Wings Over Scotland

Wonder how long it’ll be before the UKIP graph starts to move..?

“The Ruthie effect” = the courting sectarian bigots effect

Ruthie Effect? Or simply the collapse of Labour and LibDem credibility after the Indy Ref? The non-Nat and New ´Labour´ vote had to go somewhere, presumably to the least worst option?

I would however be interested to know why (fortunately!) UKIP hasn´t been able to take advantage of the situation.

“Scot Finlayson says:
looks like the prawn sandwich Blairites of the Labour party in Scotland have returned to their roots in the Tory party,

doctors,teachers,media,charity,all the ones that pretended to have a socialist soul so they could get on in Scotland,”

I take exception to your generalisation! I’m a teacher and have NEVER voted Tory in my life!

‘There’s not much happening today…’

Well, it looks like the ‘Bella Caledonia’ site is dying, as its fundraiser is sluggish to say the least.

I feel ambivalent to it for some election articles but, then again, I also feel ambivalent to ‘the National’ newspaper, given it’s ultimate owner, but I keep buying it.

Should ‘Bella’ die? Does she deserve to be put to sleep, out to grass, ignored, shunned?

Her death would please Spanner’s Yoon Brigade.

Is Bella already dead? Do we sit and watch her die?

Discuss. (You have 19 days to answer).

Interesting, given the constant SNP baaaad from 100% of the UKok media.

If people were more aware of what devolution is, what it entails, and how it works, would this look a bit different. There are people who just don’t take time to inform themselves about how the whole system is managed. We even had a petition from Care2 last week, demanding that the ‘Scottish MOD’ stop bombing Pilot whales to bits! When I told them there was no such thing as a Scottish MOD, they just shrugged.
It’s been amended now, but I had to go through several channels to get the message to the person who made the petition, would be interesting to know which side of the border they were from though.

The comments regards the Scotgov by people signing this totally misleading petition, were a disgrace, totally ignorant. It is probably more common than we think, both sides of the border, regards what devolution actually is.

I hear Gideon is talking down to Scotland today, the britnat establishment have nothing but contempt for Scotland and it’s even worse since our SNP MPs were voted in to represent the people of Scotland in westmonster. Don’t worry gideon, the boot will be on the other foot sooner than you think.

Scot F

Isn’t Murray a prawn short of a sandwich ?

The important issue is … is this a permanent shift from Unionism to Pro-Indy?

Clearly Unionists hold out hope that the SNP (and Green) support will diminish and Scotland will go back to UKOK ‘business as usual’.

We hope it all represents progress towards something much better with the slow death of Unionism!

Combined Unionism is well down, and the has been some shuffling among themselves.

I’m reckon the Tory ‘blip’ contains a short term effect of pretending not to be Tories, plus perhaps a longer term effect of a pro Union swing from Labour. However both require that the Tory Scotland branch appear blameless for WM actions, which seem highly unlikely.

If the Union is represented in Scotland by the Tories, this is no bad thing.

Labour being seen as a more acceptable face of the Union cost us IndyRef1.

It’s good news that UKIP are invisible in those stats. They were polling 13% in Wales.
link to yougov.co.uk

Still no news of the election day poll asking people how they voted last time and had they switched. Would be interesting to find the answer. I think it was YouGov but there’s nothing on the site.

From the info there, it clearly looks like the Loon Yoons dumped Labour and LibLiar for Tory heaven.

The ‘sudden’ drop for Labour, matched with the continued decline for Liar is very much the gain made by Tory.

As we all know, the Yoons are retreating into the Tory fold, fully aware that they are siding with those who don’t mind killing disabled people via policies.

It is interesting to see you Labour and Liberal’s drop coincides with Conservative’s rise. When you’re a Tory/Unionist it doesn’t matter much which flavour you back, but in times of stress it makes sense to support the most obvious and extreme variety. I’m not sure if there is such a thing as a Ruth Davidson factor or if it’s just that the Unionists are retreating back into the laager.

bobajock says:

“As we all know, the Yoons are retreating into the Tory fold, fully aware that they are siding with those who don’t mind killing disabled people via policies.”

I hope you are wrong, but I fear you are right!

With my positive outlook and faith in humanity, I hope the increase in Tory backing is not an endorsement of their WM policies.

However, we know there is a 25ish% hardcore BritNat faction who may be circling wagons round the Tory banner. For me, these people are a mix of blood and soil nationalists plus ‘I’m all right’, so don’t change anything Union Jackists. So I fear, it is indeed possible that killing disabled people is acceptable collateral damage in the name of their Union.

Rev:

Do the graphs show Tories at Max got more than SNP at Min?

Would be a shame if Unionists can claim Ruth got more votes for the Tories in 2016 than the SNP got in 2003.

If youre the head UKOK vote Slab propaganda in newsrooms from Pacific Quay to P&J, what do you take from you efforts to get SLab back in the game? Ruth did well, SLab are clearly on the slide, what next for all the SLabour crew at BBC Scotland?

5 more years of hard core unionists stuff like ofcourse

Scott Arthur Retweeted
Orkney Conservatives ?@Orkneytories 6h6 hours ago
SNP members “care more about selfies with Nicola than policy”, according to a damning claim from someone senior…

@ Jim Graham

They got the highest ever number of votes; as a percentage it was slightly down.

Rancid The Graun explain their relentless SNP bad/sleazy stuff, photo of the buffoon Rory the Tory’s rockery of union and

“The committee is chaired by Ian Lang, a former secretary of state for Scotland, who held out against devolution under John Major before losing his seat in the 1997 election. He subsequently warned that devolution was threatening the union.

“Since 1999, devolution has been largely demand-led and piecemeal,” Lord Lang said. “The committee saw no evidence of strategic thinking about its cumulative impact on the union as a whole.”

22% toryboy vote in Scotland, completely unelected trough for life Lords, that’ll teach us.

“With my positive outlook and faith in humanity, I hope the increase in Tory backing is not an endorsement of their WM policies”

That’s an easy one to answer:

The Tories themselves would have been doing a lot of research into what people wanted and the campaign clearly showed that what people didn’t want was the Conservative Party.

This is why they didn’t mention the Party name on election campaign material and instead concentrated on convincing unionists that voting for the ‘Ruth Davidson for the No to a second referendum Party’ was the best way to save good old Britain!

Even then, It didn’t look like it would work for some time, until Kez made that spectacular series of own goals, when asked about the constitution, which she apologised to her own party for after the election.

During the campaign Ruthie got very embarrassed and either refused to answer questions about Westminster Tory policies, or distanced herself from them, I think even claiming that she had challenged George Osborne about one of his budget decisions.

Now that she is the official opposition in Scotland, she will be reminded constantly by Nicola that her party is causing so much misery all over the UK and none more so than in Scotland, and in spite of our useless media, she will also find that social media will be more and more focused on exposing her and Tory hypocrisy, in a way that she has never experienced before.

If ever anyone needs ” evidence” of why Scotland requires Independence, then the ” spat” in the House of Commons this afternoon between Angus Robertson and Osbourne clarifies the issue.
Namely , Etonian Tories with no mandate in our country deciding who is able to live, breath & reside in our country, with the democratically elected Scottish government in Edinburgh reduced to having to “plead the case” on behalf of the ” local community” for an Australian family to remain in our own country .Absolutely a ” shameful state of affairs”, and Osbourne’s final reply makes it ” crystal clear” the Tory strategy to ” colonise Scotland” from RUK .

@ Petra
That was a tonic, thanks for the notes from the Lords of the Constitution. Didn’t know Prof Tomkins was a comic. Have they tried issuing Scottish children with Union biscuits? I suggest Bath Olivers.

Ooh snarky!
O/T John Robertson has an excellent article on the heads of Scottish institutions and whether they are home grown or incomers. The Arts and Academia are mostly incomers. The BBC, Papers and Businesses are mainly home grown. But, like political parties, they are probably just Northern Branches of the London base.

link to newsnet.scot

References a previous article in Bella about the Edinburgh Festival never having a Scottish Director in all of its 67 years.
See also the article Mike Cassidy linked to about @Scottish Comedy on BBC Scotland. (also, coincidentally a Bella article).
link to archive.is

Oh no!!!!!!!!!!

According to site below, Tories in 2016 got a higher vote share than the SNP in 2003.

Tories 2016 22.5%
SNP 2003 22.3%

I was hoping to make the claim that SNP have always been more popular than the Tories since Devolution but alas! not to be 🙁

How could Scotland do this to us????

link to democraticdashboard.com

O/T

Andy through with another 3 – 2 win,

French guy is 164th in world rankings,

must have had his porridge this morning.

@ Lochside says at 3:05 pm …. ”Has any study been done on the RUK influence on the Unionist vote? In the last 5 years, our population has grown by around 4% mainly from south of our border. We have continued to lose the young and skilled indigenous Scots abroad and to England.”

To my mind this is THE greatest threat to us achieving our Independence Lochside and it REALLY concerns me. More than anything anyone at Westminster with a shred of intelligence will know it too. Additionally take a look at Capella’s post at 4:36pm.

@ Capella says at 4:20 pm …. ”Petra that was a tonic, thanks for the notes from the Lords of the Constitution.”

Yeah a right laugh Capella (if interested check out page 687) but on a serious note it just shows how out of touch these people truly are and no amount of ‘learning’ can change that now. You can’t unravel a cold, callous type of narcissitic personality as it’s akin to the circulatory system in a human body. Therein lies the basis of their downfall, now that Moothie has put herself in the firing line.

“I mean, Irvine Welsh must have a few quid, right?”

Is he back dealing again?

What this shows is that the blue tories stole the red tory hardcore yoon vote,the good news is that is a small percentage and not all no voters could bring themselves to vote for Ruthie.

Their plan of trying to make it constitutional failed miserably they stood on a ticket of no second referendum yet those 55% of no voters we keep hearing about either couldnt be bothered or could not bring themselves to vote blue tory,this was their chance to take back the Scottish parliament and kill a second referendum they did neither.

So the only conclusion can be that not all no voters trust or will back the blue tories and the constitutional question is still on the table since they failed to remove it 🙂

Petra says:
25 May, 2016 at 3:28 pm

O/T

@ Ruby says at 10:47 am …. ”New Act of Union”

Well Ruby I’ve been wading through this (and the other 2 relative links you posted) for ages now and can see that it’ll take days to cover it all

Ruby replies

Well done!

It will take ages but more worthwhile than spending time reading about sex scandals, Alex Salmond playing with someone’s hair or Gordon Brown being a Viking!

The good thing about reading these documents & watching Parliament TV is that we don’t have to rely on the MSM to give us their ‘interpretation’ of events.

@ Petra
@ Ruby

Heres that 678 Page PMSL.

Mr David B Taylor
—
Written evidence (UDE0050)
678
Mr David B Taylor
—
Written evidence (UDE0050)
Personally I believe that smaller countries like Belgium, Switzerland, Holland, Lichteinstien and
others in the world work better in terms of a
democracy, culturally and economically too. So I’m in
favour of Scotland splitting up from England and even Wales and Ireland too. Maybe we could
compose a federal type of get together for the purposes of defence and trade. Large organisations
seem to be
clumsy by their nature and slow to react to the vicissitudes of life on earth. I feel that
England has played it’s last role in it’s empire building ethos and it’s about time we let go of the
bullying reins of power over our neighbours and set aside our d
ifferences and renew our
relationships on a more wholesome and creative basis of justice and friendship.
October 2015

Future Lord and Prof Tomkinski of Scotstoun also thinks his fav team Rangers, should play in England and that that would cement this farce union. I am not making this up. He’s a such a an awful carpet bagger and English FA wont touch them with a barge pole ofcourse.

Petra at 5:07

…as is the loss of too many of our young people southwards as Scotlands economy is slowly sabotaged by Westminster.

heedtracker says:

” I think 55% is the real winning post ”

Yes. And, for the additional reason that it certainly would be stoking up trouble if England voted to leave and Scotland dragged them back!

Cameron will be well aware of this and want to avoid it.

If Scotland contributes 9% of the votes split 6:3 to Stay, then England needs well over 50% alone.

Is it just me that thinks every time wee Ruthie speaks in Holyrood its like she,s delivering the Gettysburg address, as for her lines in the sand,leave it to the Sea Ruthie its more natural wavy lines anaw.

galamcennalath says:
25 May, 2016 at 6:38 pm
heedtracker says:

” I think 55% is the real winning post ”

Yes. And, for the additional reason that it certainly would be stoking up trouble if England voted to leave and Scotland dragged them back!

Project Fear 2 will terrify the life out of England voting Brexit. Just the BBC alone can win it for Cameron with “and houses prices will fall by 20% in the UK, if you vote Brexit.”

That’s all it takes when house prices in England matter more than anything in the whole wide UKOK world. Put it this way, if your 2 up 2 down hoose was worth a million quid in north London, would you leapt into the abyss with likes of Nigel Farage, BoJo or that nutcase Coburn up here?

Status quo and Project Fear 2, silent majority, likes of Flipper Darling frightening the life out of everyone on BBC r4 this morn, even Nic Robinson had to step in to get the Flipper to ease orf.

link to stv.tv

This, from the man who gave us GERS …..

If they want us to leave, they only have to ask…?

Capella & Petra
Prof Tomkins does sound like a Victorian era nob planning on civilising the natives, through a decent education in proper Anglican values.

@ Prof Tomkins
You are a condescending fannybaws, which is the very worst kind, IMHO.

Justin Welby invited to address the Church of Scotland, wont be long until we revert back to the 16/1700s & being preached to from the Pulpits on the benifits of the Union.

Ronnie

The kirk was the equivalent of todays media. An incestuous, symbiotic relationship with the unco guid in bed with royalty and the legal system ,which formed the backbone of the establishment.

Apologies to Robert P if I’ve gotten this wrong 🙂

@ Ruby lol whits ah constitution, they canny even define that because they have None,if I get through this it will be ah miracle.

@Lochside says:
25 May, 2016 at 3:05 pm

“In the last 5 years, our population has grown by around 4%…mainly from south of our border. We have continued to lose the young and skilled indigenous Scots abroad and to England.
..
When poseurs like Torrance use expressions like ‘Ulsterisation’ I don’t worry particularly about the sectarian meaning,but more about the economic ‘planting’of colonial minded populations ever since Thatcher..whereby excessive house prices have enabled ‘white flight’from England,not only to Scotland, and reverse discriminatory recruitment in many sectors of recruitment resulting in Scots losing out in their own country.”
———-

It’s a difficult issue to talk about, and some English folks did vote for independence, but going by the poll numbers its obviously one of the biggest NO voting groups, probably around 80% NO.

Most of that will be people wanting to maintain a common ‘Britishness’ and being very comfortable with an identity which is effectively just a Greater England with a more colourful flag. For a minority there might actually be something of a colonialist attitude.

It’s hard, because if we don’t get independence in the next few decades, we could end up like Wales – where almost a quarter of the residents were born in England, which effectively means they will never gain independence.

link to telegraph.co.uk

A lot of immigration from south of the Border comes from the house price difference. You can sell up in Surrey and retire here with a house and gardens twice the size, and free personal care if needed.

Personally, I would be happy with bumping up the highest band of council tax or Land and Buildings tax. If people are going to come here and vote against self-government for Scotland, they can pay for the privilege.

“Another wan o they” thick headed Scottish “,They wullny understand, quotes.”

Okay so we are too thick to understand intellectual stuff and they serve up Loki and Limmy. It’s all starting to make sense.

Didn’t Rosie Kane even get a spot as a comedienne… I mean, after her career in politics.

galamcennalath says:
25 May, 2016 at 4:54 pm

Rev. Stuart Campbell says:

“I doubt that the road to independence is paved with shouting angrily at voters for not being Marxist enough.”

Indeed. I would go further and say that too much shouting about a future People’s Socialist Republic of Scotland acts to scare off moderate centre and centre right folks.

The ideological hard left like to think they speak for someone – the workers, the people, the masses, whatever. However, when it comes to elections they lose their deposits. The era when the Fife coalfields would return a Communist MP are long gone.

Everyone who speaks out for independence is a welcome voice, however aggressively tying Indy to a hard left (or hard right, should that ever happen) agenda is frankly verging on sabotage.

How to win and lose an indy ref.

link to youtube.com

Just finished the Danny Dorling book Inequality and the 1%.

There’s not that much in it that hasn’t been covered here at some point, but seeing it all gathered together is really quite sickening. If there’s any one issue which should unite the left, this has to be it.

The guy has a website, for anyone who may be interested:

link to dannydorling.org

I unsubscribed to Bella Caledonia some time ago.
For me they started to try and gazump WoS, and added
in some empathy with our Union masters.

No need for a substandard reserve team that is scoring own goals, when we have the Premiership Champions and the Rev scoring for us on a daily basis.

Goodbye Bella from me!

@ brobb says at 3:48 pm …. For anyone interested in the Named Person proposal, this article sets out the pros and cons pretty fairly without all the hysteria we normally get.”

link to holyrood.com

Thanks Brobb clear and concise.

…………………………………………………………

@ Capella says at 4:36 pm …. ”John Robertson has an excellent article on the heads of Scottish institutions and whether they are home grown or incomers.”

link to newsnet.scot

Very interesting Capella and just as I suspected. I’ve noticed a marked difference in the number of non-Scots accents on the news and so on over the last 2 / 3 years in particular, especially the Head of this or Head of that. The majority of key roles in Universities in Scotland being held by non-Scots. Scary. No doubt a first-rate way (attempt) to shape the minds and opinions of youngsters in Scotland than sending them on a Tomkins holiday to England. Thank God for the Internet. However from Westminster’s point of view …. tactics …. tactics …. there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

…………………………………………………………….

@ ronnie anderson says at 6:01 pm …. ”Heres that 678 Page PMSL. Mr David B Taylor …. Written evidence (UDE0050).”

….”Personally I believe that smaller countries work better in terms of a democracy, culturally and economically too” ….. ”I feel that England has played it’s last role in it’s empire building ethos and it’s about time we let go of the bullying reins of power over our neighbours and set aside our differences and renew our relationships on a more wholesome and creative basis of justice and friendship.”

Good find Ronnie. The brilliant Mr Taylor in support of small countries having their Independence, however who IS David B. Taylor? Does anyone know? Interesting too that this statement is just plunked in alphabetical order with no question asked and no oral investigatory follow-up. And of course no mention as to who he is. Guess ‘they’ didn’t agree with his views. You came across that on page 678 Ronnie. Tomkins on page 687. Totally polarized.

…………………………………………………………….

@ Glamaig says at 6:36 pm …. ”Petra …. as is the loss of too many of our young people southwards as Scotlands economy is slowly sabotaged by Westminster.”

I’ve read that over 50,000 Scots leave Scotland every year Glamaig, average age 24. Many going abroad never to return. In other words, between one thing and another, we have to get out of this UNION ASAP or end up like never-ever-ever-ever-to-be-Independent Wales (at Onwards 8:40pm).

Ruby: “Is anyone aware of the focus groups & opinion polls & referendum regarding the New Act of Union funded by Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust?

I warned about this only weeks ago. Few rang the bells. The initiative come solely from powerful Tories. Expect carpetbaggers such as Tomkins a ‘consultant.”

It was inevitable extreme right-wing ideologues would move swiftly to block now and for the next 100 years Scotland regaining autonomy, especially after they won the Referendum with such a precarious margin, and so it has come to pass.

I consider the move extremely sinister link to wp.me

They’re talking about our future, and not a Scottish voice in the room of course.

link to parliamentlive.tv

(Ruby’s link from above)

Tomkins thinks we would be ‘culturally and spiritually’ impoverished with independence. Hmmmm.

The SNP is a ‘chronic problem’.

A learned lord thinks the UK is about ‘shared rule’ LOL.

Defo, I would prefer to wire them up to a 133Kv line.

Auld Rock

@Grouse Beater

Sorry, I missed you off my mention of a few good bloggers who already post on Wings. An article from you on Wings I think would go down well if you were to submit one.

Like Tam, I believe the Rev would appreciate his workload being lightened by having a few good articles on topics that are not relevant just today or tomorrow but even a couple of weeks or more into the future. That way the article could be posted at a time of his choosing having not become stale or out of date.

Wings has always invited anyone to submit articles so this is nothing new, greater involvement from current readers would be a good thing.

Grouse Beater if you ever do submit an article, mind make it good! The real lowdown on the BBC would be my cup of tea 🙂

Auld rock

Fair enough, I suppose. Humane. With that kind of voltage I doubt there would be undue suffering 😉
In the same position, I wouldn’t have the cheek to vote at all.
This preposterous talk of ‘ulsterisation’ reminds me of what I really think the referendum showed us. A polarisation was created.
You’re either Scottish/Yes, or British/No(English). To vote No is to deny Scotland is a nation, not a province. End of.

From wiki, so it must be true..
“The Scottish people (Scots: Scots Fowk, Scottish Gaelic: Albannaich), or Scots, are a nation and socially defined ethnic group resident in Scotland.”

Thepnr: “Grouse Beater if you ever do submit an article, mind make it good! The real lowdown on the BBC would be my cup of tea.

IScot has accepted an essay on the Scottish film industry – or lack of it – in which I take a side swipe at the BBC. But yes, if I spilled all that I saw and heard as a BBC executive, including time in BBC NI, and offered a hooker for the night (approved by a senior colleague) I’d be national news tomorrow, Murdoch my best friend.

Unlike Loki, you’ll get no special pleading from me. I make plain in a few essays, particularly “The Pitch” (over 4,000 hits worldwide!) it became impossible to continue making filmed drama in Scotland because complete power is absolutely controlled by London BBC, and its attendant C4 film industry. It is the English film industry. My company and colleagues are LA based. Nowadays I lecture, script edit, occasionally talent scout, as well as still creating work that might one day be shot in Scotland. I have a script about an assassin purchased and being located, but I don’t count any of that as ‘wild success’. You need to be London based for that, or become cross-dresser and get noticed wherever you go regardless of creative talent. I’d rather be elevating talent in Scotland and showing it off to the world.

England has its Ken Loach – winner of this year’s Palme d’Or – where’s our committed left-wing director?

Guess what? The recent Tory paper on the BBC suggests a drama producer for Scotland, and more ‘ethnic’ programmes.

How many knew BBC Scotland has no full-time proper drama impresario?

Thepnr says:

“English … estimate that 80% may have voted NO. Let’s assume that that is correct, the numbers I would really like to know is of their peers i.e. similar age, similar education, similar income. How many of their Scots peers voted NO.”

I have often wondered that.

I know English born people who voted Yes, but I would say they weren’t typical of many English here. So many are retired and fairly well off, or here with good well paid jobs – your point is that retired / well off Scots tended to also vote No.

Being English may have increased their likelihood of NO voting, however their age and socio economic status might have been a bigger influence.

Non Scots, better educated, well off, retired … the folks that we need an increased percentage of voting Yes next time. We don’t need to convert all the NOs in these groups, just enough!

Ian Brotherhood: “This kind of right-wing manoeuvre can be viewed as a simple provocation, or as a more sophisticated effort to initiate reform rather than just react to popular movements the State decides not to like.”

“In either case, it cannot be ignored.”

I highlighted your last sentence, Ian, because you’re right to be alarmed.

What we see in that video is only the tip of the Tory iceberg. The planning and money and subsequent polling (in Scotland now) that’s gone into that meeting is considerable.

Take note how they claim it is a bottom up movement that they intend to generate – can you believe that, Tory and Liberal grandees telling us to believe it is a grass roots movement… Gavin Esler will be proud.

I agree wholeheartedly that, faced with a concerted attack on Scotland’s right to make its own decisions on autonomy, civil disobedience might well be on the cards.

I regard that tactic as a democratic right.

I did find it astonishing that the Board of the National Theatre, largely composed of business people, passed over Scotland’s leading theatre producer David McLennan in favour of Laurie Sansom. Perhaps the fact that McLennan was the co-founder of 7.84 Theatre along with John McGrath made them think he would be “too political”. After all the Board of the Scottish Arts Council forced John McGrath to resign as director of 7.84 20 years ago because he was seen as “too political”. Readers might recall that 7.84 produced such epics as The Cheviot,The Stag and the Black Black Oil a little different from Alyn Ayckbourn.
link to archive.is

From the Bella article of 2014 I linked to above. Those in charge dictate who gets to make culture and who doesn’t. As long as you depict Scottish people as drunks, thieves and junkies you’ll be fine

@ Grouse Beater says at 9:36 pm …. “Ruby – Is anyone aware of the focus groups & opinion polls & referendum regarding the New Act of Union funded by Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust?”

”I warned about this only weeks ago. Few rang the bells. The initiative come solely from powerful Tories. Expect carpetbaggers such as Tomkins a ‘consultant’. It was inevitable extreme right-wing ideologues would move swiftly to block now and for the next 100 years Scotland regaining autonomy, especially after they won the Referendum with such a precarious margin, and so it has come to pass. I consider the move extremely sinister. link to wp.me

Great informative post Grouse Beater and yes it is very sinister indeed: In line with a great number of their ongoing underhand actions.

”Forces rallying against the people’s will.” Forces rallying against us all right enough. All out War is being waged on EVERY front. Let’s hope that the SNP have constitutional experts looking into this and preparing to combat them at every turn.

Additionally skimming through the ‘New Act of Union’ data it becomes clear that the Lordies are keen to ascertain the statistics relating to doing away with our Parliament altogether. Permanence of our Parliament was a key issue in Smith however it has been watered down to a majority of ‘Scottish’ voters being able to write it off altogether. A return to the good old days of complete totalitarian Westminster rule. Wouldn’t they just love that. Some such as Forsyth have even proposed that this could be implemented by carrying out a UK vote over-ruling the Scots, but was ‘shouted down’ by some of his more sensible colleagues. Sensible in that they could no doubt envisage an ‘Irish situation’ on the mainland.

Anyways it’s simples. Set the SNP up to fail. Ensure that unemployment rises. A wee phone call here and there to ‘maties’ will help it along. Create a situation whereby rUK disabled, those with large families, the unemployed and homeless all head for Scotland to the point that chaos reigns (housing, benefits, economy). News full of real doom and gloom. Maybe even create a ‘security’ issue necessitating the help of UK troops / expertise. The Scots canny go it alone type of scenario. Fill the hills and valleys with rUK Britnat supporters and when the time is right, with many Unionist Scots joining them, call for a Referendum …. not exactly the one that WE want.

@Grouse Beater –

The last time this site got wind of a ‘grass-roots’ organisation which smelled a bit iffy, we had it stripped bare within hours and turned its website into a WOS playroom. If memory serves it closed in less than 24 hours.

It was called Vote No Borders.

They won’t make the same mistake again, which means that someone, somewhere, will get to name their price for a professional job. And as they up their game, so must we.

The anti-independence committee meeting Ruby refers to is here, top of the essay:

link to wp.me

If readers can’t be bothered to read my essay please watch the video – the gorge will rise in your throat.

It is a meeting of official assassins.

Their entire motivation is NOT to create a better model for UK power sharing than currently exists, but to create a Bill that blocks Scotland’s sovereign right to have its people decide its constitutional future.

I think what I have to say in that article prescient in the extreme.

And yet, Capella, David was not a nationalist. If he was passed over, it was for his Left-wing stance on social issues. He thought nationalism split the working class.

I think most of us now think the working class solidarity argument only works one way, and not to our advantage.

As for Bella, I stopped reading its self-indulgent Lefty infantile-disorder arguments quite some time ago. It’s like a digital version of a student magazine, doomed to divisive failure and incapable of making a connection with the electorate.

I know you weren’t quoting it in approval: just wanted to sound off in my frustration.

Capella: “Actually, Ken Loache’s film about Scotland was about alcoholics, thieves and junkies. “My Name is Joe”

An English tourist’s eye view, one showing no source of the malady being due to the policies of the British state, but then one can argue life in the ‘schemies’ – monopolised by Welsh – isn’t all druggies and hapless women getting physically abused.

Then again, it isn’t a Scottish production company making it … nor will anybody in Scotland see a pound of profit from it. We got no money from ‘Trainspotting’ either – something’s not right, not right one bit.

It’s like my youth, every television drama and film about Scottish life made it seem we were all wife beaters, and clones of Glasgow bagman Jimmy Boyle. No Mean City they called it. I spent a day in Bar-L with him – how’s that for name dropping? He makes a nice salad if a little plain and unappetising, and to my surprise hid a gold plated Rolls Royce in a lock-up near my home in razor stropped genteel Embra.

(Crime pays, they say, but I hope it was sales of his sculptures.)

Did anyone on here see STV news at 6pm? There was some footage of Nicola Sturgeon at Holyrood today followed by Davidson, Dugdale and most of all Rennie getting into Nicola’s ribs. Then it was Harvie’s turn and he was saying something, with a very raised and nasty tone of voice, along the lines that he ”found something to be absolutely disgusting or disgraceful.”

I reckoned he was talking about the named person act however I may be wrong, because I missed the first part, or it was televised in such a way to make it look as though he was getting into Nicola’s ribs too – shouting at her? Just asking as this has been niggling at me all night.

The Labour Party is split between the Blairites and the Corbyistas.

The Tory Party is split between the Ins and Outs of Europe.

You cannot split an Independence Movement! Or can you?

Just a reminder, there can be no party politics when it comes to Independence. Independence is bigger than any party.

Capella says:
25 May, 2016 at 11:36 pm

“@ Tinto Chiel
The Bella article was from 2014 and was about the decision makers in the Arts being non-Scots. It was an eye opener for me in the Indyref year reasearching the causes of our dependent state. We have no national media reflecting back our shared experience.

There’s a remake of Trainspotting in the making. More drunks, thieves and junkies? Wouldn’t it be great to see a life of Thomas Muir!”

Is there not also a remake of Whisky Galore in the offing with Eddie Izzard being given a leading role in it. GRRRRRRRRRR!

One of my uncles had a cameo in the original one!

@ Iain More – OMG you jest! What about Brigadoon, surely time for a remake starring John Barrymore!

Capella and Iain More: you mustn’t use the C word (colonist). Look what happened to Alasdair Gray, a man of genius in at least two art forms.

Of course, with my cheese-cutter cheek bones and snake hips, I’m just the man to play TM. Don’t worry, Iain, Eddie will be playing that daft English major, but presumably not in a pink beret.

Heavy stuff on here tonight: I sense the revolution is starting!

I see that Petra laughed at the suggestions below by Tomkins but I can’t be the only one who found this whole thing very sinister;

“(1) Glasgow is full of schoolchildren… Why not twin every schoolchild in Scotland with one in England and pay for them to visit one another?

(2) …Why not scrap HS2 and spend some serious money on infrastructure north of the border? You could even call the new train links the Union Line and paint the new carriages red, white and blue.”

Darkened rooms full of weird old men in Westminster discussing the possibility of taking our kids away on trains? It’s The Age of The Train all over again, isn’t it…

I think The Saville Line would be a better name for it, or maybe The Janner Line.

Not one Scottish accent in the whole ring, I mean room… Not one.

I think The Saville Line would be a better name for it, or maybe The Janner Line.

Not one Scottish accent in the whole ring, I mean room… Not one.

Getting desperate troll.

Anyway there are Scots accented lords there. All thats interesting is the word play dudes like Prof Tomkins use. He’s an English nationalist working to keep England’s control of Scotland but ofcourse, he can never actually say that.

So we have all kinds of yoon stuff from the guy, pool, share, safeness, power and glory of the NATIONS etc. His stuff about the 2 million Scots that voted NO to remain is a bit creepy considering they voted for the Vow and remain. Also up to 400k of those 2 million NO voting Scots are possibly English too.

He’s put a lot of effort and plagiarised too but above all else, Prof T’s an English nat and as he always likes to not say, England losing control of Scotland is not going to happen. You can see why they’re shitting bricks over ref 2 though, after everything that they lied about for the NO win and their historic The Vow shyste.

Thepnr says:
The Labour Party is split between the Blairites and the Corbyistas.

The Tory Party is split between the Ins and Outs of Europe.

You cannot split an Independence Movement! Or can you?

Just a reminder, there can be no party politics when it comes to Independence. Independence is bigger than any party.

hear hear, the reds and greens make up a proportion of the yes supporters and while i have sympathy with some of their policies, I am more centralist and dont think we should allow them to hi-jack the indy movement, we, and wos in general, need to appeal to a larger cross section of society.

after saying that, the reds and greens do make up a % of yes supporters who target other simalarly like minded individuals and try to convince them to vote yes.

you may not agree with their view of a future indy scotland, no one is asking you to, but gloating about their demise doesnt serve the yes campaign. better to leave them to their own devises and focus on convincing the centre and more right wing elements to vote yes
you may be miffed that they attack you for not being red or green enough, fair enough, but the correct response isnt to hope, promote and gloat at their demise. that doesnt serve the yes movement. the correct response is to come up with suggestions about how we convince the centre and right wing to vote yes.
there is a certain amount of hypocracy in the gloating comments on the demise of bella, the criticism i heard most here was they should focus on converting labour to indy rather than attacking the snp.
for the record, what are your plans to convert libdems and tories to yes?
otherwise this blog is nothing more than a rant in cyberspace. Lookabootye

@Grouse Beater –

Thanks for the link to that footage.

Tomkins looks and sounds like a desperate courtier. Unfortunately (for him) he’s a few centuries late to impress any monarch directly.

When the novelty of being an MSP wears off he’ll realise, to his horror, that he’s within easy arse-kicking distance of the oiks he was so desperate to escape.

(p.s. Do you know much about Sir Jeffrey Jowell, the wee dude sat beside Tomkins? He’s a very difficult man to get information on, beyond glowing CVs…even Wiki draws a virtual blank. Strange…)

the btl comments here are fast becoming a sycophants wet dream, who can brown nose stu the fastest in his all out war against the rest of the yes movement.

god knows I have just as much reason to dislike bella, but that doesnt include gloating at their demise or dissing people like irvine welsh. he has world wide acclaim, something no one on here has.

first the greens, now the reds, what next, how WFI are closet ruthie supporters?… get grip folks, this site was once pro yes, if it continues the character assassination of other yes supporting groups, people will start to doubt its convictions.indeed, i already doubt many on here.

you carry on with your divide and concquer tactics, i’m more interested in pushing forward with yes2, and that includes NOT alienating those who already support this goal

@ crazycat says at 12:05 am …. ”Petra this may refer to the incident you were asking about. I don’t have a TV so didn’t see it myself.”

link to twitter.com

Thanks Crazycat that cleared that one up for me. Thank goodness he wasn’t being so out and out nasty towards Nicola rather supporting her. On the other hand STV portrayed this as Harvie joining in the bitter fray with the Unionists. Sleekit!

@ AhuraMazda says at 12:10 am …. ”I see that Petra laughed at the suggestions below by Tomkins but I can’t be the only one who found this whole thing very sinister …

Darkened rooms full of weird old men in Westminster discussing the possibility of taking our kids away on trains? It’s The Age of The Train all over again, isn’t it …

I think The Saville Line would be a better name for it, or maybe The Janner Line. Not one Scottish accent in the whole ring, I mean room… Not one.”

I see you’ve been behaving yourself today AM, lol and I’ll overlook the fact that you didn’t seem to get my ‘ha, ha’ point. Other than that I had of course thought about the implications of sending children off to strangers homes, escorted on the Union Line by God knows who, and additionally the reaction of English parents taking them in at the other end. However you could on forever making points … no point in some instances especially as his suggestions are absolutely ludicrous.

Anyway I liked the Saville / Janner ring line. Gave me a bit of another ha, ha laugh. Also your paedophile reference would put paid to Tomkins et al ever bringing up his brilliant idea again. One mention that Tomkins and the Lords were thinking of hustling our kids off to England and Tomkins would be run out of town …. Bearsden.

@ heedtracker says at 11:50 pm …. ”Prof Tomkins likes to say “respect the ref verdict where a majority of Scots voted to remain in this union” but what about the 400k English referendum voters in Scotland or even Prof Tomkins himself? He’s from the south coast of England apparently. Stage 3 of toryboy plan to take control of any more possible devo-

Adam Tomkins MSP Retweeted

Mark Elliott ?@ProfMarkElliott 13h13 hours ago

A post by Stephen Tierney & me: Today’s Constitution Cttee report on The Union & Devolution

link to publiclawforeveryone.com …

One wonders why they don’t just start showing some respect for and listening to our 56 democratically ‘ELECTED’ MP’s at Westminster.

The (non) Greens mucked up the Referendum, the majority do not support their policies – 60% tax and an implied land grab – put moderate voters off. Enough to swing the verdict. The majority will not vote for them because of their unpopular policies. They got massive, disproportionate coverage, for a small pressure group.

Muck up the GE let more Tories through and mucked up the Holyrood election. Lied and let the Unionists through. It nearly was Davidson for FM backed up by Dugdale, because of 2nd rate rejects system. Folk are just waking up to that now. They renege on their policies and collude with Unionists (the status quo) for remuneration and benefit. Ruining city centres and other major projects. It is appalling what they have done. Costing Millions/Billion that could be better spent. They then complain there is not enough funding for essential services.

If people wanted to own land in Scotland they would buy it. Current £5000 an acre over 25 years. A house can be built on 1/4 of an acre. They want to access the land and they do in their
millions. The people are more green than the (non) Greens. Scotland has ‘a right to roam’ anybody can access the land. It is the(non) Greens who would try to stop them. They collude with landowners and others to stop people accessing the land or achieving projects which benefit the community.

They hang on to the SNP support and criticise them at every opportunity. The SNP Gov is one of the most Green in Europe.

Ian Brotherhood: “Do you know much about Sir Jeffrey Jowell”

Retired judge, now back bencher who wants to ‘streamline the judicial system’ which could be a good or bad thing depending on who ends up making most money from ‘streamlining’. And I presume he also means streamlining Scots law so its sits better with English law and is subservient to it. When does a ‘Brit’ not include Scotland as part of England?

Jowell is a founder of the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law (2010) and now its director – the Centre named after arch Tory Lord Bingham, ‘Baron Bingham’, Master of the Rolls, now deceased.

Bingham oversaw an increasing workload of constitutional affairs after Scottish devolution. One saving grace to his activities was he wanted drones banned as weapons in war. One supposes Jowell agreed – assuming he has any ambition to be promoted by his senior colleague.

To my mind any think tank that appears to be a group of the elite with a mission to impose change on the majority is suspect. A Tory government upholding the rule of law will be a wondrous thing. (Centre’ – centre of what?)

Jowell dislikes anarchy – hence his wish for the ‘rule’ of law’ to permeate everything – but anarchy by an individual or the masses is a key force for rejecting the bad for the good in sick societies.

You’ll find videos of Jowell talking his ideas on YouTube.

The HoL has obsolutely no power. It can only delay twice. The Tories are trying to curtail it’s power further. Preventing HoL delaying a Bill.

Westminster can never change Scot’s Law. Under the Act of Union the agreement was that Scotland could have a separate Legal system, Church (education) and a shared Protestant Monarch. Forever. This can only be changed with agreement of both parties. Or the Union is automatically dissolved.

The England Supreme Appeal Court is now taking away people rights in Scotland, to appeal to the European Human rights Court. The England Supreme Court (Blair) has to agree with decision Scottish Appeal court because sovereignty resides with the people under Scottish Law. An England appeal court can’t override a decision of Scottish Appeal court in Scotland. The two legal systems are separate. People in Scotland are losing their right, EU citizens, to appeal to the European Court of Appeal. That will have to be changed,

Are there no foodbanks in Falkirk WP or children’s charities?

It is illegal for public bodies to fund or support the Orange Lodge in Scotland with public money. It is elitist, secret, discriminatory and protectionist. Under council code of conduct no such body should be awarded or supported with public funds. It is a private organisation and as such should be privately funded. The Councillors are breaking the Law. The vast majority of taxpayers do not support the Orange Lodge or their divisive, illegal behaviour.

Taking an extremely partisan, biased position. How can that be reconciled to how a paid public official can work for two institutions and comply with the EU 48hours directive.”

Tomkins bosses at Glasgow uni are unionist tories so that’s fine. The EU 48 hour working time directive was opted out of by Blair and Brown, another working class heroic victory for Labour.

Labour opting out of the work time directives and many others, shows us some important UKOK thingees.

1. Labour are red tories or they wouldn’t have opted out of work time limit

2. Brexiteers are just more tory liars with their Brussels dictatorship bullshit. UK can opt out of any and all EU directives when it suits red or blue tory Westminster and the work time directive is a really nasty example.

3. UKOK unions rolled over when Bomber Blair and Crash Gordon’s opt out kicked in. They’re giving you the right to work as long as you like teamGB workers. Solidarity, fraternity with all the workers of the EU s vote NO and all that very British shite we had poured over us 2014.

link to out-law.com

@ WP

Aye WP its a total disgrace but not unexpected from the parcel of rogues that sit in our council,but we will fix that next year with lots of p45`s and i hope we go further as i do believe we have the most corrupt council in Scotland jail time is needed for the crooks that run it and have run it before them.

They just managed to keep us out last time by going into coalition with the blue tories they wont do that next year.

tick tock Falkirk council i hope you like prison food you bastards.

Ken500 at 8:22 a.m.

You make a number of assertions that frankly are just not true. I can only assume that you are stating things as you would like them to be rather than as they are.

First you say the House of Lords has no power. Would that it were so! As you say they can delay legislation – that alone gives them considerable power. They can also scrutinise and change legislation. They can also initiate legislation. There is a cosy understanding between the Lords and the Commons that the Lords will restrict themselves to meddling a bit, but not too much. When the Lords used their power to frustrate the government over Tax Credits, there were howls of protest from the same people who have created the rules which allow the Lords to do what they do. It is a constitutional farce.

“Westminster can never change Scot’s Law”. Well that’s not true – they did it for nearly 300 years until 1999 and they still do it in respect of reserved matters. The most recent example is the banning of legal highs across the whole UK. What is meant to be true is that the Scottish Courts operate independently of any UK or English Court when it comes to criminal matters. It has long been the case that civil matters could be appealed to the House of Lords and now the UK Supreme Court. Arguably, this broke down with the case of Cadder which concerned the rights of police to interview a suspect. As this was a human rights matter, which is civil not criminal, it was appealed to the UK Supreme Court which made a ruling that fundamentally changed Scots criminal law.

It remains to be seen whether the right of Scots to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights will be affected. But as human rights matters can go to the UK Supreme Court, there is a case that Scottish appeals should get the same treatment as English appeals. Not how I would like it, but given the UK government’s position on the constitution I can see that this is how they will argue it. And as long as we remain in the UK, it does make some sort of sense. The only solution of course is for Scotland to rip up the current constitutional arrangements and forge its own path. Then we will not need to worry about whether something should go to the UK Supreme Court – it just won’t!

Bella’s been getting a more and more extreme left republican voice, and is in danger of losing all but that extreme fringe of the independence movement.
Most independence supporters seem to be slightly left of centre, don’t care about smashing capitalism or the monarchy and want independence to be a way of taking responsibility for our own affairs and looking after our own people.
The more shrill and extreme clenched fist groups of the extreme left will only scare off the more moderate independence supporters.

@Galamcennalath { Individuals who don’t earn intellectual respect through words and deeds, but behave as cerebral elites … are just seen as wankers!}

Oh Loki Loki just one reason Yessers gave up on Bella. I gave up on them a long time ago, with they,re leftist rhetoric & at no time have I seen a Bella Banner,s at any Demo’s.

Wings Over Scotland have attended all the Demo’s orginized by whatever groups in supporting Independence & donated monies to good causes via Badge donations (BDTT & PTC) + Wingers have donated to many Crowdfunders all in the cause of promoting Independence & I hope that continues.

The Rev can always use extra money, if people who read WoS havent subscribed I would urge you to do so, this is thee site that has Independence at its heart.

I personaly would like to see a Wings orginized Demonstration ie BBC/Daily Record & take the fight directly to they,re doorsteps.

Brent Crude,

over $50 a barrel,

take that ya yoon lickspittles.