without some major issue forcing their hand. If you do then ‘yoon troll’
Nor may you disagree with the SNP on other issues outside of independence as that would mean you are ‘no true scotsman and then its ‘yoon troll’ time for you
Get it?
Dr Jim says:
21 September, 2017 at 11:48 am
Tom Hunter is no different to other successful people elevated beyond their intelligence
He made his fortune on the backs of slave wage UK. He’s one of many Brits who did so too. But slave wage UK keeps voting red tory too.
So what can you do?
Its fun being even handed, in the UKOK zone owned by the tories:D
Scottish Parliament TV.News and Media Centre.
FIRST MINISTER’S QUESTIONS.
12MD TODAY.
link to tinyurl.com
Its understandable when some people begin expressing doubts about another independence referendum.
But this is the aim of the unionists and their media.
which is to sow seeds of doubt and undermine peoples’ confidence in themselves and their country.
@schrodingers cat
Geez I don’t know what to say. The most important link too.
The Klingon council lol!
The behaviour of many non Catalan members in the Spanish Parliament was illuminating and I suppose there is a chance the Spanish Government might actually fall over its anti democratic and disgraceful behaviour.
Isn’t it amazing how little of this internationally hugely important issue is being shown on BBC. The rest of the world is watching and the central tenet of the United Nations Charter is being challenged by a foolish Spanish Government. This has massive importance to Scotland and to our march.
In the meantime to stiffen the sinews, reference our significant past and remind us that all of Europe is waiting for us here is a moving piece of music.
link to youtube.com
To those whinging and blubbing about SNP, toothless sheep, or just plain yoons here to gloat, there is such a thing as ‘strategy’.
SNP are in the media, getting on with the job of supporting the country and economy. Yeah, its boring, not flashy, but they are showing what they do best, whilst Maybot is touring the world to empty halls.
I call that letting others do the heavy lifting, for now. Polls are starting to shift, so why should SNP pop up, shouting about independence, and gift that to their opponents? The Opposition are DESPERATE to talk about independence, it’s all they know, and they are floundering right now, for subject matter.
Yes, I find it frustrating, and I’m trying to turn that into at least a bit of activity at the local Yes group.
C’mon folks, let’s get ready at least! If you aren’t able, get your social media skills sorted out NOW! Get on Twitter and FB. Your local Yes group has pages that need info and supporting.
I hope everyone has noted that red hot socialist Corbyn, who speaks Spanish, apparently, has been silent on Catalonia.
Old Pete
The ‘SNP definitely performed badly’ as in winning many more seats in the GE than the LabConLibs combined, and in the SGE where they won more seats than LabConLibs combined.
When the squishy slug, Mundell, turns up in a South American country to tell the audience that the elected Government of Scotland lost the election we can realise just how much the SG is in fact winning.
But this is the aim of the unionists and their media.
which is to sow seeds of doubt and undermine peoples’ confidence in themselves and their country
Its clearly just about keeping the status quo, in their UKOK zone. Its likely that SNP polls are not showing a winnable majority for YES, yet.
Its likely that the tory propaganda network, led and coordinated by the BBC know this too, extremely likely.
All the tory BBC gimp network can do is keep things as they are, maybe brainwashing some more proud Scot buts to be even more yoon and further away from independent Scotland
All the SNP can do is try to be good government, despite merciless BBC Scotland SNP bad savagery and watch to see what next catastrofuck our imperial masters in Westminster will cause, like Brexit.
Personally I do not know anyone in Scotland who has changed their minds since 2014.
Although I do have to listen to a lot of yoons explain how they all know a YES vote who’s changed back to the UKOK way, the best way.
Sure they do:D
A lot of good comments regarding scotland’s potential and available natural resources .
Unfortunately most if not every one hits the great westmonster wall of total indifference and inaction , at all costs scotland must never be seen as successful , all this despite the contribution scots have made to the modern world , has progress ground to a halt ?, have we all of a sudden all become so stupid we cant handle innovation and progress , and we are all meant to rely on westminster to call the shots for our own good.
it looks like a definite impediment to progress has been implemented by the union , and all unionist political parties are complicit in this deception .
That this is being done borders on the criminal , and this behavour just to save a useless union is disgusting .
Watching FMQ’s, it is very apparent the unionist agenda want more and more funding for many things, most under the “social” cloak.
Things they never have done themselves, nor would do if they were in charge.
All this is to deplete SG funds and thus weaken the SNP.
Underhand and devious, and these people call themselves Scots.
Westminster apologists, that is what they really are, scum.
@Famous15 says: 21 September, 2017 at 10:07 am:
“I was recently “forced” to buy new plumbing equipment and was gobsmacked to read how much VAT I had to pay.”
Great post, Famous15. However, I’ve been preaching, right here on Wings for a long time about the evils of Indirect Taxation, (on goods and services), and how it was deliberately introduced to replace the far fairer Direct Taxation, (upon wealth and income), by a Labour Government who knew full well that direct taxation transferred the main burden of taxation from the most rich to be paid by the most poor.
Needless to say there was no objections from the Tory or LibDem MPs at Westminster. They are, after all among the most wealthy people in the United Kingdom’s society and these MPs have, in their view, got their priorities correct.
Since that day the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest has indeed continued to widen but what the general public fails to grasp is that it was deliberately introduced to do so as its prime objective.
Fair taxation should always take into consideration the one golden rule – always levy tax upon only, “Disposable Income”.
That is defined as, “income remaining after deduction of taxes and other mandatory charges, available to be spent or saved as one wishes”
It should also, of course, follow Adam Smith’s canons of taxation:-
1.Economy – that a tax should be efficient to collect.
2.Equity – the impact should take account of people’s ability to pay.
3.Certainty – the tax should be applied in a fair and consistent manner.
4.Convenience – the tax should permit payment in the most appropriate manner.
So considering that succeeding UK governments, of all colours of the Westminster political spectrum, have actually reversed all these rules & canons, is it any wonder that the rich and getting richer and the poor are getting poorer?
Indirect taxation is thus inherently, and deliberately designed to achieve exactly what it is designed to do.
Note also that when Westminster decided to force tax raising powers upon the Holyrood Government they chose to force them to adopt only direct taxation upon only the people of Scotland who are thus about to be subjected to BOTH direct & indirect taxation.
In other words Westminster are forcing the Scots to pay extra taxes in order to offset the worst effects of Westminster’s deliberate taxation policies to force the poor to be poorer and the rich to be richer.
The stark truth is that a poor family will be in the situation that they need every penny of their income to simply survive, (in practice some families do not even have enough income to survive and the increased deaths statistics among the poor is evidence they cannot survive). Indeed the increases in personal debt are climbing steadily while the richest 10% have more than doubled their personal wealth.
Sadly it is all by the deliberate design of the Westminster Unionist governments. These people, and those who vote them to power are killing people.
link to caltonjock.com
Great post Robert (12.45pm)
Just started to look at the Catalonia hashtag on twitter.
link to twitter.com
Some really interesting tweets and a lot of support. I’m really looking forward to the next week or so.
Les Wilson
There needs to be more emphasis on identity in the Yes campaign.
You make the point “and these people call themselves Scots.”
It needs to be said and shouted loud and clear that “these people” are to be identified as English – because that is in fact what being British and Unionist is all about.
“These people” are English, by choice. It is the identity that they have adopted and cling to.
So let us not be shy in pointing this out.
There is nothing wrong with having an identity in this debate, whether it be Scottish or English.
But each participant, each voter, each individual citizen of Scotland has an identity.
Scottish/Scots – is to desire an Independent Scotland.
English – is to reject Independence for Scotland and to desire government from England.
Pretty embarrassing for the Tory secretary of state Mundell to be running around the world begging other countries for support like a sweetie wife complaining and gossiping about how he wants handers for his clique to prevent Scotland seeking self determination
If he were employed by a private company to promote business abroad he’d have been sacked and left at the airport to make his own way back
And his pay docked
Oooh, and this, Alan Cochrane is still being seen wandering the lobbies of Holyrood looking for people to talk to and despite there being many is unsuccessful
So it is true everything he writes is made up in his very own head
Scottish/Scots – is to desire an Independent Scotland.
English – is to reject Independence for Scotland and to desire government from England.
England is the UK. Would you want to lose near on half of your country, if you were English?
There is so much to lose, for England.
And there is so much to gain, for Scotland.
Scotland’s not just a part of the UK, its part of the English national psyche.
To lose Scotland would make England become something most if not all English people find totally unacceptable, just England.
FMQs – the FM comments today on the situation in Catalonia:
link to youtube.com
Robert Peffers @ 12.45
VAT was introduced in the UK in 1973 when the UK joined the EU or European Common Market as it then was. This tax, set initially at 10% then reduced to 8%, replaced the existing tax, Purchase tax which was introduced in 1940.
Purchase tax when first introduced was set at 33.3%. By 1973 it was 25% but could be higher on so called ‘luxury’ goods. So a significant reduction in indirect taxation when the Tories took us into Europe.
The VAT rate gradually increased to 17.5% by 1991-2 and remained there until 2010 when it was increased to 20%.
There is a minimum VAT rate set throughout Europe but countries can increase it above that level to suit their circumstances. Some European countries have a higher rate than the UK. There is also variation in the threshold at which businesses have to levy VAT.
link to archive.is
Some more detail above
link to independent.co.uk
Check the comments. SO much sheer malice dripping contempt from our chums in the south, it could all have been cut n pasted by Rock and his resident fart catcher, Colin A:D
does that mean we will free to leave the union.Bleed us dry like Jamica
What the great and noble Independent newspaper decided to leave out of their SNP bad thing up there. Professional liars gotta lie:D
*”Author’s note: Shortly after this interview went to print, the SNP got in touch to say that Nicola Sturgeon’s comment, ‘the honest answer to that is: I don’t know’, was about the timescale of the next independence referendum and not whether there would be one. The misinterpretation was mine.”
Read on…
BBC Scotland TV lunchtime news trying to put kilt on Grenfell disaster and making a drama out of nothing other than to alarm people unnecessarily.
No coverage of First Minister’s comments at PMQs on Cataluyna and UN right to self determination.
Anna Burnside on Radio Scotland having a go at The National’s coverage of Calatan issue but doesn’t mention BBC TV news blackout
it just like Jamaica in the 40’s strip it of all its resources then set it free to fend for itself so maybe in 2017 Scotland will be free. but hang on was Rooofie going aobut about a new oil find that long ago that would see oil for another 35 years while at the same time saying no more referendums for at least 35 years.
So today we have Dippy David, abufukhat and stinky pete on dribbling pish duty.
If that is the quality of unionist troll available, their precious union is in deep shit.
They make Colin and sensible dave look semi competent ass hats…!!
Support for SNP ….UP !!
Support for Indy….UP !!
Support for the union…..DOWN
Support for the tories….DOWN
Support for Labour……..DOWN
Support for lib dems……DOWN.
There is a trend there….and the 3 amigos i named cannot see it…laughable.
Meanwhile in “north britain” British nationalists are running scared of themselves nevermind anyone else:
link to thenational.scot
If you haven’t already done so, please sign the petition to see if we can get the turkeys to vote for Xmas: link to petition.parliament.uk
Unsuspecting lurkers,
Please try and avoid clicking on the direct BUM link in the comment at 1:37pm. Heedtracker wants you to help them pull in advertising revenue so they can create a platform for Unionist bile, lies and deception. For them and their friends to keep crapping all over Scotland and her people.
Don’t go to britnat newspaper websites. Boycott all britnat media.
The FM is being cleverly coy, methinks.
Check out how British nationalists are desperate to deny any possibility of indyref2, yet at the same time are desperate for the FM to set a date for indyref2.
Meanwhile the so-called united kingdom is a brexit laughing stock.
Technical difficulties…
link to imgur.com
If I’m right about the connection between rise again in support for Indy and reduced emphasis by the SNP on Indy Ref 2, then I’d say the Statesman and Deering were played by Sturgeon, who knows what the media is like.
2 days left in sunny Rhodes, (Scotland with the sunshine, apparently) and everyone i speak to thinks Scotland should be independent and stay in the EU.
By everyone i mean greeks.
Locals concerned about drop in numbers from uk, but family run hotel i am in say they will, if requires, promote the hotel to EU guests, and cut ties with Thomsons.
However, as they have many repeat uk customers, they will happily book direct with them so as not to disappoint them.
Uk leaves the EU, the world keeps turning….
link to newsnet.scot
@Dave McEwan: “Make a good leaflet in my “half Wit Factor” series”
You’re welcome to use it of course, never any copyright for pro-Indy. The Central Bank one would need shortening, changing or even replacing with something else.
Half of Scotland are absolutely totally unaware of the manipulation, deception ,distortion , that BBC operating from Pacific Heights practice every day, twenty four seven , without any comment or criticism from the rest of the media, this virtuous circle, unbelievably impervious to any restraint in its mission to protect and defend the Union , because the inhabitants of this circle protect each other .
On the other hand the rest have seen through the propaganda deception and will never return to the dark side, the trick is getting the brainwashed to step over the line into the light, this is the step the BBC are determined at all costs and by all means to prevent, those who are protecting the Union know once people waken up there is no return, it’s a one way street, and they know it .
A wee word here and there can cause doubt in the minds of people who voted no in 2014 , even they must realise something isn’t right, things just don’t add up, whatever the BBC tell them .
Italian cruise ships in Barcelona harbour to house extra police from Spain.
link to catalannews.com
Spanish Armada of cruise liners to house “police” now being sent to Barcelona to help crush the revolt.
Rafa Nadal says Spain “Better Together”, and is requested to use English language for the statement. That must be worth a Wimbledon title?
Off Topic.
Scottish Parliament TV. News and Media Centre.
FIRST MINISTER’S QUESTIONS. 21/09/2017
Now Archived and available to view:
link to tinyurl.com
lol
replying to sarwars claim to defeat the snp
Deluded is what deluded does. pic.twitter.com/K3Oo2d3P7A
Stoker says:
“”21 September, 2017 at 2:31 pm
Unsuspecting lurkers,
Please try and avoid clicking on the direct BUM link in the comment at 1:37pm. “”
……
Anyone who knows this site knows that the links to the Independent don’t archive hence the full link in heedtracker’s post at 1.37pm.
ot
ouch
explosion at hunterston nuclear reactor, emergency services rush to site
🙁
Hunterston incident to do with elctrical generation transfer.
Not a nuclear incident – phew !!!
sorry DR is best I could do.
link to dailyrecord.co.uk
Personally I don’t see any harm in Indy supporters getting on at the SNP, “worrying” about whether or not Indy Ref 2 will happen. Seems to me if people didn’t do it off their own bat the SNP would have to get undercovers to do the job.
Need to look at the unionist attack to see how to counter it. First it’s the “cult” attack, “zealot”, “sheeple”, which gets some traction amongst the minds of the non-political. Dissent will not be tolerated, you will be assimilated. But there are plenty prepared to have a go at the SNP, job done, unionist line of attack nullified.
Second is the problem back in 2012 and after, where the medai totally associated Indy with the SNP, trying to drive a wedge between those who supported the SNP and those who didn’t. A lot of effort was made to counter that one, and it was at least partly successful, but more needs to be done. Indy needs to be seen as not a single party issue to win the support of others, including those who vote for Labour, LibDems and even Tories.
It’s kind of a “Devil’s Advocate” approach. See also what I posted at 3.29, I’m sure the SNP hierarchy is well aware of all this, hence even, perhaps, the likes of MacAskill who seems to me to be historically totally solid SNP and Indy.
geeo @ 15:39:
Thanks for that personal insight. Interesting, isn’t it? Not at all the picture we get from the likes of that well-known =cough= “internationalist” Cat Boyd, who apparently knows better about the Greeks’ best interests than they themselves do. =laugh=
I’m not that far from Hunterston, didn’t hear a thing, no sirens, no flashing blue lights, flesh still on bones, hair intact. Maybe I’ve passed on and in some sort of limboland, thinking I’m still alive?
Mmmm, Hallowe’en coming up, most get my costume ready.
As well as covering the Catalan situation, no doubt BBC Reporting Scotland will be parking its journalists on Anas Sarwar’s lawn just as they went for Michelle Thompson.
Herald reports whether he made “any money from this company at all”, he replied: “I don’t take remuneration from the company.”
However, according to UWS records filed at Companies House, Mr Sarwar was entitled to £333,000 of dividend income between 2003 and 2015, based on his shareholdings.
His wife Furheen was entitled to a further £196,000 based on her shareholdings.
In total, the couple were entitled to almost £530,000 up to December 2015, although the figure could now be closer to £600,000 as the 2016 accounts have not yet been filed.
The company records also appear to contradict Mr Sarwar’s repeated assertion that he plays no part in the running of UWS, despite being one of the largest shareholders.
In a statement earlier this month, he said: “I am a minority shareholder [in UWS], not a director, and play no active part in the running of the company – and never have.”
He also told Radio Scotland this week: “I have no role in the company… I have no say in how the company operates.”
However in December 2010, Mr Sarwar signed a company resolution creating a new class of share which ultimately benefited his wife and his sister-in-law.
And very appropriate that Daniel Johnson was sitting next to Anas at PMQs as he is also a millionaire who inherited Daddy’s firm.
t
yesindyref2 says:
Mmmm, Hallowe’en coming up, most get my costume ready.
cool, check this evening to see if you glow in the dark 🙂
@ Giving Goose
“These people” are “wannabe /would be” English, by choice.
Fixed that for you
Their blinded choice.
“Real” English would never accept them as “one of us”.
They’ll always be “Jocks”
that’s what i don’t get with Unionists
Why settle for 2nd class English when you could be 1st class Scots or Irish?
‘Unionist’ = ‘British Nationalist’.
Another Union Dividend @ 17:14,
If I understand Prof. Richard Murphy rightly, dividend income is paid to the UK Treasury, not to the SG, so it’s a great way for high earners to dodge Scottish income tax. Both in amount and in recipient. Just another part of the Great Scottish Tax Trap ((tm) Smith Commission).
Hmmm, I wonder if Sarwar Jr. has a Scottish income tax code? Though I suppose in his case it might not actually matter anyway…
@cat
Batteries not included.
Oh, no need!
Brutal. Day before Mrs May’s Florence speech, Mr Barnier sets out EU position in Rome today. Clear, calm, damning.
Speech by Michel Barnier in front of the Committees of Foreign Affairs and the Committees of European Affairs of the Italian Parliament
link to europa.eu
eat, drink and be merry dads, tomorrow you might be radioactive 🙂
I for one am very afraid, No terribly afraid that Anas Sarwar will be elected as Labour leader because he is such a fearsome debater of the facts and the truth
Is that right folks do you think that’ll help, did I express enough fear there
I do hope so!
Re: May, Johnson, Hammond, Davis trip to Florence tomorrow.
Pinocchio, the wooden boy whose nose grows when he lies, came from Florence.
Not much room on the plane coming back.
schrodingers cat @ 18:30,
We are all very slightly radioactive, in fact.
Particularly if one has camped out in Norway, taking water from mountain streams at the very time the Chernobyl cloud rained overhead, as yours truly and the future mrs happened to do. (Particularly bad timing, that.)
Or if you ever spent a fair amount of time in Aberdeen. =laugh= (Did that too.)
Dr Jim , it’s that “TOP SECRET’ file that scares me – what could it contain.
OT But can somebody tell me who owns high rise buildings in Glasgow and why? And if they are clad in a fire hazard should the owners not be dealing with it asap? And why does STV news think it is the responsibility of the SNP who have just arrived in the City Chambers ? Perhaps they could question the previous incumbents or is that too tricky for them?
@ shodringers cat . Am armed n dangerous , hiv you goat any keps lol.
link to facebook.com
Reuters …. “Prime Minister Theresa May will say on Friday Britain is willing to pay 20 billion euros (17.70 billion pounds) to the European Union during a post-Brexit transition period, but only if it has access to the bloc’s single market “
THAT is not a serious offer. If true, then that is setting things up to crash out and blame EU for being unreasonable.
To have full access to the single market, the UK would have to pay a similar amount to what it does at the moment. Like Norway does.
Currently that UK figure is about £17B per annum. The rebate takes it to £13B and the EU spends £4B in the UK.
So, May’s proposed £17.7B is business as usual for a two year transition.
BUT the implication is that this payment is a replacement for the divorce settlement, NOT in addition to it. Personally that sounds like an absolutely shite offer which is bound to be rejected. And that may be the intention!
@Dan Huil “ Davis trip to Florence tomorrow.”
Ah, so he is Dougal. All aboard the Magic Roundabout!
Nana @ 18:27,
Many thanks for that timely update. It seems that May is going to plead for an extension and Barnier is expecting it.
But something concrete still has to be agreed 6 months ahead of 29.March.2019, validated by all of the EU27 thereafter, and signed off by both sides by the due date.
Then the UK is on the outside looking in, whatever temporary deal it can squeeze for another two years.
By then, if we here in Scotland are wise, we should be free of that misery and at least starting to negotiate the terms of remaining in our own right.
This is our last chance to do the right thing at a never-to-be-repeated historical crossroads. Lose it and we’re screwed. The exact state of the polls at the time doesn’t matter a damn. If we don’t take this chance and stretch for independence, we’ll backslide and it will slip through our fingers. Like 2014 but without even a fight.
And for the rest of our lives curse ourselves as cowardly fools.
Galamcennalath, caught a bit of Sky news earlier and the disgraced Greedy Rifkind was being interviewed and telling the viewers that if the EU did not accept it would prove that it was trying to punish the UK and other drivel.
Westminster Fantasy spoil will run out as soon as Scotland
has the 2nd referendum.
Abulhaq,
“The quote came from the supposedly Nat leaning journal The National by the way.”
Rock (28th June – “Slight reprise”):
“Admit it or not, the independence cause has suffered a major setback.
The UK will have a “snap” Brexit while we are caught napping with no legislation in place for an independence referendum.”
A few links for a quiet evening
link to politico.eu
link to politics.co.uk
link to alynsmith.eu
link to irishtimes.com
Tweet from Michael Crick channel 4
I’m told negotiator EU Michel Barnier is likely to respond within 15 minutes of Theresa May making her big EU speech in Florence tomorrow
@Robert J
You are welcome.
A few more links
Scottish Government propose 38 amendments to Brexit bill
link to archive.is
President of Government of Catalonia said that referendum cannot be cancelled
link to frontnews.eu
link to evolvepolitics.com
British soldiers in court charged with terrorism offences
link to ft.com
Watching ” misreporting Scotchland” this evening, previously I was under the
impression that the truly tragic Grendel tower was located in the London area? However, I must have been mistaken as possibly it mysteriously appears to be in the vacinity of Pacific Quay Glasgow. Also noted the ” party political broadcast ” on behalf of Sarwar and ” Scottish Labour”.
Nothing changes at the ” Pacific propaganda channel”.
No quiet evening here Nana, we have our five month old grandson staying!
galamcennalath says:
21 September, 2017 at 7:02 pm
“Reuters …. “Prime Minister Theresa May will say on Friday Britain is willing to pay 20 billion euros (17.70 billion pounds) to the European Union during a post-Brexit transition period, but only if it has access to the bloc’s single mark….. Personally that sounds like an absolutely shite offer which is bound to be rejected. And that may be the intention!”
Never trust a politician making their opening gambit known to their pet domestic audience, rather than the people they’re meant to be negotiating with. Not only is it rude, but you’re making a point about it being rude.
Obviously the European vernacular “there will be no cherry picking” doesn’t translate very well into the Westminster dialect of Londonese.
Another Groundhog Day again tomorrow… All the Unionist rags will just have to change the date on what’s been written before. Plus ça change, and another month squandered.
Some things never change, eh?
‘Oil will run out by…’ is nearly as ridiculous as people standing on street corners ranting that ‘the world will end on…’ and only slightly more predictable…. but apparently not by any of the wallopers happily predicting doom for the last forty years, pretty much since the first oil flowed from North Sea wells.
Of course oil will run out. Stands to reason since it’s not replenished so like any finite resource there’s an end to it somewhere. But any politician (or politically motivated expert; take a bow, Sir Ian Wood) issuing proclamations of ‘it’s going to end by ‘insert date here’ is basically pissing in the wind, and there’s very little in this world funnier than the last one you’ve got there, Rev, because hearing something from Alastair Darling must be really high on the list of ‘Check he’s not talking bollocks.’
And it’s truly hilarious, the way they all batter on about the North Sea, careful on all occasions to mention nothing about deposits now being explored west of Shetland, and proven reserves all along the west coast of Scotland. So they talk about the North Sea in isolation, because it’s a mature field and is, laughter at doom and gloom not withstanding, getting towards the end of it’s economic production life (at some unspecified point; I’m not getting into that stupid prediction lark! I’m not a politician making a point, after all.) But they don’t mention all the other fields, any time, ever, because that fucks their prophet of doom predictions completely.
‘Yeah, the North Sea’s nearly done, but hey, we’ve got all these other fields no one’s so much as touched yet.’
That’d really spoil their narrative.
Now, I realise there’s a environmental aspect to west coast oil fields that is rather more crucial than the other less enclosed by land fields. The thought of supertankers running through the Minch and other even narrower waters is unpleasant to say the least. If there’s to be west coast oil… there needs to be a lot of pipes laid to allow distribution without big ships getting close to environmentally delicate waters.
@Tatu
How wonderful, enjoy every second
as things stand we get dam all for the oil. It would be as well to run out
If Scotland’s Offshore Oil and Gas reserves only have 10 Years left it is little wonder then that The EU Withdrawal Bill will give Westminster power over fracking in the UK.
link to archive.is
“The environmental powers which would be impacted by the bill, including air and water quality, flooding and recycling, ONSHORE HYDROCARBONS licensing – including FRACKING.
(My CAPS).
Grab Power to allow them and their mates to milk the national resource to line their own pockets.
Legalised Robbery and Ecological Vandalism of the indigenous peoples.
Plain and Simple.
Very Victorian Empire, Rees Mogg will be so pwoud.
For clarity I know the 10 Years is Bullsh*t
My comment above maybe doesn’t make that clear.
🙂
And another thing, in the 1970’s a hole was drilled in central Scotland supposedly to train young drillers, When the rig left the hole was capped by a genuine well head valve costing thousands of pounds so they were very close to something worth saving. I worked in the valve industry and Knew what I was looking at,
At the forthcoming SNP Conference I fear Nicola will delay the date of the new Independence referendum. To delay it past 2019 would miss an opportunity to fight for our Independence while the UK government is embroiled in Brexit mess.
I have been voting SNP for over 40 years we have an opportunity now with support for Independence back apparently to 46%,the more pressure we can put on the vile Tory government the better.
If May says “now is not the time” then to hell with her. The Scottish Parliament was democratically elected by the Scottish people, it’s time it stood up to the UK government, we can call in the UN if need be.
Nicola needs to act quickly as 2021 is not that far away and it’s anybodies guess if the pro Independence parties will once again be the majority.
We must strike now, otherwise I fear we might not have another chance, well at least in my life time.
Old pete still dribbling pish…Nicola will announce the referendum date when the time is right, but rest assured, it will be when she has always said.
After the deal is known and BEFORE the 29th March 2019.
Your desperation is palpable old stinky pete…40 years SNP my arse.
Absolutely scandalous reporting by STV tonight to create an unfair at best ill informed Grenfell related grievance against the SNP administration at Glasgow CC.
What was missing from the report was causation and liability.
I’ll sort that for them now shall I – simple relates to dates &
related administrations – which are important for facts etc.
LABOUR, LABOUR, LABOUR, LABOUR, LABOUR OH AND LABOUR from my grannies time right until May 2017.
STV you neglected to mention that name once in your report.
So ill informed and scaremongering its beyond contempt.
Establishment puppets for all to see.
Scandalous – no better than BBC.
Rock still peddling his fantasy “snap brexit” pish i see….!
The fact such a thing is impossible does not register, and the fact he is peddling it to his other trolling chum says it all.
Desperate unionist tits.
Herald now reporting that despite earlier denials Sarwar has been receiving dividends of £20k a year from family firm. Only enough to pay for the kids school fees so that’s OK to lie about.
Siobhan Tolland interviews Prof. Richard Murphy about Scotland’s future. Economist, academic, accountant, journalist and tax justice activist
watch again here
link to livestream.com
Nana , you doing overtime??
gordoz
STV can be as biased and twisted as BBC Scotland.
The two organisations have to keep their London Masters happy so they tow the establishment line like every good Yoon does.
Stop watching both of them for the sake of your own health
Spot on Stoker
Evening Dorothy. Looks like it, lol
Old Pete
Nicola’s hand’s are tied. There is nothing she can do at the moment until Brexit has been played out.
But I’m with you. I think she should go for it in Sept 2019.
We should have a clearer picture by then of what Brexit actually meant.
So BBC TV covers Cataluyna but then shows bias by quoting Nadal who opposes Indy but not Barcelona fc who spoke out for democracy.
geeo
Your criticism of Old Pete is pathetic.
I too have been supporting the SNP and independence for over 40 years, and as I have done over these 40 years criticised the SNP leadership when I believed it to be justified which is my right. Its attitudes like yours which are dangerous to the independence cause by slavishly agreeing with everything the leadership says and does. Serious mistakes were made in the `14 referendum,
currency being the worst, and little heed was taken of the memberships views on the subject.
Since `14 we have had broken vows and been dragged out of Europe, that should have been more than enough for a second indy vote but it hasn’t happened. What`s it going to take, tanks in George Sqr ?
What is it with unionists and their “40 years voting SNP”?
Oh dear me.
Pete is a yoon ya fud.
link to thenational.scot
Why on earth would future FM Anas, a multi millionaire dentist from Glesga, ban UKOK hacks from, etc:D
Who wants to be a millionaire red tory? Anas don’t, want you to know.
link to youtube.com
Having been a supporter and voter for the SNP for over 40 years,I ‘rejoined the SNP and both my daughter’s joined as well the day after the referendum.
Fruitcakes like you geeo are detrimental towards our fight for Scottish Independence and only confirm the outrageous claims against the pro Scottish Independence movement made by the worst of the Unionist supporters.
Oh walocaus Pete. Don’t come on here lecturing people who are calling you out on your bogus concerns over Scotref, if indeed ye are what ye say then you should know exactly what the score is. People have addressed your concerns over and over on this thread and you have ignored everything they have said and gone back to rinse and repeat fearty mcfearty act repeatedly.
geeo as a long term commenter and contributor on Wings has more than enough savvy and input on here across the board than you have ever had, and he’s no fruitcake and the very fact that you are also using that old trope of ‘it’s people like you give indy a bad name’ just confirms the dodgy credentials that geeo is calling you out on are in fact accurate.
Either wise up and listen to what others have pointed out and go do some actual research yourself regarding the reality we find ourselves in and stop repeating the same old ‘I fear’ this and ‘I fear’ that nonsense.
We will have Scotref when we know the actual deal regarding Brexit, then it will be put to the people. It’s not rocket science and nothing, absolutely nothing has changed in this regard. Nicola’s not going to give people like you a different answer to your moaning question and fearty mcfearty act, it’s simple, straightforward and I’ll repeat it again we will have our Scotref when we know the outcome of the Brexit deal. Then and only then will the question be put to the nation again.
Now show some positivity and less of the fearty and we’re doomed nonsense.
Robert J. Sutherland says:
21 September, 2017 at 6:49 pm
schrodingers cat @ 18:30,
We are all very slightly radioactive, in fact.
Particularly if one has camped out in Norway, taking water from mountain streams at the very time the Chernobyl cloud rained overhead, as yours truly and the future mrs happened to do. (Particularly bad timing, that.)
Or if you ever spent a fair amount of time in Aberdeen. =laugh= (Did that too.)
————————–
interesting stat robert, because granite is slightly radioactive, North East Ethnical PersonS, born and bred, in the event of a nuclear holocaust, will live 7 secs longer than everyone else.long enough for them so say, “A telt ye so” and ” ye ken noo”
not a lot of folk ken that 🙂
McDuff at 10.41
There were no significant mistakes made in the 2014 referendum and those who have swallowed this have swallowed unionist after the event spin.
In the face of massive and almost total media assault we came from 28% support to within an inch of winning independence.
There were four options offered for currency in the white paper, all of them entirely viable. The one we chose as our preference would have been accepted immediately had we won and the B of E and all informed sources have already conceded this.
But any option on currency we had chosen, no matter how sensible and practical, would have been furiously and completely dishonestly attacked and it gets very tiresome pointing this out time and time again.
If we made a mistake in choosing the option that made most sense for stability in the short term and the one that would have been best for the rest of the UK as well it was actually in making a choice at all. We should have just said there is a selection of options on currency and we will decide on it when we have to – thus not giving our enemy a target.
I know of no country going for independence that even broke stride over currency and the whole hooha about this is a unionist device. Just as a matter of interest in a very extensive and huge canvas of this area we were never once asked about currency.
Akl it actually did was stop our momentum at a point when instead of answering silly questions about currency we should have been painting a picture of the new country we were about to inherit and build.
K1 says:
21 September, 2017 at 11:27 pm
Oh walocaus Pete.
Its a good point, btl wise. Rock, his fart catcher Colin A, dilettante prick spotter Lochside etc, are good examples of authentic frauds/fraudulent authentic.
Rock’s creepiest of all of them though, even smearing Andy Murray up this btl line. The Murray Clan have done more for Scotland and Scottish prestige world wide, than any Scottish athletes ever have. And then his personal fart catcher Colin A, pops up behind Rock, for luck:D
Brillo just came out with ‘that numptie’ – unspecified.
Have you been tweet-sparring with him again Rev.?
@ starlaw says at 8:47 pm …. ”And another thing, in the 1970’s a hole was drilled in central Scotland supposedly to train young drillers. When the rig left the hole was capped by a genuine well head valve costing thousands of pounds so they were very close to something worth saving. I worked in the valve industry and knew what I was looking at.”
VERY interesting INDEED Starlaw. Thanks a million for that. Could you elaborate on that info? For example where in Central Scotland? And what do you reckon was going on? What do you think was worth saving?
It’s folks like you that we need to listen to. Dearly need to come onto this site and help us out.
Robert Graham @ 3.53
You are dead right there. During the run up to the last referendum I was watching the propaganda channel and noticed a blatant lie about something or other to do with the referendum, hey that’s not right I thought and then I really began to notice that they were pouring out endless amounts of pish / lies regarding the referendum.
Those shysters in that glass tower should be run out of town.
It was about the same time that I discovered wings and I have been reading these pages ever since.
As for the trolls, I don’t read their rubbish.
@Chick McG –
I thought A.N. had retired!?
Haven’t seen him for ages, so when I clap eyes on him next I’ll be able to tell what renovations he’s had done on his coupon in the past 6 months or so.
Abody thinks he’s obsessed with his hairs, but – believe you me! – when you don’t see these characters for a while, you notice whatever nipping and tucking has taken place! And there’s a lot of it going on!
Have been reading this site from well before the referendum, seems if you disagree then you must be bad and a Unionist troll.
With attitudes and comments like those from K1 and geeo attacking long term Independence supporters like myself and all in my family then how likely are we to convince No voters to vote Yes?
@ heedtracker says at 11:43 pm …. ”Its a good point, btl wise. Rock, his fart catcher Colin A, dilettante prick spotter Lochside etc, are good examples of authentic frauds/fraudulent authentic.”
Heedtracker I normally LOVE your posts but could you cut out the ‘Mr’ Indyref2 promotion of ‘farts’ comments on here and the additional vile language? You and I (we overall) most definitely don’t need to go there to achieve our objective. Just saying and hope you don’t take offence at my comments. Fa*rts and pr*ck comments I would reckon are most off-putting for anyone visiting this site, in particular youngsters like some of my young relatives (14 years old) who are considering a future in politics. To reiterate once again I don’t want to hurt your feelings Heedtracker, others are posting and using even more vile language on here but I’ve just zoomed into yours to make a point.
schrodingers cat @ 23:35,
Aye min, fairly ‘at.
(Thanks, that was a good one! =big =laugh=)
OK Petra. Normally I’m not a fan of PC btl but I give way to you because you’re such a honourable friend and I don’t like to offend my friends:D
@ Old Pete says at 12:34 am … ”Have been reading this site from well before the referendum, seems if you disagree then you must be bad and a Unionist troll. With attitudes and comments like those from K1 and geeo attacking long term Independence supporters like myself and all in my family then how likely are we to convince No voters to vote Yes?”
Spot on Old Pete. Don’t give up on here. Keep on posting. Some of us are listening to you. Listening to what you are saying. In fact we need to listen to people like you if we want to get our Independence. Don’t for one minute be put off of posting on this site Pete. Keep on trucking pal.
@ heedtracker says at 12:46 am … ”OK Petra. Normally I’m not a fan of PC btl but I give way to you because you’re such a honourable friend and I don’t like to offend my friends:D”
You’re a darling Heedtracker and once again many thanks from me and a great big hug and even a great big kiss for not taking offence by my comments X X X Three kisses!
Let the ‘others’ expose themselves on here for what they are.
Old Pete @12.34 am
I couldn’t agree more. I first came to this site in the run-up to IndyRef1. Stuart does an amazing job on here but some of the BTL comments continue to disturb me.
I lurk daily but have only ventured to comment twice. Rather than being made to feel welcome, I felt my comments were immediately jumped on and criticised. Though not a member of the SNP, I have voted for them in the cause of independence as long as I can remember (and I’m an old broad!). I will continue to do so and i will continue to try and convert others to the idea.
This will likely be my last comment though I will continue to read and financially support Wings and other independence blogs. I’m just an ordinary wumman trying to do my best and I can do without the grief.
In addition to what Dave McEwan Hill says about the Indy Ref 1 strategy, Salmond was interviewed after the Ref and said they did consider changing strategy in August, he didn’t specify what I think, but I’m presuming currency. They (perhaps he and Blair Jenkins) decided it was risky at that stage, and it was going OK – to plan I think.
But for instance to change the currency option just one month before the Ref, would indeed ahve been risky, and looked like last minute panicking. Plus people might presume it wasn’t thought out and wasn;t planned – I daresay the MSM would have encouraged that view. It could have ended up with YES below 40%, whereas with 45% it was so close, the dream has never died.
You make decisions, and often you don’t know afterwards if it was the right one. Not rocking the boat in that case is the safe option, and probably was the best.
@stuckdoonhame
If you do read regularly you’ll know that the ratpack has attacked me too, and even if I don’t “offend”, still get subject even to oblique unnamed cowardly ratpackattacks.
I don’t give a shit for myself, though it is offputting for new posters, lurkers wanting to voice an opinion, but afraid to do so for fear of the ratpack. For me, I’m not in this for popularity, I’m in it for Indy.
So please, ignore the ratpackattacks, and post again!
K1 @ 11.27 pm Well said.
Indeed we will have our Referendum once it is clear what is happening with Brexit.
Dave McEwan Hill @ 23:37,
Your point that the currency option promoted for indyref1, as advised by the panel of experts, would have been gratefully accepted in the event of an indy win is a fair one (since it would have been mutually advantageous). Your further point that whichever option was chosen would have been equally dishonestly traduced is also undeniable.
Personally though, during the latter stages of the campaign, I felt that the sterling union option provided an unnecessary extra political trap for BT to exploit, as they so ruthlessly did by claiming they would unilaterally reject it. (But by then it was politically impossible to change tack anyway without further damage. =sigh=)
An independent currency offer also neutralises the “must accept the euro” ploy.
I’m not an advocate for high-detail specifics of any kind going into indyref2, on the contrary, since they provide exactly the kind of unhelpful distractions that you mention, but nevertheless I’m inclined to want at least a basic monetary “route map” for the first years of an iScotland, simply because most people are unsettled by the prospect of change, and are especially nervous of financial instability, so on this crucial matter above all do require a fair degree of reassurance.
That’s why I believe that in general we should approach indyref2 with a “maximal continuity” offer, in contrast to Brexitannia’s “maximal turbulence” alternative.
After a win (and only after a win!), there will be plenty of opportunity for due progress where it is evidently called-for and where there is a genuine (and now unfettered) mandate to deliver it.
I still want a new Scottish currency. Don’t really care what it is called but I can be persuaded in debate.
Have to agree our own currency would be an excellent idea.
Our own currency would be an excellent if not an essential requirement come the new referendum.
@ stuckdoonhame says at 1:10 am … ”Old Pete @12.34 am .. I couldn’t agree more. I first came to this site in the run-up to IndyRef1. Stuart does an amazing job on here but some of the BTL comments continue to disturb me. I lurk daily but have only ventured to comment twice. Rather than being made to feel welcome, I felt my comments were immediately jumped on and criticised. Though not a member of the SNP, I have voted for them in the cause of independence as long as I can remember (and I’m an old broad!). I will continue to do so and i will continue to try and convert others to the idea. This will likely be my last comment though I will continue to read and financially support Wings and other independence blogs. I’m just an ordinary wumman trying to do my best and I can do without the grief.”
Maybe you are one of MANY men, women and teenagers who follow this site and are not made to feel welcome stuckdoonhame? Well I don’t know what to say other than I’m PROFOUNDLY sorry. So sorry to know that people like you won’t even venture on here. Hellish to say the least. One wonders how many other people out there feel as you do? Hundreds? Thousands?
You’ve raised a point that many people on this site should listen too. TAKE NOTE OF. There is a ‘clique’ on here, imo, but don’t let them put you off. I don’t because I’m not a member of the ‘clique’. Far from it.
I was ‘jumped on’ when I came on here at first, but as far as I’m concerned these people can go to hell. Oh and eh, I remember CLEARLY who they were. I don’t give one whit what anyone thinks of me on here. I’ve got a (great) life beyond this site. My main aim is getting Independence for Scotland and I’m working my butt of far and wide and WAY beyond Wings to achieve my objective. You do likewise stuckdoonhame. Just post, post, post. Don’t for one minute be put off and that applies to many others out there who feel too ‘feart’ to post on here. Your views are extremely valid, more than anything welcomed, and it’s people like you (we dearly need you) who will get Scotland out of this hellhole and that’s what counts.
I followed the STUC during the Ref, their “A Just Scotland” papers, but with this one so close to the ref, never even knew it existed until now. Basically the STUC supported a formal currency union in the relatively short-term, but wanted Scotland to move to our own currency. Their view on the possibility of joining the euro as a considerable is a bit of an eyebrow-raiser as basically we couldn’t do that for years, so what were we supposed to use meantime? Anyway, worth a read, I found the STUC quite balanced, and in spite of their neturality, probably closer to YES than NO.
link to ajustscotland.org
From Prestwick I bid you goodnight.
What Petra said!!!
@Sinky says: 21 September, 2017 at 1:49 pm:
“BBC Scotland TV lunchtime news trying to put kilt on Grenfell disaster and making a drama out of nothing other than to alarm people unnecessarily.”
The biggest problem with Grenfell wasn’t just the cladding but that the English building standards neither compel sprinklers nor high pressure hydrants at every level. So the fire service cannot get water pressure at the higher levels and have to rely upon the fire engine pumps which are generally inadequate.
So if a fire, internal or external prevents the fire crews from having adequate water pressure from external sources a fire on the upper levels needs fire engine long ladders and very high pressure pumps but if the outbreak is on higher levels and one of the few long ladder engines is late on arrival there is no way to get crews to upper levels with hoses at high pressure.
Scottish building regulations stipulate there must be HP hydrants on every level with a reasonable fire service response time a fire doesn’t get time to get out of control and prevent access by crews to upper levels.
When they get there they do not need to spend time running long hose lengths to extinguish the mid levels while attempting to get crews to the upper levels.
It’s not easy to explain what I’m attempting to explain. I hope I got the idea across that there are two viable alternatives – sprinkler systems and HP hydrants on every level – both do the job but both have slight drawbacks.
Sprinklers have the drawback that it is extremely expensive to install localised sprinkler control systems and thus the sprinklers come on over a large area and there is greater water damage. Most fires are localised and can often be dealt with by the resident with a home extinguisher before a fire crew can arrive. If, though the sprinklers activate then areas not affected by fire or smoke get drenched.
The multi-level hydrants mean they only come into use after the fire crews arrive but considering that high rise buildings are usually in city centre locations the fire services are usually not too far away.
I’ve seen a few people here, Petra, Robert Peffers I think, others say they’ve had postings disappear into the ether.
If you haven’t exited your browser since the posting, it may still be there. Use the left arrow near the top of the screen to go “back”, and go down the bottom where you post. If your posting isn’t there go back again, and maybe even again. But it might depend on the settings you have or default in your browser.
I’ve had to do this a few times. Sometimes there’s a word that’s in the Rev’s filter, so it’s worth trying to work out what it was upset the poor delicate filter thing.
@yesindyref2 @1.22 am
@ Petra @ 2.08 @2.08 am
Ok, one more post. I am perhaps not as courageous as you on here. But thank you both for your kindness.
However – ” MANY men, women and teenagers who follow this site and are not made to feel welcome” and “Hundreds? Thousands?” Petra, I have read and liked many of your comments but if BTL comments are alienating possible Yes voters to that degree, how can we ever hope to convert the soft No voters?
@stuckdoonhame
It’s not courage that’s needed, you’re using a moniker and can stick to that, never revealing your own name, and never even meeting with other Wingers if you don’t want to. Nobody knows who you are! It’s your views that count.
I do think the Rev should put up a new rule, something like this one from the Herald rules (which they seem to ignore a lot of the time):
“ Be nice…
Robust debate is encouraged, but personal attacks on individual posters and any personal squabbling between posters isn’t permitted. Don’t attempt to post personal information about other contributors. Material which we consider to be defamatory, inflammatory or offensive in any way is liable to be deleted. Threads may be closed at any time at the discretion of the moderators.”
But it you get attacked personally, just think “ratpackattack” and ignore it. Kind of catchy I think, you could dance to it 😎
link to youtube.com
old pete petra stuck doonhame and others posting about how new posters on here are treated.
Have to say I agree. Their are some on here, who do appear to have become domineering in each and every subject. Of course we know the trolls, but what really, really irks me is the ‘regulars’ on here who actively feed and thus SUPPORT such people. I regard those who feed trolls repeatedly and knowingly as just indulging in a rather selfish kind of intellectual masturbation. So we end up with clever-clever comment after comment ALL feeding the trolls.
Trolls don’t really care if somebody on here ‘proves’ them right or wrong, and those on here who indulge such behaviour are merely falling into the trap. The objective is to distract and disturb the comments – AND IT WORKS – enabled by those who indulge them.
For people like me, and probably most others reading the site, it is just freaking tedious, seeing the same two or three morons parrying all night with claim and counter claim – feeding trolls.
I’m sure for the people involved, they see it as some kind of intellectual ‘joust’, but it isn’t, it is just dumb, and ruins what could otherwise be excellent threads.
I know REV stu doesn’t like people commenting about trolls, but I don’t care. It needs said
Anyway, new posters should not be put off. Just ignore the morons. I do.
Ah…so i am a “fruitcake” and an indy liability now, according to feartie pete….I must be pretty crap at it then as i know over 100 people i turned from No to Yes pre 2014 and around the same since via social media and face to face.
I spend endless patience explaining and linking to the facts posted here on Wings and Other outlets, as well as my own library of links.
I stress the need to let go of the fear factor of such a jump from No to Yes, as sometimes with people all the facts in the world are not enough, sometimes it is simply reassurance that indy would be ok.
I have endless patience with these folks.
However, guys like Rick, Colin A and Pete here, are not those types at all, these guys are constantly told the facts on a daily basis, yet STILL promote their clearly bullshit agenda almost immediately.
I will never stop calling out such behaviour, and if me doing so with harsh words supposedly changes someone from Yes to No, then I call bullshit on that as well.
Will i be in government in the new indy Scotland ?
Of course not.
Will i have influence over that government ?
Of course not.
I will have a vote the same as everyone else.
If you say you are put off indy because i challenged your nonsense, then you expect others to believe that i have power and influence i simply do not have.
That person supposedly put off by me IS a No voter, and was NEVER voting for indy, but seeks to try influence others to vote No, “because of the bad man geeo”…utterly laughable, get a fucking grip of yourself man.
Nicola Sturgeon could beat me with a stick calling me a unionist c**t from today until the referendum,
I would STILL VOTE YES.
NOTHING and NOBODY can change my view on independence, it is THE clearest thought in my head EVERY DAY.
If me being harsh “turns you off indy, then i say you were never “turned on” to indy in the first place and were always voting No.
If you do not like what i say, tough, its a big real world out there, Scotland needs lions, not lambs for what is coming.
Final question for Old Pete, then i will ignore him forever.
Come the referendum, how will you vote ?
Yes.
No.
If it is Yes, why all the fucking crying ?
If it is No, you ARE a unionist.
Well pete ?
Links
link to thoughtcontrolscotland.com
link to indyref2.scot
link to audit-scotland.gov.uk
Lesley Riddoch podcast
link to rqs.libsyn.com
link to snp.org
link to evolvepolitics.com
link to rbs.postach.io
link to newsnet.scot
Construction has been completed on a £1.2million solar farm on Speyside.
link to archive.is
Wonder if these donations by Spanish owned Scottish Power explain silence from the Labour Party on Catalonia
link to twitter.com
link to electoral-reform.org.uk
link to thisismoney.co.uk
link to blogs.lse.ac.uk
Spooked by Catalonia, EU rallies behind Madrid, but warily
link to archive.is
Labour Would Not Give Public Sector Workers A Real-Terms Pay Rise
link to archive.is
link to evolvepolitics.com
12 oot o 10 for Keith Brown this morning just before 8 on GMS
Woohoo sounds like at least one glove has come off.
Keith ended his piece with a good swipe at failure of infrastructure investment over last 40 years.
Sitting in ma kitchen cheering & clapping , fair gets the day off to a good start.
Theresa tries to appease everyone today…!
“She must tell her tory critics that we will be paying nothing to the EU “divorce bill” yet at the same time she must say thagt the uk will “honour our commitments to the EU”…
She will recommend a multi year transitional deal on terms the same as we have now, yet state the uk will not
Theresa tries to appease everyone today…!
“She must tell her tory critics that we will be paying nothing to the EU “divorce bill” yet at the same time she must say thagt the uk will “honour our commitments to the EU”…
She will recommend a multi year transitional deal on terms the same as we have now, yet state the uk will not be paying for access to the single market….
The EU will just laugh at this utter doublespeak gibberish.
geeo says:
Indeed. A decent and serious offer would be a lump sum divorce figure to pay pensions and other long term commitments PLUS an annual figure to allow single market access. Accompany this with a promise to maintain EU standards and regulations.
She won’t! She will try it on like someone selling a clapped out banger to a naive potential buyer. In the case the buyer turns out to be savvy.
I reckon she will be playing to a UK audience to sound appeasing and generous. When the EU tells her, she’s not on, they can be blamed for being unreasonable. It’s all a pre-amble to crashing out.
geeo says:
21 September, 2017 at 8:55 pm
“Old pete still dribbling pish…Nicola will announce the referendum date when the time is right, but rest assured, it will be when she has always said.
After the deal is known and BEFORE the 29th March 2019.
Your desperation is palpable old stinky pete…40 years SNP my arse”.
Interesting that this comment was followed by a reference to the currency issue being a mistake in the 2014 referendum.
I both agree and disagree. The currency issue was an error in YES2014, not because the currency strategy was wrong, but because currency was argued as an ephemeral matter of government policy, when, during an Independence debate, the currency debate SHOULD have focussed on the sovereign issue of WHO decides the currency issue. To quote the phrase, “Its not what you decide, but who makes the decision”.
Fast forward to 2017, and we are teeing up for another IndyRef campaign, and we are lining up the same strategic error once again. We are going to argue the case for Independence based on the ephemeral matter of Brexit policy, rather than the sovereign issue of WHO decides Scotland’s Brexit policy.
Focus the argument upon who decides Scotland’s Brexit policy, and the democratic majority of the sovereign Remain vote in 2016 slips a mighty horseshoe into the boxing glove.
In 2014 the currency debate, and indeed the EU debate, pensions, oil, the alleged dishonesty of Alex Salmond, and defence were ALL issues on an agenda set by the BritNat media. Let’s make that “set-up” by the BritNat media. Innumerable reposts and counter arguments were persistently ignored, and the Unionist propaganda loop kept repeating the same shite over, and over, and over again.
Whenever the argument approached the issue of sovereignty, TV producers and anchors pressed a red button and the theme of debate was hurriedly altered back onto the Unionists round robin of “approved” topics for discussion.
I have the same, grave reservations about Brexit. We SHOULD be arguing around Scotland’s resolution in its sovereign constitutional strength, and honouring our democratic decision to stay in the EU. For the life of me, I do not understand why we are framing the debate over our Independence into a consequence of a good or bad Brexit. What dismays me even further is the evidence suggesting the SNP has already conceded Scotland’s benchmark redoubt of a sovereign decision to remain in Europe.
THIS IS A MASSIVE TACTICAL BLUNDER. I don’t care if you slate me for SNP bad, or crackpot paranoia. The SNP is still suffering from the same strategic tunnel vision which blinkered the 2014YES debate, and prevented TV and media discourse from focussing on the fundamental issue of sovereignty, and allowed the media to couch the whole Indy debate in lurid, sub-sovereign minutiae. IT ISNT WHAT YOU DECIDE, IT IS WHO MAKES THE DECISION.
The significance of Brexit is not the ephemeral issue of membership which an Independent Scotland might later choose to remain, exit, or renegotiate with Europe. It is EPHEMERAL. We can change everything later as and how we choose. The binding significance of Brexit, and the significance of every Region of Scotland voting Remain, is that Westminster has to smash its way past Scottish sovereignty to get its way and exit Europe, and that is a binary constitutional issue which destroys the credibility of the Act of Union, and renders it untenable.
The Union of the UK will be shredded, leaving Scotland resplendent in its constitutional legitimacy unfettered for the first time in 3 centuries, and the primary responsibility for bringing the UK to its constitutional point of collapse will not be Scotland’s door, grim stoicism in defending matters of principle and rectitude, but the reckless, headstrong abandonment of principles, rectitude and diligence represented by Westminster catastrophic blundering throughout the whole Brexit debacle.
Before the usual closet Brexiteers and SNP apologists turn up to say that’s all tosh, I would challenge every one of you to articulate why a plan to defend Scotland’s sovereign legitimacy is in any respect inferior to the bizarre strategy we appear to be “following” on our present trajectory.
Nana says:
There’s also alleged donations to the Tories. If genuine, why would Scottish Power make donations to the two main Unionist parties?
I’d like to know the original source of these claimed figures.
@galamcennalath
If you scroll down and read the replies you will see where the information comes from
link to search.electoralcommission.org.uk?
To all those who are talking about ‘trolls’ and people being general d**ks on here –
Dont stop commenting. They are just words. If you stop commenting then they control the discourse, the comment section becomes an echo chamber and there’s no value to the conversation. Only people with no intellectual vigor demand that others agree with them.
You guys should try being economically right wing and support an independent Scotland. The idiots simply slaver onto their keyboards.
The sad truth is that any nationalist movement collects some scum and you can expect that here too.
Keep giving those opinions.
@nana @me at 9:14
link to search.electoralcommission.org.uk
Scottish Power
Interestingly, Scottish Power donates to the ‘Scottish’ Labour Party, while Scottish Power UK Plc donates to the Conservative and Unionist Party.
Same organisation. Why back both main Unionist parties?
Got this message from Barcelona on Facebook this morning. “Their force is your fear”. So true in the Scottish context as well.
“Their force is your fear. Lose fear and they lose their force. Easy to say but no so easy to do, if you has’nt really lost your fears. But when all a nation lose their fear… By now i believe the most of people in Catalonia has lost their fear to independence. Tonight i’ve been for a while in a demonstration in front of Justice Palace in Barcelona. If a tell you the truth, it seemed me more a celebration than a demonstration. It’s time to be. Not to be it’s not an option anymore.”
@breeks.
My post you quote has no relevence to the subject you go on to discuss !!
@breeks
gie it a fricken rest.
‘Scotland would be a wonderful place to invest, were it not for the revolting natives’, afirma Señor Mundell, gobernador de la provincia inglesa de Escocia.
This info that Scottish power has donated money to both Labour and Tory parties really needs to be widely circulated to the wider general public.
After all don’t both these political parties always go on about people in fuel poverty having to make the choice between heating and eating
Yet people in fuel poverty who are struggling to pay their power bills, don’t know, that at the same time they are also contributing to the funds of both Labour and the Tory parties.
For anyone who wants to watch
Brexit transition speech live in 4 hours
link to youtube.com
link to theconversation.com
link to uk.businessinsider.com
Iberdrola is the Spanish parent company of Scottish Power which it was able to buy in 2006 after privatisation.
That’s one way of putting it.
It is a public company but the biggest shareholder is Qatar Investment Holding.
What these multinational companies dislike is self-determination i.e. control over our own resources. So they will help out the British National parties.
However, they are originally a Basque company so things may change. Fingers crossed!
link to en.wikipedia.org
Heard lots about Theresa’s speech today on BBC and how reasonable it is etc, but this speech by Michel Barnier yesterday seems to have eluded the attention of the BBC’s highly trained super-sleuths:
link to europa.eu
‘But one thing is sure: it is not – and will not – be possible for a third country to have the same benefits as the Norwegian model but the limited obligations of the Canadian model.
And naturally, any agreement must respect the regulatory autonomy of the EU, as well as the integrity of its legal order.’
And
‘ the future of the Union is our priority, not Brexit’
According to J-P Sartre the capitalist system’s weakest point is the minority language, in other words the system prefers conformity. The same can be said for BritState. The less conformist and conventional we are the more the system will react, in our favour. We need to challenge and combat the system not politely offer it tea, shortbread and sympathy.
Maybe we need our very own ‘project fear’?
@ Glamaig – I thought this little sentence was quietly powerful, given that the UK is stalling and a transition period seems to be assumed by Theresa and Boris.
@Capella
22 September, 2017 at 10:02 am
Every thing you say is true.
But we must do what we can to ensure that these British national parties are denied such funding, and one way is to make aware those who are struggling to pay their power bills, that they are helping fund both Labour and Tory parties.
And don’t lets forget these British parties which are being funded by this foreign owned company,did what they could to prevent the SNP from being receiving donations from its members overseas such as Sean Connery.
Shawlands MP Stew MacDonald posted this on his facebook thingee. Teddy Taylor’s style of don’t vote tory 70’s Glasgow, vote Teddy Taylor rather highlights just how little the tory creep show in Scotland has changed. Tory creeps can’t even show the actual tory creep candidate. Much like today, if only.
link to scotlandonscreen.org.uk
Has the Scottish tory creepshow changed at all, why do the Scottish tories have hide their toryness so much? Ask my Slovene girlfriend, mincing around Clydeside in front of tory Scotland central off, Pacific Quay, sans tory anything at all,
link to twitter.com
One thing to note on Trolls. The best ones operate by emulating ordinary supporters of a cause or fringe followers. Perhaps by pushing it a bit far or indulging in the absurd. They want you to argue with each other and them. Paranoia is part of the game plan.
You also get the chancers who see any cause as an opportunity to advance their own agenda. Such as the student socialist or genuine blood and soil racists.
Add to that the armchair generals or in the following example admirals. In the recent news about hurricanes moans were many about the response from the navy. The rep from them was very polite in saying that they were waiting for the storm to pass as to do otherwise would simply result in a sunken ship. Same with Brexit. Until that situation settles there’s no point in launching an official independence campaign. Not to say the SNP can’t try to influence the direction that heads.
Trolls, trollfeeders, what’s the difference?
Without a withdrawal agreement, there is no transition. This is a point of law.
We’re really entering another era of BBC propaganda Brexit fudge/;ying.
BBC r4 tories say its the EU that are to blame, they wont budge, so mad old trout Teresa’s had to make a £20bn a year offer to Brussels, to er, Leave the EU.
Its all a great triumph and example of great tory UKOK rule.
Also, BBC propaganda Brexit fudge can now be purchased in Pacific Quay’s BBC souvenir gift shop. All proceeds go to Jackie Bird’s next facelift.
That’s it from me, sure you will all be glad of a rest. lol
link to thecanary.co
link to politicalscrapbook.net
link to thepolicyspace.com.au
link to catalannews.com
In addition to what I wrote above it might be much ‘healthier’ if there were some tactical, creative autonomy between the SNP in government and the forces of the National Movement itself. There does appear to be be divergent opinion on the whether independence is supremely important or a desireable status that given time we will secure. The contrast between the slowmo and fastrack outlooks is becoming evident. For the latter too much time seems spent on legalistic constitutional nitpicking while the former sees differences of viewpoint as ‘unpatriotic’ boat rocking.
If we lose the dynamic and psychological headstart we had before the election future generations will not look kindly on us.
The UK government will have to honour its agreements with the EU, it would be diplomatic suicide not to ? But then again the Rule Britannia UK Ok British Nationalists believe all they are fed by the media propaganda.
Scotland must have a new referendum on regaining complete control of our country. With the Brexit timetable still apparently two years then 2019 must surely be the time to have it.
Utter drivel yet again abulhaq.
Looking for division where there is none.
In 2014 the SNP DELIVERED AN INDYREF.
It was US who let THEM DOWN with the No result.
The SNP WILL AGAIN DELIVER an indyref before march 2019
If we let them down again, they may never be able to deliver a 3rd indyref in the next 3 decades.
Piss off with your concern trolling pish.
If we lose the dynamic and psychological headstart we had before the election future generations will not look kindly on us.
Scotland voted NO, though.
Your comment is far more suited to what Brexit really is, a giant fudge, where UK tory rule has discovered that Leaving the EU is a disaster in motion and they cannot in fact Leave the EU, to get back their country, sovereignty, freedom, border control, without huge costs, clearly unbearable costs.
Not going to answer my earlier question pete ?
You voting Yes or No in the upcoming indyref ?
The interesting thing about May’s speech in Florence being touted as reasonable and the EU as being the block, is what can the UK do about it? Threaten to leave the EU, again?
Giving up your bargaining power leaves you in a weakened position, a bit like the No vote.
I feel sorry for the goats, though apparently many restaurants that offer goat’s meat according to Trading Standards are actually selling lamb which is half the price for the restaurant to buy.
It seems trolls used to eat farmers’ goats.
Troll: a being that eats farmers’ goats
though the Wings definition seems to be:
Troll: Someone a “Winger” disagrees with, or who disagrees with them. [1]
Either way seems to lead to the risk of constant regurgitation.
link to urbandictionary.com
[1] Often called a Yoon, which also means “anyone I disagree with”
Personally I’d ban the use of the words (Ed: *****)
@geeo
Seems I’ve struck a raw nerve. Some may kowtow to the SNP idol but many do not. The Party is constituted primarily as a vehicle for independence. Plainly it has stalled. It now needs a hefty push and a reminder of what it was founded to achieve. At the forthcoming conference someone, someone not fooled by talk of the king’s new clothes, ought to remind the leadership and delegates of that ancient ‘vow’.
@heedtracker
scotland the turkey did vote for xmas…the blame? the amazing effectiveness of the fear campaign and the snp’s confusion on how to deal with its visceral themes plus the currency issue of course. the yes campaign itself did not operate too smoothly either. We also had too many ‘politicians’. Not enough voices from outside the party political compound. independence turned into a political football which the unionists deftly skewered.
Brian Powell says:
22 September, 2017 at 11:37 am
The interesting thing about May’s speech in Florence being touted as reasonable and the EU as being the block, is what can the UK do about it? Threaten to leave the EU, again?
Yes but, BBC propagandists are using tory/BBC Florence day trip to blame the EU, again. Its the EU what wont budge you see, so Teresa’s only being sensible, pragmatic, rational.
Paying a mega fortune to Leave the EU, having been promised £350 million a week for voting to Leave the EU, is a tricky one for beeb gimps right enough.
Its interesting that BBC Scotland gimp network’s not going anywhere near it. In that Colonel Ruth, YOU deserve the truth! has been left in peace by been Scotland gimps, to get on with whatever it is Colonel Ruth actually does in their Scotland region.
What a difference a year makes, in BBC attack propaganda timeline too.
Last year beeb gimps were all neo fascist UKOK gung ho for Le Pen in France, Geert Wilders in Holland, hope against hope rule Britannia Empire 2.0, if those EU fascist horrors took control of France and the Netherlands, the EU would really be up shits creek.
This week, BBC seni retire neo fascist/sneaky shit Jim Naughty was out and about for beeb r4, sniffing around nazi Germany today. Its worth a listen for all kinds of tory beeb creep outs. Modern nazi’s aren’t like the old ones you see, simpers Jim.
@heed
I wonder what Florence will make of it all?
Boiiinng! Time for bed said Zebedee.
Is that nice Brillo fellow on the way out from The BBC?
First we were told that he was quitting The Sunday Politics to be replaced by Sarah Smith – now today Smith is chairing The Daily Politics.
However, we have the usual unbalanced contributors in the form of Brillo Spectator employee Fraser Nelson and some bird from The Times that Murdoch owned fanatical anti EU rag.
I hope that is a case of 2 down and 1 to go with just his vanity exercise This Week left.
yesindyref2 says:
22 September, 2017 at 12:07 pm
@heed
I wonder what Florence will make of it all?
Wonderful Firenze! Have you been?
It costs a fortune to visit so god only knows how much this pointless tory trip’s costing?
And all to be told, take your UKOK bribe for EU free trade access and shove it.
That’s me doing my Rock impression btl, making wildly stupid non predictions.
Why will the EU take this money for free trade Europe UK but let the tory creepshow away with all other membership stuff?
Talk about your great British exceptionalism.
@ Peter McCulloch – maybe Scottish Power “customers” could switch to SSE?
How do you tumble, when you’re as low as you can go? Imagine a media that wasnt a tory Britnat freak show.
link to cityam.com
@ Abulhaq – put you suggestions in writing. I’m sure the SNP would be pleased to have your ideas to help form their strategy. Send to:
Gordon Lamb House. 3 Jackson’s Entry. Edinburgh, EH8 8PJ.
or see online link to snp.org
‘ the future of the Union is our priority, not Brexit’
I think at the moment they are more concerned with coming up with something to stop China buying up key companies throughout Europe.
The recently announced gold backing for the yuan and potential replacement for the petro-dollar is a concern (for America mainly) because this is one such attempt they cannot ‘regime change’.
Meanwhile the AIIB continues with its massive upgrade of the Silk Road.
Not enough voices from outside the party political compound. independence turned into a political football which the unionists deftly skewered.
Abulhaq, I disagree, in that the great UKOK The Vow shyste was suddenly farted into the ref1 campaign at the very last minute. com
Why would the whole of UKOK Project Fear, all tory BBC gimp networks, BBC Scotland terrorising Scots for decades, sneaky creepy old STV, every single Scottish haha rag, JK Trolling and her £1 million Project Fear money, all kinds of tory loonies, from Australia’s then crackpot PM Abbot to Lord George Robertson and their Scotland nation statehood is the enemy of freedom/threat to world peace and so on, why did they suddenly need to come up with their staggering The Vow hoax, if they were winning in 2014?
@Capella says:
22 September, 2017 at 12:28 pm
I suspect some would do, but the problem is, you have what is termed customer loyalty, people who still view Scottish power as still being a Scottish company, how many people do actually switch suppliers?
At the end of the day its down to the customers who need to make it clear to Scottish Power that is unacceptable
for them to be donating money to political parties.
It can be construed as being a conflict of interest or an attempt to influence Government policy on say capping energy prices.
my favourite rant on the interweb
so we have left the EU, get over it. We dont need Germany, China or America anyway. This country needs someone like Neil Farage, not that liar Derek Cameron. Rant over
@Capella
not sure they’d be interested. I’m not a true SNP ‘type’.
However, getting the knife into the so-called Union and twisting it not just over Brexit but also our historic and contemporary marginal rôle, our subordinate position, within this overwhelmingly anglocentric system. Lets face it we are effectively a colonial possession. England swallowed us and took our freedom and ever since has been playing a snappy tune on us. To our collective shame a majority still like the tune played on Ukania’s complaisant second fiddle.
This is a psychological as much as a ‘political’ struggle. We seem not too good at the former.
No, abulhaq, you have not hit a nerve.
Your arguments are those of an amoeba.
The SNP job is to deliver the indyref.
It is our job to deliver the Yes vote.
SNP have done their job twice..(2nd coming before march 29th 2019)
You are full of shite.
@Heedtracker
Oh yes, The Vow…the Megaporky
Never believed our citizens could be so credulous. This is a psycho-political ‘game’ more than orthodox party-political. The Unionist propaganda machine is jamming our reason.
@geeo
the abuse suggests I am correct. I do hope such is not typical of the SNP mentality when subjectively ‘cornered’.
@ geeo
Remember the UK government has to be asked permission before Scotland can have another referendum on independence. By that a referendum whose result will be treated as legal and recognised by the wider international community.
Im not sure where you get this idea of a definite independence referendum coming from?
The UK government has already totally rejected the will of the Scottish people and the Scottish Parliament. When is it you think they will start? When you swear even more at people on this comment section?
Your rejection of the reality of the situation is similar to the Brexit idiots who reject all rationality in the outlook of the UK leaving Europe.
All they have to do is undermine (in the minds of the masses) the (supposed) illegitimacy of the SNP position and the idea that independence is economic suicide. They will do this on multiple fronts using different strategies with the help of Team GB (the scottish branch offices of the other major parties). The hyper-left tilt of the Scottish independence movement and the demonisation of people who dont ascribe to the politics of the left is hurting Scotland chances considerably also.
Thanks to Brexit Scotland is even more necessary as an asset to the British establishment, and they will not let it go.
It is the view of many that, even if a new indyref is gained, a headlong rush into a new independence referendum would be too easily countered and then it is curtains for the independence movement. I think Brexit effects should be soaked in, felt, endured and hated for a few years by ordinary people before they really start to think about the future.
You might disagree but being a dick about it isnt helping.:)
Sean Connery blocked from donating to the SNP? I wasn’t aware of that Capella. Must have missed that one!
Meanwhile (foreign) Scottish Power seems to be quite happy to take money from SNP / Independence supporting households to donate to the Tory and Labour Party. That just about takes the bl**dy biscuit. Scots freezing to death in the north of Scotland to financially support two political parties based in the south of England. When are the Scots going to waken up to what’s going on in this country?
Hi David.
You typed,
“Remember the UK government has to be asked permission before Scotland can have another referendum on independence.”
No PERMISSION is required from Westminster for the Scottish Parliament to hold an independence referendum.
The section 30 agreement signed my Salmond and Cameron for indyref1 was an agreement that both sides would respect the result.
Let’s say that we have a referendum in September 2018 and the result is 55% YES; 45% NO.
The Scottish Parliament has the mandate from Scots to declare independence. What is Westminster gonna do, under international eyes and scrutiny? Send the tanks in?
Nicola needs to be strong and reaffirm that the new referendum will be in 2019 no matter what the UK government say.
The new referendum needs to be fought in a stronger manner than the last one with all aspects clearly and coherently covered. The currency question and GERS need delt with in a strong, clear and accurate manner.
We can win our Independence,it will not be easy but we will never have a better opportunity.
Agree with you Brian, now is the time.
@David
on Brexit we might hope that BritState does screw up as so far there seem few takers for May & co’s Global Britain shpiel. Unfortunately, a BritState screw up might not be enough to shake independence fruit from the tree. Remaining with wizzened old Britannia simply for fear of ‘the fresh alternative’ ie Scots governing Scots might still be the option for many conditioned to prefer foreign rule. A dog well trained to do the master’s bidding would rather starve than bite the hand…
May spouting out the usual UK is “special” and deserves a “special” deal. It’s time for Scotland to abandon this sinking “ship” before the Tories drag us down with them.
May and her government offer nothing substantial but want all the best bits of the EU, she is hopeless.
In 1707 there were 513 MPs from England in Westminster and 45 MPs from Scotland, thet made the Scottish % -8.77%. They all agreed on the Union.
In 2015 there were 650 MPs. 591 were unionist and the 56 SNP MPs wanted Independence. That’s 9.47%, a bigger percentage from Scotland who didn’t want the Union than in 1707 who did.
Plus in Holyrood in 2015 the SNP held 53.4% of the seats.
Perhaps someone can explain why the SG, MPs plus MSPs, couldn’t have dissolved the Union as a majority elected representatives?
The MPs alone outweighed the 1707 pro-Union representatives.
@Brian Doonthetoon
….and what are they doing at this very moment?
Pretending?
Prime minister May just told the Scottish parliament that ‘now is not the time’.
That means she is telling the scots, the parliament and everybody else. If she can choose the ‘when’ then she can chose the ‘if’ just as easily.
Sovereignty does not lie in Edinburgh. It lies in London. Sorry, but thats a fact
Petra @ 2.26pm
It was not a specific ban on Sean Connery but a ban on donations to UK political parties from those living overseas who were not on the electoral register. This law on party donations was brought in in 2000 by the UK Labour Government.
Since Sean Connery lived overseas and was not on the electoral register then he could no longer donate to the SNP.
Short article on it here
link to archive.is
It was not just the SNP who lost donations but several of the other parties were caught out too because they had big donors who were tax exiles.
@Brian Powell
often wondered too…but such an initiative would require steelly nerve and a good deal of political ‘swagger’ on the part of our leaders. I wish!
Hi David.
The Scottish Parliament has a mandate from the Sovereign people of Scotland to hold an independence referendum, at a time of ITS choosing, not when the Maybot says.
Westminster has NO say in it. You have fallen for YoonYoonist myth-telling and are repeating it.
Brian Powel @ 3.19
They couldn’t desolve the Union because they were elected on a mandate not to!
Rember the SNP in 2015 said this is not a vote for independence but a vote to hold the government to account for the promises they made during the first Indy ref .
But should they run on a mandate TO dissolve the Union they can do exactly that.
Mrs Thatcher explain it quite well a few years back.
@Brian Doonthetoon
Im sorry Brian, but we the Scottish people are not sovereign. Thats what all this indyref stuff is about.
If we were sovereign then we could just sit back and watch rUK sink into oblivion.
Westminster must agree to anything we want to do for it to be considered legal and binding. Now, it might be distasteful for them to ignore the will of the Scottish parliament, but thats exactly what they have just done recently.
@ Legerwood at 3:34pm …… “Donations.”
You’d think SC would get round that by, say, giving a Scottish friend or relative money to pass on?
Meanwhile foreign (dark) money floods into the UK via, for one, NIreland.
David @ 4.08
Don’t be sorry my friend…. We all get things wrong.
Think of it this way !!
If we weren’t Sovereign then we would not have been voting on where we wanted power to lie in 2014.
And May would not be saying now is not the time…she would be saying no.
Petra @ 4.20pm
Donations. Maybe he could use a surrogate but there have been cases where something like that was tried and it was discovered. Labour were the party involved. One of their donors made lots of donations just below the limit for disclosure by using the names of some of his employees. Mega embarrassment for Labour when it was discovered.
The whole system though, especially with regards to ‘dark money’s depends on the Electoral Commission having the will and the wherewithal to investigate where donations come from and we all know that the EC has neither.
In theory the legislation should stop these practices but in reality it has more (loop)holes than a Swiss cheese.
According to BritState power lies, legally, with the parliament in Westminster. Constitutionally it alone is sovereign. Therefore there is no such concept as ‘popular sovereignty’. Scotland ‘joined’ the English parliament 300 years ago and consequently had to accept its tradition and codes. You will be sovereign only when you decide to get your country back but until then you must deal with the ‘realities’ of the system of which you are a part.
Constitutional games and references to the archaic treaty that got us into this mess are consequently futile. The masters couldn’t give a….
However, we do not have to play these games. A change of perspective, a mental refocus and BritState mind games cease to impact; a psychological leap indeed but one we need to make. Put simply, they may see things that way, we don’t. Confrontational it is. The Catalans challenge the Spanish state in a way we might, under the current dispensation, only dream of.
If Scottish ‘sovereignty of the people’ is truly meaningful we must, by our actions, make it so; and to hell with ‘legalistic conventionalism’.
McDuff,
“geeo
Your criticism of Old Pete is pathetic.”
I totally agree with you McDuff.
Abulhaq @ 5.46pm
Scotland did not join the English Parliament.
The Treaty of Union was ratified by an Act of Union passed by the Scots Parliament and an Act of Union passed by the English Parliament. As per the Treaty and it’s relevant articles and confirmed by the Acts of the respective Parliaments, both parliaments ceased to exist and a new parliament came into being.
That new Parliament, however, adopted over time many of the features and practices of the previous English Parliament and, given the imbalance in representation, Scotland was in no position to stop this happening.
Thus we end up with the rules of a long dead, pre-Union monarch, Henry VIII, used to control and bypass a parliament that in theory no longer exists being used today.
@Legerwood
So, effectively, Scots did join the English parliament. At any rate it’s what larger ‘partner’ believes.
The Union treaty was, by modern standards, undemocratic. A bought/ corrupt parliament approved the sale of our country against the popular will.
We live in the 21st century and we must adopt a 21st perspective. The union treaty is a fossil.
Albuhaq @ 6.49
Very good article by the late Professor David Walker
link to journalonline.co.uk
Suggest you read it.
Hi Abulhaq at 5:46 pm.
You typed,
“…The Catalans challenge the Spanish state in a way we might, under the current dispensation, only dream of.
If Scottish ‘sovereignty of the people’ is truly meaningful we must, by our actions, make it so; and to hell with ‘legalistic conventionalism’.”
The people of Scotland expressed their Sovereignty on 18th September, 2014. By a majority of 55% to 45%, we voted to stay ‘part of the union’. That was the democratic choice.
The latest poll puts support for independence at 46%. Therefore, would a referendum held next week return a vote in favour of independence?
Your comparison with events in Catalonia constitute no parallel with the situation in Scotland. We managed 20,000 on a march earlier this year. In Catalonia, they have near a million on their marches.
What do you suggest? Should the Scottish Parliament have a vote to declare UDI, where a minority of people in Scotland would support the act? What if the majority, ‘the unionists’, appeal to Westminster and the wider international community to defend their democratic rights?
Our Scottish parliament has a mandate from the people of Scotland to put our aspirations to the vote, once the terms of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU are known. Will the 62% of Scots, who voted to remain in the EU, be shafted by Westminster? If so, we will find out in the subsequent indyref, what the democratic will of the Sovereign people of Scotland is – either independence, or staying in this toxic union with England.
If, heaven forfend, the vote is to remain as a constituent part of the UK, what do you suggest, can be done?
You went on to type, at 6.49pm,
“We live in the 21st century and we must adopt a 21st perspective. The union treaty is a fossil.”
You’re wrong there. The treaty of Union is active – it’s what binds Scotland and England together, as the UK. If, as you suggest, it is a “fossil”, then it must be dead, gone before, deceased, bereft of life and all the other similies from the dead parrot sketch.
Therefore, if the Treaty of Union is no more, Scotland and England must be independent states – and only you have informed us of that fact. So, we need no more popular votes, because we are already independent!
Logical, Captain…
This translates as Scotland must do what England wants, so displays as absolute disrespect for the principle of universal human rights.
Union does not in anyway imply a hierarchy of domination and submission.
@Abulhaq
Nihilism suck. It’s exactly what the New Right aims to encourage, as a means of dislocating the public from politics and public policy making.
What’s your point, exactly? What do you aim to achieve with your ‘insight’?
Abulhaq 5.46pm.totally agree with you.never mind the trolls.
Legerwood 6.03pm. The treaty of union was ratified by f*****g BRIBERY.
Hi “Bob p” at 11.05pm.
You typed,
“Abulhaq 5.46pm.totally agree with you.never mind the trolls.”
I type,
You’ve gied the guff awa’. There’s a wee bunch of you, posting stuff, which is reminiscent of the output of those who inhabit that space under bridges.
As Abulhaq had posted utter mince, and you agree with him, you are sussed, and I claim the speedboat.
Bob p
A troll, moi? I may have been calling on folk to “put the master’s tools down” but only as a means of stimulating a new perspective on communal struggle. Your pal Albuhaq appears to be encouraging action that might upset the peaceful process we have managed to follow, so far. Perhaps I reading too much into his comment?
The way we achieve independence will shape the nation we will all have to live in, not just those who seek Scotland’s independence.
Bob p says:
22 September, 2017 at 11:09 pm
Legerwood 6.03pm. The treaty of union was ratified by f*****g BRIBERY.””
…………….
And your point is caller?
‘The way we achieve independence will shape the nation we will all have to live in, not just those who seek Scotland’s independence’ =)
Well said Cameron B Brodie.
It is worth doing this well.
Scotland deserves the best we can give = )
Madainn mhàth to all you legalist, romantic nats who cling to the belief that the union treaty and Scotland’s place in the union actually matter to the political masters in westminster.
I don’t get the reasoning since the terms of the treaty were breeched within a few years, Scottish mint etc. It’s a dead document, drawn up by corrupt aristocratic and proto-capitalist parasites and by modern standards of questionable validity. This nostalgia for musty documents must be an age thing. Do get real and move into century 21.
We got bigger fish to fry. LOL!
Hi Abulhaq at 8.55am.
You typed,
“This nostalgia for musty documents must be an age thing.”
Interesting… How old does an act of parliament have to be, for you to see it as no longer applicable? 10 years? 50 years? 75 years? 100 years? Older?
You also mentioned,
“all you legalist, romantic nats who cling to the belief that the union treaty and Scotland’s place in the union actually matter to the political masters in westminster.”
By your pejorative use of the word “legalist”, you would appear to be suggesting that non-adherence to the law is your preferred way of achieving independence. This sentiment also chimes with your opinion that old (but still enforceable) laws should be ignored.
What actions are you suggesting, that will result in an internationally recognised, independent Scottish state?
Oh, and morning to you too.
The fact it didn’t answer reveals it is all about the thread being an ‘active’ one so they can insinuate their utter shite when there is likely to be many more readers on the thread…that one is a particularly obvious twit. Well done for calling him out Brian.
Actually, it is precisely because we here in Scotland have been so careless and deferential for so long about our precious constitutional position within the UK that the English Establishment has been so free to foist its own exclusive “theory” (to glorify the accumulated detritus) by such “authorities” as Erskine May upon what was supposed to be an entirely new institution.
How we in Scotland use our renewed self-awareness is up for debate, but we ain’t so slack about it any more. Which is just as it should be. We might even be more respected as a consequence.