The Hollow Heart
Yesterday we took an extensive tour of all the red flags in the SNP’s 2022 accounts, which show a party in very deep financial trouble. But there was one part we left out because it deserves a post of its own.
The picture above – which was posted by then-CEO Peter Murrell during last year’s SNP conference – is a revealing one in all kinds of ways.
It starkly exposes how a party chose to hold an event for around 800 members in a venue with a capacity of 15,000 and then went to a lot of effort to disguise how empty the space was, rather than, for example, just hiring somewhere of an appropriate size (and cost) in the first place.
(Look how far into the hall the stage has been placed, leaving half the arena vacant, to then be hidden behind a giant screen and curtains and banners in order to give a false impression of how full it is.)
But what’s more symbolic is that there are almost no people in it.
Murrell also posted this shot, taken during what was by far the busiest moment of the conference, the keynote speech by then-leader Nicola Sturgeon:
Between them the two images paint a perfect picture of the gulf between the public front and the reality. The second pic is carefully cropped to suggest other banks of seating to the sides, but in fact there weren’t – there was just a single central terrace, even narrower than the rows on the arena floor, with vast empty gaps left and right.
(And again, for contrast, the room when it’s actually full.)
We Scots have a phrase for this sort of thing, where someone attempts to convey a far grander status than they really possess: “fur coat, nae knickers”.
And that brings us back to the accounts.
It’s never great when any organisation has to reassure its members that it’s still financially solvent. In terms of messaging it’s right up there with the board of a football club expressing their full confidence in the manager when they’ve lost their last 10 games in a row and are sitting at the bottom of the league with relegation looming.
But what those three paragraphs – the first two of which only started appearing in the accounts last year – say is that the SNP is currently staying alive only by robbing its own branches.
(And also by delaying paying its suppliers. The money owed to businesses who’ve provided goods and services to the party but haven’t yet been paid shot up by over 650% in 2022. Perhaps they could ask Peter Murrell for a “cash-flow” loan to help them, he’s got plenty spare wedge. Or maybe the SNP hopes that by not paying them they’ll go bust and then won’t have to be paid at all.)
Constituency associations are being starved of vital campaigning funds so that the central party can (literally) grandstand in public by spending £340,000 on mysterious “audio visual” content at its overblown conferences and £190,000 on hiring a venue that’s 20 times the size they actually need, like when Queen’s Park still played their home games at Hampden.
Local branches can’t afford to print leaflets because SNP HQ is hogging all their money so it can spend a mindboggling £1,158,442 on computers and software in just four years for its 25 staff, which is more than £46,000 per employee.
(A figure which suddenly doubled in 2022 for no obvious reason.)
All of this can happen because members are now almost entirely incidental to the business of the SNP. The vast bulk of the party’s real income – millions of pounds a year that aren’t shown in its accounts – comes from the UK government.
And while 50,000 members have been lost in the last three and a half years – more than 40% from the 2019 peak – the remaining suckers have been squeezed so hard for money that actual membership income last year was up 1% compared to 2019’s.
The SNP is now in essence a blown egg. It doesn’t really need members for their money, because however many there are they generate roughly the same amount. (In terms of the party’s overall finances £100,000 either side of £2.4m makes little odds.)
(And they’re a positive inconvenience when it comes to policy development, which is why they’ve been completely and methodically removed from having any influence over it. On the rare occasions they’re allowed to vote on policy at all, their decisions are simply ignored.)
All it has to do is LOOK like a normal political party on the surface, which it can then paint as gaily as it likes and pretend it’s still an egg rather than a hollow shell.
And blown eggs only look pretty as long as you don’t apply any stress to them. Next year there’s going to be a general election, with a typical cost to the SNP of £1.5m, and there just isn’t that much available to be stolen from branches.
(They can forget, obviously, about ever being paid what they’re already owed. The note to the accounts makes that very clear.)
Whatever miracle the party is hoping for to deliver it from bankruptcy better arrive soon. Either that or they already know the game’s up and are just frantically screwing as much money out of it as they can in one last frenzy of avarice, like awarding the new CEO an immediate 20% pay rise.
(One Foote In The Gravy, you might say.)
Either way, you can already hear the cracking.
Creating a vehicle not built to withstand pressure. Did Peter Murrell learn his CEO skills from Stockton Rush?
How can they still be teetering on bankruptcy with all the short money?
Nicola’s a hoormeister isn’t she? Cash for access… She’s sold the family silver.
She’s flogged the jerseys…
Brilliant article as ever.
The tin pot Nicola Thatcher and hubby, the love of her Murrell have sold the SNP soul. They probably both sleep on pillow cases of SNP cash together at night dreaming of their next heist.
Crowds can be fickle – probably best avoided.
The Americans hire their crowds but I suppose that’s not an option here.
You won’t see any investigative journalism the standard of Wings in Murray Foote’s Daily Record.
Where’s the missing 600k Nicola, where’s the missing money?
Where is all the money going?
does the SNP have a pension fund for itse employees?
– that usually gets looted at some point.
What does it mean for a political party that has elected reps to go bankrupt? What are the consequences? Has it ever happened in the UK before? I can’t find any info on that…
Humza and hingers oan are currently cosying up to that millionaire global climate alleged scammer, John Kerry.
Liz Lloyd currently praising that alleged fraud on twitter.
Will they get any bungs for selling Scotland down the river with net zero?
Nicola Sturgeon:
“I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“I am innocent.”
“I can’t speak for him.”
“Think of my neighbours.”
“I will not resign.”
After 2014 the SNP had 125,000 members, out of all these members who wouldn’t have taken on the job of CEO unpaid if it meant securing Indyref2.
What about the motorhome?
If the SNP was put forward a plan to actually winning Scottish Independence, lets say Ash Regan plan. If the party held out the hand of friendship for other Pro-Indy parties to join together in securing Independence and asked the general public to help and save the party in order to secure Independence then who wouldn’t help if it meant after years of wasted lies we are now getting to the truth of why Scotland hasn’t been Independent, but I’m afraid the leadership would rather Scotland stay part of England and the SNP went down the toilet then get behind the sole purpose of the party Independence.
Isn’t the short money from Westminster audited separately, and has to be spent on Westminster expenses such as researchers and office costs? I don’t know for certain, but I don’t think that it can be spent on campaigning in Scotland, or audio visual equipment hire for conferences.
A strange choice to book a venue for 15,000 when you only expect 800 delegates.
A Potemkin party, praised by payroll participants.
I am no accountant but don’t these accounts suggest trousering on a biblical scale by person or persons unknown ? However I don’t understand how the party can be in dire straits if indeed it receives millions from Westminster not reflected at all in the accounts
All it will take is for one of these unpaid suppliers to lodge a legal action against the SNP for payment and it will all come tumbling down.
The SNP is at an end.
Sad that a party which once had great potential to do so much good for Scotland has been destroyed from within.
I don’t know if the destruction was done by the Westminster regime or by mad folk in charge of the party, possibly a bit of both.
Time to move away from this party and throw our support and time and money behind Alba because that’s where our hopes now lie.
The remaining members of the SNP need to realise that the party is at an end. If they want independence there are other real independence parties out there .
According to the treasurer’s statement ( see Accounts – Key Points, last paragraph ), the deficit is not really as high as stated, becauase £571,727 of it is money owed by one part of the party to another part. Creative accounting or what?
There has to be a question of why would commited nationalists crash the bus.
what would cause a person to start making flawed decisions
when did the flawed decisions start
who was making these decisions and who was proposing them
when you hear answers to that let me know
Spot on Rev, the mankit SNP elite behave the same as ‘unionist’ (i.e colonial) parties; sold their souls to become tools of colonial capitalism, colonial administrators:
“WEAPONS manufacturers, fossil fuel companies, and a contentious spyware firm are among the sponsors for this year’s Labour Party conference.”
https://www.thenational.scot/news/23746831.palantir-babock-among-contentious-sponsors-labour-conference/
David Hannah @ 12:55 pm
The Glasgow alibi…
“It wizny me”
What would the latest forecast (Survation 15 – 18 Aug) mean for finances?
Loss of MPs: 24
Loss of vote: 37% (from 45% in 2019)
Short money loss = £466k for MPs and £336k for votes. Total £802k.
Short money goes from £1.3m to £500k.
Then there’s lost tithes from MPs = £72k.
Total forecast revenue reduction for 2024 = £847k.
This is on top of an existing £800k debt the requirement to raise a war chest for an impending GE and a new CEO hired on £95k pa.
In financial terms, NuSNP are the Enron of politics.
The parallels don’t end there. Enron was a brash, loud, P.R scam masquerading as a going concern while its top Executives filtched the cash away and led the high life.
When the band stopped playing, Enron were exposed as a rather gaudy Ponzi scheme
Superb and skillfully written article Rev. So much information packed into so little space, and with photos too.
When the British government is writing all the cheques that keep the SNP alive what do you need MI5 for? I was thinking they should ask for a refund, but really, it’s money well spent and worth every penny as the SNP got rid of all the independence activists and destroyed all the branches for free. Nicola Sturgeon, the Enola Gay of British politics.
The handy mnemonic ‘Enron and L. Ron’ just about covers what seems to have gone on.
Excellent article Rev, and bang on the money.
Craig Murray penned an article last year showing why the major political parties in the UK (SNP included) no longer care about their membership.
Westminster Short Money is what’s important.
The sooner we let the SNP die by not voting for any SNP candidate again the sooner we can start to rebuilt a real indy party.
Let get as many SNP MPs out of office as possible come the next GE, and the same again in 2026.
“The highly paid political class in charge of each of the UK’s three major political parties detests, despises, distrusts and seeks to discard their own party membership.”
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/10/the-party-is-over/
They are not just out to stop the SNP, They are out to destroy it from within.
Vivian O’Blivion @1.32pm.
I often wondered if the SNP under Sturgeon and now Yousaf is/was secretly funded to help keep it in place, and ergo block any chance of independence, its not above the British state to do such a thing.
Hubbys family are showmen. Way back in 89 we visited his aunt at SECC carnival. She has the wee Duck stall. Then she told us she had to pay £14 per square metre…including height, for her pitch.
Feck knows what the charge now??? Halls are divided. I worked at Santa’s Kingdom in 2002 and we shared floor with Elton John concert! They just pull the dividers..I was able to see the gig for free! Such VANITY within the Executive. Could have used village halls!
I dont understand how a party on circa 25k pre referendum was making the same contribution as 100k a few years later. To my eyes they should be rolling in it.
20 years ago it never even occurred to me there would even be an SNP CEO on a salary, never mind 20 other staff.
I just assumed it was something people did for the love of the cause in their spare time…maybe with a wee bit of expensing. We seem to have gone from a party of volounteers to a party of salaried troughers.
This is as fascinating as it is enfuriating.
I have to say, it must have taken a serious toll to the Rev’s stomach to discover all this level of disgusting deception and see it for what it is: relentless and deliberate crushing of Scotland’s democracy.
But this SNP staging charade raises more questions than it gives answers. For instance, who was (still is?) Murrell and Sturgeon’s employer? Who is really managing our MPs and MSPs?
I ask this because judging by the fourth picture, it is strikingly obvious for anybody walking into that venue that the space is almost empty and that the stage is ridiculously oversized compared to the volume of the audience.
Every MP, every MSP, every staffer, every reporter, every member sitting on those chairs must have noticed that.
If the emptiness of the place was so obvious, why were not pictures of this plastered all over the unionist press and twitter?
Were not any external reporters attending the conference?
Was there a ban in place for releasing pictures other than the “official” ones to be published?
Or was there some kind of collusion with the press to go on with the charade of deceiving the public?
What is the real role of Murray Foote in the SNP and has his being part of the SNP anything to do with the compliance of the traditional unionist press in turning a blind eye to this deception?
There is not a huge number of empty chairs, so one can conclude the attendance rate was not any lower than expected. So it looks like it was always designed to be a scripted and staged event designed for external audiences rather than for those sitting at the venue.
It would be interesting to know how many of those sitting in the audience were extras paid as clapping seals and therefore part of the “audiovisual” expenditure.
I find incredibly hard to believe that among attendees there were not some envoys from the unionist parties sent to measure the “temperature”. So not only the press, but potentially the opposition political parties have been colluding to deceive Scottish voters into believing the SNP was a party rather than another UK establishment empty vessel.
Why wouldn’t the press uncover the deception if bringing the party down would increase newspapers sales?
Why didn’t the unionist parties teared Sturgeon a new one in parliament by throwing light on the deception?
To me the only credible answer is they are all on the same side and all have a vested interest in this limping party shell making it to the next GE.
Why would the UK establishment have such interest in keeping this barely-surviving-financially shell so it can make it to the next GE?
Two reasons spring to mind:
1. the proportion of pro-independence voters in Scotland’s electorate has reached critical mass so they cannot longer pull off an election without having a single party that is recognised as pro-independence by the public. Voters might boycott the election in masse. In absence of the SNP, they might have to give ALBA and Mr Salmond air time. Mr Salmond does not seem to be the maleable and unconditionally compliant crown tool Sturgeon and Yousaf are. And to make matters worse, he has a rather large chip on his shoulder: the failed conspiracy aimed at forcing him out of politics potentially attempting to put him in prison for the rest of his life. Who could ensure compliance after such colosal strategic blunder?
2. Because should they have sunk the SNP at that time, they would have given plenty of time for its pro-independence membership and voters to move to ALBA, defeating the main purpose of the whole infiltration strategy: to either silence pro-independence voters by disenfranchising them or trapping them in an empty vessel that is terminally holed below the waterline and therefore going nowhere fast.
The defanging of the SNP by the political fraud in 2015 was, in my opinion, the biggest assault on Scotland’s democracy in modern times. It deliberately removed from the electorate the opportunity to vote for a political party pursuing independence, effectively gagging almost half of the voters. This was done by deceiving voters into believing the party was still pro-independence when in fact it was moving away from independence and towards devolution at flank speed.
The SNP income statement reveals a deficit of over £800,000 for 2022. But that is not the main worry. In my opinion, the main worry is that its statement of financial position reveals that currently, and if I am not mistaken, all SNP assets for 2022 (fixed + current) are insufficient to cover its current liabities for 2022.
The party started with a reserve of around £585,000 at the beginning of the financial year and ended with a deficit of £220,000. Unless it knows beforehand it can raise sufficient funds to cover that deficit plus all its liabilities for 2023, at the current rate, in my view, the party has become insolvent and surviving off the back of creditors.
So my questions are:
1. in the eyes of the EC how big does the deficit in the statement of financial position have to become to force a political party to declare bankrupcy?
2. how close to bankrupcy would the SNP be in December 2022 if it had not received the extra £300,000 odd in conference income, the 40 odd thousand from miscellaneous and the seemingly inflated membership income for the small number of members it still has?
It is beginning to look like the last vestige of democracy Scotland saw in its short history of devolution was the Holyrood election of 2011.
What we appear to have had ever since is a collection of heavily stage-managed events and heavy post-election expectation management designed to preserve the union by systematically crushing democracy and by
deceiving Scotland’s electorate into believing different rosettes represent different parties rather than alternative brands of the exact same faulty product.
https://www.albaparty.org/salmond_backs_carbon_capture_as_key_to_oil_and_gas_development
http://robinmcalpine.org/will-scotland-ever-be-saved-from-the-carbon-capture-con/
https://robinmcalpine.org/scotland-will-never-have-carbon-capture-and-storage/
Alf Baird,
I hope you accept my Apologies for my delayed response to you on 24th August 6:06pm.
I try keep myself busy generally with domestic chores, but that includes sidelining and researching historical records,
In my response I will break this up into two or three section posts, as there is a lot to deal with in relation to the treaty with Ireland 1800.
Firstly, I agree that Scots stand on the sidelines calcified and motionless observing what happens to them and I will add mentally mummified zombies.
It may seem a terrible comment on my personal observations, but “there are a lot of people on this planet, but very few in it participating.”
Regards the 1800 treaty with Ireland,
It has been my position through researching historical records that Scotland was extinguished from the treaty of union by the terms/ agreement of the treaty of union and that once ratified by both parliaments individual agreed that the Scottish parliament was no longer a participant of the union, or the treaty.
Secondly, that under the “English parliament” they had passed the Triennial Act, pre- supposed union with Scotland, which was basically repealed in 2010, give a tweak or two over the years,
Under both these records besides one or two others, it can be confirmed that the parliament of England continued as it was, except for a name rebrand of its parliament in 1707, to the parliament of Great Britain.
The parliament of Scotland was extinguished and dissolved under English law according to the treaty agreement and ratifications, but only in England, and the UK parliament agrees with this statement on their own site in 2022 and 2023.
In Scotland the old Scottish parliament was Sine Die’d. Adjourned,
The old parliament of England which had continued, was exceptionally quick to take up the new but ” false” roll, of rulers of the main land of Britain.
Under these circumstances in my and many others opinion, this only left The Parliament of England as the sole Parliament in a treaty of non-parliamentary union, with the Scottish parliament gone,
It has taken a number of years on my behalf to find some evidence to turn what was a firm theory into fact, which I greatly enjoyed as it returned many other facts I did not know between Scotland and England.
The 1800 Treaty with Ireland was a defining moment,
As it was the “parliament of England” , Not, the Parliament of a united Scotland and England parliament that that treaty with Ireland came into being,
The “Parliament of England” in 1800 made a treaty with the kingdom of Ireland,
The parliament of England then assumed that because it had rebranded its parliaments( ( (Westminsters) name in 1707, without the ” Scottish Parliament” it would be a treaty of all of Britain,
But Scotland was not included, it was solely the parliament of England,
This verifies that the parliament of England did not cease, that the parliament of England was making treaties in its own name of old, in 1800,
But the parliament of Scotland ceased to be in the treaty in 1707.
From your own perspective, and for Salvo, that “Scotland” can and must be categorised as a “Colony” and not actually in the treaty of a union , as a parliamentary union since 1707; is a information goldmine..
But the ramifications of this “parliament of England” Treaty with the kingdom of Ireland goes much deeper further,
Sorry AUOB, but I can’t pull together the £116 rail fair to Kyle of Lochalsh tomorrow, because I really fancied marching over the Skye Bridge with a Saltire blawin’ in the wind. I reckon that’s gonna feel spectacular for those who can make it, and a March which stands apart from all the others.
Very best wishes to all those who can make it. With you in spirit, and I hope the weather is with you. Have a great day!
“They are not just out to stop the SNP, They are out to destroy it from within”
They have already destroyed it. The destruction of the SNP started the day the political fraud Sturgeon defanged its constitution and subverted democracy by denying the Scottish electorate the opportunity to vote for a pro-independence party.
The political fraud did this AFTER it was public knowledge that, as a party of independence, the SNP would win GE2015 by a landslide. She saved the union and has continued to do so until the continuity candidate Yousaf took over.
And what was the first thing the “republican in name only” did on becoming FM?
to hand Scotland’s stone of destiny to the English king so they could play at portraying in the eyes of the world Scotland as a subordinate to the English crown. I think what Yousaf did is unforgivable.
Yousaf had no right to hand Scotland’s stone to the English king. That showed his level of contempt for Scotland and how incredibly weak his republican convinction actually is.
The minute there was a coronation ceremony for Scotland’s crown, it became clear both crowns are separate and independent. The stone is to crown Scotland’s monarchs. It has nothing to do with the English crown. Yousaf had no business handing that stone other than to help the English crown to subjugate Scotland. The man acted as another pathetic crown tool like Sturgeon before him did for 9 years.
In 2015 the SNP became a shell whose utility for the British state is that of keeping a large proportion of the yes vote trapped in an innocuous political carcass led by a brigade of corrupt and obedient charlatans.
Stuart MacKay @1:46 pm
“Nicola Sturgeon, the Enola Gay of British politics”.
Good one Stuart.
Given her corruption though, we could say Payola Gay.
Or given her virulence, Ebola Gay.
If it weren’t for Westminster’s £, the SNP would be filing for bankruptcy protection.
But then, ask yourself whose interests are best served by keeping a near-bankrupt, pro-Devo, anti-Indy, incompetent and corrupt SNP running Scotland? Cui bono?
A Scot Abroad says:
25 August, 2023 at 1:08 pm
“A strange choice to book a venue for 15,000 when you only expect 800 delegates.”
You can’t make an 800-seater venue look as if there are more than 800 people attending 😉
Not looking so crazy now that the Murrells could’ve been working for MI5 – either you believe that they have been so catastrophically incompetent and corrupt, or you believe it was all deliberate. After all, they’ve not just destroyed the hope for independence, they’ve destroyed the main means of gaining it. It’ll take at least a decade, probably more to recover from this… And on a completely different topic, when is Scotland’s oil expected to run out, economically speaking?
Alf Baird.
Re the The treaty of Ireland 1800.
In my last post to you I mentioned that this treaty has ramifications.
The old parliament of England has not ceasedto be under the Triennial act, and the fact that no new members were elected from the old English parliament toenter the supposed newly created British parliament but were simply transferred by the Queen proclamation under the English parliament.
Thus in every evidence we find the “old English parliament of England incognito” and behind the curtain, still actively making treaties under its namesake of a parliament of England in 1800 while posing as a union of parliaments of Scotland and England.
The English parliament was to end and cease in 1707 at the same time as the Scottish parliament to CREATE and bring about a treaty of union of parliaments called the parliament of Great Britain,
This obviously did not happen, nor proceed into a treaty between Scotland and England parliaments, one being extinguished and the other continuing,
Scotland is not in a parliamentary union with Englands parliament. And that is now made clear by the 1800 treaty between Ireland and England.
The treaty between the “English parliament” 1800 and Ireland brings into question the validity of all treaties since and including that date,
For Westminster acting legally as only a “English parliament” to make a treaty with Ireland throws the fallacious treaty of union with Scotland into the abyss,
It also brings a big question over the pseudo named parliament of Great Britain,
And over the pseudo named parliament of Great Britain and Ireland,
And the pseudo named UK parliament of great britain since at least 1800.
Westminster MP severance pay is being doubled to £20 000. More dosh for Pension Pete.
Alf Baird,
Re The treaty of Ireland with the parliament of England 1800,
Being as the above named treaty is with the “English parliament” and not with the “parliament of the treaty of union of Great Britain”, Ireland is in a union with England only,
The ” English parliament” afterwards then slaps on the pseudo title of the parliament Great Britain,
Having just abolished the treaty of union with Scotland by acting as the English parliament in Westminster,
Does the £340,000 on Audio/Visual start to become more reachable when you include 3 days worth of private meetings and side functions, dinners, dances, maybe a bit of karaoke, replacing the blue lights in the toilets?
The offices, meeting rooms, Hilton brand hotel and dining areas that make up the rest of TECA facilities was presumably far more important than the size of the main hall when they paid their £190,000 venue hire.
Presumably all that shmoozing lead to not just the £515,000 in conference income but the rise in membership income per member despite the large drop in the number of members.
@James Che
Your theory about the use of the ‘parliament of England’ in the Union of Ireland Act 1800 is undercut by the fact that the Parliament of Great Britain is used explicitly in the 1800 Act on many more occasions and is impliedly used even more.
If you’ve actually taken the time to read the act, then you would know that England is mentioned again in relation to religion but Great Britain is used throughout. You cannot use this single mention as a basis for your wrong-headed theories as its single use suggests that it was a scribal error. The canons of interpretation i.e. hermeneutics do not support your approach in any way.
As the act is written on parchment, you would be spending your time more wisely, if you were to contact the person or department responsible for storing these parchments, to enquire if the phrase ‘parliament of England’ is actually written on it at all.
Can I ask why you think a single use of the term ‘parliament of England’, which has no legal meaning, carries more weight in the 1800 Act rather than the many uses of the term Parliament of Great Britain (which of course at that time was the only correct legal and constitutional term for the Westminster parliament)?
Alf Baird.
‘Treaties are like roses and young girls; They last only while they last’
Charles De Gaulle.
The “parliament of England” acting as the pseudo parliament of Great Britain ended the treaty of union in 1800.
“Ring-fenced or Earmarked” – Is this the home of the missing £600,000?
Further to my last post, it occurs to me that the supposedly ring-fenced money could have been turned into the money described in the accounts as being earmarked for branches (the £571,747.previously referred to). It’s pretty close to the right amount.
The SNP could claim that it is sitting there (as a debt, owed to the branches) and that the Supreme Court ruling has meant that it can’t be used for an independence referendum campaign, hence the attempt to hold a ‘de facto referendum’ and claim that any money passed to the branches in support of this represented the ring-fenced money.
That way they could claim that it hadn’t disappeared, it had just been ‘woven’ through the accounts into a ‘debt’ from one part of the party to another, and as it was ‘earmarked’ it would be released to the branches conditionally for a specific purpose.
What do you think Stu?
https://www.kroll.com/en/services/forensic-investigations-and-intelligence/fraud-corruption-and-money-laundering/forensic-accounting
amateur hour speculation is fun and cute, but how much do these guys cost?
Alf Baird,
Re the Parliament of england acting in a legal capacity to form atreaty with Ireland in 1800.
The Eight Articles of London,..also known as the “London protocal,” was made under the title of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
Was revisited in 1824, after disputes arose from the treaty called the Anglo-Dutch treaty, also known as the treaty of London,
In 1824, it was the treaty, the Eight Articles of london, but under the new named title of Great Britain and Ireland,
(Remember the historical records, that the treaty by the “English Parliament” acting solely on its own in a legal capacity in 1800, whilst making a treaty with Ireland, broke, ceased, ( not Just breached) the treaty of union with Scotland,)
While “The parliament of England” was still falsely claiming to be the parliament of Scotland, “England” and Ireland after 1800 it acted in 1824 in the Anglo-Dutch treaty exchanging many Colonial gained lands.
This effected many Places and Countries, to name all of them would be a monstrous task, but here are some of them,
Cape of Good Hope,
Demerara,
Essequibo
Berbice
Banka Island
Indonesian Archpelago
Kochi
The Coast of Malabar in India
The district of Barnagore near Calcutta.
The Carrabean Island of Gaudeloupe
The low Countries of Holland.
All these places were exchanged or paid for in 1824 in negotiations “after” the parliament of England acting in sole a legal capacity in making a treaty by itself with Ireland,
The master list of logical Fallacies grows daily, and the “parliament of Englands Westminster” could add many samples and examples to the University of Texas,
But Scotland only observes and is calcified in limited knowledge of what the parliament of England has bestowed upon it in Nought but Colonialism without a valid treaty with Scotland,
“Spey is a creative communications agency which specialises in PR, branding, design, digital and events.’
Spey is the trading name of Baxter Robertson of Speyside Ltd part owned by non other than Angus Robertson’s wife Jennifer Dempsie who was a previous SPAD to Alex Salmond.
I hope indy supporters in Rutherglen and Hamilton West abstain come by-election day. The SNP needs tae be telt.
An accurate and forensic examination yet again. Well done Stu.
Of course one of the founder members of the BPHB simply ignores the article, in it’s response to another founder member. Stuff that happened hundreds of years ago is far more important to them. It so vital that it has to post the same shite FIVE times.
Dan.
Robin McAlpine’s excoriation of Alex Salmond’s central plank – carbon capture – is very interesting, politically.
Maybe he should take a look at Salmond’s (and Swinney’s) refusal to spend serious money on insulation back in 2009, whilst going on to commit much more serious money on dualling the A9 should get the same treatment. Not hard to see which side Alba is on with Salmond in charge, for the moment.
A glimpse of the lack of ambition infecting all sides in 2009 here:
https://archive.vn/0mZNk
It’s got worse since.
PhilM,
You need to check the original text archived records, I did provide the information.
Neither of the old two parliaments is supposed to exist as a entity or as a named separate entities after 1707,
The parliaments are after, 1707 are supposed conjoined as one parliament “to be known hereafter, as the parliament of Great Britain”
As the Conversations on shape shifting between the names “Britain and England” has already been discussed on here within the last two weeks, perhaps it is a advisable re-read.
Alf Baird.
Must catch up on more research now, after normal chores,
I hope these “records from archive” have been interesting.
James Che @ 4:04 pm
“Thus in every evidence we find the “old English parliament of England incognito” and behind the curtain, still actively making treaties under its namesake of a parliament of England in 1800 while posing as a union of parliaments of Scotland and England.”
Yes James, I see they begin the wording of the Act with “The Parliaments of England and Ireland have agreed upon the articles etc” and thereafter revert to ‘Great Britain’.
https://web.archive.org/web/20190706230038/http://www.legislation.gov.uk/apgb/Geo3/39-40/67
This frequent ‘confusion’ between the terms ‘England’ and ‘Great Britain’ still appear to prevail today, in England and elsewhere. A rather loose inter-changing.
I also note there is an American ‘commercial treaty with England’ dated 1815: https://archive.org/details/cihm_60378/page/n9/mode/2up
I think this is called ‘fake it till you make it’ much loved by dodgy business people.
STV really ramping up the ‘climate so called emergency’ propaganda. I wonder who is pumping money into them?
Make it SEVEN now!
Alf Baird.
Cheers Alf, much appreciated that you provided a direct link for others to view for themselves,
I had not read or researched, the American ‘ Commercial treaty with England’ dated 1815,
To be honest a new one to me, so again much appreciated for the direct link. It will make research much more enjoyable,
It would appear that England thinks it is Great Britain and lonesome owner of the 1707 treaty of union.
It ii such a arrogant presumption in approach to imagine that all the Islands of Britain is England,
That’s several well researched articles on SNP finance now from WoS. My guess is that Stuart Campbell knows something about the direction of travel of Operation Branchform. My hope is that Police Scotland drop the political baggage that has been all too evident in recent years and get back to providing a service for the public.
When will the gullible independence supporting members and voters realise that ALBA is the new party for independence?
Unseat all the tractors, starting with Cherry and Regan.
Dan.[I originally posted this 6.31pm but “went into moderation” for some reason – at least 8 subsequent posts so must have been a credentials issue]
Robin McAlpine’s excoriation of Alex Salmond’s central plank – carbon capture – is very interesting, politically.
Maybe he should take a look at Salmond’s (and Swinney’s) refusal to spend serious money on insulation back in 2009, whilst going on to commit much more serious money on dualling the A9 should get the same treatment. Not hard to see which side Alba is on with Salmond in charge, for the moment.
A glimpse of the lack of ambition infecting all sides in 2009 here:
https://archive.vn/0mZNk
Copy and paste from Judy Curry’s climate science blog. First, the opening sentence followed by a comment from a fellow climate scientist.
“A deep dive into the causes of the unusual weather/climate during 2023. People are blaming fossil-fueled warming and El Nino, and now the Hunga-Tonga eruption and the change in ship fuels. But the real story is more complicated….
…Javier | August 15, 2023 at 5:18 am | Reply
Thanks for a great article, Judy. It’s the best I’ve read about the anomalous warming this year.
I have very little to add. From a thermodynamic point of view, the energy has to come from somewhere. The source is almost certainly due to a reduction in albedo that decreases outgoing shortwave radiation, partially offset by an increase in outgoing longwave radiation. This decrease in albedo is almost certainly caused by a decrease in cloud cover, which also points to lower wind speed and less evaporation as the ultimate cause.
“The anomalous global ocean patterns of SST [sea surface temperature] are dominated by surface wind anomalies (driven by atmospheric circulation patterns) that influence the amount of surface cooling from evaporation and sensible heat flux.”
This is very important. Many people believe that climate change is dominated by ocean currents, such as the AMOC, and their trends. Climate change is imposed on the ocean by the atmosphere. The atmosphere determines how much heat is removed from the ocean and where. The ocean simply provides thermal inertia to the climate. In general, changes in SLP precede changes in SST by one to three months.
Changes in the NH indicate a weakening of the wind circulation, as you say. The SST pattern and the lack of anomaly (positive or negative) in Arctic sea ice over the last 10 years suggests that the meridional circulation is not the main one affected, and points to a weakening of the zonal circulation due to the anomalous reduction in the north-south pressure difference indicated by the positive NAO. The weakening of the zonal circulation is responsible for the warming of the SST and the decrease in cloud cover that leads to the increase in energy. Ocean evaporation depends more on wind speed than on SST.
Because the atmosphere is chaotic and evolving rapidly, we are likely to see a reversal of the changes over the next few months, especially as the global circulation tilts after the equinox to transport more heat to the NH and the ITCZ moves into the SH.
What is happening in the SH could be derived from the Hunga-Tonga eruption. It clearly has the potential to affect the polar vortex and, due to the winter stratosphere-troposphere coupling, to affect the meridional wind circulation that causes the SST and sea ice anomalies. The early onset of the ozone hole is an indication of altered stratospheric circulation and perhaps ozone destruction by water vapor.
It is a very interesting year and we are learning a lot.
The SNP hierarchy puts me in mind of the National Trust hierarchy who in their so called vaunted wisdom appointed Neil Oliver as President, that went well membership and subcriptions. Still they went on to replace him with Union Jackie Bird ! So much for the common touch, their arrogance is beyond shame !
Here is another former UK ambassador talking about blueyellow and furryhatland. Unlike Craig M. who is seemingly endlessly befuddled by these subjects he knows more what is going on. Alastair Crooke.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=ZUcioUWQykM
Sam
Guess you agree with Robin McAlpine that carbon capture us pointless, not that you agree on the reasons of course.
You shine a light on the complexities of climate science as ruminated on by a practitioner on a blog. If, in your opinion, that confirms CO2 pumped into the atmosphere by burning fuel pumped out of the ground is not a culprit, then billions invested in carbon capture would be really really stupid.
Unless you’ve got the contract to build the plant. Big construction projects have a way of happening, however harebrained, like dualling the A9 more than it already has been. Whereas sound measures like protecting 10% of the coastal seabed from ecological damage or insulating leaky houses don’t feed them and are therefore ripe for ejection if the politics of the moment requires it.
personally, I’m fed the fkup with all the bleating on climate change. The virtue signaling, the harvie heat pump hubris, the endless greta’ing, the corporate carbon offsets for lear jets etc… thing is, the earth will survive, it will simply drop us off….and there will be a mountain of teslas to be recycled by the dinosaurs or whoever takes over….Go Gaia… and meanwhile…while we await our inevitable fate, wouldn’t it be nice to be independent, to not be a colony, to have our own jockerooni currency, to look after our people, to be minus a campervan and trough guzzling sycophants.
Giesabrek,
I subscribe to the “Murrell/Sturgeon are catastrophically incompetent” camp. The chances of it being a deliberate ploy by the security services are minuscule. It’s not MI5 that would do it, at any rate. It’s not what they do.
As for Scottish oil and gas, I’d give it until 2040 at the latest. There’s nothing wrong with it once out of the ground from under the seabed, it’s as good as anyone else’s oil and gas. It’s four factors, though:
1: There’s not a huge amount left in the existing wells, and developing new ones is very expensive. The existing wells require working in harsh and expensive conditions offshore, with rigs, helicopters, ships and insurance, when other countries just sink a well in the shale or sand in their back yard.
2: The investment decisions made by companies include taxation and regulatory regimes, and Britain has both a punitive windfall tax and a highly expensive regulatory regime in comparison with say Nigeria or Qatar.
3: The direction of travel by all political parties is towards net zero, so point (2) isn’t going to get any easier.
4: Scotland’s oil and gas is always going to be more expensive than oil and gas from other places, as a result of points (1) to (3), so it will be the first to be abandoned as global demand subsides as a result of the COP conferences and increasing renewables coming on stream.
2040, at the latest. It’s 2023 now. What political party would bet future independence on 17 years of a steadily declining revenue stream?
ASA
Fuck right off, you troll fkr…
Scot abroad
Why should anyone believe you.
In the 1970s they said it would last 10 years
Labour said is was very poor quality
Every election since, it is running out
At0 the referendum in 2014 it was finished
Now they are opening new wells
There are around 200 to 300 rigs in the north sea
How many to come down the west coast??
Unionists are incapable of telling the truth in this regard as it does not fit the scare story of the day.
The Scots have been the 13th largest oil producer for 50 years and you could not point to one asset built with the revenue.
In a way the Scots deserve nothing having swallowed such nonsense but don’t come on here talking such pish
ps what shift you on tonight
@Captain Yossarian 7;26pm
I replied to you but the dreaded “Managed Account” came up. Who is managing my WoS contributions?. If it’s Stu then fine it’s his blog. Otherwise it’s a worry.
Ascotabroad
YAAAWN !
Just spending money with mates and looking after the details of the pensions before the whole thing goes tits up. The money will have been distributed, the members have paid into certain people’s gravy train. This is how companies work in these circumstances but the SNP is supposed to be a political party. Hah.
Jock McT and Shug,
you are free to bury your heads in the sand, but the fact remains that Scottish oil and gas has about 17 years left until 2040, when no company will be interested in extracting it, because they can make more money elsewhere in the world with oil and gas.
Both of you emblematic of not thinking through things from either a commercial point of view, or with regard to politics. Not a good start for Indy, then.
Scotland remaining in the UK will be a disaster.
As BRICS creates a fairer economic world, England’s financial influence will evaporate.
Having no other source of income social institutions will collapse.
To maintain control, martial law will be imposed, Scots will be locked in to their 15 minute SMART cities and encouraged to die off while the elites steal the nice bits of our country and our resources.
ASA is not the only one who can make shit up.
Crimes might be hidden if the SNP goes bust, because organisations tend to not preserve information when they no longer exist.
As dire as the finances is it might be quite urgent to take action to prevent loss of this information.
This is probably quite difficult. I know that removal or destruction of information usually is illegal when it is relevant to an ongoing investigation, but with the insane stunts the legal system in Scotland does it does not bode well.
Might bankruptcy be a desperate but determined way to remove information about who Sturgeon met and when, the Alex Salmond scam trial, and other horrible acts?
Johnlm, I’m not so sure you just made that up , I find it more than plausible.
Racketeers. For years.
If they paid their suppliers they would be a million quid in the red.
I agree with charlie – this looks like someone extracting what they can before it all goes belly up.
George – I was at a meeting with an Italian company who designed electronic components for military jets. They used to have a facility in Edinburgh. What the chap told us was that we shouldn’t trust any kind if internet correspondence. Holyrood has made us world leaders in spying on the public’s use of the internet.
Kittybee,
Where is your quote about Spey coming from? I can’t see it in the article. If the SNP are paying Spey and Dempsie for the incredibly inflated conference expenditure, for example, that would be a massive story.
Mac
Alastair Crooke was never an Ambassador. He is ex MI6. He is highly knowledgeable and a very good analyst on Middle East affairs. He knows less of Eastern Europe and the ex Soviet union than I do.
I apologise if I offend you by not pretending to have perfect understanding of events, but I suspect it is my refusing to subscribe to the cult of Putin that is actually needling you.
see the BBC is not mentioning the Jackie Baillie story
ASA – Re Nigerian oil – you have made much of an independent Scotland’s inability to provide physical security to oil companies who are extracting oil and gas from the North Sea. Is Nigeria better able to provide that security?
Even if net-zero is achieved, we will still be reliant on oil and gas for around 20% of our energy needs and so the 100 or so additional licenses are being released because energy companies want them and the country needs them and it is as simple as that.
Holyrood has a GCHQ?
I hear that John Swinney monitors Wings posts from a hollowed out volcano near Montrose.
JockMcT 9.55pm
‘ … while we await our inevitable fate, wouldn’t it be nice to be independent, to not be a colony, to have our own jockerooni currency, to look after our people,.…”
Guess you’ve not got any kids.
The folk who make money out of burning oil worked ceaselessly these last thirty years to prevent any form of transition to less destructive forms of agriculture, transport and heating. The addicts they created over the previous century now fear cold turkey.
Good to hear you are now getting dispirited as it becomes obvious that the environmental effects of the People’s Oil dream are real not imagined and the green case gets relentless. Persisting with the Scottish version is starting to look more trouble than it’s worth, even to the addicts. Maybe there’s hope yet!
[an earlier version of this might appear – fumbled the email address, combination of Ipad keyboard and old age]
The selection of Humza probably confirms that I am right, doesn’t it? That, along with drug deaths and nursing home deaths, Scotland is rapidly catching-up with all of the world’s shit-holes.
@Captain Yossarian 8:38pm
Sounds like Leonardo they still have a facility in Edinburgh. Amazing what they are designing for the air defence industry That’s the facility that the Greens want to shut down. In any event I was just agreeing with the you on the standard of Stu’s forensic articles. Captain have a good weekend. I am about and savouring the last of the good weather.
The French expression «folie de grandeur» might fit such extravagance. Those with delusions of self importance usually are struck down by it, leaders of colonies and ex colonies in particular.
Jean-Bédel Bokassa was an extreme example of the type.
Wind farms.
“They extract kinetic energy from the wind field to generate electricity. So-called atmospheric wake vortices occur downwind of the wind turbines. These are characterized by reduced wind speeds, special pressure conditions and increased air turbulence. Under stable atmospheric conditions, the wind speed deficits spread up to 70 km behind the wind farms.”
If Judy Curry’s climate science is right, supported by Javier Vinos, wind farms adversely affect the climate.
https://www.hereon.de/innovation_transfer/communication_media/news/104924/index.php.de
“From a thermodynamic point of view, the energy has to come from somewhere. The source is almost certainly due to a reduction in albedo that decreases outgoing shortwave radiation, partially offset by an increase in outgoing longwave radiation. This decrease in albedo is almost certainly caused by a decrease in cloud cover, which also points to lower wind speed and less evaporation as the ultimate cause.”
Captain Yossarian says “Scotland is rapidly catching-up with all of the world’s shit-holes.”
The best wee shit hole in the world?
ASA,
“..the fact remains that Scottish oil and gas has about 17 years left until 2040”
That’s some prediction, do you also read tea leaves?
But hey, let’s assume you are correct, 17 years of oil revenues for the UK, that’s 67 million people. Now if Scotland was to estimate how long the oil would benefit itself at the same rate for 5.4 million people it would last for 12 times as long, an equivalent of over 200 years.
1. Benefit of oil for the people of Scotland within the UK = 17 years.
2. Benefit of oil for the people of Scotland outwith the UK = 200 years +.
Decisions, decisions, poor wee Scotland.
In all the news focusing on the accounts and fraud investigations, has there been any mention or involvement of HMRC? Surely the provision of the camper van counts as a P11D benefit? As the employee, Mr Murrel, had significant personal use of said vehicle, even if it never left his mum’s drive. Benefits in kind, P11D schedule items, are taxable. Let alone knows what else Ferdinand and Emelda also received or enjoyed during their tenure. I do hope their accountant reported all to the revenue.
Dorothy Devine says:
26 August, 2023 at 8:13 am
Johnlm, I’m not so sure you just made that up , I find it more than plausible.
Agreed.
BRICS now boasts 23% of the global economy, 25% of global investment, 18% share of global trade, and 33.4% of global GDP. The BRICS 5 are now larger than the G7.
The latest recruits to BRICS are UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iran, (let me repeat that, Saudi AND Iran), Argentina, Egypt and Ethiopia, with many other nation’s de-dollarising their economic dependencies, and expressing their interest in joining. Turkey and Greece to name 2.
Jeffery Sachs, a US Economist, Academic, and writer states we are already in a Post American / Post Western World, and already living in a Multi-polar world. I feel inclined to agree with him, and frankly, I worry about what the US will do once the penny (or actually dollar) drops.
The closer you look, the more worrying it looks. The BRICS economies actually make things and have manufacturing as a prime component of their economy whereas we in the West have turned our back on manufacturing and jumped into bed with NeoLiberalism and fat cat economics which leave societies weak and over dependant on support, and kept in check via gaslighting propaganda.
For decades now, it has bee US / UK / Western cynical and obnoxious Foreign Policy which has been “the” key driver in advancing the viability and indeed necessity of BRICS, in a world which has grown tired of US bullying interference in their economies, if not actually bombing the shit out of them.
The curiosity, well one of them, is the EU, already with Greece looking towards BRICS membership, but what is Germany supposed to do?
It was just so incredibly stupid for the US to destroy the Nordstream 2, because the message resonating in Germany is that the US will readily sacrifice Germany’s economic interests in a heartbeat, if the US believes it can hurt Ruskia.
You can look through your crystal ball or throw the runes in the air over and over again, but the vision you see is beginning to look the same and tell the same story with graphic consistency.
Scotland needs to grow up, and do it fast, because we are chained by the ankle to so much negative buoyancy we will be dragged to the bottom in spite of our spectacular resources. London will use Scotland’s resources as it’s aqualung… as usual.
Just look a Peterhead’s new £2.1 billion power “connection” designed to suck more resource out of Scotland. Wake up Scotland. The BRICS nations are not our enemy. Not yet anyway, but that won’t be our decision to make unless we take back our Nation and champion our constructive neutrality. Then we have a say.
Superb, quality investigative journalism, Stuart. The devil is in the detail. In the presence of a trough, it is difficult not to oink. There is utter contempt and something sinister on display for SNP members and the public. Liberal democracy has been hollowed out and Independence for our country has been off their agenda ever since Sturgeon the betrayer took centre stage.
We are being lied to about climate change. According to Dr John Clauser, a physics Nobel Prize winner in 2022, there is no climate emergency. Misguided climate science has metastasised into massive shock journalistic pseudo-science. CO2 levels in the atmosphere follow warming. They do not preclude it or cause it. Climate changes naturally all the time and human activity is largely irrelevant. The very essence of true science is doubt and scepticism. The propaganda of the net zero agenda is absurd.
We were lied to about COVID. The experimental injections, with no long term safety data, were absurd
We are lied to about “ trans” ideology. The absurd belief that a man can be a woman and the heinous proposition that a child can be born in the wrong body, allowing schools to politically indoctrinate children and failing to act on foreseeable harms with their gender ideology.
We were lied to about 9/11. There were glaring holes in the official narrative and we were expected to believe in the absurdities of a man with a beard living in a cave in Afghanistan being the mastermind behind it all. War criminals Bush and Blair launched their war on terror and millions have died and suffered ever since. Gordon Brown was writing the cheques to finance and prosecute the war.
Voltaire said that “ anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices. Once your faith persuades you to believe what your intelligence declares to be absurd, beware lest you likewise sacrifice your reason in the conduct of your life.”
Maybe we should organise flash mobs, squealing oink, every time an MSP steps out of their wee pods in the political gulag of Holyrood.
Christine.
“We have been lied to”
Well said, these lies that are the ruination of Scotland are slowly being proven around the world for what they are, Lie’s.
Now if Scotland could just recognise the biggest lie that was ever told to them, 1707
We would walk away from all the other lie’s that you mentioned,
But the biggest, longest lie told to Scotlands people sounds so plausible it has to be true, doesn’t it?
No, it is just a bigger better lie.
And we understand “it ” and all the lie’s you mentioned above that are imposed on us better when we understand, The list of Logical Fallacies, from Texas university.
So much verbiage, sorry didn’t read it all, but complaining about the sins of a colony of grifters wont cut it.
The West coast of Scotland has changed demographically in the last ten years invaded by elderly economic migrants who arrived here from England in small boats, sailing up Loch Fyne like Para Handy in the Vital Spark.
They have bought up almost every traditional house and croft transforming the landscape and the Rural way of life in the process and have now made a start on land ownership with a view to mass development
These people are mostly aged 50 years upwards, with no kids in tow and believers in British Unionism to a man and woman.
What we need to understand is that this is the future, though we may mourn for the past where finance did not rule everything in life and a national spirit still existed, where people were expected to raise families and encourage an attachment to our native soil.
What we are seeing is the result of a failure in all our so called public services, especially education, as the art of discussion falters, free speech is criminalised and family life ostracised. We no longer have the will or the means to protest, we who lived through the relatively good times where contribution to community meant something.
The youth of Scotland appear stupefied by technology, the generation which should be leading the protest with fire in their bellies are emasculated and unable to relate even among themselves.
This is the great future that so many died for, this Orwellian desert, this national goldfish bowl, inhabited by the know nothings and the couldn’t care less.
The dream is over, or if not, we could find ourselves in a hell of our own making, something like that envisaged by the Murrell administration only many times worse.
Christine…..didn’t know about the Voltaire quote, but I’ve been saying for years on this forum that making us “Believe the unbelievable is their primary purpose in their project to wreck traditional society.
Very fine post, that’s what makes me come back here.
Christine
Welcome to the fighters against carbon capture baloney, Alex’s primo project.
This new indy alliance between pro and anti AGW believers could be effective, if it can hold
Christine
Freedom is probably closer than most of us imagine.
Heckling, is a good start, and will probably have to be deemed illegal, but just ‘playing the daft man’ with authority grinds the system down.
They need us to comply with our own control or their expenses become unaffordable.
Back in the 60’s ‘God save the queen’ started or finished most public events.
My dad always stayed seated, as did I, despite whispers and dirty looks.
Eventually, booing the anthem at sporting events became ‘de rigueur’ and an international embarrassment for them.
Happy days.
Not even a large number of non-compliers is needed.
It builds links among the disenfranchised; opposes ‘divide and rule’ politics.
Btw when is the deadline for returning my census form?
Alf Baird,
Thanks for the link yesterday to the, ” American Commercial treaty with England, 1815.
That now makes two treaties whereby no Scotland in a union is mentioned,
They are interesting pieces of historical documents that are archived,
But as England said the Scottish parliament was extinguished out of the treaty of union by the Agreement, later ratified, in 1707,
And England did announce that it would “rebrand” the parliament of England to the parliament of Great Britain,
It did indeed change the title of its company, but is still run by the old CEOs and chair, of the parliament of England on the heading paper.
Especially when it comes to business and treaties,
The authority to do so, however does not come from a parliamentary union between Scotland and England apparently.
Because one of those two parliaments was extinguished in 1707,
And the other the “parliament of England” is still COVERTLY carrying on business as usual behind the FACADE over a hundred years later,
With a new rebranded business paper head title name, of Great Britain.
The parliament of Great Britain ” aka” the parliament of England , The Master list of logical Fallacies,
Excellent posts from Breeks ( as per ) , Christine & Akenaton
Between you , you covered just about all the relevant ground .
I’d only add I’m fucking sick to the back teeth of the incessant lying – by false statement and omission – from almost the entire political class , their diseased mouthpieces in MSM and the ovine herd that hang-on to their every utterance , squealing ” conspiracy theorist ” at anyone who dares question the increasingly absurd , bizarre , demonstrably untrue shite that issues from the mealy mouths of those supposedly acting in their interests . I can’t think of a time when this disconnect between the Elected and the Electorate was so egregious .
I don’t mean to pick-on ALBA , they are clearly better – in every sense – than the stupifyingly atrocious other ( nominally ) * Scottish * parties : but they need to start talking out about the things referred to in those posts by the aforementioned .
I’m of the opinion there is a largely untapped audience ready and eager to hear actual Truth being spoken by those in positions of responsibility and influence .
An audience that can see for themselves the scale of duplicity being inflicted , but see no one addressing it : leading to frustration , disillusion and the belief ” they’re all the same ” . At times , I have to agree with that thought
I know, nobody sends letters nowadays, but it was a thing back in the day to affix stamps to envelopes sideways, as if Queen Lizardbreath had been beheaded.
I assume king Brian’s ears and head will also adorn our stamps.
Rebellion can be imaginative and entertaining.
Revolution can be imaginative and fun.
N.b. defacing banknotes is not allowed (if they decide).
So be careful how you do it.
Excellent work again, Rev.
I have family who I pass stuff like this onto, some were lifelong SNP supporters who have lost faith, others got on board for 2014 but felt unwanted, even hated, because of their WASP backgrounds, others are still actively involved and I see any kind of criticism of the party by them on their social media being labelled tractorous by the commissars.
RE MI5, people are forgetting that everything has turned to keech since the unelected Giffnock Marxists were brought into government. These people are actively opposed to any kind of nationalism be it cultural or identity in Western nations as it could stand in the way of them being irretrievably changed beyond recognition via mass population transfer.
Scotland is at the stage many countries find themselves, stuck with political systems and politicians few have faith in.
Democracy without 24/7 oversight, helped by complacency, gullibility, stupidity and political immaturity have brought this about.
An alternative for Scotland, either built on the ruins of the old system or constructed on fresh ground is surely signaling.
The muzzled pseudo democracy of the times makes «sheeple» of us all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOZW5ZVQZSw
Wish I was there, but I didn’t have enough time or more importantly the money to get the train to Kyle of Lochalsh.
Big shout out to all who could make it! Heroes all of you.
@ Anton Decadent
” Giffnock Marxists ” . LOL ! Do they hang-out with the Newton Mearns Anarcho-Syndicalists and have heated dialectic arguments with the Clarkston Bahbahbahder Mine’s Hof ?
Not all of us are ” forgetting ” , though . We see clearly the destruction these clowns have wrought not only on the case for Independence , on the country itself . They HAVE to be removed at the earliest opportunity . They are killing Scotland .
@Robert Hughes
“Do they hang-out with the Newton Mearns Anarcho-Syndicalists and have heated dialectic arguments with the Clarkston Bahbahbahder Mine’s Hof ?”
That is funny but it pretty much describes the type of people I have grown apart from friendship wise because our world views became diametrically opposed. One of them has not lived in Scotland for just short of twenty years but would be telling me that Govanhill is a wonderful place and that me being repeatedly assaulted with no consequences for those who attacked me was just life in a big city. When I asked them where they were getting this information about Govanhill being a wonderful place they replied “Strathbungo”.
@ akenaton
It’s not just the West coast and islands area where the invasion of the nation snatchers are abundant.
I took a motorbike ride up a glen earlier this week and stopped on three occasions to ask “the locals” directions, everyone in the groups I spoke to were English! Not sure how well my big unmissable YES sticker on the front of bike went down as I rolled up to stop, but situations like that do make me feel somewhat uneasy and an outcast in my own land which is frankly a ridiculous situation.
I’ve mentioned previously, there’s around 200 newborn kids in my area and only 20 bairns to both Scottish parents. Do stats like that occur in any other country?
Forget playing Spot the Ball competitions, the new game in town round my way is Spot the Scot. 🙁
Aye, I’m also getting sick and tired of this relentless climate catastrophe bullshit. For sure it makes sense to kerb the rampant consumerism of throwaway junk, and generate and use energy in an efficient and environmentally sound way as possible. But I am not seeing credible implementable alternatives being suggested by those that pontificate so much on the subject.
I wondered how those climate change activists had time to glue themselves to the road and disrupt the UCI Edinburgh to Glasgow cycle race a few weeks back. Because I was flat out working and harvesting and preserving my fruit and veg crops. Guess those “planet saving” twats will just be relying on fossil fuel powered agricultural food production practices, and global food trade systems to provide their food…
There’s an often overlooked aspect to the global food trade that isn’t just about the economics and fuel used to transport food stuffs about the planet. That aspect is to do with water. Because a lot of the time fruit and veg is grown in faraway locations where water is a scarce commodity, and it takes way more precious water to grow the likes of a tomato plant than the tomato fruit contains. So our desire to eat exotic or out of season produce is only viable because we are prepared to exploit and exercise our advantage over other places.
I’ve been chomping my own homegrown tomatoes for weeks now, and they are incredibly tasty compared to those for sale in a supermarket.
I may appear on occasion to jovially highlight the middle class with their penchant for munching avocado and chia seeds, but I am actually being serious about pointing out their apparent utter denial of an issue and / or unwillingness to alter their habits.
Doh! I missed a comma out and pedants may highlight that the middle class tend to eat the avocado flesh and leave the seed!
I see Patrick Harvie was called a deviant… And I absolutely abhor homophobic abuse. It’s nothing to do with his sexuality, it was a very accurate description from a member of public.
We know he likes to platform with paedophiles and is a rapist enabler with his self ID nonsense.
Leave the kids alone Harvie. Greens out.
It’s absolutely clear that the Bute House agreement is designed to sabotage the SNP.
If there’s a Bute House agreement, then why are the Greens and the SNP both putting up candidates against each other for the Hamilton by-election?
They want to lose the election. That’s why. And that’s why they’ve appointed Murray Foote.
When you lie down with dogs however, expect to catch fleas. And Foote and mouth disease.
“It’s not just the West coast and islands area where the invasion of the nation snatchers are abundant.
I took a motorbike ride up a glen earlier this week and stopped on three occasions to ask “the locals” directions, everyone in the groups I spoke to were English!”
Dan.
The massive influx of incomers from South of the border to Scotland especially in smaller towns must make the local Scots feel like Palestinians pre-1948. Dissolving the union will stop this disgraceful procedure, but we need and indy minded FM with the strength of character to block these incomers from voting on constitutional matters like some other nations do.
No other country would allow such unchecked immigration, maybe we need our own go home vans aimed specifically at the English. Interestingly one of the English governments priorities is to stop the boat people (a derogatory term for immigrants crossing the English channel) yet when the likes of Sean Clerkin holds a banner up saying go home English he’s castigated as some sort of bigot.
Rodger Casement was hung on the absence of a comma.
It’s what lawyers do.
What is the point of the Bute House agreement, if they are standing against each other despite being in Government together?
The by-election in Rutherglen has been organised for the labour party. The Tories in Scotland are switching to labour as well.
Shona Robinson says Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t want Scotland united.
She hates Alex Salmond because she’s angry at herself… because she knows what she’s done!
Big Eck should run and give the people of Rutherglen the real alternative. A Former First Minister representing your town who understands our needs in Glasgow.
Anton D
I haven’t lived in Glasgow since the 80s and as family & friends pass away or we lose contact I visit less frequently than previously ; sadly .
I grew up south of the river , near , but on the ” other side of the tracks ” economically/socially from the areas mentioned above – in Carnwadric . As I said to you recently , I lived in various flats all over Govanhill in my teens/early 20s . Not a man-bun to be seen in those forever lost , forever ( psychically ) present days .
” Strathbungo ” hahahaha , sounds so much * better * than a name with ” Govan ” in it , eh , despite being adjacent areas . Like people who pronounce Partick as Pehrtick 🙂
Used to be the West End was the bohemian ( I liked it for that reason ) and stylistically * edgy * part of Glasgow , now , as ” Alternative ” has morphed seamlessly/corporately into * Woke * conformity ( it’s proponents no doubt still imagine they’re being radical , lol ) , it appears no part of the city is immune from the ideology of idiocy . Well , can’t see any vegan restaurants & juice bars opening in the places like Easterhouse/Pollok/Blackhill . Just yet anyway .
Of the four grooming gangs I know of which were active in Glasgow/Scotland none of them were made up of English men. Scotland is being colonised but not just by the English.
@RoS
“No other country would allow such unchecked immigration”
It is being carried out in every Western nation apart from a few such as the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary which have the guts to tell the destroyers of nations to feck off.
Tommo 1.18 pm
The short money from Westminster WILL be reflected in the SNP accounts as per such high costs for computers and software etc as per Stu’s post.
What you do as Peter Murrell etc did previously was set up a scam FAKE company “Database” called Independence Merchandising Ltd and then you get the MP’s, MSP’s etc to put in FAKE invoices for “information” etc from that “database” thus LAUNDERING £hundreds of thousands plus each year into the party bank account and accounts. Funnily enough the Crown Office and Police were NOT interested in investigating any of this when I reported it all to them way back in 2006.
Also another way for getting rid of £600,000 plus as well is by buying things such as cheap computers for £300 and putting through invoices for them as £3000 etc – they seem to have been spending vast amounts on refurbishing their offices each year with expensive furnishings etc as per previous post by Stu so could have just been putting through FAKED made up invoices for stuff they never bought in the first place as well.
They will need good forensic accounting police to go through the books to sift out all of this and going by my dealings with them in the past even presenting them with evidence and telling them where to go and look they were totally useless as they were clueless about financial matters just over promoted plods and just plain useless as was shown by one of these “detectives” Jim Robertson who was one of those involved in the fraudulent fiasco re the new football team that calls itself Rangers court cases that are heading towards costing the Scottish taxpayers nearly £100 million.
There is obvious fraud going on with these SNP accounts for years now and they should be getting investigated and banned by both the Electoral Commission and Companies House because of this fraud – a monkey could see that there is no way this party is spending that amount per year on computing and software alone never mind some of the other stuff.
@johnlm
Okay then, I’ll retract the absence of a comma and pluralise the word avocado with an additional s and hope that satisfies the pedants and lawyers.
In mitigation, I am operating with only a D level pass in O Grade English.
Meanwhile… In other tourettes inducing news.
FFS! 43 quid for a bag of building lime. 🙁
I momentarily embraced the mechanical advantage gained through the use of a hydraulic system, and got my mate with his lorry to use its HIAB crane lift to pull two trees out of my neighbour’s garden because the roots were growing through my walls.
The bastard Hawthorne and Magnolia have now been evicted and leave me with the clean up of the wall and re-pointing, before replacing the roof guttering downpipe soakaway, and back-filling along the wall foundation with round river stones to form a French drain that will let the lower wall stones breath better by not being buried in damp soil.
NB. For the avocado, and chia seed munching tree huggers aghast and raging at my tree killing exploits, I have attempted to take cutting from the Magnolia.
Way back in the 1700s when my village was built it had its own lime kiln to produce the lime used to build the properties out of the local stone, but now I fear the building lime I need may be imported from Portugal, so that’s probably my carbon footprint fucked again…
American here, so I don’t know the ins and outs your politics much…but that huge arena managed to ‘look’ full is straight out of Scientology and other cult manipulation.
@Robert Hughes
What was it like growing up in Carnwadric?
Re Govanhill, on a dating site I had two women, separately from each other, both social workers, wish actual physical violence on me. When they asked where I was from and I replied Govanhill they asked me what I thought of it and I replied that it had positives and negatives and they said “what do you mean by negatives?” and I replied the people trafficking, the violence, the squalor, the organised crime gangs from at least three different countries working together, the exploitation of women in the sex industry in the area and the massive cover up in the media, politics and the public sector with regards to what was going on in the area. In response both of them denied all of this and wished actual physical violence on me and told me to get out of the area to free my flat up for someone who was there to be a part of the transformation of the area from a working multicultural area into a dysfunctional crimeridden shithole. One of them told me that she had moved to Glasgow for a position in social work and had bought into Govanhill with its flatlining property values and had been told in her work that Govanhill had never been better, that it had previously been a no go area because of Pakistani street gangs and that the Roma had massively improved the area. I told her that this was not the case and she replied that since she had been told this by colleagues in social work it was an unassailable truth.
I have been told in three different parts of the public sector that any problems in Govanhill were caused by one bad family and that this had been dealt with. This is completely untrue and points to a manufactured narrative being pushed. Any negative record of the area was being purged from You Tube, channels documenting the crime and squalor were closed down and all content deleted. The people behind the channels were being smeared online and when I looked up one of the people doing the smearing I found that they worked as a translator, the highest growing wage bracket in the Scottish NHS, probably the same for England, Wales and Ireland.
Nicola Sturgeons surgery for the area was held in the mosque at the corner of Langside Road and Butterbiggens Road, it has separate entrances for men and women. I believe that the current councillor for the area is a transwoman. Everyone I know who is active in the charade about the area is not from it and some are not even from the UK. Of the three people from the area I know from my generation who still live here two are alcoholics and the other has cannabis induced psychosis, everyone else has jumped ship and got out whilst they could.
Dan
“Forget playing Spot the Ball competitions, the new game in town round my way is Spot the Scot.”
Should be pretty easy with 200 new ones – or do new-borns not count?
“But I am not seeing credible implementable alternatives being suggested by those that pontificate so much on the (climate change) subject.”
What are your suggestions Dan, having done a nice assist on demolishing carbon capture with the provision of those links. And thanks for that.
@Dan
Couldn’t you have left the trees and your house would have looked like something from The Hobbit?
I had a chance meeting with a random stranger at a park pond whilst visiting someone in hospital a few days ago. He was telling me how he had set up his own building firm and put his eight children through college with it and was now happily retired and living back in Glasgow after visiting about forty countries via his work. He said that at seventeen he’d been travelling the Med and ran out of money and was heading home but was offered work on a boat in the Cypriot end of the Med and stayed for two years. When he got back home his mum answered the door and said “what do you want?”.
@Breeks says
“The BRICS nations are not our enemies”
Haha, that’s right up there with his claims about water-powered cars.
Check out which country puts the R in BRICS.
That country has been threatening to bomb us back to the Stone Age for the past 18 months.
@ David Hannah re wee paddy being called a deviant , the news last night PROCLAIMED that polis Scotland were investigating the issue, I’m hoping that someone, anyone with a brain inside polis Scotland can tell the meedya tae fuck off they have REAL CRIME to investigate, and BTW calling someone a DEVIANT HTAF is that homophobic, IMO there are hundreds of DEVIANTS in HR anyone with a functioning brain only has to look at the legislation they are discussing and promoting to realise that
Breastplate, @ 10:16 am
Unfortunately, your arithmetic of turning 17 years of U.K. consumption into 200+ years of Scots consumption is misplaced.
For a start, every party in Holyrood is against the idea of oil and gas continuing to be extracted after 2050. Most want it to be stopped by 2035. The Greens want it to be stopped tomorrow. Once it’s stopped, it’s uneconomic to reopen the wells.
Then there’s the fact that, given there isn’t a nationalised Scottish Oil and Gas company, it’s not actually up to Holyrood to control it. It’s private companies, all capitalised and listed in either London, New York or Houston, that decide how much to take out. And Scotland hasn’t got either the pre-Indy authority, or post-Indy money, to nationalise one of those companies.
Thirdly, as the world de-oils and de-gases, there won’t be any manufacturers making equipment that needs oil or gas. And Scotland is shit at manufacturing anything for itself. Including something as basic as a ferry.
Fourthly, most of the population are bought into the idea that oil and gas are bad things.
So, no dice. Oil and gas aren’t going to provide any meaningful revenue to Scotland after 2040.
That country has been threatening to bomb us back to the Stone Age for the past 18 months.
Ha John you never told us you were kranian, that explains the anger in your posts
John Main,
if the R country were to follow through on their wild threats, but drop only a single nuke, one can pretty much guarantee that it would be on Faslane. Not too many people, but would cause huge military disruption to our strategic deterrent.
The BRICS are a total basket case, less possibly India. iScotland trying to join BRICS would put the country into the same bucket as Ethiopia and Iran. It’s just a Chinese con-game, and going nowhere.
Republicofscotland @ 2:08 pm
“No other country would allow such unchecked immigration”
True, however, a colonial society has no control over its development, its population, its resources, its culture, or its future. Here it may be useful to look at the main motivation behind what we are witnessing. According to Albert Memmi:
“Today, leaving for a colony is not a choice sought because of its uncertain dangers, nor is it a desire of one tempted by adventure. It is simply a voyage towards an easier life. The best possible definition of a colony: a place where one earns more and spends less. The change of environment is really one of economics. This easy profit is so great only because it is wrested from others”.
It’s always useful to take a few days off from reading on here. Too much familiarisation can breed a kind of acclimatisation to the routinely spouted nonsense from RoS and his fellow travellers.
But, having taken a break, the crass infantilism of his most recent bilge demands a response.
Leaving aside his inability to see any connection between the criminals (not immigrants) crossing The Channel and the displacement of law-abiding white English into Scotland, and ignoring his Student Grant jibe relating Scots to Palestinians, there is a point that still has to be made.
Immigration is completely out of control, both in England and Scotland. Our governments are happy with that, as it allows them to give us the things we believe we deserve – ever increasing expenditure on non-productive citizens, for example. In Scotland, we are lucky in that we are spared the worst of what is happening in England. We should be grateful to England for absorbing the bulk of the population increases.
I know a few white English immigrants to Scotland. I find them to be decent, law-abiding people, I am pleased we share a common language, and mostly share identical value systems. They don’t oppress their women-folk any more than we Scots do, and I have no expectation that any of them will wish to subject their daughters to FGM.
Whilst I would prefer to have no inwards migration to Scotland at all, no political party has that on their manifesto, quite the opposite. That being the case, as immigration is unavoidable, white English immigration is the best we can hope for.
But they won’t vote for Indy, it is said. I say BS. Show them and us the money, and they will vote for Indy, as will we all.
JOHN MAIN
«Check out which country puts the R in BRICS. That country has been threatening to bomb us back to the Stone Age for the past 18 months»
I think «us» will be able to do that reverse evolution quite unaided judging by the socially destructive trends infesting the «civilized» West.
@ASA 4:03
There has been much sabre rattling on their side about using their Poseidon underwater nukes to flood the UK coastline with tsunamis.
The usual eejits on here believe only England would be affected. Seemingly Emperor Hadrian decreed that his wall should be capable of keeping out tidal waves!
I hae ma doots.
Lovely to see Morris dancers ASA and Main taking world affairs together.
Takes me back to nursery school.
Bless.
@ fruitella
Those 200 children were all born here but if neither parent is Scottish then you have to at least question their motives for living here.
The Census data is still to be released but if it’s ever released it might shed some light on this potential reality posted by Mia some time back.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-last-ten-seconds-of-life/comment-page-1/#comment-2673159
https://wingsoverscotland.com/tidying-up/comment-page-1/#comment-2678520
I’ve suggested options on various subjects plenty of times over the years calling out the “eco-policy” pish being pushed.
Just the other day.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/dead-cat-bouncing/#comment-2784508
Called DRS scheme out as bollox when we already have recycling facilities in Scotland’s 32 local authority areas. Instead of spaffing millions of taxpayer’s cash on that skipfire why not just have a national campaign on TV, “news”papers, and social media to try to get the population to wise up and get with the program of using what we already have properly.
And also stated that growing and eating much more of our own locally produced and seasonal produce is required instead of the current setup where anyone (who can afford it) can buy anything from anywhere at anytime of year.
I’m just some fucking idiot multi-tasking my way through life and even I can manage to grow more fruit and veg than I can eat.
Have even offered areas of my garden to neighbours to grow some for themselves but they seem too busy in their spare time playing vid games and watching netflix pish…
@Alf Baird 4:12
Every single word of your post applies equally to England and to the UK.
And to the USA, and Canada.
The common factor in all are ageing demographics, too much wealth in the hands of the older citizens, and thus an inexorable drive to import younger workers to keep things going.
In all of these countries, it is the poorer and less well educated of the indigenous inhabitants that suffer disproportionately through downwards pressure on wages and upwards pressure on living costs.
Scottish Indy isn’t going to sort Scottish demographics, soz.
Correction.
When I say that ASA and John Main remind me of nursery school, I don’t mean aryans and Arab killers.
I hope this is clear.
twathater
Any time you want to explain how Scotland’s quest for Indy will be boosted and encouraged by the destruction and enslavement of a similar, already independent Sovereign Nation and Culture on the opposite side of Europe, don’t be shy, get stuck right in.
I have asked for this a few times, no response ever, so take your time to get it right. I have waited 18 months, what’s a few more days?
@ Anton D
Don’t want to take up too much space with personal history stuff , but to answer your question ……Carnwadric was a great place to grow up ; despite being about 20 mins from Glasgow City Centre it felt like a rural upbringing , as a kid , the area was surrounded by woods , golf courses , fields and a couple of farms . It was not unaffected by the endemic gang culture , though if you lived there it didn’t impinge too much .
Sorry to hear of your travails in the area you live – Govanhill . An instance of the idea of multiculturalism v the lived experience of the those who are affected by the negative aspects of it . Those who espouse it most vehemently rarely experience these negatives aspects , living as they tend to in areas not subject to the imposition of mass immigration .
@Dan 2:57pm
It’s an undisputed fact. Engineers brains work on a different side. Mathematics and conceptual engineering and we are in the money. Wordsmithing I leave to Stu. Don’t let the pedants get you down. We can buy and sell them on the building of ferries!.
From Stuart’s article at the top of this thread:
“…50,000 members have been lost in the last three and a half years”
One of many contenders for Sturgeon’s true legacy. Perhaps WOS should pull together all those contenders in one place, just to emphasise how much of a failure she really was.
Anton Decadent @2.23pm.
That’s BS, other nations have the equivalent of a Home Office Scotland doesn’t, a foreign country (England) decides who can and cannot live in Scotland.
Meanwhile if you’re English you can just saunter over the border and live in Scotland, in 2014 there were around half-a-million English folk living in Scotland, of which 72.1 voted no in the 2014 indyref, fast forward to today, and we don’t know how many more English folk have moved to Scotland due to the year late hidden census, but going by the vast increase in regional English accents in my own home town of Glasgow since 2014, I’d say a helluva lot more of them have come to Scotland.
Now you might say so what, Scots move to England, and that is true, but politically they don’t make a dent on the 50 million+ population in voting terms, but back in Scotland they do make quite a dent, English folk living in Wales dragged the Welsh out of the EU, the Welsh vote to stay in the EU.
Don’t get me wrong English doctors and nurses are a benefit to Scotland god knows we need them, however in reality the majority of English folk moving to Scotland are either retiring or looking for better social services, housing prices etc, than they have back home in England, this puts tremendous pressure on our already struggling services such as the NHS, dentists doctors etc.
I don’t hate English folk, I’d probably do the same if the tables were turned, but Scots need to get out of his union for the sake of Scots, immigration isn’t a bad thing per se, but Scots must be able to control who can and cannot enter Scotland.
Alf @4.12pm.
Thanks for that Alf, even more worryingly is that folk from south of the border are now common place in gatekeeper positions throughout Scotland from uni’s to the judiciary to our police force our NHS and our heritage maintainers such as the NTS, the infiltration is far and wide.
@ George Ferguson
Cheers for the support, it’s appreciated.
And whilst here, hope you are keeping well as you previously mentioned a health issue. Any progress on that paper re. better control and management of our Scottish utilities?
Got to dash as I am in engineering mode, currently quaffing a lager whilst building a curry out of homegrown produce. The garlic and onions are frying up with some curry spices, a bit of Scottish lamb to lob in and a grudging thanks to A Scot Abroad for his grandad’s colonising exploits back in the day and introducing Scots to rice. Greens will be my steamed runner beans and the leaves from my beetroots which are very much like spinach. Nom nom! 🙂
Incidentally, I misread the seed pack and this year I’m growing Italian beetroot which look like giant radishes. Instead of being rich burgundy right through, they are (no doubt much to the disappointment of our FM) WHITE! with pink through the flesh. When grated and used in salads they look like I have grated BagPuss!
Dan
There’s some Innarestin stuff online describing how to make a DIY lime kiln from bricks. It needs an electric fan, and fuel of course, charcoal is suggested.
Plus some limestone.
I doubt if you could make a bag’s worth for £43, but maybes you are more resourceful than me. It seems to be the case that kilns can be fired with dry wood and can still reach the required temperature.
REPUBLICOFSCOTLAND
England, the historic political and cultural entity is predatory. Historic data abounds to confirm that.
Individual English may be sweet and charming etc but the polity is anything but.
Give a millimetre «they» will take as much as is required for their purpose.
For centuries, even after 1707, England was not Scotland’s friend.
Collective amnesia is not good for survival.
ASA,
“So, no dice. Oil and gas aren’t going to provide any meaningful revenue to Scotland after 2040.”
I’m guessing you agree that Scotland should be independent sooner rather than later then, we’ll done.
John Main @ 4:34 pm
“Every single word of your post applies equally to England”
Nonsense. Purchasing power is quite different and is not a reciprocal opportunity open to the colonized. Selling a £1m+ house in Guildford or Godalming and shifting to a similar or even superior property in Tain or Tighnabruaich costing £400k leaves one with a rather large unearned surplus. Where do you think this profit comes from? As Memmi tells us: “This easy profit is so great only because it is wrested from others”.
*well done, obs.
@RoS says
“The Welsh voted to stay in the EU”
Quick fix needed, let me help:
The people of the UK voted to leave the EU.
The EU may possibly want Scotland to join, maybes even Wales. But neither country will ever get the same generous and advantageous membership deal we all enjoyed as a result of the UK’s negotiating heft.
You therefore continue to propagate two falsehoods:
1 Scotland and/or Wales could have stayed in the EU.
2 Scotland and/or Wales could ever enjoy the UK’s generous and advantageous EU T’s & C’s.
IMO, the harping back to 2016 is just another aspect of the harping back to the “ancient guff” that afflicts too many on here. If Scotland is to progress towards Indy, the movement needs to be forwards thinking and capable of offering attractive and persuasive ideas for our personal and national improvements.
Indy won’t be turning the clock back to right ancient wrongs or reverse what happened in the past.
I’m for independence, real independence, from the giant corporations and their billionaire bosses who own the government. I believe that an influx of English people is helping put the idea if independence from Westminster beyond achievement.
The movement, is there a movement now?, is in total disarray. That is also rapidly putting the idea of independence from Westminster beyond achievement. For example, and aside from the obvious SNP saga, the 220,000 Green voters (which would include many English residents, with Scottish children) last time were counted as Yes on the independence scoreboard. Now so-called independence supporters such as Geri entertain themselves by trashing their ideas and accusing them of being nonces. It is indeed a skip-fire.
A flailing independence morass obscures all the other important policy areas needing attention from thoughtful and brave politicians willing to take difficult decisions, particularly about Health, Food, Energy and Care.
“thoughtful, brave politicians willing to take difficult decisions…”? Oh well.
Who could possibly benefit from this mess? Why is it not being sorted by the leadership? Not that hard to figure.
Whether people here think BRICS+ is full of basket case countries or not, is immaterial, the deDollarisation is the crux of the problem for the USA (and those in its orbit) and what that entails domestically and on the global stage.
John Main says: at 5:44 pm
“The EU may possibly want Scotland to join, maybes even Wales. But neither country will ever get the same generous and advantageous membership deal we all enjoyed as a result of the UK’s negotiating heft.”
Eh John, if it was advantageous then why did you want to leave?
@Dan 5:25pm
Enjoy!. There is political movement on the restructuring of the Energy Industry. The Uk Conservatives have promised to break the Gas and Electricity market by disassociating the two forms of energy pricing. (December).The Labour Party are producing a paper on the partial nationalisation of the Energy Industry. Remember the 3 options from months ago on WoS. Take everything over for nothing, pay the market price currently £85 billion for a Scotland alone solution. Or through licensing start taking control on a gradual basis. Option 3 was what I recommended. The Labour Party have come to the same conclusion. But we need to be vigilant on that. Once their in power..I haven’t been on my summer holidays yet but the spade work is done. Really have to do something about ScotWind. We may have to pay fair compensation to companies that have expended resource but if we can replay the auction at an order of magnitude greater it will be worth it. Nicola sold the family silver at a car boot sale. I am off for a wee drinkie as my team won. bet up. Catch you later.
@Alf Baird
The £600k “profit” in your example is “wrested” from the new owner of the house.
By no pretzel logic can you assert it is wrested from us Scots.
Way I see it Alf, back at the time all this started, the original indigenous Scots owners of these properties had recourse to the standard term written into every Estate Agent’s blurb:
“The seller reserves the right to refuse the highest or any offer”.
But the Scottish sellers took the money every time. So we are where we are.
Setting aside what may have passed for gamesmanship between fags* (consenting or not) in the Hutchie grammar scrum back in the day, if celebrating with a kiss is now to be seen as sexual assault by an increasingly deviant world order, where does that leave all the so called professionals that forced children to wear gimp masks, and possibly even carry the blame for any DNR orders slapped on their grannies, during flu season?
*non homophobic reference to the infamous English public school system which is, presumably, unlikely to be practiced elsewhere in Scotland
@Dan 5:52
We were told things would be better and we would have control of our borders.
Sound familiar?
It should, cos exactly the same promises are being made again, this time for Indy.
If you intend to claim “it’s not the same”, please be prepared to back that claim with compelling reasons.
It’s not even a decade since we were all fucked over by broken promises, simple common sense we should be wary of repeating that mistake.
@ John Main
Ha ha, you’re forever pontificating as a know it all about global matters and war, yet you were taken in by simplistic shit plastered on the side of a red bus.
After a few days off I would have thought you would come back refreshed and invigorated with some new innovative material or angle to punt. But no…
I, and I note a week back BDtt are still waiting on your comprehensive demolishing of this suggestion.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/spoiler-alert/comment-page-1/#comment-2771335
And a few weeks later you were still struggling and clutching at straws when bumped for a response.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/penny-royalty/comment-page-1/#comment-2775057
@ George Ferguson
Enjoy your tipple too. My curry went down well, forgot to mention the homegrown coriander garnish which really adds a lovely additional flavour to the scran, and that homegrown herb surely works towards nullifying the carbon footprint of importing 25kg bag of NHL 3.5 lime.
IMO there has to be a decoupling of energy pricing between a Kwh of fossil fuel and renewably derived leccy.
@RoS
Is Mexico deciding who lives in the USA or is there possibly a kabal at work flooding the West with incomers?
“England was not Scotland’s friend”
Turabdin.
England has never been Scotland’s friend, what I mean by that is the English government and all its security services are the enemies of Scotland, they want to keep Scotland tied to the union, and rob it blind whilst using its land and people for whatever the agenda is or has been.
Any Scots who thinks the English government or its security services are here to promote harmony or equality needs to wake up, the suppression of independence, and Scotland outside the union is a 24/7 365 day a year job for them.
The last thing any English government wants is a fairly wealthy competing country next door to it, and by using all its security services and House Jocks, its will do everything in its power to stop that happening.
As you say its not English people per se that’s the big problem its their government and security services desperately trying to keep the status quo intact, that’s why there’s a plethora of Denison and Hubble road pr*cks in here on a daily basis spreading shite and disinformation.
A recap England is NOT Scotland’s friend, it uses and robs Scotland on a daily basis and it doesn’t want that to end, and to maintain the status quo, its media channels pump out relentless propaganda aimed at Scots, we’re too wee, too poor, the oil and gas are running out, Spain would block any EU move, all the shite of the day, the Vow showed clearly that Westminster will say and do anything including constantly lying to keep Scotland tied to this union.
Ireland managed to break away from Westminster control and so must Scotland.
Queen Elizabeth House in Edinburgh and Kensington House in Glasgow are staging posts and safe houses, as are some uni’s such as the University of Glasgow, all of England’s media channels in Scotland (BBC STV etc) are propaganda channels aimed at maintaining the status quo, already they have all but done away with Scottish cultural programmes and replaced them with English ones. Meanwhile Scotland is under attack via migration from South of the border which is a very serious problem as we have no powers to combat this unwanted influx.
I’m coming to the conclusion that the ‘White Flight’, from an England regarded as too culturally diverse and too expensive to the extent that for some relocating to Scotland is a socio-economic ‘no-brainer’, coupled with the fear of hard Anglo-Scottish border outside the umbrella of the EU, (Unless an equivalent to the existing UK/RoI “Common Travel Area” is agreed), means a majority for Indy by any measure is getting harder with each passing, stagnating month and SNP scandal.
I’m also coming to the conclusion that unless something seismic happens, Scotland will only achieve Indy when Westminster determines Scotland to no longer be of use.
Oil and gas running out and technology (hypersonic missiles and wake-detecting advanced electronically scanning array radar), rendering ICBM carrying submarines redundant will mean the only reasons for Westminster to hold on to Scotland will be water, electricity from renewables, nuclear waste storage and pressure from allies to retain a NATO footprint throughout the entire GIUK-Gap.
With the SNP being in the state it’s been in since 2015, and ALBA on a seemingly slow burn, it’s hard not to be pessimistic.
Re my 7.12pm comment.
This kinda sums part of it up, Scots are conforming with the union well some are to believe that the status quo is best for Scotland when its clearly not.
Being propagandised to believe that the union is the way forward, when the evidence (There’s no case for the union) shows there’s no case for it, is a big weapon in Westminster’s toolbox.
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/08/25/caitlin-johnstone-in-a-world-ruled-by-propaganda/
As Chomsky said.
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”
Breastplate says:
26 August, 2023 at 5:51 pm
Whether people here think BRICS+ is full of basket case countries or not, is immaterial…
Define basket case.
In the West, we are sexualising children, can’t tell the difference between men and women, drive inequality to unprecedented levels, and our politicians are morally ambivalent about drag-acts parading themselves in our Primary Schools.
Our politics are riven with corruption, fraud and nepotism, with one Class of people seemingly above the law, while others go to jail for pretendy crimes which the Judiciary cannot even define, but where the real crime is being disgusted that an innocent man was framed by an Establishment conspiracy which implicated people at the highest possible level of Office.
We do nothing while Scotland is colonised by economic migrants we have no means to control, while the bestial UK Government watches boat after boat of their own economic migrants floundering in the Channel then punts off the refugees to Rwanda or “Barges” which conjure up notions of the prison hulks in the Thames which Dickens wrote about in the 19th Century.
Pedophile rings seem to operate with impunity, which would seem to have decade after decade of precedence, yet convictions are like hens’ teeth, and the latest white washes serve to corroborate the latest cover-up.
Our lands are held as a playground for the spoiled brat Elites who want to blast Scotland’s wildlife to smithereens for fun, while persecuting Scotland’s natural predators to extinction, and even now want to reintroduce the barbaric persecution of foxes.
Our pensions beggar the elderly, and our veterans are torn apart mentally by what their government told them to do in the name of “democracy”.
Our news media is unparalleled in it’s dishonesty, disinformation and misinformation, and poisonous rhetoric that is 40 years out of date, interspersed with mind numbing soap operas or aspirational Property shows anaesthetising the population locked in to the comfort of their own individual social engineering experiment.
Our food standards are quietly in free fall on a divergent path from Europe, and our cities and ports isolated from “normal” regulations by “Freeport” status, the ramifications we have yet to see, in the UK racket which already sold off Scotland’s trading ports to Hedge funds.
I’m not even warmed up yet, barely even started, but my friends, even as Scots imprisoned in the UK by a delinquent rendition of uK democracy, we are in NO position to point the finger at anyone and call their Nation a basket case.
Buying land and property in Scotland is a symptom of the coming bank collapse.
Those with large amounts of Fiat currency know that it is daily becoming worthless and will soon have to be replaced.
Much better the to buy land and property and other commodities which will retain value.
@Robert Hughes
Sounds excellent and I imagine would produce a lifelong love of and wonder at nature.
Breeks
19th century Thames prison hulks?
Get a fucking grip man.
Basket case?
Is Alec Salmond scared to get on a plane in case it gets blown up / shot down?
John Main says:
26 August, 2023 at 6:21 pm
“The seller reserves the right to refuse the highest or any offer”.
Actually its a lot more complicated than this in most independent sovereign countries which have specific and often very strict regulations about who can buy property/land. Like Denmark for example, where:
“Generally speaking, you must have lived in the country for at least five years as a foreigner before you can purchase a property.”
“you must have a residence permit — which can be tricky to obtain.”
“For non-EU citizens that are not a resident of Denmark, potential buyers must receive a special permit.”
“you can apply for permanent residence after five years if you’re an EU citizen. If you’re from outside the EU, you can apply for permanent residence after eight years of living in the country”
“you might also need to prove that you plan to continue living in the country in the long run.”
“non-Danish citizens might have to obtain permission to buy property from The Department of Civil Affairs under the Danish Ministry of Justice.”
“If you buy a house in Denmark, you must — in most cases — plan to use the address as a place of valid residence throughout the year. You can’t use it as a summer house.”
“Since the UK has left the European Union it has been that much harder to buy in Denmark.”
“If you do not live in Denmark, you can expect a hard time trying to buy a house in the country”
“If you were thinking about buying a house in Denmark for property investment purposes, you’re probably better off looking at opportunities elsewhere.”
“you will often need to sell your home if you choose to leave Denmark at a later date. If you don’t follow the necessary procedures, you may receive a fine.”
https://scandification.com/buying-a-house-in-denmark-how-to-buy-a-house-in-denmark/
You’ll find pretty much the same or similar restrictions on buying property in many countries. Sovereign nations are clearly nowhere near as open as a borderless colonial territory like Scotland is, where anybody from virtually anywhere is permitted to buy up our land/nation as they wish. Bocht an selt fir awbody’s guld!
Loss of national sovereignty clearly risks and indeed implies potential loss of the nation itself. Postcolonial theory predicts this outcome for a colony and, together with cultural obliteration, leads to the nation perishing.
The English immigrants should not be blamed, as they are free to settle in any part of the present United Kingdom.
The indigenous Scots who sold the farm or family home, nine times out of ten bugger off to sunnier climes like Spain or Italy.
The real shame as ever lies with the Scottish landowners who are developing arable and hill ground to make £millions. Most are members of the old “aristocracy” many of them Clan chiefs.
Does Parcel of Rogues strike a cord?
Dan 6:55
I’m truly flattered you seem to maintain a list or database of my previous posts so that you can regurgitate them to “trip me up”, but seriously, find yourself a hobby.
My “pontificating” is me writing my opinions on stuff. I don’t expect the movers and shakers are eagerly awaiting my posts to give them inspiration and set policy. How do you think they are regarding yours?
You have no monopoly on wisdom or insight, Dan, soz.
@RoS 7:12
Why would any Scottish Indy enthusiast be exercised over “propaganda” that “Spain would block any EU move”?
Yet again, the mask slips, eh RoS?
The too wee, too poor insult you hurl about is implicitly part of your own beliefs, hence your adamantine insistence iScotland can only thrive or even exist in the EU.
“I’m also coming to the conclusion that unless something seismic happens, Scotland will only achieve Indy when Westminster determines Scotland to no longer be of use.”
robertknight.
Westminster will never ever allow Scotland to leave the union, we’ll need to take our independence that will be the seismic event. The USA doesn’t want us to leave either, I’m pretty sure that they are aiding and abetting Westminster’s security services, they too have a lot to lose by Scotland leaving the union. Scotland sits at the base of the Atlantic arc, Iceland is at the top, and Washington sees this arc as a forward defensive line which it won’t want to see broken by Scottish independence. Then there’s US subs in Scottish waters and at Faslane, remember Washington looks upon Scotland as part of its 51st state unsinkable aircraft carrier, the rest of the UK being the other part of the unsinkable aircraft carrier.
The International Court of Justice, in a 2010 advisory opinion, declared that unilateral declarations of independence were not illegal under international law.
I’ll never forget Obama on a visit to Ireland in 2014 a week or two before the 2014 indyref, praising the country for being a successful small independent nation, then, the then UK PM David shoved a note into Obama’s hand and Obama began to caution Scots that it might be better to remain in the union or words to that effect.
Obama holds the dubious title of being the POTUS longest at war, I say war but what I mean is oppression and murder, his entire two tenures taken up with it, yet the farcical Nobel Society had the audacity to award this murdering warmonger the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009.
So Alba won’t stand in Hamilton. How many chances do they need? I’m all for moving on and let them wither on the vine but I expect my chosen party to stand.
Shrewd move by Alex Salmond over Rutherglen by-election.
Shrewd move by Alex Saolmond over Rutherglen by-election.
@ John Main
It may disappoint you to learn that I don’t manage a database, I merely right click and bookmark various posts that I recognise as being worthy in the future to refer back to as it highlights your hypocrisy or inability to in any way alter the pish you continually post on here.
C’mon man, rather than deflect, can’t you comprehensively debunk my proposition that we could emulate UK government policy to manage Scottish resources for the betterment of 5.4 million Scots instead of the UK’s 64 million. Either you take this opportunity now or I’ll simply bookmark this post to show yet again that you’ve got fuck all of serious worth to counter it.
I’m half cut on a couple of lagers, a curry, and a bottle of red wine and buzzing out to heavy techno and rock music on Youtube so I’m on the ropes. As Pat Benatar would sing: Hit me with your best shot, fire away. 😉
@Breeks (7.39) –
Yet another ‘big picture’ post, thanks. We’re seeing more and more of these from Wings regulars and it’s encouraging in an otherwise dismal landscape. Mia, ROS, Mac, Geri too many others to name-check everyone, but it’s surely a sign of the dire state of political discourse generally that it cannot and will not even attempt to address so many of the issues you’ve all covered in recent weeks and months.
We know so much more now, thanks to Sturgeon and her husband and their weird pals totally overreaching in their effort to ‘get Salmond’. We can see that whatever was motivating them these past decades, it wasn’t independence. Perhaps it’ll all be traced back to Whitehall/GCHQ but would it be at all surprising if it reached all the way back to CIA/Langley?
It feels as the whole political sphere is itself nothing more than a huge distraction put there, as Carlin described it, to ‘give you the impression that you have a choice’. Sturgeon and her willing lackeys clearly understood the nature of the charade i.e. that ‘we’ really had no choice at all. But she did. And so did the co-conspirators. They could play their roles as instructed and screw every last penny and benefit out of it while it lasted.
Remember her body language on the day she resigned? She was as surprised as anyone else there and it seems safe to say that her claims to have thrown in the towel ‘at a time of her choosing’ were just more lies.
No-one involved in these discussions – I mean between us, not politicians and professional pundits – should ever again allow someone else to use ‘conspiracy theorist’ as an insult. If anyone had forecast, say six years ago, what’s unfolded in the last two, they would’ve been given dogs abuse. (Perhaps someone did? I can’t remember now.)
But since then (2017) we’ve seen the Trans shite steamrollering political and cultural discussion. The sinister activities of the WEF/NATO/EU, bankers, Big Pharma, Big Ag and media giants are further exposed with every passing week. The ‘pandemic’. The ‘war’. All planned, all admitted openly.
So we’re not just dealing with skanky narcissist Sturgeon. She’s just a very small part of something monstrous. But exposing and understanding why she did what she did (and who ordered/helped her) is important and will help us tackle the bigger problems we’ll still be dealing with when she’s in jail or exile.
Sex pest MP Patrick Grady has been deselected so that Allison Thewliss can take over Glasgow Maryhill and destroy it like the city centre.
Grady can therefore spend more time at home reminiscing about all of the men he used to touch in Westminster!
Ahaha
Glasgow North Allison Thewliss. I hope they boot that posh twat out on her arse. She’s a hockey stick mother, she doesn’t like Terfs Allison Thewliss.. A snoot.
John Main said;
“The people of the UK voted to leave the EU.”
Don’t be silly, they did not. That statement is meaningless because the UK is not the single homogenous state with a single homogenous population that Westminster’s English establishment likes to pretend it is. It misrepresents what the Union is.
As a matter of constitutional formality it has two peoples, the UK being a Union of two different and still separate kingdoms, with two different constitutions and legal systems, and one of those two peoples own their kingdom’s very distinct national sovereignty which differs from the other kingdom’s, whose people own no sovereignty at all.
Those differences didn’t disappear when the Union came into existence.
Whether or not the people of England were entitled to make their own separate decision for their kingdom, though the fact that Westminster gave them the means to do so suggests they were at least for this occasion, it is beyond argument that the sovereign people of Scotland certainly are.
Precisely because it is Scotland’s voters who own Scotland’s sovereignty, canvassing them for their majority decision engages their sovereignty in matters relating to their own country, and that demanded full recognition.
Scotland’s people are not in the least obliged to submit to any majority vote by the people of a completely different and foreign country, especially when that foreign country’s people have no sovereignty even in their own country. Westminster’s English establishment and government had no right to pretend otherwise, and the referendum result they enforced was unlawful, unconstitutional, and fraudulent, as it couldn’t represent the decision of the UK, simply because its two partners obviously disagreed on the matter, leaving it unresolved.
By pretending that the vote was clearly in favour of Leaving, the UK Government lied to the UK, lied to Westminster, and lied to the EU, and it also breached the EU’s Article 50 terms, which required the A50 notification to affirm that the leaving member’s decision was constitutionally valid. The UK Government’s decision clearly did not meet that requirement.
“The short money from Westminster WILL be reflected in the SNP accounts as per such high costs for computers and software etc as per Stu’s post.”
Short money doesn’t appear in the Central Party accounts, it goes to the Westminster Parliamentary Group who post separate accounts.
I’m disappointed big Eck’s not running for Rutherglen if that’s the case. I’m gutted for the good people of Rutherglen. The people that need rent controls and carers to look after their elderly. The Youth that need affordable housing trapped.
The SNP has rigged the election of course anyway… They are fielding the two candidates from the Bute House Agreement to half their so called Indy vote!
@ Xaracen
Aye, I can recall being invited to a social event with various local players in the SNP, Greens, and Indy movement just after the EU vote. And none of them had a scooby about what the differing votes in the constituent parts of the UK encompassed in terms of conflict or ramifications to the crowns and her majesty’s parliament. I realised at that point that we are led by donkeys, but stuck in a few more years in the vein hope they and the electorate would awaken, but no, dullards the lot of them.
Hard to accept that the supposedly brightest and best in the pro Scottish Indy movement didn’t pick up and run with the likes of this re. Article 48.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/serving-the-nations/comment-page-1/#comment-2408098
I notice the YES hub building in Kirkcaldy is up for rent. Has it folded or moved to new premises?
Breeks @ 7:39pm,
I purposefully didn’t want to get into a debate about what or how a country is classed as a basket case, I would like to point out that it was not me but another commenter that posted that and as I said, it was immaterial to the point I was making.
So I’m sorry but I won’t be defining what constitutes a basket case country.
I often wonder why the SNP under sturgeon and now Yousaf were so keen to attach themselves to the greens and the gender Woo-Woo brigade.
In the last few days I’ve came to the conclusion that it was front and the gender WooWoo mob are useful patsy’s to allow them to pass bills like the Hate Crime Bill. The pretext being that the Hate Crime bill prevented any abuse of minorities but I would suspect can now be used to silence political opponents and journalists.
When a politician like Patrick Harvie can define a Hate crime as the use of the word “Deviant” in a context he doesn’t like but not a hate crime when he uses it then I would assume Sturgeon could also do the same to stop anything that Operation Branchform doesn’t establish ever getting used against her? Equally Yousaf could use it to stop any reporting of alleged affairs he has had?
The fact Yousaf hasn’t cut the Greens loose given current polling suggests he still has unfinished business in changing Scotland’s laws and court systems to supress anything coming out, any prosecution of SG ministers and possibly legalising some of the things they might be accused of?
@Xaracen 9:44
Aw naw, you burnt out my BS meter.
All that BS you posted, simply disproved by the fact that when we first voted to join the then Common Market, it was a UK vote.
Soz.
@IB 9:33 says
“The ‘war’. All planned.”
Reminds me of the riddle: When is a war not a war? When it’s a ‘war’ of course!
I’m calling conspiracy theorist but it’s not an insult. It’s an accurate description of an unfortunate medical condition.
John Main said;
“@Xaracen Aw naw, you burnt out my BS meter.
All that BS you posted, simply disproved by the fact that when we first voted to join the then Common Market, it was a UK vote.”
That does not constitute an example of disproof as both partner populations actually did agree to join the Common Market. But even if England’s voters had voted for, and Scotland’s voted against, that still does not validate any assertion that England’s majorities are constitutionally entitled to overrule any Scots majority by ‘outvoting’ them. It would just have been yet another example of unwarranted English dominance over Scotland. That they can do it and get away with it isn’t evidence that they have the legal right do it, it’s just evidence that it can be done. Benefiting from a crime doesn’t make it legal in any other walk of life, and it doesn’t do so in this field either.
The key concept you constantly refuse to understand in all of these arguments is ‘unwarranted English dominance’.
Soz about your BS meter, but you should have read its user manual first, it’s the book with the yellow and black cover, ‘Logic for Dummies’.
Xaracen
When the people of Scotland voted to join the Common Market, the Western Isles and the Shetland Isles were over-ruled, they voted against, by ‘unwarranted Scottish Mainland’ dominance.
You are choosing your national dividing lines so as to suit your narrative.
The reality of our political and national situation, from before 1975 until now, is that the UK forms our unit of international engagement.
The purpose of pushing for Independence is to break up the UK. When that happens, all of your national dividing lines will become relevant (bet you won’t accept the rights of the Gaels or the Shetlanders to set their own destinies, though, will you?)
As with many on here, you continue to confuse the situation you wish to see with the situation that is.
The UK voted to join the Common Market. The UK voted to leave the EU. In both votes, there was never any question of the UK constituent members following different paths. If anybody told you there was, they were feeding you BS. Soz.
@ John Main and Xaracen at various times this morning:
JM said
That is a factually incorrect statement.
Ted Heath took the UK into the EEC/Common Market with no more than an election result (1970) to authorize the move. Membership began on 1 January 1973.
After 2 Labour General Election victories in 1974, Harold Wilson organized a referendum to ratify (or not) membership, as promised in the party’s manifesto. This was held on 5 June 1975, more than 2 years after accession.
This was indeed a UK-wide referendum, about UK membership; there have only been 2 UK-wide referendums since. But it explicitly was not a “vote to join”.
A remarkable number of people who are old enough to have voted in that referendum (I campaigned for No, my first big campaign) imagine they were consulted beforehand. If they had been, perhaps the outcome would have been different (that, plus the lack of a culture of referendums, is possibly why Heath didn’t consult the electorate).
@crazycat
Thanks for the clarifications.
I can just remember my parents arguing like crazy (no pun intended 🙂 ) about how to vote in 1975.
John Main said;
“Xaracen
When the people of Scotland voted to join the Common Market, the Western Isles and the Shetland Isles were over-ruled, they voted against, by ‘unwarranted Scottish Mainland’ dominance.
You are choosing your national dividing lines so as to suit your narrative.
The reality of our political and national situation, from before 1975 until now, is that the UK forms our unit of international engagement.”
John, the smell of your desperation is getting rank! There is only one national dividing line in the UK.
As for “the UK forms our unit of international engagement”, that is entirely true, but it’s entirely irrelevant to how decisions are made in the UK, because internally it absolutely isn’t a single entity, as its two Treaty partner kingdoms are fully entitled to make their own decisions on any matter in the Commons via their two MP teams; it is why those teams are there in the first place.
It is only when those decisions are paired up and match in favour that a Union decision to change something is actually made. And the reason they have to match is precisely because neither partner kingdom has any legitimate authority over the other.
Get your mind wrapped around that unequivocal fact, John, because everything else follows from it. England’s dominance over Scotland is unwarranted, ultra vires, unlawful, unconstitutional, undemocratic (because it can be made fully democratic while preventing English dominance), and fraudulent.
The rest of your comment is just the usual irrelevant or invented tripe.
England’s dominance over Scotland is unwarranted, ultra vires, unlawful, unconstitutional, undemocratic
OK, OK, I give in!
So, the willingness of the EEC/EU to negotiate and enter into treaties with the UK is also unwarranted, ultra vires, unlawful, unconstitutional, undemocratic.
The EEC/EU should have negotiated separate treaties with England and with Scotland (I will ignore Wales and NI for now). That way, it would have been possible for one to leave and the other to stay.
And all the “dragged out against our will” BS remains BS in your interpretation because our original accession to the EU, mistakenly negotiated with the UK and for the UK, was unwarranted, ultra vires, unlawful, unconstitutional, undemocratic.
I’ll take that as a win, as I don’t like the EU. Make sure to remind the next poster banging on about the loss of our EU membership that our EU membership was always unwarranted, ultra vires, unlawful, unconstitutional, undemocratic.
And so no loss at all.
“So, the willingness of the EEC/EU to negotiate and enter into treaties with the UK is also unwarranted, ultra vires, unlawful, unconstitutional, undemocratic.”
You, sir, are a blithering idiot. That book I suggested for you, it’s a real one, you can buy it from Amazon. If I were you I’d treat that purchase as an emergency.
Your comparison is worthless. The EU Treaty never allowed its larger members to dominate its smaller members in its votes. They knew perfectly well the dangers that can arise when voting blocs are hugely different in size. Thus every member country gets a veto precisely to prevent the majoritarian bullying of the type that England has revelled in for centuries to deprive Scotland of all meaningful agency within the UK’s parliament and the Union.
The Treaty that Scotland and England negotiated, signed, and ratified did not give England the authority to govern Scotland as well as itself. It delegated the brand new Union Parliament the authority, but not sovereignty, to govern both kingdoms under the joint control of its two Principals’ MPs. It gave no extra authority to England’s MPs.
The English establishment hijacked that process of governance to give itself unwarranted dominance over Scotland, doing so via Westminster’s internal voting system, a system which became completely unfit for purpose the moment the Scots MPs turned up.
The voting system completely ignored the authority of the Scots MPs to speak and treat for Scotland as an equal partner in the Union, because, fair dos, it was never designed for dual-sovereignty MP representation, and lacking appropriate amendments which, as I’ve explained elsewhere, would have been trivial to do, it allowed the far greater numbers of England’s MPs to numerically dominate every Union vote.
That is how England’s unwarranted dominance was leveraged. The English establishment deliberately equated its numeric dominance with authoritative dominance, and it is that equation that was unwarranted, and it is still in place today. But they don’t call it ‘authoritative dominance’, they like to call it democracy because it sounds fair and thus legitimate, but it still deprives Scotland of meaningful agency in the Union despite being an equal partner.
But never making any attempt to apply those essential and trivial amendments was a deliberate act of constitutional violence against the Scottish partner of the Union, and can never be forgiven, and will never be forgotten. Scotland has been hugely damaged as a direct result.
Worse, England had an automatic effective veto through its huge MP numbers, but the bastards still voted for EVEL to prevent the 59 Scots MPs from bullying England’s 591 MPs, on the spurious pretext that England didn’t have a devolved parliament of its own. But that was solely because England’s establishment wouldn’t tolerate the same limitations it had imposed on Scotland’s devolved parliament and the others.
England’s MPs were and still are utter and criminally negligent bastards for continuing to use that system to abuse its Scottish partner, knowing perfectly well that they had and have no justification whatsoever for doing so. But our MPs are not off the hook, not by a long shot! They were and still are utter and criminally negligent idiots themselves to let the English establishment get away with it, because that numerical domination was obviously plain wrong. Both sets of MPs should be jailed for life for allowing three centuries and counting of unnecessary abuse of Scotland by England.
Hey Xaracen,
My point was and continues to be that if WM has no legal authority to negotiate for the UK, then the Common Market accession agreement that was negotiated was unconstitutional, etc etc.
Therefore, all Scottish complaints about downstream shenanigans have no weight.
It’s not a difficult point to understand, and I can make it without recourse to personal insults.
The English government used its unwarranted dominance to get us into the Common Market. It matters not that we also wanted that because if we Scots had subsequently voted not to ratify that at the 1975 referendum, we would still have been dragged into the Common Market against our will. As the junior partner in the union, our views were always superfluous.
You are happy to accept that because we Scots went along with it anyway, it doesn’t matter. I disagree, soz.
BTW, I think it a bit OTT to call for all MPs to be jailed for life.
Anyhoo, you’ve improved my thinking on the undemocratic “EU years”, so thanks for that.
“My point was and continues to be that if WM has no legal authority to negotiate for the UK, then the Common Market accession agreement that was negotiated was unconstitutional, etc etc.
Therefore, all Scottish complaints about downstream shenanigans have no weight.
It’s not a difficult point to understand, and I can make it without recourse to personal insults.”
But your point was badly made because you extended my specific case into a generalisation, and you then applied that generalisation to a different case that didn’t have the support it needed to justify it.
I didn’t say that Westminster ‘has no legal authority to negotiate for the UK’, I said that it had no legal authority to ignore the will, the rights, and the authority of the Scottish half of the Union. I pointed out that the CM vote had the majority approval of the Scots as well as that of the English half, so WM could legitimately sign off the CM accession in that instance.
I am under no illusion that if the Scots majority had been against it, while England’s was for it, the accession would very probably have gone ahead anyway. That can only be speculation, but the Brexit vote certainly happened that way and Scotland’s strong majority vote for Remain was indeed ignored in favour of England’s weak majority, indeed trenchantly so, and it should not have been. That vote was not an example of ‘democracy’ in action, it was the outcome of a deliberately planned Majoritarian exercise, designed specifically to ensure that an English decision would carry the day.
In that situation Westminster did not have the legal authority to negotiate Brexit for the UK because it didn’t have the approval of the UK. The fundamental authoritative basis of the United Kingdom are its two founding sovereign kingdoms and together they ARE the UK, and WM only had the approval of one of them, and the clear disapproval of the other. The resulting ‘UK’ decision was therefore inconclusive, and could provide no legitimate mandate for change.
As I also pointed out, the Scottish electorate is not in the least obliged to submit to the majority votes of the electorate of a different country, and especially so when the Scottish electorate literally owns their country’s national sovereignty, while the other electorate has no sovereignty even in their own country, let alone in ours. Despite the disparity in size, the two kingdoms of the United Kingdom are fully equal in authority regarding the joint governance of their Union. And as I have also pointed out, precisely the same argument applies to their MPs.
I apologise for the insult. As a sovereign Scot in my own country, however, I reserve the right to rescind the apology in the event I may need to re-instate it in future should occasion demand. 😀
@Xaracen says:28 August, 2023 at 11:59 am
I apologise for the insult
Nae probs, apology accepted.
I reserve the right to rescind the apology
Seems a faff. I would keep this apology in place and simply raise new insult(s) if required.
I am not making any promises about my future posts 🙂
@geisabreak
‘Not looking so crazy now that the Murrells could’ve been working for MI5’
Except MI5 would never employ these two chuffing charlatans. If they are working for MI5 it’s because they have something very compromising on them.
KITTYBEE says: at 8:24 pm
“Except MI5 would never employ these two chuffing charlatans. If they are working for MI5 it’s because they have something very compromising on them.”
Aye, like a load of Whatsapp messages showing exactly what they and their cabal were up to, and which could if deemed necessary by those in power lead to them being put away for a long stretch.