The Great Urging
As we’ve always understood it, readers, the definition of “news” is supposed to be “a new thing which has happened that people didn’t previously know about”.
Evidently the rules have changed since we were young cub reporters.
21 January 2015 (Ruth Davidson)
27 April 2016 (Kezia Dugdale)
6 May 2016 (Ruth Davidson)
17 May 2016 (David Mundell)
24 July 2016 (prominent anti-independence voice Sir Ian Wood)
27 August 2016 (Ruth Davidson)
6 September 2016 (Ruth Davidson)
10 September 2016 (some arsehole)
15 September 2016 (UK government ministers)
17 September 2016 (Kezia Dugdale)
26 September 2016 (Willie Rennie, Jackson Carlaw)
26 September 2016 (Kezia Dugdale)
10 October 2016 (Better Together campaigner “Professor” Jim Gallagher)
23 October 2016 (Kezia Dugdale)
20 December 2016 (Kezia Dugdale)
23 December 2016 (Sir Tom Hunter)
7 January 2017 (Ruth Davidson, Iain Gray)
9 January 2017 (actually one single “business leader”)
We have the oddest feeling that this story will break again, folks.
I noted in the BBC review of Scotland’s papers that Nicola Sturgeon now has a weekly column in the Daily Record.
link to bbc.co.uk
Not that I personally read that paper, but thought that was interesting. Hopefully provides a good platform for reaching out to undecideds, as well as putting across a counter-argument to some of the more hysterical newspaper attacks on the SG/Scottish independence.
Anyone actually read the column?
It seems to be that the only way that the English populace will get out of the EU rule before 2025 will be to have their own independence referendum. Vote YES for independence and, voila, job done.
I see the Guardian carries a story headlined “BBC sets up team to debunk fake news” .
I laughed out loud. They do know that they are the number one source of that in Scotland surely?
Irony. Americans and the MOT don’t get it.
Ireland was illegally Partitioned by Lloyd Gerorge in 1922. The majority of Irish people did not vote for it. Universal Suffrage 1928. In some parts of Belfast in the 1960’s the Catholics did not have the vote. Bernadette Devlin. The Masonic Unionists were in power. They took all the public jobs (90%) houses etc. The handshake, nod and a wink. Demographically Ulster (six counties) could vote to reunite.
NI (2million pop) raises £28Million in taxes. Gets 50% more £14Billion = £42Billion. Norwegian levels of funding. Norway 5million raises £84Billion.
Scotland raises £54Billion+ Gets £28Billion Block Grant. ? Billion capital payment. Pays approx £4Billion in loan repayments on money not borrowed or spent in Scotland. £1Billion on Trident, £3Billion on Defence. £15Billion (UK) Gov pension/welfare benefits.
The UK raises £515Billion in taxes. The rest of the UK raises £461Billion. Divide by 11 (pop) = £42Billion raises in the rest of the UK (pro rata).
In 2009 Labour were raising £600Billion and borrowing £120Billion = £720Billion
The Tories are raising £515Billion and borrowing £100Billion? = £615Billion
Osbourne was taxing the Oil sector at 60% to 80% when the price had fallen 75%. Losing Scotland £4Billion+ a year and thousands of jobs. £24Billion over six years. The tax is now 40% since Jan 2016.
Great point here from Dave mc Ewan
link to thenational.scot
Re the maternity unit “shut down” as the herald calls it – seems a touch over-egged even for the herald.
My experience of nhs Lothian was that there was always a chance we’d be diverted to St John’s in Livingston if the ERI was busy. I am sure there will be awareness of where expectant mothers may be sent if the hospital in Glasgow is busy.
There is an FOI for NHS Lothian asking how many times its maternity wards have been on divert. The figures are thus:
Royal Infirmary Edinburgh:
2013-108, 2014- 103, 2015- 70
St John’s Livingston
2013- 10, 2014-40, 2015-25
It is an inconvenience if it happens but to be fair the same is true of much of the bit after child birth. Having children is probably not for you if a little inconvenience is unacceptable.
WGD on Kezia’s latest wheeze.
link to weegingerdug.wordpress.com
Oh, and this’ll have the yoonitariat in a froth. 🙂
link to twitter.com
Links
Link here for Saturday’s convention
link to twitter.com
Reporting Scotland refused to show these two key sections from Corbyn’s interview
link to twitter.com
link to itisintruthnotforglory.wordpress.com
link to commonspace.scot
Reporting Scotland’s ‘Weaponising’ of NHS
link to archive.is
Northern Ireland election is ‘very likely’, Minister says
link to archive.is
link to opendemocracy.net
High Court to hear British Brexit escape route case
link to archive.is
link to uk.businessinsider.com
Amber Rudd speech on foreign workers treated as ‘hate incident’ by police
link to archive.is
link to infacts.org
link to zelo-street.blogspot.co.uk
Watched FMQ’s on youtube. I simply do not understand what the hell SLAB think they are achieving, they were obviously briefed by the Scottish tories on the line of attack on the Trauma centers. Honestly they should just merge with the tories as their current role as sock puppets is as transparent as it is woeful. The sheer gall and check to criticise the SNHS given what’s going on in the rest of the UK, to have the bare faced cheek to criticise the extra spending when in your own parties manifesto it was missing is beyond the pale. Honestly, is there only red tories left now in SLAB? Is there no chance of a routing of this Blairite Scottish cancer?
Nana: Good Morning,
Thank you for the links, Kettle’s on.
Peace Always
BBC sets up team to debunk fake news.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
I said, when Donald Trump made his BBC “that’s another beauty” comment that the lights at BBC Headquarters would be burning late into the night.
Now we know what all the black coffee, clacking typewriters and cigar smoke filled rooms came up with… set up a team to tackle the problem.
Ha ha ha. You are caught BBC. You can run, you can claim “it wasnae me”, but you’re caught red handed. That’s YOU in the frame BBC, and you can scream as many denials as you have the breath for, but it’s YOU. Your lying coupon is being recognised the world over for its faithless distortion of the truth.
The only people who don’t buy your crap are those still plugged in to the matrix, and yet to waken up to your induced reality. Set up a team to deal with that while you’re at it.
In fact, Ha ha ha ha ha, doesn’t quite do it. I’m making a stab at getting guffaw back into common parlance. Guffaw! Guffaw! Guffaw! With a light dusting of Ha ha ha on top.
You could bring back the BBC news pips and I wouldn’t even trust them any more. I’d rather check my watch.
Leading medical experts saying Scottish media and the BBC in particular is bad for mental health
Surely that means the SG can ban them like smoking in pubs or cars or the polis can arrest them for being a danger to the public
Wreckless Writing?
@Smallaxe
Good morning, it might be a slow news day so here’s a few more links
Al Jazeera Investigations – The Lobby P1: Young Friends of Israel
link to youtube.com
link to middleeasteye.net
link to journal-neo.org
@Breeks
just in case citizens did not see Mr Trump rip BBC News,
link to youtube.com
50 sec in,
and what he says after it about `fake news` rings so many bells with our rancid media.
Well, that’s a cracker in the Guardian – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/13/britain-doesnt-really-exist-exit–eu
An ex Labour MP and current Principal of an Oxford University college. Poor Kez, nae treaty and noo this!
@gerry parker
Thanks for that, great article. I posted this, a bit late so I’ll post it here so as not to waste it!
————————
Talking about population, I had thought the population of Scotland which was actually declining in the 80s and even a little in the 90s had started rising after Devolution. But having looked at the graph on page 9 of the paper below “Demographic Change in Scotland”, it didn’t start increasing until the exact time the SNP came into power in 2007.
link to gov.scot
In 2007 the population was just about exactly the same as in 1951, in spite of life expectancy rising and mortality dropping, a little over 5 million. In comparison the population of England rose from 41 million to 51 million, and Wales and Northern Ireland had similar growth.
What a sad indictment that is for Scotland being part of the UK.
and a few more…
link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk
Revealed: former British ambassador Sir Andrew Wood’s key role in Trump investigation
link to archive.is
How can Britain exit the EU? As a nation state it doesn’t really exist
link to archive.is
heedtracker says:
13 January, 2017 at 3:05 am
‘I love Gaelic too everyone. Its such a beautiful language, spoken, poetry and especially song. And its massive abroad, which ofcourse, we never hear about, in the Scotland region, cant have the natives all riled up with their own non anglo saxon tongue.’
It is a beautiful language and has a genius elegant system of spelling – Gaelic has many more sounds (phonemes) than English and only uses 18 letters to spell them.
How Gaelic fared in Canada is worth a read
link to en.wikipedia.org
Gaelic has faced widespread prejudice in Great Britain for generations, and those feelings were easily transposed to British North America.[19] In 1868, the Scottish-American Journal mockingly reported that “…the preliminary indispensables for acquiring Gaelic are: swallowing a neat assortment of nutmeal-graters, catching a chronic bronchitis, having one nostril hermetically sealed up, and submitting to a dislocation of the jaw.”
@Nana
Many thanks for all your links.
I particularly enjoyed David Marquand’s piece in the Guardian.
His preamble echoed our own Robert Peffer’s historical synopsis.
I repeat the link here
link to archive.is.
The game’s afoot for real now.
Nana:
Your too kind, 🙂 Peace Always
Nana says
Industry has bought into the German government’s line that the top priority is to keep EU together ….. from the perspective of German industry, a fragmentation of the EU would be more damaging than Brexit. So the priority to keep the bloc together is hardly irrational.
That is what I have expected. The security and integrity of the EU is more important than easy trade with the UK. The EU MUST show that the single market cannot be taken piecemeal by any leaver. It must also be shown that leaving is a bad idea.
Something else I expect … the EU may see the breaking up of the UK as part of the retribution and deterrence. They won’t actively work to break up, however I do hope they are willing to give full backing and assistance to those of us who want to stay in the EU.
And here’s a link for you Nana
link to archive.is
Noel Whelan’s piece in the Irish Times.
Nana
That archived link to DAvid Marquand’s Guardian piece is a corker.
I will probably leave it until later in the day, just to let them have their rants, but, I reckon some (many) of the btl posts on that one will be slobberin Yoonery at its worst.
Hearing on twitter, dugdale to resign in 10 days, can anyone confirm?
We all know how the BBC and press were all over the Michelle Thomson story so why are they not doing the same with this one I wonder.
link to on.rt.com
schrodingers cat says:
Media reporting she has just split with her partner.
But the David Marquand article falls short on one point, which Mr Peffers could have told him. The United Kingdom is a Union of two kingdoms, Scotland and England. David Marquand doesn’t seem to have understood that.
link to archive.is
@Robert Kerr
Thanks for that Robert, good article and Nicola getting a mention what’s not to like?
link to archive.is
Read the Marquand article archived –
then went to the direct article to read some of the comments.
Far more interesting than I expected.
To paraphrase one commenter, its time to call in the political vet for the UK.
@Robert and Nana
Good piece by Marquand.
Nice link. 🙂
I think Dugdale does have some charm and charisma, even if she does a lot of blunders, but if she does really resign, and it’s Sarwar who has none, Labour will go below 10%.
Oh, that’s another good un in the IT. 🙂
schrodingers cat says: 9:47
She said in June last year she would not be able to do her job without the support of her parliamentary party. That was after she said Corbyn should resign, however he then went on to win the support, and has constantly sidelined her, and anyone with a idea how the Scottish Labour party could offer a different choice to the parent party.
She is alone, and to be quite honest needs a rest.
Corbyn put the knife into her again, so his place man can take over, then the new policy of Scottish Labour will be to rally the troupes behind the union jack, try and out brit the conservatives, and then the race to the bottom will be complete.
yesindyref2 at 9.22
Prior to indyref1 my brother studied the population of Scotland relative to the rest of the original Union ( England/Wales ) and found that Scotland’s population as a percentage of the total had dropped at every census since the Union. At the time of the Union Scotland’s population was estimated as about 20%. At the first census ( 1801 ) it was 15.3%. In 2011 it was down to 8.6%. Not only that, in a check of more recent figures he found that Scotland’s population growth between 1960 and 2012 was by far the lowest of any other European country ( 2.6% cf England/Wales 23.6% ). Note this occurring during the ‘Oil boom’ years too.
Nana says:
13 January, 2017 at 8:30 am
Reporting Scotland’s ‘Weaponising’ of NHS
We’re reigned over by a country that’s becoming world news for its failing public health care, but they can still blow £8+bn on two new titanic aircraft carriers, the jets that will use these carriers are at least £100+ million each and the RAF has order hundreds.
BUt they don’t work, are late in development and will all be used to bomb, kill, maim human beings in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan or, people who have never posed a threat to anyone at all really, let alone the teamGB freak show. Its horrifying but its tory.
Someone keeps voting in UKOK red and blue tory lunatics and its not me.
Even the world’s new great satan Russia, only has one aircraft carrier. Why the UKOK red tory maniacs like Gordon Brown wanted two, we’re never allowed to ask.
An overview of how complex the WTO option is …
Is it cod or haddock? (Because different tariffs apply!)
link to abcnews.go.com
I heard last week two labour msps have said they are out if it’s a hard brexit. I can not confirm this. Maybe the pressure has finally got to her.
Tristam Hunt has resigned triggering a by election. Oh dear labour woe is thee.
If Dugdale resigns and Sarwar takes over, the transformation from Labour to Conservative will be almost complete.
For entertainment value and laughs, however, the dream team would be Neil Findlay as Leader with Jackie Baillie as Deputy. Please, let that happen.
link to bbc.co.uk
An MP has told how his father “died in my arms” after being sent home due to a shortage of hospital beds.
Toby Perkins told a Commons debate on the NHS his father went to University Hospital Coventry in July 2015 suffering from “extreme pain”.
Mr Perkins’ father had suffered a near-fatal aneurysm three years earlier while on holiday in Germany.
He added he was “ashamed to say that I’m grateful” his father had the aneurysm abroad, as “the quality of the emergency care he received in Munich saved his life”.
“I regret the same could not be said of our NHS,” he added.
link to bbc.co.uk
Labour’s Tristram Hunt quitting as MP to head V&A Museum.
Only in Labour. Wtf are they really up to these days. From socialist worker to adjusting paintings on walls.
Just read the article in the Record about the FM’s new column starting on Monday.
She says she likes Kez personally and is sure she secretly prefers an Indy Scotland to 20 years of Tory government.
I have to confess I am starting to feel a wee bit sorry for poor Kez.
@Scots Renewables
I’m pretty sure Sturgeon is right. It’s the diehard wing of Labour in Scotland are resisting I think, and perhaps the old sacked MPs.
Here’s a quote from an article by Neil Berry in last week’s Times Literary Supplement. The article’s behind a paywall, but it’s well worth searching out. It’s entitled ‘Insult to Human Reason’ and concerns popular and chauvinist ideas about WW1, considered against the contemporary excoriations of the maverick ‘Americanized-cum-Germanized Irishman with Welsh blood’, writer Frank Harris.
‘With regard to its understanding of past and present alike, “England” is at risk of becoming an insular and myopic culture all too certain of its own virtue and hostile to opinions that fail to flatter native chauvinism.’
Berry, I see, has a book in print about the present-day shortcomings of the press.
In his resignation letter to Corbyn, Hunt said life as an MP had been “both deeply rewarding and intensely frustrating” and referred to his dissatisfaction with the Labour party’s response to “the social, cultural and economic forces which have rocked mainstream social democratic and socialist parties” across the world.
“I am sorry to put the party and the people of Stoke-on-Trent through a byelection,” he added. “I have no desire to rock the boat now and anyone who interprets my decision to leave in that way is just plain wrong.” He said he would be impartial in his new position.”
Graun reportage. If the upper class twit actual quit and got a proper job, instead of rearranging paintings…he’ll maybe give Kezia a start, as a security guard, she’s very good at standing around doing nothing much at all.
People Carrier says:
13 January, 2017 at 9:18 am
Well, that’s a cracker in the Guardian –
“Once upon a time there was a Roman province called Britannia, but it did not include Ireland, or Scotland north of Hadrian’s Wall. What does exist today is a state called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is not a nation state like France or Denmark. It is a multinational state, like the former Yugoslavia or the Austro-Hungarian empire.”
Its not once upon a time. Our country Scotland, was forged in a 400 year war with the might of the Roman Empire, successful war clearly. This is not once upon a time. This is the fundamental reason there is a nation state of Scotland today, in waiting:D
Repeating link to Mike Russell interview highlighted by Still Positive. MR very good I thought.
link to youtube.com
Kezia Dugdale calls for ‘new Act of Union’
link to bbc.co.uk
link to bbc.co.uk
Jeremy Corbyn rejects ‘new Act of Union’ call.
Satire writing itself now, SLab wise.
heedtracker
What the Guardian writer says is not actually untrue, however, as the Rev is always pointing out, it is what they leave out which is misleading.
150 years before the Roman Province came into existence the term referred to the whole island of Great Britain and for an unknown length of time before that, to the British archipelago (Great Britain being known as Albion then).
@heedtracker
Hopefully I am not misunderstanding Mr Peffers,
but I think he has said,
there was never a first `Act of Union`
there was an Act of Parliament from English Parliament and
an Act of Parliament from our shower of tractors….
which lead to the `Treaty of Union`,
Kezzy`s wish for a `new` Act of Union is as redundant as it looks like she is soon to be.
led not lead ?
Chick McGregor says:
13 January, 2017 at 11:10 am
heedtracker
What the Guardian writer says is not actually untrue,
Its all in the UK spin doctoring Chick! Scotland’s creation as an separate state is an extraordinary story that never gets told. I’m from Aberdeen, where there is Roman archeology of sorts but it is all military, no settlement.
Instead, today we have to listen any old waffler explain how the victorious and mighty Roman army fought a huge battle at Mons Grampius, Bennachie. Then, after this magnificent and crushing victory over Celtic Scots, they all went home, to England, because that’s what the Roman Empire was famous for, defeating the Celts of Europe and then going home to Italy.
Anyhoo,
Slavery
Opinion
The slave trade made Scotland rich. Now we must pay our blood-soaked debts
Stephen McLaren
The Caribbean countries that our forefathers so ruthlessly exploited are asking for financial reparations. Let’s not deepen our shame by refusing them
Farquharson Wharf in Black River, Jamaica. African slaves who survived the Zong massacre were sold from this Scottish-owned wharf. Photograph: Stephen McLaren
Friday 13 January 2017 09.00 GMT
Scotland the bad, past, present, future, for ever. It must be true, its in the Graun.
@Meg merrilees says: 13 January, 2017 at 12:53 am:
“Chick @12.39
I’m referring to this front page for friday, as linked by Nana earlier…
twitter.com/Eileen43Eileen/status/819661552299180033”
First up, Meg. is that it is only YouTube links that need to have the, “http://.www”, bit removed before posting.
Anyway, what I wanted to comment upon was that the National article front page shows the brainwashed bit expressed in the text on the page. It states that Nicola will get extra time to set up a new country. This is hog’s wallop. Scotland was a recognised country before England existed as a recognised country.
The stark truth is that Scotland is already both a single country and a kingdom.
England, as a Kingdom, has three integrated countries and is a single kingdom and an equally sovereign partner in the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom is a bipartite union of two kingdoms and it thus contains the three Kingdom of England countries and the country and Kingdom of Scotland.
The United Kingdom is NOT a country nor is it an EU member country. It is an EU Member state.
As I’ve posted umpteen times in Wings all the EU needs do is clarify that The United Kingdom is a bipartite member state and the EU recognises it is a union of two kingdoms and neither of those kingdoms is the EU member state.
Then it is easy to allow one member kingdom of the United Kingdom remain as the member state if the other decides, as it has, to leave the EU and the remaining member Kingdom/country to be the continued EU member state.
As I’ve been harping on about since coming to Wings the United Kingdom has never legally been a single country and Westminster is now being illegally run as the parliament of England that is treating itself as a country while at the same time treating itself as the overlord country that is devolving its powers to the three other countries and is ignoring the fact that Scotland, by the Treaty of Union, is an equally sovereign, full member kingdom of the United Kingdom.
There is no evidence, except English perception, that the United Kingdom is other than a bipartite union of two equally sovereign partner Kingdoms.
There is nothing in the Treaty of Union to indicate that the Kingdom of Scotland is a junior partner of the United Kingdom.
There is, though, definite textual evidence, (which Westminster itself commissioned), that claims without evidence, what David Mundell quoted thus :-
There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that this is legally true.
There is no such thing mentioned in the Treaty itself nor in either of the two independent kingdom’s Acts of Union.
It is not even hinted at. The concept exists only in the minds on the unionists who also introduced the illegal and insulting EVEL into the Westminster Parliament.
Kezia to resign citing lack of support from Jeremy Corbyn dooming the Scottish branch of Labour even further than Johann Lamont did with her branch office statement
There will be tears! (and high voices) and drama!
Positively cinematic!
Can we get tickets for this?
Yesterday I mentioned having seen plans, back in the 1960s I think, for a tidal barrage across the Solway Firth.
Today, in the Daily Heil, there is a story, with some nice graphics, about a proposed tidal basin in Swansea Bay, which, if it works, might lead to a network of such basins across “Britain”.
Mind you the graphic seems to indicte that “Britain” stops somewhere around Carlisle. Anyway, one of the suggested places for the later barrages will be “West Cumbria”, which looks an awful lot like the Solway Firsth to me.
But, somehow, the Heil could not bring itself to use a Scottish place name.
I see a good few yessers have been blocked by informScotland twitter. Don’t know who is running this account and I have no knowledge of why folks are being blocked.
I’ve informed Cadogan & hopefully he can sort it out.
gus1940 said at 7:31 pm last night:
“Having watched today’s FMQs live, the ensuing discussion, lunchtime and evening editions of Misreporting Scotland it became obvious to me that any resemblance of these news programs and what actually happened at FMQs was non-existent…”
Thursday’s First Minister’s Question was broadcast LIVE yesterday,and is now Archived and may be viewed on Scottish Parliament TV:
link to tinyurl.com
Serious Question for Rev Stu –
Has anyone counted how many Scottish Political editors the Daily Mail & The Express have gone through in the last 2 years??? The names change daily. Seriously a different name every time theres an SNPBAD story.
In other news –
My cat has turned her nose up at another new packet of her favourite food – its the waste that’s so predictable and disappointing ….. #SNPBAD
What is Sturgeon going to do about it !!!
So this is the kind of CiF what comes from today’s rancid the Graun’s Scotland bad stuff,
blogdubdrib 38m ago
fair enough if individuals or their democratically elected representatives feel so guilty about this historical atrocity they should indeed put their hands in their pockets, if it makes them feel better.
The English are nearly as culpable as the Scots – who were the shock troops of Empire – but I don’t buy these arguments and personally wouldn’t support this approach.”
You cannot actually spin a desk top globe and not land on a country that has not suffered from attempted UK imperial genocide and war. When the Raj waltzed out of India after WW2 for example, Mountbatten, it triggered civil war that cost over a million civilian lives.
gordoz @ 11:32
It’s symptomatic of the SNP’s incompetence. I would urge Nicola Sturgeon and her separatist Jihadists to develop a coherent cat food policy along the lines of those so masterfully developed by Kezia Dugdale, Ruth Davidson and the Liberal man. Now that’s leadership, looking at real priorities.
How could the Tartan Party run their own country if they don’t take cats’ changing tastes into account?
Prepare to have your flabber ghasted vile seps, BBC Scotland has misrepresented Scotland, shock!
link to thoughtcontrolscotland.com
Liz g@ 4.47 am
I am learning Gaelic myself using a ‘Teach Yourself Gaelic’ book and CD which comes as one unit in a plastic case. I’ve used them before to learn Russian and Finnish and have done quite well with both of them but I’m finding that the Gaelic lessons move at a very rapid pace and it’s taking me longer than usual. Cartoons and comics are great if you can get hold of them as they have pictures to help you understand the story.
Robert Peffers @11.21 am – Apologies for a bad link!
link to twitter.com
However, from your comments I deduce that you found the relevant page.
Robert I love your posts, I’ve learned lots from them but please, don’t shoot the messenger!
I am Scottish, I was born in the country of Scotland, I TOTALLY get that Scotland is a separate country.
Even the UK in it’s ‘Official Declaration to the UN on the Standardisation of Geographical Names in the UK’ states that the Union consists of two countries i.e. England +Scotland ; one Principality =Wales and one Province= N. Ireland.
link to web.archive.org ( hopefully I’ve posted this link correctly)
My point is that today’s headline in ‘The National ‘cannot fail to be noticed and read by all and sundry as they pass by and for that alone ‘The National’ regularly provides a function that NO other Scottish paper is providing. Amidst the howls and false accusations of false ‘SNP Baad’ and ‘NHS Collapsing’ headlines printed by the other shameful outfits, it is often refreshing to see/read a completely different angle as displayed regularly buy ‘The National’.
I did not say that I thought ‘The National’ was faultless, only that it provides a service no other paper in Britain is brave /cunning enough to employ.
Whilst I accept your point and indeed agree that it is unfortunate that the smaller print contains the phrase ‘set up a new country’ most people admit it will take 18 months minimum to create the layers of bureaucracy necessary to allow a FREE Scotland to run smoothly and operate fully as a functioning country and so there is a degree of truth in that statement albeit an inaccurate terminology.
Personally I prefer the front page of ‘The Times’ today as it has a picture of Stirling Bridge in the Snow yesterday… Braw!
Andrew McLean
agreed, I dont think anyone here needs a crystal ball to predict this
Nana
aye, some concern on twitter re- informscotland account. it needs clarification
The guardian article is the reason I prefer historical revision, it undermines pre conceived notions
eg, It is now put forward by many archeologists, historians and linguists that Gaelic, (or a similar q celtic type language) was the language of the bronze age, covering ireland, britain and ose of europe.
Gaulish (or some similar P celtic type language) was the language of the iron age which arrived in britain the 6th century BCE, This culture was halted by the highlands, turned and invaded ireland but was halted in Ireland by the tuathe de Dana, from Alba, (beyond the forth)
This kind of history throws a spanner in everyones works 🙂
I found the article by Stephen Mclaren on slavery most interesting. Whilst I definitely acknowledge that Scots were involved as shipping agents and overseers, I also have to look at the situation in a “domestic ” light if you will.
Scottish courts decided long before England that slavery was illegal. The case in point was of a slave called Joseph who had absconded from his English master on a trip to Scotland. On raising legal action for the return of Joseph, he was told by the Sheriff that slavery did not exist in this Kingdom. I believe this was around 1769 at Perth Court, and was long before England abolished slavery. I do not attempt to gloss over the part played by Scots, but to highlight the difference in law that has always existed.
Ultimately I suppose whatever horrid occupations people get up to abroad, we should accept some degree of responsibility on their behalf.
Slavery still exists today, and sadly for the same reasons. Making money from the suffering of others and denying them basic human rights because they are either seen as inferior ,or of no significance. Horrid.
@schrodingers cat
Re informScotland twitter, I’ve not had a reply from Cadogan.
I have nothing to do with running any of the informScotland sites, it does concern me however when stuff like this happens.
I wonder if someone pushed the wrong button or used Rev’s block list.
I’m not on twitter myself so I can’t access the account to ask what is going on, perhaps a wings tweeter could do so.
schrodingers cat says:
Indeed. The Celtic spoken in Spain appears to have been Q Celtic. So the Gaelic/Irish form was far more widely spread than just hereabouts.
Enough has been preserved to show that the Celtiberian language could be called Q-Celtic (like Goidelic), and not P-Celtic like Gaulish.
link to en.m.wikipedia.org
Perhaps the more mythical passages of the Declaration of Arbroath may be some historical truth in them!
This nation … having for many ages taken its residence in Spain in the midst of a most fierce people …
Clearly this comes from Irish mythology….
link to en.m.wikipedia.org
…. perhaps it is a folk memory remnant from Bronze Age migration?!
Re- Inform Scotland, I’ve asked them about it via Facebook.
Re Celtic migration, there is a book which name escapes me for the moment about the genetic make up of the Scots and DNA supports the evidence that the Scots migrated from Spain, it might also have said Egypt but I have slept 1000’s of times since I read it and can’t remember. I’ll try and find it tonight and have a scan.
heedtracker 11.20
Ah- Mons Graupius. That will be the famous battle where 10,000 of Calgacus’ army were killed and a handful of Roman Auxiliaries sustained minor injuries. I looked back at Magnus Magnusson’s reference to it after reading Ian McHardy’s excellent book debunking myths of our history and sure enough Magnus buys Tacitus’ account of the battle.
As you know I’ve been reading up on Henry VIII campaign of genocide and the account of that is pretty dodgy too.
It amazes me how many myths and how much misinformation exists on our history. Interesting thing about the 16th century English accounts- they lay out incredibly detailed accounts of where they torched, how many Scotts slayn, prisoners taken, nolt, shepe, naggs stolen. Also some details of troop numbers- raids involving literally thousands of soldiers into the borders , East Lothian and D&G again and again over many years are barely a footnote in history.
The places destroyed WERE destroyed and villages and towns and towers burnt were villages and towns and towers or castles or abbeys at that time- the accounts in part can be verified so they seem to me much more accurate (though perhaps prone to inaccuracy, exaggeration or omission)
The main raid on Edinburgh and the battle of Pinkie are pretty well recorded but little else.
What is coming across is that Duke of Somerset/Earl of Hartford was effective and brutal. He had another 3 or 4 murderous bastards destroying Scotland in different places at the same time. If money had not been tight due to Henry’s euro campaign I think Scotland would have gone the way of Wales – maybe not permanently but that was the plan.
*3 or 4 murderous bastards in charge of thousands of troops for clarity
@ Lenny Hartley
The Egyptian angle rang a bell.
link to wildernessofpeace.wordpress.com
galamcennalath
the archeology suggests links as does dna, but the point being mooted now is that this q celtic language CAME from the british isles and was the lingua franca of trade during the bronze age due to the tin trade.
re-the invasion theory of ireland is now being suggested that the fir domni and the fir bolgi came from dumnonia in strath clyde and the selgovia in dunfries.
they were defeated by the tuathe de dana who came from northern scotland, ie, manu, fotla, earn and banff are not named after irish gods etc, ireland is named after them.
hope the link works
Lenny Hartley
It might be this
link to bookdepository.com
This tends to deal with movement of peoples from the mesolitic to the neolithic, about which only archeologists can give us information
Linguistics can tell us about the bronze age language, eg, brythonic and welsh, 60% of their vocabulary is cognate with german
irish and gaelic only 30%. This indicates a split from germano-gaulish at least 1000 years earlier, ie about 1500-2000 bce.
Indeed, this p-q celtic designation is perhaps misleading, many linguist prefer continental and insular celtic since brythonic and welsh are much closer to gaelic than they are gaulish.
Indeed, we probably need some new vocabulary, eg, latin equus and greek epos meaning horse, but even saying that the origins of latin are a bronze age trading language of q celtic origin will raise eyebrows
the best I can come up with is that gaelic is descendent of bronze age ish ???
the term celt only covers the iron age about 600bce onwards and is a genuine historical term in the sense of the written and spoken word
@ Bob Mack, there were still ex-slaves living in the Lothians & Fife into the 19th century, former colliers & salters who were the property of their owners along with those of their children whose parents accepted a couple of bob from the laird for them, thus enslaving them for life.
A cheery wee battle which you won’t see on the BBC.
link to thefullwiki.org
Bob Mack
Recently there was broadcast was a programme from our Westminster state propaganda TV division, the propagandist, with flowing hair, told us that Scotland was up to its neck in the slave trade, and to a great extent that is true.
What he omitted was that, slavery was illegal in Scotland, always had been. what people were undertaking was trading shares in slaves and plantations oversees.
But that didn’t fit his bbc propagandists narrative to only talk about Scotland if you really must, in the pejorative.
This is the case you refer to.
link to nas.gov.uk
You know for all my years I cant understand how some Scots and the majority of the BBC hate Scotland so much, weird it certainly is!
fred
link to en.wikipedia.org
Thanks for that Andrew, we get quite enough guff about Agincourt & Crecy on the Beeb, they never mention that England was actually gubbed in the 100 Years War, a bit like Vietnam really! 🙂
Re the informScotland twitter block
Message on informScotland facebook page
most of us are wingers we adopted the Revs blocl list and have discovered he has whole bunch of ‘goodies’ blocked. One of us is currently on twitter trying to sort it out. we need some dedicated twitter-head on the committee – most of us are Facebook – come along to next Wingers meeting in Glasgow and get yourself elected for the job?? doing our best and a bit overwhemed with dozens of papers looking for interbiews this after noon
On slavery and Scotland, there are videos on youtube telling the story of Scotland’s sugar slaves sent to Barbados.
Here’s one
link to youtube.com
Fred says:
… nor that Scotland played a significant part on the French side!
link to historyofwar.org
@Chick McGregor
=============
And the Yanks used Navajo in their codes during WW 2. Would be interesting to see what other “obscure” languages were used in code down the years.
“Would be interesting to see what other “obscure” languages were used in code down the years.” @ Stu Mac says at 5:00 pm
Not so obscure but:
Afrikaans used by SADF in Angola 1975 to 1988 .
Afrikaans used by Executive Outcomes in Angola 1992 and Sierra Leone in 1995.
Would have been the same in Papua New Guinea in ’97/’98 but their potential involvement backing the government forces against rebels on Bougainville leaked to the Australian press.
Afrikaans used by Executive Outcomes/Sterling Corporate Services in Somalia and Eritrea.
Slave:
Here is a link for Repentance Tower near Hoddam Castle, it used to be the culmination of my favourite walk that I took when I had a dog. A slave is buried there.
link to scotclans.com
Peace Always
Is that broken record image up tops there, that “things can only get better” of theirs, that they used for some kind of PR stunt previously..
DReam on!
Scotland Knows Better 🙂
I don’t know why the english keep celebrating old battles; if they were that good at fighting, they wouldn’t all be normans!
Heedtracker at 10.52am & others re: the guardian article about the Roman occupation, the article does seem to be mostly nonsense. The Romans occupied the island – it was not ‘at war’ for 400 years, and they did indeed want to occupy the whole island, mainly for appearances sake it would seem.
Why Hadrian built a great big stone wall across the country, severing a few tribes in half, isn’t known, such a huge undertaking does not seem economically viable (see also the German limes – wooden fence with fortresses, the same as the Antonine wall, wooden – this was the norm). It was maybe that Hadrian wanted to consolidate the empire at that time, rather than any importance put to dividing the land.
Hadrian’s successor, Antonine decided to move north and try conquering the rest of the island, abandoned Hadrian’s Wall and moving up to the Antonine wall for 40 years. You can see most of the Distance Slabs (unique) from that wall in the Huntarian.
Both walls are world heritage sites, part of the northern frontier of the Roman Empire, though you will not find a lot of information on the Antonine wall when visiting Hadrian’s wall. The Romans did reach far north, and there are series of forts called Gask Ridge that run through Perthshire (campaigning forts, but possibly occupied for decades?).
It was Severus in c.AD200 that carried out particularly brutal campaigns into what is now Scotland, scorch and burn tactics, destroying what was possibly fairly wealthy communities near the Wall. Hadrian’s wall was thought to have been built by Severus up until not long ago, in fact.
Tacitus’ Agricola is a hilarious read, and should always be taken in context; it was written decades after the alleged campaigns, he was never there, he was writing about his father in law, and he was trying to get into the senate. That is, the book is a carefully formulated piece of propaganda. From what I can tell, Agricola spent perhaps 6 summers campaigning – Tacitus refers to the inhospitable weather often and waxes lyrical about how dark it was in winter and so no fighting could take place. The fight at mons grampius? Unlikely it ever occurred – he managed to give a 4-page detailed rendition of the barbarian chief’s pre-battle speech (as well as Agricola’s) so his version could never have occurred – and it is unlikely the numbers were ever gathered together either. Tacitus thought it perfectly reasonable that his father-in-law would send auxiliaries (furriners) to fight the alleged battle, while bravely keeping his legion (Romans) safe. As history, I’d say this book is complete twaddle, but it does give fascinating insights into social attitudes at the time. Which are perhaps not that different to empire attitudes today, though the Romans were a lot more flexible with religion, often incorporating local gods (hedging their bets) for any observances.
I am waxing lyrical myself here because I know nobody will be reading comments here now!
I find Hadrian’s Wall quite fascinating, particularly in the way the Romans shaped the countries we see today, instead of allowing the natural evolution – much like how later empires destroyed cultures, countries and societies. Imagine wanting to emulate that kind of ‘civilisation’, give me barbarianism any day.
But to the theory of why Scotland was never conquered – were we just so fierce they couldn’t do it? Was the weather just so rubbish the ‘Romans’ (who were not actually Romans in the main, I can’t remember all the legions that were here, but there were Gaulish and Persians and Germans I think) couldn’t stand it? I think I will stick with the theory that this far north the tribes were well spread out and had no administrative centre, the culture was mainly aural/oral and there was no infrastructure – the Romans would have needed to maintain a huge army presence & input a lot of money to build infrastructure etc. Normally the Romans would conquer with overwhelming force, install their tax system & a governor to run things and move on to the next goal. So, the barbarian lands… a nice to have, but just not worth the bother.
Hi Contrary.
I’ve found that if Rev Stu is in prolific mode, pages last no more than around 24 hours. So I keep the newer pages (less than 24 hours old) in tabs in Firefox. Periodically, I reload them to see if there’s any action.
As this page’s last comment had been at 5.11pm last night (and that unnaturally gave the page a longer life from the previous post at 6.25pm on Friday evening) I reloaded it just now, expecting to close the tab and found your post. So I read it.
I would give it 7/10 for being an interesting read.
8=)
This tab will now remain open until 11pm tomorrow night…
Incidentally, I’ve just closed “The Quiet Times” tab, as the last post was 11.18pm last night…
Thank you 🙂
At first I thought ‘7/10! I must try harder’, but really, taken in context, I think that is an excellent score! *puffed up smug expression*
*puffed up smug expression*
Ken whut you mean. my former fiancé from 40 odd years ago still hails me as “Bone” when I infrequently meet her while partaking of cocktails.
*puffed up smug expression*
8=)
“BBC sets up team to debunk fake news”
“BBC sets up bunker team to fake de news” more like.