Wings Over Scotland

End the union! says:
27 February, 2020 at 7:14 am

….Challenge, don’t follow blindly!

This blog should be discussing immigration policy of uk government and the drugs summit, etc, not this nonsensical distraction!

You seem to have a blind spot if the “challenge, don’t follow blindly”, philosophy if it is applied to the SNP.

Rev Stu got pelters of abuse and condemnation for floating the idea of a Wings List Party to wrestle list seats from Unionists without injuring the SNP. He was vilified as a tractor-d to the cause risking that the SNP vote would be split. Fast forward a few months and we have two of the SNP’s biggest hitters battling for the same seat in Edinburgh.

We have a Scottish Government in denial about Scotland’s National Constitution and Sovereignty of the people, who defer instead to the colonial legislation of the Scotland Act, the constitution of a devolved assembly not a Nation, in order to keep Scotland in a Section 30 straight-jacket and squander mandate after mandate from the Scottish electorate.

The same abandonment of Scottish Sovereignty saw NO action being taken to defend Scotland from colonial subjugation of Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty and suffering the embarrassing capitulation of the Scottish Government to acquiesce to Scotland’s Brexit, when a more competent government would have secured anything from a Scottish Constitutional Backstop right across the spectrum to the actual demise of the Act of Union through unconstitutional breach of the Treaty through Brexit.

Considering where Scotland stood poised in 2014 before Sturgeon came to power, and where we stand poised now, it seems entirely appropriate and fitting that the SNP should be challenged, and challenged vociferously for abandoning Scotland’s Constitutional interests over Brexit, while pursuing a bizarre and unnecessary abandonment of science to pacify a bizarre minority of Trans-Rights activists who seem to exercise a bizarre and unwelcome influence over SNP strategy.

Nicola Sturgeon has for years benefitted from loyal supporters of Independence who quite naturally see an attack on Sturgeon as an an attack on Scottish Independence and the SNP, but it is arguable that insulating Sturgeon from criticism has also spared the SNP’s strategy for Independence from rigorous scrutiny. Sadly for us all, Brexit has cruelly exposed beyond doubt an undeniable naivety and impotence in the SNP ideas department, married to a disgraceful Constitutional illiteracy and an impeachable abandonment of Scottish Constitution principle.

It is inevitable that squandering so many open goals, an apparent stubbornness to invariably do things the hard way, and stoically ignore one material injustice and subversion of Scotland’s rights and entitlements after another, and all the time sitting on enough mandates to fill to a scrap book, that ad you say End the Union, this MUST BE CHALLENGED, and we must not follow blindly, because Brexit is living proof that the SNP’s aura of being in total control is nothing but a cynical con being played upon us all.

Unlike some, it is not Sturgeon’s desire for Independence I doubt, but her capacity to deliver it. I fear she doesn’t know how to deliver Independence any more that she can extricate herself to make way for someone else without plunging the SNP into turmoil. That is understandable given the political lightweights and these utterly bizarre “wokists” she has around her, and an extended failure to develop SNP strength in depth that is properly focused on Independence.

Since taking over from Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon has done nothing to alleviate disquiet or concern amongst the YES movement. The entire YES family has been left to fend for itself on pretty meagre rations from the SNP’s command bunker. As time progresses, those most peripheral to the SNP have felt best able to criticise and raise genuine concern, only to be slated and silenced by SNP party faithful as trolls, Brigade 77 subversives and self interested egotists, and this has bred mistrust and acrimony because more often than not, nothing could be further from the truth.

I lay this too at the foot of Nicola Sturgeon, because a degree of leadership was required to see these concerns addressed and wildcard frustrations allayed and nipped in the bud. But no, if you criticise the Royal House of Queen Sturgeon, you are unworthy, a heretic, and don’t deserve an answer to your question.

When Sturgeon volunteered to compromise over Brexit in 2016, and arbitrarily declared she would accept Brexit on condition Scotland secured access to the Single Market, I asked what Constitutional authority she had to overrule the sovereign mandate of the Scottish electorate. If I’d been given an answer, back then, Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty could have been adhered to, and perhaps Scotland would never have been Brexited, nor would Scotland have been subjugated, and it is all but certain the Treaty of Union would no longer exist.

You’re damned right I feel like challenging the SNP, and not following on blindly. Right now, I’m trying to find out whether I can actually impeach them.

The bottom line for me is that I don’t want the naive and amateurish SNP fucking up Scotland’s Independence they way they totally fucked up Scotland’s Brexit. I demand nothing less than Scotland’s devolved Government being shackled in irons and forced to abide by the inviolable principles of Scotland’s Constitution and the Popular Sovereignty of the people.

“Yet if he they should give up what he has they have begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him them out as our enemy and a subverter of his their own rights and ours, and make some other man Parliament who was well able to defend us our King Government”.

Fuck the Scotland Act, Sewel Convention, and shady “Parliamentary Sovereignty by Convention” boasted by Westminster, and every other tawdry colonial encroachment upon Scotland’s Popular Sovereignty and National Constitution. Scotland is sovereign and governed by none of them.

So Willie (Never to independence) Rennie and his band of naunce protectors are keeping a low profile, after it was revealed the extent the Lib/Dems went to, to put party interests before child safety.

Rennie and Co really are vile creatures, never to be voted for.

link to thenational.scot

link to thenational.scot

Well said, yet again, Breeks @10:13.

I fear that the Yoons will get their wish of “once in a generation” as far as IndyRef2 is concerned, but it will not be as a result of any action on their part, rather it’ll be the result of persistent inaction on the part of the SNP.

I’m coming to the conclusion that if Scotland is either unable or unwilling to leave the UK then, as multitudes have done throughout history, this particular Scot will be leaving Scotland.

Scotland and Wales are territories of the United Kingdom Michael Gove said this morning when talking of the overwhelming vote for Brexit, and how the UK which has been instructed by the sovereign people in the huge victory at the general election to negotiate with the EU on the *Fffk you* basis of an Australian style deal (double speak for no deal because Australia has no deal with the UK) and if that’s not acceptable then it’ll be all over by June

If you read that in a newspaper you’d laugh, but excepting the *Fffk you* part that’s what he said in words from his mouth

With every spittle flecked word that Michael Gove splatters over the despatch box you can see that man’s only desire is when does he become the next Prime Minister

It’s a game to them because they’re so rich nothing matters

SKY news Adam Boulton chided reporter Beth Rigby for not repeating the words *Australia style deal* which he told her they were instructed to call it

Beth Rigby said “It’s a no deal and that’s what I’m calling it”

Who is it says the media are free and fair *instructed*???

@DrJim
Gove is the political personification of that organic matter that floats in the open sewer styled the British state. His anglophiliac worldview is stereotypical of the ‘Scotch unionist catamite’ coterie.
No holes barred to the colonial boss.

well said, Breeks.
I believe NS has neither the confidence nor the expertise to deliver indy.
It’s why she relies so much on all those SPADS.

@Breeks, 10.13

What a post. Bravo, sir. I am planning to go to the Arbroath march on 4 April and was reading the Declaration again. Your amended section sums up my thoughts exactly.

Joe @ 10:15 am

“Firstly im probably without a doubt one of the most unpopular entities to post on this site.”

Well, you at least got that much right.

@manandboy, 12.37

In view of The Guardian’s role in setting up Julian Assange (link to medium.com ) , in defaming Julian Assange (link to craigmurray.org.uk )and The Guardian’s links to the UK security services ( link to dailymaverick.co.za), how much weight does this article have?

In the National newspaper today the McCrone Report in full.

For those lurkers who haven’t yet read it.

How England, hid then stole Scotland’s massive wealth, as it has done so for centuries.

link to thenational.scot

English news channel reporting that someone in China who had the Coronavirus and survived, has contracted it again.

You just have to loo, at the SNP’s donations in the last quarter of 2019, to know that there was never going to be a indyref this year.

link to electoralcommission.org.uk

One wonders have donations especially on the business front dried up for the SNP, and if so did that happen when Sturgeon succeeded Salmond, and did the fact that Sturgeon put Brexit before independence have a knock on effect on SNP donations. Thus damaging the chance of a indyref any time soon.

After the treaty of union was forced on the Scotand Lord Belhaven said I am going to live abroad for Scotland is now only fit for the cowards who live here it is said he died of a broken heart aye when will we see your like again maybe never ???

@Sensibledave 13:43
The SNP leadership squandered the three years of the Brexit process as well as the 56 seats secured at the Westminster GE.
It may have become a ‘mature’ political party, a mature British political party that is, but it has also become smug and complacent and rather too comfortable with the status quo. The growing factionalism and the flirtation with mawkish wokery is a result of a loss of focus, purpose and dynamic.
The irony is that the wokery, which is believed to be a vote winner among ‘the young’, is being peddled by middle aged men and women whom we might expect ‘to know better’, but in a society that considers a teen from Sweden with ‘issues’ to be an oracle/prophetess on matters meteorological it should come as no surprise.
The National party requires a refresh, neither Sturgeon nor her allies ought to be part of that. Independence is a serious business, we need leadership that accords with the bullish, altered political state.

@Republicofscotland at 2.18pm

Businesses may well have been preoccupied and using any “spare” monies they had to look into and assess what they might need to do so their business remained viable once out the EU in whatever form “leaving” might take.
Other businesses might just have spent any surplus cash on the staff crimbo party as they were told Scotland wouldn’t be taken out of the EU so wouldn’t have to worry…

Either of the above circumstances would explain a lack of donations from frustrated businesses.
Some businesses are of such a size that they are effectively sustaining the viability of small towns or communities.

Business leaders are ready to donate more money to fight Scottish independence in a second referendum than they did in 2014 and several have already promised six-figure sums, a controversial campaign group has said.

Richard Cook, who chairs the pro-Union Constitutional Research Council (CRC), said “several” wealthy backers are prepared to hand over major sums to “a new and positive campaign” to keep the UK together.

Cook broke his silence following claims CRC funnelled money from unknown sources to the Democratic Unionist Party to fund its Brexit campaign.

link to caltonjock.com

“Cook broke his silence following claims CRC funnelled money from unknown sources to the Democratic Unionist Party to fund its Brexit campaign.”

We can’t rely on a captured English body, the Electoral commission to properly investigate Tory dark money, it just won’t happen.

The games rigged, the decks are stacked, only independence can save us.

sandy

… on the generality, Boris is not my “my beloved Boris”. Darn Sarf, there is a more general distrust and a healthy lack of respect for political leaders. We tend not to worship them in the way Ms Sturgeon … errr… was. We know, in the end, they will probably let us down. The winner of an election is one that is perceived as being the least worst.

In the last election, my choice was Corbyn or Johnson. So unless, despite every scrap of evidence ever produced, I still believed that socialism made populations healthier and wealthier, the was only one real choice.

@ Sensibledave

I appreciate the big post. Unfortunately ive already said many times what I think is going on. However, if im wrong and SNP performance is down to ability rather than being owned by outside interests then they are the most incompetent shower of limp wristed twats Scotland could ever have been cursed with and need to be replaced asap. Ive made ham sandwiches with more innate leadership qualities and drive than they have shown since the Brexit referendum.

@ Pete

Regarding homosexuality. Im not interested. I dont see why someones sexuality needs to be paraded as some sort of positive (or negative characteristic). What some man or woman likes to legally get up to in their personal life is their business. Its all the LGBT+ fannies that seem to think they need to make it everyone elses business though? In my opinion anyone who see’s that a major defining characteristic for themselves is their sexuality are either sad empty people in need of some meaning in their lives or really do need some meds. Either way, they can keep out of my way whether they be straight or otherwise.

As for the economy – I find this frustrating. There’s a severe amount of ignorance when it comes to this subject but its not something im getting into at the moment. Nobody gives much of a damn anyway…until they actually experience socialist policies 1st hand.

@ Liz g

Im not sure what you are on about? Care to explain or is it beyond you?

Wait…ive got a better idea – just say something thick and vaguely dismissive like mike. That’ll do fine 🙂

@mike cassidy at 5:28 pm

Re. Abuse of bus pass. Well there was talk of folk taking numerous bus journey “tours” because the bus was comfortably warm and they couldn’t afford to heat their living accommodation.
But that situation says more about how a country like Scotland that is a next exporter of fuel and power still has folk in living in such energy poverty…

Re. Abuse. Just wait till all these Scottish lads Self ID as women so they can get free sanitary products and punt them on ebay to ladies down south…

Of course all these free or subsidised products and services wouldn’t be required in the first place if people actually lived in a society where businesses offered jobs that paid the workers enough of a wage so those employees could actually afford to pay the full price for the product or services.

Joe @6:17
Correct, rich people who pay no taxes in a particular country can up sticks and go elsewhere.
The thing is, the country they leave is no worse off as they were contributing nothing in the first place.

I don’t remember back when taxes were 19s 11d in the £1 scores of very wealthy people leaving these shores.

Re – concessionary travel.

The issue with concessionary bus travel is all about providing subsidy to deliver services that would otherwise not operate.

Distributing that subsidy principally by extending free fares to senior citizens has very good social benefits. Aside of facilitating services that would otherwise operate, it provides mobility to the elderly, it helps keep them active, it allows them to participate socially whilst for others i5 may even allow them to undertake work paid or unpaid.

It is also good for the environment reducing car journeys, congestion and pollution. So what not to like.

Moreover, extending the scheme to include youngsters many of whom will be students, will also have very worthwhile social benefits. We all like the idea of free education, so why not free bus travel for children, students and apprentices. Indeed, in extending the scheme i5 may we’ll be that this will cost little or no money since increasing the take up numbers whilst reducing the percentage that’s paid over for the fare will have effect of keeping the overall subsidy broadly the same. ( put simply in broad terms the bus needs the same subsidy to run irrespective of whether it has two or twenty two concessionary travellers)

The alternative of course for those who do not agree with subsidised bus routes is of course to let market forces dictate and if a run is unprofitable, then irrespective of it’s need, it should be axed.

One doesn’t need to think too hard to imagine how that would play out. Whole communities isolated, senior citizens isolated, bus drivers and mechanics out of a job, substantially less social interaction and especially so for the elderly man6 of who ever are on restricted incomes.

An enlightened policy and really folks should look past the narrow negative sour and frankly uninformed Tory perspective of somebody getting something for nothing.

Well done the SNP and the Greens for this policy. And if economics be ones driver it has been estimated that a rather modest £250m of subsidy delivers over £2 billion of increased economic activity plus untold health and societal benefits.

I hope these comments are helpful.

Bill Hume
You are taking extremes as your example.
The Laffer theory expounds that there comes a point when increasing taxes produces lower revenue as the rich either move or find ways round it.
The secret is to find the correct level of taxation which keeps the rich and doesn’t chase them away.
There was a time in the 70’s when the rich could pay tax on a portion of their income at over 90%.
That forced the wealthy, including rock stars to move their residence abroad.
Thatcher came in, reduced the top rates, the rich returned and the government received more money.
Simple economics!!

Back in the real world. Keiran Jenkins on Channel 4 News has just attacked Scots Gov on support for drug rehabilitation without any info on the £20m budget pledge to support rehabilitation.

BillHume
Joe has just personalised my point.

Scotlands FM talks to foreigners at Edinburgh castle tonight
Englands PM says she has no right to talk to foreign people

Jimmy Carr points out to his guest comedians on a comedy show when talking about Scottish Independence that they’re all behaving like angry spouses telling their wives that they’re nothing without them as they collectively mock Scotland and angrily claim everything belongs to England

Tory MP Kit Malthouse comes to Scotland for talks on England and Wales drug problems and says the Scottish solutions to drug problems (which are the same as everybody else’s and used around the world and produce good results) are a distraction, so they came all the way to Scotland to say that then refused interviews with journalists preferring to go on the BBC radio

If you’re of the Green persuation you must be astonished at English Tory Ministers massive carbon footprint travelling to Scotland to talk about the place they just came from only to be shot down by Scotlands chief medical officer for
not knowing what they’re talking about

@Ian Brotherhood

Yer Hebdon Bridge incident. The locals were ragin’ coz they thought el jocko was doing one of those amazingly lucrative bulk alcohol procurement runs to avoid the minimum pricing policy we have here.
I did a Border Reiver run to Berwick over the festive period and bought a couple of 15 can slabs of Tennent’s Lager for £10.50 which is 1.59 @ litre. That is about 50p @ litre cheaper than I’ve seen in my local shops.
It cost me about 30 quid in fuel for the round trip journey and I don’t even drink lager, but it just feels so good when you score a bargain like that. lol

T’was also fine to see the RBS Bank in the toon had been wrapped in Union Jackass flag bunting for some reason…

Correction. Just checked my phone pics. T’was Bank of Scotland in Berwick, not RBS.

There has long been legal debate over whether the Scottish Parliament, rather than MPs at Westminster, could pass the laws needed for a new vote on independence to be held – but the matter has never been tested in court.

Mike Cassidy @ 10.04 pm
They did Mike and they even knew that The Guardian is as irrelevant to us as the BBC.
Having said that, when they’re reduced to channelling Margaret ” there is no other way ” Thatcher!
I’m more minded to pity than blame.

To be thinking that the limit of our ambitions for Scotland is a pale imitation of Westminster,doing a pale imitation of Washington,doing a pale imitation of that auld stinking corpse of a British Empire
They really have drunk the Kool aid.

How bloody old is the “don’t tax the rich, they’ll disappear like snaw aff a dyke” troupe now ?
And nae understanding that there are a fair few rich that we actually want to get gone ….but they are taking nothing with them.
The Land owning corporations and billionaires,the oil companies,the Laird’s of all those shooting estates.
They can pay up or fuck off but the Land and the resources, they stay hame!
I can think of one massive shooting estate we can tax the whole of England for 🙂 and a massive Naval Base that would be a right wee ( deficit sized ) money pot if we were stuck.
Also,there are other revenue streams too.
Since we make nae claim to Gibraltar,Spain will have to bring something worthwhile to the table for our fishing water’s!
As will NATO if it wants to continue to use them…
Don’t even get me started on the financial services we can poach from London,not to mention having a stable legal system and EU access opens up mergers and acquisitions at a much more competitive rate.
All before we need to look at massive personal and business tax rate changes.
We make the most of the bounty that IS Scotland and capitalise on that!
But naw, according to the whining of the terrible trio we have to run to catch up to be mimicking the failing UK and US model,cause that’s how the world works and “there is no other way”.
Although to be fair they haven’t said ” Don’t Tread On Me ” should be enshrined in law…. Yet. 🙂

Greece didn’t tax the rich and to say the least it didn’t go well.

Millionaires who created jobs didn’t pay Tax as they might take the jobs elsewhere?

Doctors would earn €100,000 per annum at minimum.
They where allowed to predict that they would earn half that and pay €2,000 to the tax man
As insurance that if they did earn more, they couldn’t be taxed on it.

Millionaires would buy a peasant farmers small property, build the Taj Mahal on it but leave a corner
Of the property unfinished as no council type tax would be due until the property was fully developed
No limit on time restrictions.

Millionaires are here because they make lots of money and have the government in their pockets
If they move away tax their money as it moves.

Someone else will always be willing to buy a profitable company.

Remember too that England’s richest man has £20 Billion still working in his 60’s
He could spend a £Million every day until he dies and not be broke and yet he is
Looking to relocate to Monaco to avoid paying tax?

That just seems so sick to me as he gazed out at Tory induced Food Banks, period poverty,
Zero hours contracts,Universal Discredit, attacks on the disabled with the bedroom tax but he stil
Wants a bigger slice of the cake and drive the forces of evil further.

Well done Craig. Your blog is a real eye opener, comparing your reporting to what is not reported in the msm. Tried setting up a monthly dd but the paypal on your site is a pain. Will do it through my bank instead.
If you did not do this how would we know?
Dark days indeed.
Btw. Some moderation on this site would be great.

@ Craig Murray

The SNP will like Assange less when he gets to give evidence against Hillary and others back in the US.

Effigy @ 8.09
Too much is never enough for those types.
The beauty of what I’m suggesting for Scotland is that our main wealth can’t be taken away.
We need to direct taxes at those who must pay or go away.
As I understand it one fifth of Scotland is in the hands of billionaires and private faceless corporations using our land to bank money!
We can’t just take it from them,but this is where we need to Tax. They can sell to whom ever they like and leave,the new owner will still have to pay. They can also just hand the Title back to Holyrood,either way out Land will work for us.

The same goes for the oil and gas companies if they stay they pay,if they go we will have a state oil and gas company like Norway has.
I’ve never been able to find out if NATO pay anything to Westminster to use our waters and airspace,but I cannot imagine that they don’t! Either way after Indy they pay or go away.

Then there’s fishing,why people a taken in by this independent coastal state nonsense is beyond me!
If it’s perfectly fine to sell the rights to “foreigners” for the oil and gas in our waters why are fish suddenly sacrosanct?
If a decent price in what ever form comes to the Scottish Treasury it doesn’t matter which fleet is doing the fishing.
And in the early days of Indy Scotland doesn’t have much of a fleet anyway.

The very wealthy,I understand,pay a lot of money to blast Scottish wildlife to bits…let’s just see how much they are actually willing to pay before they go else where too?

All of this is entirely possible with the political will to do it and then and only then do we turn to business and personal tax.
While I can’t say for sure, apparently, “a land value tax” would not only be fairer but would fund the council’s and end the need for the Poll Tax……. As I was alluding to above ” there is Always another way ” and Scots are particularly good at exploring innovative change that the rest of the globe embrace,to tax properly and share wealth fairly shouldn’t be beyond our ken!
Considering the mess the Capitalism and Communism have made no before time either…

My consumed media roundup for February.
Concerted attacks on the SNP, Labour and the LibDems.
The Tories? Meh.
Odd, it’s almost as if…. nah.

Johnson wants to stuff the Scottish Affairs Committee full of English Tories, the (SAC) oversees and scrutinises Johnsons staging post in Scotland, the Scotland Office.

This would lead to the Tory led (SAC) doing more damage to Scotland, via the Scotland Office than they’re doing at present.

link to thenational.scot

@Liz g at 9.07am

Don’t forget our electricity production.
Current UK demand is approximately 40GW.
Scotland’s population makes up approximately 10% of the UK, so I presume we are using around 4GW of that 40GW figure.
But when you look at the system transfers within the GB Grid you can see that Scotland is currently exporting 3.8GW to England, so it appears we are creating almost double the power we actually use.*

*I’d appreciate if anyone with more specific knowledge on this subject could chip in to confirm this is correct.

link to extranet.nationalgrid.com

link to gridwatch.templar.co.uk

Graeme McCormick who occasionally posts on here has spent time looking at and giving talks on Annual Ground Rent / Land Tax Reform.
It is a very interesting subject and he has evolved the concept several times so that it could include a universal basic income which covers the problems with state unemployment payments and the issues with pension provision due to differences is birth rate trends over time.

Scottish Health secretary Jean Freeman has had to have a police officer stationed near her constituency after numerous threats of violence to her, and an arrest of one man.

We can partly thank the unionist media for this ramping up of blame to the point of violence.

As Freeman says I’m not personally responsible for every NHS mistake, however I am accountable for how well our NHS performs.

We have the best performing NHS in the UK.

I bet Matt Hancock hasn’t go a police officer standing outside his constituency office.

@ Liz G

Your telling me to read your comment slowly but have assumed im a Unionist and a Thatcherite. Also if you believe that the US hasnt done well relatively, especially in the last few years, then youve not been paying attention

Increasingly in public basic perception voting for Scottish independence = higher taxes, nanny state, dimunition of womens rights/safety, public officials deaf to complaint and signing on to another dying and corrupt political union…and anyone who sees the problem is a troll? The future is bright i can tell

Why has this site’s WGD Link been disappeared?

I noticed in yesterday’s Daily Heil an article on WW2 which referred on 2 occasions to England’s Royal Air Force.

“noticed in yesterday’s Daily Heil an article on WW2 which referred on 2 occasions to England’s Royal Air Force.”

Well, it is Englands, is it not?

@Craig Murray, 8.33

Well said.

If we on here know what to do to confront all the Tory wrongs on Scotland why do the SNP not appear to know what to do their silence on these wrongs are beyond belief .Come on SNP do something now

@gus1940

I suspect this is because WGD deleted a comment from RevStu on his site. Unfortunately, IMO. the WGD is intolerant of even he mildest criticism of the SNP and will remove the post.

Craig Murray @ 8.33pm
It is utterly shameful that the SNP has not spoken out on the human rights violation of Assange. Nothing more that WM puppies.

Thank you for all you’ve done on the Assange case. Julian Assange is the biggest political prisoner case of the 21st century and the world is willfully ignoring the importance of this in terms of the future impact on journalism and publishing.

As for Oz, they are even more shameful. Living here, I cannot get over how absolutely no-one cares – the people, journalists, government etc it’s just not on the radar. It’s so very tragic.

I know you have Roger Waters but I think there has to be high profile Oz supporters to try to get Aussies engaged to help free Assange. Does Roger Waters have contacts?

For SNP peeps – given the SNP is doing hee-haw on independence right now, please direct your support to Assange via social media, protests, writing to MPs, etc etc.

If people want a free press and whistle-blowers to be truth tellers then the Assange case is the most important judicial case in ther entire world. This is Global Elite vs us Plebs. people in the UK please stand up.

Many things have been bugging me lately about the apathetic SNP, I am an SNP member and joined before sturgeon, so I have shown my fair share of loyalty over the years, not to mention the hudresds and hundresds of hours campaigning for the party I believed was committed to Independence.

But… the strategy of the SNP is way off what is needed. I know Im not the only one who is utterly pissed of at the SNP always meekly explaining and pandering to the vicious questions and attacks from opponents.

The numner of times we have had weakness from the SNP in response to the attacks is infuriating, when we could so easily turn the tables and have the unionists on the ropes dodging for cover every time!!

The SNP has stopped being fighters and have become the nicey nice explainers trying to give reasoned arguments to every single whine and gripe from opponments.

How many times has sturgeon been interviewed by a unionist media clown and taken hit after hit when the response could have been so much more devestating!!

Explaining about domestic policy that is being attacked for lack of investment etc, could so easily be turned on the unionists by rightly stating that the Scotting parliament does not have full access to our massive natural resources which only Independence can bring. Policy is managed in at tight budget within the barnet formula.

Being nice just isnt cutting it. How many of us have sceamed at the telly or radio demanding the SNP hit back, but no… this pathetically weak response only gives credence to our unionist attackers in the eyes of the public because its not challenged.

I know the unionist media is the worst in the world and will manipulate SNP bad stories to the hilt, but in an interview the SNP can really hit back but they dont!!

Ive often wondered why,, but its clear that the SNP p;olicy strategists dont want this. Its as if the top brass are comfortable with the status quo!

Are the birbed, blackmailed and or infiltrated by the british secret service?? They have to be!!
Fucking things up this close to independence can only be done by them!

Those of us who are SNP members must act now to have the leadership removed!! The focus must be on independence as craig murray says!
Begging for Wesminsters consent, legitimises their claims of soverignty. WE the People of Scotland are soverign!
Time the people made the SNP leadership aware of this!!!

@ Liz G

Quote – ‘They did Mike and they even knew that The Guardian is as irrelevant to us as the BBC.
Having said that, when they’re reduced to channelling Margaret ” there is no other way ” Thatcher!
I’m more minded to pity than blame.’

Quote ‘Aye and as delusional as ever they were during Indy Ref 1’

So im a thatcherite and Unionist apparently. FFS

You do not need to tell me what Scotland economic potential is so I dont see the point in responding to that. We appear to be on the same page on that.

However you have done exactly what I was saying before – im not specifically talking about billionaires.

Im talking about more or less ordinary people with ability to earn who will have the option of taking a very short drive to another very similar English speaking country should Scotland prove to be too oppressive tax-wise and do business there.

Do what you do best Liz and hold that Saltire, eh?

With free tuition fees, free personal care and free prescriptions the vast majority of ordinary taxpayers in Scotland would have to be paying PAYE for 150 years before they would be worse off with the Scottish income tax rate.

That would explain why English people are coming to work/live here in record numbers, and Ive heard of no idiot who has left for England because of a miniscule tax rise here.

@ Joe says:
28 February, 2020 at 2:49 pm

Im talking about more or less ordinary people with ability to earn who will have the option of taking a very short drive to another very similar English speaking country should Scotland prove to be too oppressive tax-wise and do business there.

That is just nonsense on stilts get real.

Joe @ 2.49
Sigh…nope …third time wasn’t the charm then!
I said your bought what Thatcher was selling and are still running with it.
And I’d demonstrated that we’ve a way to go yet before we get to ordinary tax pay’ers.
Jumping to the assumption that it will be the ordinary worker’s and their employers who will bear the burden of paying for the services that the people of Scotland enjoy is a blinkered view,which gave the impression that you infact were not aware of the extent of the resources Scotland has to utilise.
But we can only realise that potential if we Do Not follow the old failing doctrines of the UK & US that you assert we don’t really understand.
And for the avoidance of doubt following socialist magical thinking would be utter madness too.
While I did all of that, and gave you three opportunities to comprehend it…… I still didn’t call you a unionist I only indicated you a fool to be regurgitating the received wisdom of carpetbaggers!

The so called great and the good the world over, who follow the doctrines of capitalist and socialist/communist systems had them put in place when the population was quite ignorant of the wealth and resources available to them….
Why I say we can do this differently is precisely because a fair few of us in Scotland have a good idea of Scotland’s actual wealth now.
All we need to get started is our government brought within slapping distance.
So you and your two buddies can keep punting a mini me Westminster all ye like.
But most people here are well beyond believing “there is no other way”and have been for quite some time…

Yep. You are all correct now that I think about it. People who work for their living wouldn’t worry about taxes going up on the backs of socialistic policies.

So, now that Boris is in number 10 with a huge majority and the Scottish electorate voted 60%+ for something that isnt being granted for a subordinate future inside little Britain…how about we address that indy support number that can never seem to hold for long above 50%…

Hmmm…that’s a puzzler so it is. Why would that be?

Re my last comment on tax.

As a result of the 2020 Scottish budget more than 95% of properties in Scotland, will be subject to lower rate poundage than they would face in othsr parts of the UK. Some like to perpetuate the myth of a high tax Scotland.

The fact is since the Tories came to power in 2010, the overall tax burden in the UK (expressed as a share of National Income) has infact risen.

According to the (IFS) Institute for Fiscal Studies total UK tax revenues will reach £760 billion in 2019/20 or 34.5% of National Incomethe highest sustained share since WWII.

Tory policies since 2010 have increased overall tax revenue by about £20 billion altogether desite large giveaways increasing the income tax personal allowance cutting the headline rate of cirporation tax and freezing fuel duties.

Tax raising measures including regressive rises on VAT and National Insurance contributions exceeded these giveaways overall in revenue terms.

As a result low income households in the UK have lost out overall especially those with children the poorest 10% of households have seen losses of over 11% of their income (£1,200 per year) on average, among those with children the figures rises to 20% (£4000).

It’s always been in the best interests of England if Scots leave Scotland

First they killed us, then they threw us off our land and out of our homes, then they dispatched us to countries throughout the world, then they even paid our cheap fares to emigrate to other countries promising wonderous new lives for us if we’d just get out of Scotland, they moved our work places to England and told us to do well in School so we could get jobs in the big London (they called that the brain drain at that time) even today they’ve paid money to companies like Youngs fish processors and others to move to England a method they’ve always engaged when they decide
leaving those Scottish workers to seek work wherever they could, and in between all that they conducted wars in which strangely the percentage of Scottish soldiers killed was higher than that of England (are our lads worse at fighting than anybody else? I doubt it)

We were going to have a referendum to leave Englands political system in 2014, what did England do, did they say oh we’re sorry to hear that, did they even say maybe we haven’t been fair to Scotland, did they even say let’s talk about how we can solve this problem like grown ups, no, they didn’t say anything like that

The threatened us with starvation of income, withdrawal of businesses, closure of banks, refusal of the use of an International trading currency, they employed ex politicians like Gordon Brown to threaten blood bank closures and co operation and the denial of pensions to the elderly, all of which were lies

Aye England is great we should defo stick with them, look at all the advantages of having neighbours who really like us and beg us not to leave them or they’ll punish us to hell

We’d be nothing without them

Joe can I tell you why that number of 50%+ does not appear to be going up ,it is because we have a SNP government who cannot get airtime or newspaper articles to PROVE how well Scotland is run , the bias of the MSM is PROVEN time and time again , and even when given ANY airtime they FAIL MISERABLY in refuting any and all accusations

When you are having a daily brainwashing infusion of negativity from all TV ,radio , and mainstream newspapers it is a miracle that we have reached 52% , not only that it is worse when the SNP SG embrace these charlatans and tractors and when giving press interviews they always pick these same chancers toodleoo , kuenssberg , smith and company which gives them credibility

Apparently, being reported, UK Government ministers are refusing to appear on the main radio news programme of the so called largest public-service broadcaster, even to explain what’s going on with the #COVID2019 crisis?……….

Also now not allowed to say the word BREXIT….obvs this new Tory adopted strategy is post GE 2019 Tory ‘Get Brexit Done’ slogan to win over Brexiteer voters…..do they think if we all stop using the word we will just forget it is happening ?

Also not allowed to use term ‘No Deal’….connotations and all that old chap.

Are they doing an Edna Rennie…..

Talking of Edna Brass neck Rennie….I see the man with NO SHAME has had a Union uber alles puff piece published in the Scotsman…the Unionist enabler newspaper……sweep sweep deflect deflect…when is that non entity going to be held to account and challenged for readmitting a child molesting enabler back into the party…..when will the Lib Dem ‘inquiry’ into Steel last year be released….or challenged as to how they came to their ultimate conclusion that Steel was not guilty of turning a blind eye thus enabling Smith to continue abusing both children and the position Steel allowed him to hold within the Lib Dems.

“I Vant to be Alone”…..” You vill not mention ze word Brexit oder ze terminology No Deal as reference as to ze means by vich vee vill depart from ze Union of ze EU”……” Also you vill not mention Cyril Smith oder David Steel or ze inquiry vee held last year ven talking vith me ze Edna Rennie”……translated ” Are vee, ze Unionists parties, ze baddies ?”

The Scotsman…”Hi Willie also known as Edna…please allow us to help you out of your current, and if you were SNP ‘untenable’ position, which we will try to deflect by allowing you, although at a most inappropriate time, the opportunity to divert the attention away from the Lib Dems current ‘awkward’ position and draw upon your support for the Union against the SNP’s awful position on independence……

it is our role BTW, Willie aka Edna, to deflect attention away, or rather ignore altogether, from Unionist scandals and UnionBad stories and to focus pretty much 24/7 upon SNPBAD/IndependenceBad stories…both real (in our own special Unionist concocted way) and also by using our most imaginatively contrived version of Unionist ‘truth’, against both independence and the SNP ,when the Pro Union chips are seemingly down………….thinking of you Willie aka Edna at this most precarious time…if we, the Scotsman, can be of any further help should this ugly situation re Smith and Steel rear up again then let us know”…..

BTW See yon Tory on BBC QT bigging up Scotland against Wales…obvs Jonathan Ashworth Labour dismissing it in a way that came over as it being a ludicrous assertion…..as per Labour never ever miss an opportunity to declare ‘Scotland is Sheeite’…….while in denial about badly run Labour Wales….their current achilles heel…..one of many……they even had yon Ian Murray coming LAST in Deputy leadership elections….Scotland lead us don’t leave us….just don’t get too ambitious in the labour party and think you can lead us in any way via deputy position in our party….Lol

“Ruth Davidson has been urged to resign after it emerged she was paid £7500 on top of her Holyrood salary to appear as a pundit on ITV’s election night show.”

link to thenational.scot

@ liz g

Hi Liz how you doin ?

My God Liz you are fair gaen it laldy Lol

Guid on ye….your no feart….wish I was as brave as you..your a good girl..Lol…who BTW is STILL the only one on here who I will accept, with grace,to call me Flapper….seriously considering changing me mantle to FlapperGirl49…..Lol

Twathater @ 3.38
Ha….I’m holding oot fur Queen of the Scots because I want those landowners in ma sights…. 🙂
That’s where I tell them I’m ending hereditary wealth!
If they didn’t earn it, or cause it to be there,beyond their dwelling they don’t get to hand it to their offspring.
They buy the use of the land and resources to make their money but, when they pop off,their kid’s only get first refusal to purchase it.. Ultimately Scotland belongs to the Scots….. As they say….in perpetuity 🙂
So their kids better start skilling up and earning 🙂

“LOL forgot that bit…”

That’s alright Liz, I had the figures at hand, busting the higher tax myth is akin to busting the old we’ll need to use the Euro right away, or there’s no oil and gas left in the North sea.

Being part of the union is bad for your health if you’re poor.

“A study has linked a spike in mental-health problems among the unemployed with the rollout of universal credit and other government welfare changes.”

“The number of unemployed people with psychological distress rose 6.6% between 2013 and 2018, it suggests.”

“And this represents an extra 63,674 people in England, Wales and Scotland – 21,760 of whom became clinically depressed over the period.”

link to archive.fo

I have to admit. I like the cut of this chap Breeks jib. He’s posting a lot of sensible stuff these days.

@breeks
Nailed it.

The SNP are killing independence for me.
I believe in independence not membership of the EU which is not independence.
I don’t believe in self declaration.
I don’t believe in legalised drug consumption rooms.
I certainly don’t believe that people under the age of 25 should avoid prison because of their age – WTF?
No SNP votes from me, someone else needs to take up the independence reins.

@ twathater

Ive been telling people the mainstream media is a shitpit of lies and propaganda since about year 2000 when I got rid of my TV. I do understand the hand they have played in the indy argument.

However its not just the media that is turning people off now. Its a portion of the Yes movement and the SNP.

Anyone who looks at the current SNP and their activists and doesnt feel something of a chill at the 1984 style of the fuckers and what being run as an independent country by them would be like isnt really thinking in my opinion.

We all seem to be wisening up to the SNP now. Thats good. Its just the tip of the iceberg though.

As for tax – my main point about tax is not as things are. Its as things may well be under the kind of government we will get if Scotland actually became independent on the terms with which we are dealing.

Im sorry, i’ll repeat, if that’s not bringing a pang of concern then your not thinking.

Now heres why im a disrespectful arsehole to you all about it – you were warned. By myself and a few others, mostly notably WOS, but nearly everyone wanted to bury their heads in the sand and pretend we were just paranoid.

People cant afford to be this naive if you ever want to have a government that is operated for the benefit of the people and you can’t expect people who are not convinced by indy yet to ever be convinced by the kind of garbage that is currently on offer.

well said, Breeks (5.12pm) and liz (5.58pm)

“Alex also appointed as leader of the Yes campaign that tosser Blair Drummond.”

You mean Blair Jenkins, Blair Drummond is a small community five miles North-West of Stirling.

link to en.wikipedia.org

No comment from me, although I did converse with him at a “media” event at the DCA in Dundee, back in the day.

@sassenach
‘McMillan who once said “Events, dear boy, events” when asked about governance.’

It wasn’t McMillan who said that. It was me on this blog 2 days ago 🙂

But you’re correct.

A referendum anytime soon would be a farce,and I think that has to be recognised.

In two parts by the way 50 mins ea.

Remember, Boris Johnson only has the power over Scotland which we choose to concede to him.

dakk says:
28 February, 2020 at 8:25 pm

…Much though I like and respect Alex Salmond, even under his governance pre indyref I used to rail as to why the entire Scottish population were not made aware of McCrone and the fact Scotland subsidises the thieving liars of britain…

I would agree that Alex Salmond made mistakes, especially where the media was concerned, but I also remember how little enthusiasm there was for challenging the BBC’s monopoly back in 2013/14. There was a general feeling that attacking the BBC was like kicking a hornets nest. Scotland’s alertness and cynicism about the media is much healthier now than it was in 2014, when people were still naive enough to believe writing complaints to the BBC Governors would change things.

I also think Alex Salmond was also weak on the Constitutional realities, but strategically weak, not illiterate. Alex Salmond was, if I remember correctly, highly critical of Blair’s Supreme Court and the Constitutional ramifications.

It was also Alex Salmond who agreed to the Section 30 precedent of 2014, although I think if I’m correct, much of the work setting up the Edinburgh Agreement was done by Sturgeon.

Blair Jenkins was weird appointment for me too. Never quite worked that one out.

But you’re right dakk, it’s easy to forget Alex Salmond made mistakes, but he also doubled support for Indy during his tenure, actually got Scotland as referendum, and came mightily close to winning it too. The first Holyrood and Westminster elections both returned emphatic surges for SNP representation… but mandates, majorities and momentum which were all squandered under Sturgeon, culminating with the low point of Theresa May’s snap election and Tory resurgence.

Don’t forget too, Alex Salmond had neither Brexit nor Scotland’s emphatic rejection of Brexit to lend power to his elbow. In 2014 the Unionist media had stolen a march on Europe and promoted the fallacy that Independence meant Scotland being out of Europe, not in it. If Alex Salmond had thereality of Brexit in 2014, or if Salmond had still been in charge after 2014, it might have made all the difference …

Watching the parliament channel on the 25th Feb, the oil and gas future, the SNP MPs hardly got a say they were laughing and joking with the english mps who are dictating what the future will be regarding the moving into renewables, Scottish well Scottish MPs who want to dissolve the union should be putting up more of a fight, nothing ever gets done except they keep getting their salary, their down in Westminster to fight for Scotland, they’ve done nothing in four years, somethings wrong, is something happening behind the scenes? Our Scottish SNP MPs have to start taking the fight to them, they’re are laughing and joking while getting stabbed in the back at the same time, I wish they had more pith like some Irish MPs.

Breeks at 512pm yesterday,

Excellent post. I fully agree, that something stinks. What has the Scotgov done this week to advance independence? ~NOTHING.

Brexit continues apace, and SNP MP’s draw their fat salaries, whilst constantly whining about how awful Westminster is. But still they do nothing. Still the SNP ‘leader’ ignbores it all, seemingly happy to let it all be done to Scotland, so she can then whine about how unfair it all is.

Brexit continues apace, and Scotland is being ignored, yet our Scottyish government do nothing to stop it. NOTHING.

Breeks, I admire your posts, since they set out EXACTLY the reality of how Scots are being quite literally betrayed by the current Scottish Government. Let us not forget, they were elected on a mandate of calling an indyref, explicitly if Scotland is taken out of the EU against its wishes.

Still, NS blabs on about section 30. The whole world realises Boris won’t give one, yet Nicola carries on regardless, either willfully or in complete delusion.

Breeks is right, something is rotten at the heart of the current Scottish Government, wholly unweilling to even argue with Westminster. A bunch of cowards, in all but name. The SNP leadership have shown that when the chips are down, they, the SNP, will NOT stand up for Scotland. They do not have Scotland’s back. All too cosy, all too complacent.

And as for Iain Blackford? He promsied repeatedly in the HoC that Scotland would not be removed from the EU against its wishes. Many in the indy movement believed him. More fool us. A man in his shoes now, would advisedly stop whining. He had his chance, and literally blew it. Yet another SNP blowhard ‘toom tabard’.

The latter part of Breeks post is worth re-quoting;

QUOTE “I think there is something very, very, rotten here, and we really do need a stewards enquiry into our lame and spineless Scottish Government. This is not apathy. This is not merely incompetence. This is not inaction bred of cowardice. This more and more looks like the wilful and deliberate undermining of Scottish Independence. Somebody needs to ask some poignant questions at Spring Confer… oh.

Meantime, I’m backing Team Cherry, and I can tell you, it’s a great positive feeling when feel the doubts just start to wash away…”

SNP IS NOW WELL AND TRULY ENCULTURATED.
BritUnionist fleas are growing fat and not even a scratch.
Our Sometime Never Party is plainly in need of a “physic”.

For anyone unaware, another one getting out: link to twitter.com

Bill McLean

Well surely it’s better to get the Salmond case out of the way before starting up Indy Ref2 .
Having a daily dose of negativity from the case being drip fed into a campaign would be very damaging.
Can’t think of anything worse!