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The Manchurian Candidate

Posted on March 04, 2023 by

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0 to “The Manchurian Candidate”

  1. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    Brilliant, just brilliant.

    Filmed in Supermarionation of course.

  2. Frank Gillougley
    Ignored
    says:

    Just Brilliant!

  3. Jim Bo
    Ignored
    says:

    Damn that’s good Chris. Many thanks as always for a good chuckle first thing on a Saturday morning. “The other one” is how they might as well call Ash with media scrutiny such as it is.
    Is a fair election really too much to ask for? In Scotland, seemingly the answer is yes.

  4. Beauvais
    Ignored
    says:

    He’s not ready for his close up Mr de Murrell.

  5. David
    Ignored
    says:

    Superb.

  6. Athanasius
    Ignored
    says:

    With Nicola Sturgeon as Mother.

  7. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Brilliant Chris!
    Right on the money- that missing £600K

    More of a stitch up than a sowing bee.

    It’s the 3 cup trick
    Which one is Humza under?
    Spin then round and round
    Yes, he is under all of them.

    East is East and West is West but Nicola know
    where Humza shines best.

    U.K. media to chose the winning candidate on a coin toss.
    Heads Humza wins
    Tails Kate Forbes doesn’t win and if your sure there is a third one
    they can have it if the coin lands on its edge and then we can do best out of 3.

  8. Viscount Ennui
    Ignored
    says:

    Let’say that YH gets in.
    One of his first jobs will be to seek a judicial review of the Sec35 (which he now must do because he said he would).
    But he must follow legal advice (Bain) which is unlikely to support it.
    So, does he ignore that advice and press ahead?
    If the JR rules aganst him, WTF does he do then? The decision to review could itself be subject to an investigation.
    Instantly, he looks stupid but will obviously milk the whole thing as being symptomatic of the imbalance between HR and WM, even thoough it will be a Scottish court (CofSession) that decides.
    Very messy in terms of ScotGov credibility.

  9. Doug
    Ignored
    says:

    Humza Horror Productions present…

  10. Natalie Delon
    Ignored
    says:

    Brilliant. From the hustings it’s clear that Ash rightly doesn’t have much respect for Yousef. In fact her body language and facial expressions when he is speaking shows total scorn for him.
    Her description of his best qualities was very short and included “charming”. One speculates that this is sarcasm caused by Yousef loosing his short fuse with her over her refusal to countenance the vile GRR.

  11. Big Jock
    Ignored
    says:

    Charming is short for sleekit. Like a snake oil salesman.

  12. Name (required)
    Ignored
    says:

    the dont knows are winning

    and that is no surprise to me

  13. robertkknight
    Ignored
    says:

    You can leave your 3D glasses at home folks – the main character in this movie has absolutely no depth to him whatsoever.

  14. Jeremy Wickins
    Ignored
    says:

    ?? The Ts&Cs made me laugh!

  15. Woody o Guthrie
    Ignored
    says:

    A straw man in a sharp suit.

  16. Beauvais
    Ignored
    says:

    Humza in this starring role surely brings to mind Guinness.

    Not Sir Alec, I mean we want to drown our sorrows.

  17. AuldReekieJim
    Ignored
    says:

    The one and only choice for Mama Woke and the Transcult Eck Oot

  18. Wee Chid
    Ignored
    says:

    Viscount Ennui says:
    4 March, 2023 at 7:35 am

    “Instantly, he looks stupid but will obviously milk the whole thing as being symptomatic of the imbalance between HR and WM, even thoough it will be a Scottish court (CofSession) that decides.”

    Then he’ll play the race card.

  19. Patsy Millar
    Ignored
    says:

    Brilliamt as ever!

  20. Gordon Gekko
    Ignored
    says:

    Who are the people that get the Indy movement out on the streets whenever there is a march for independence ?

    Surely now is the time for whoever it is to get thousands on the streets. Not marching for independence but marching for democracy.

    What has been clear for at least 30 years now is that this fight between capital and Labour has changed beyond all recognition of what it used to be.

    Now we are all either Globalists v’s Westerphalians. Fixed exchange rate vs floating exchange rate. One currency vs multiple currencies. Autocracy vs democracy.

    The first battle we all must win is retaining the ability to change anything. As across the whole political spectrum money has hijacked everything.

  21. robertkknight
    Ignored
    says:

    Viscount E…

    “Very messy in terms of ScotGov credibility

    That’s a bit like “military intelligence”… words that shouldn’t appear together in the same sentence.

  22. Jason Smoothpiece
    Ignored
    says:

    Do the few existing SNP members not see through this nonsense.

    Leave the madness of the SNP come over to Alba to the true Independence seekers, you will be warmly welcomed.

  23. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    Say what you like about Humza (which wouldn’t take long) but he does have lovely long eyelashes. I suspect they’ve been doing all the heavy lifting throughout his life.

    Not sure I’m comfortable with the idea of him becoming FM and setting our taxes…. he couldn’t manage to tax his own car when transport minister… it doesn’t bode well.

  24. Dramfineday
    Ignored
    says:

    “The other one” and “Book now – you can’t” Hahaha….first class Chris.

  25. John McPhail
    Ignored
    says:

    I find it strange that Beattie has endorsed KF. Why is he not getting with the programme? If, as has been reported, he has been spoken to by plod re the 600k then what did he tell them? I guess they would want more specific answers than “woven through the accounts”. Has he perhaps done a deal, and is now free from the clutches of the Capo? So many questions….

  26. Doug
    Ignored
    says:

    Manchurian Candidate? Shouldn’t that be Personchurian?

  27. Astonished
    Ignored
    says:

    Great Cartoon.

    Matched by this great line :

    Beauvais says:

    “He’s not ready for his close up Mr de Murrell.”

    It is possible Humza will limp home. Or Kate Forbes might win it on the transferred second votes.

    Ash has a fighting chance – With all the yoon papers hating her- Surely even nuSNP members must see she’s the one the yoons fear.

    I don’t think that will be the end of it.

  28. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Spot on Chris, the Britnat media are trying to do to Ash Regan what they done to Jeremy Corbyn, discredit her in every way, because she wants the best for Scotland and that can only be achieved through independence.

    The Britnat media and their useful House Jocks North of the border must get behind Humza Yousaf, he’ll keep not only Sturgeon and Murrells dirty little secrets safe, but he’ll also maintain the status quo which favours Westminster over Scots.

  29. Liz
    Ignored
    says:

    Nailed it, Chris

  30. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Looking across Twitter this morning with the excellent Ash Regan in mind, its clear to me that a concerted campaign of attack against her superb case for Scottish independence is well under way by Britnat forces on all levels, that alone should tell us that they fear Ash Regan as FM because she has Scottish interests at heart.

  31. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    In case anyone thinks that hustings and leadership contest isn’t rigged.

    “Of course no-one got to hear about the party’s hustings until all the tickets were already allocated. The first hustings had seats that should have been for local members taken up with staff from SNP HQ. Murrell has hand-picked audiences (the stories of constituency conveners not being able to get to hustings are very real).”

    http://robinmcalpine.org/this-farce-is-now-a-national-embarrassment/

  32. Mark Boyle
    Ignored
    says:

    “Unneccessarily small venue near you?”

    Dude, the SNP rubberneck road show is being held at Johnstone Town Hall on Wednesday 8th March. The room booked may hold only 264 people, but the building itself is huge, as is the adjoining two car parks on either side plus the Ludovic Square on the main side.

    There’s nothing to stop Women Won’t Wheesht or any other protest group coming along to make their feelings loud and clear to those going in (the transport links to Johnstone by road and rail are excellent), and giving them a wee reminder that the real majority out there is the electorate who will boot them out in droves from their cushy numbers if Humbug Useless is made leader as the Constipation Candidate.

  33. Graf Midgehunter
    Ignored
    says:

    Good cartoon but the film won’t win an Oscar says Robin:

    http://robinmcalpine.org/this-farce-is-now-a-national-embarrassment/

  34. Lorna Campbell
    Ignored
    says:

    Brightened up a damp, grey morning with humour. Had a good laugh. You need it for this shamblethon of a Scottish government. Nats wi Greens shuld ne’er be seen… Means ower muckle froth an spleen.

  35. Vivian O’Blivion
    Ignored
    says:

    Stewart McDonald MP has a column in The Scotsman. NATO fanboy is being payed twice (possibly thrice) times over to regurgitate CIA talking points in a Unionist rag.
    They ain’t even pretending at this stage.

  36. John Thomson
    Ignored
    says:

    The gift that just keeps giving

  37. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    Available now on DVD.

    People who like this also liked “The Collected Speeches Of Nicola Sturgeon “.

  38. Graf Midgehunter
    Ignored
    says:

    Oops ROS, we both had the same thoughts at the same time..!

    Which means we’re both right.. 🙂

  39. akenaton
    Ignored
    says:

    I don’t think bracketing Regan and Corbyn is going to do much for Independence, unless you are referring to his animosity towards the European Union, which was to me his one positive view.
    Holyrood should be “redded oot” and refitted with people who have the future of the country and its ordinary citizens at heart, people who are not motivated by personal power or money.

    I think the shrewd and honest Mrs Forbes is the leader we need, but given that the SNP members are still unbelievably in thrall to the Murrell faction, she may have a hard fight on her hands.

    If Yousaf becomes First Minister then it will be time to start voting to destroy the Party which has led us to this pass by promoting an ideology which is foreign to our people and a danger to women, children and traditional family life.

  40. Oneliner
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s at times like this that you realise just how talented the Tracy brothers were

  41. Ian Mccubbin
    Ignored
    says:

    Well done such a great advert for a loser in politics, and hopefully not the new FM.

  42. Willie
    Ignored
    says:

    The Brits have fixed it and the charade goes on.

    The SNP is a virtual party. Controlled by a clique it is but an illusion. Anyone who thinks the members play any part in the choice of a newleader might as well believe in the Tooth Fairy.

    This is the charade of colonialism.

  43. ronald anderson@gmail.com
    Ignored
    says:

    Just received a two page glossary Annual 2023 report card / Calendar from Neil Gray ( Airdrie n Shotts MSP ) its feking 4th March just goes to show he hasn’t the volunteers to deliver his bumf.

    He might get some volunteers from his preferred candidate Humsa lol.

  44. David Hannah
    Ignored
    says:

    Great sketch as ever by Chris. Humza is full of hot air everytime I hear him speak.

    I want to talk Ash Regan.

    Steven Daisley has an opinion piece on Ash suggesting she’s no more than the voice of a TV advert.

    Firstly. Ash Regan, would never look his way. His face is bulging out the caption, I’d be surprised if he can actually find his tadger.

  45. David Hannah
    Ignored
    says:

    https://twitter.com/ABalharry62/status/1631909744645488642

    According to this twitter account Humza Yousaf had an affair with Anum Quasir the SNP MSP. And begged his ex not to divorce him until he was elected. Then told everyone she wasn’t a good enough Muslim.

    That’s nasty don’t you think?

  46. Confused
    Ignored
    says:

    if he wins, he will end up a year from now, caught in the glare of bright lights, eyes wide like a deer, blurting :

    I’M JUST THE PATSY

    (Murrell behinf the grassy knoll …)

  47. akenaton
    Ignored
    says:

    There is no Unionist Plot.
    We have been done over by our own, if you even recognise Murrell &Co as a Scottish institution.
    The rank and file are still in denial of this stark fact and squealing about the evil Unionists does no good and deflects from the sins of those who have run our devolved assembly like a Ponzi Scheme. If we don’t get a hold of this sickness then the Murrells will be incarnated by another group of Nationalists in Name Only, using “Murrellian” tactics.
    All that went wrong in the last three years, we allowed to happen without any, or much assistance from Westminster.

  48. Ron Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    I remember the days, not so long ago, when we used to look down on the Tories and Labour Party and say, Our SNP will never end up like those corrupt and undemocratic losers.

    And here we are, a few years later, where our beloved SNP is now the most corrupt Party in the UK.

    Sturgeon using the same tactics in this First Minister election that the Tories used to win IndyRef1, Rigged.

    David Cameron will be proud of her.

  49. Big Jock
    Ignored
    says:

    I thought Muslims weren’t allowed to get divorced?

  50. Alf Baird
    Ignored
    says:

    Willie @ 11:36 am

    “The Brits have fixed it and the charade goes on.This is the charade of colonialism.”

    Too right Willie, and Sara and Salvo are on the right track here about “What Fraud Against a Sovereign Nation Looks Like” and the repeated “violation(s) of the Treaty of Union (as) an act of colonisation”:

    https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2023/03/04/all-scotland-needs-to-know-this-we-are-being-robbed-daily/

    The UN is right – ‘Independence is decolonisation’.

  51. JGedd
    Ignored
    says:

    I don’t care what happens to the SNP but I do care about the massive damage it has done to the independence movement. Robin McAlpine’s latest article is blazing with anger and is a justified and excoriating attack on the Murrell-led SNP.

    Robin concludes:This is a big moment in the SNP’s history and it is shaming itself. I’m disgusted with the whole thing. It feels like Scotland’s reputation is being dragged back decades just now. That the SNP machine would rather humiliate the nation than risk a fair contest which might result in a candidate who would reform it tells you all you need to know.

    Hell mend the SNP. God help Scotland.

  52. Red
    Ignored
    says:

    That Humza Independence Plan in full:

    Humza: “Abolish Section 35”

    Westminster: “Naw.”

    *Curb Your Enthusiasm Theme*

  53. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Alf Baird

    The UN is right. Independence is decolonisation

    Naw. It’s nae richt.

    I’d tell you what decolonisation is, if I could be arsed to put up with the inevitable pelters. But I don’t need the aggro right now.

    Indy is part of decolonisation, certainly, but we need to borrow from Mrs May to get the whole.

    Decolonisation is decolonisation.

    Ask the Indians, the Pakistanis, the ANC. They know.

  54. stuart mctavish
    Ignored
    says:

    Poor Humza wont have known what to think when audience gave him huge round of applause for saying he was going nowhere.

    Especially since same audience did not appear nearly angry enough to imply the Sturgeon & Swinney resignations arose from MEMBERSHIP demands for the defacto referendum plan to be scrapped.

    That said, and although it could be messy disinformation of the honey trap/ outrage baiting genre, thought all candidates missed opportunity to call out the sentence handed out to a frail OAP when Russel cut off the sweet old lady who seemed to forget what question she wanted to ask. (70 year old man reported to have been jailed for 18 months, backdated to the time he’s been on remand (!), for a single facebook post whose alleged criminal content was to mistake the (as yet untested) contemporary penalty for high treason).

    Also thought health secretary missed a trick when talking policy (in answer to her question tbf) rather than asking the lady paying small fortune for diabetes treatment to speak to him during the post meeting hospitality & networking session – when he could have arranged for someone to intervene directly on her behalf.

    Otherwise a good performance all round, albeit the the job interview question ignored the elephant of the job description – and what to do with all the MPs too timid to enter the leadership contest.

    ie Will it be the new leader’s job to retain city of london short money to better compensate activists advising on contemporary treatment for common cold, or will it better be their job to find something even more constructive than a defacto referendum to get the MPs teeth into ASAP – lest Alba, Greens (or even Anas) convinces the electorate to sack the lot before she/she/they finally get around to it via independence circa 5050.

  55. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    @Big Jock,

    Easier than you would believe.

  56. Big Jock
    Ignored
    says:

    So things we know about Humza.

    He was caught driving without insurance while the Transport minister.

    He is the first Justice Minister in Scotland who holds no legal degree.

    He managed to crash a scooter while attempting to run down Holyroods corridors.

    He had an affair and got his wife to hold off a divorce for his own career.

    He lied about the equal marriage vote.

    He doesn’t want independence until at least 2050.

    I am sure there are other things I have missed. But for God’s sake, the guy is a laughing stock.

  57. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Graf Midgehunter.

    Great minds think alike, says I with tongue in cheek, anyway the decks stacked, the games rigged, the dice are loaded as they say, Murrell must pick who wins or the dam will burst, and all his and his wife’s dirty little secrets will be uncovered.

    Yousaf is a obedient dolt on which Murrell and Sturgeon can rely on to keep the status quo intact, which will safe guard their machinations and keep the House Jocks and Westminster fairly content.

    Only Regan has a plan that will benefit Scots, and it begins with the most essential item on the agenda and that’s independence, if that is secured then everything else that a country benefits from will follow.

  58. Alf Baird
    Ignored
    says:

    John Main @ 12:53 pm

    “Indy is part of decolonisation”

    Correction, you are right of course; independence may not necessarily result in true liberation of the people; e.g. if the native elites continue to assert the culture and values of the oppressor power, and permit the plunder of land and resources to continue.

    As Albert Memmi put it:

    “In order to witness the colonized’s complete cure, his alienation must completely cease. We must await the complete disappearance of colonization…”

  59. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “The historic Stone of Destiny should not be used in the King’s coronation, former first minister Alex Salmond. Historic Environment Scotland said last year the stone would be moved to London before returning north of the border after the coronation.”

    England takes what it wants from Scotland when it wants it, with the help of House Jocks, only independence will stop this and only Ash Regan is putting forward a quick and credible plan for it.

  60. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Re my Stone of Destiny comment the board of (HES) is appointed by Scottish ministers, so in effect its the SNP government that’s allowing this to happen, would any other country hand over such an important artifact to England for their monarch to be crowned on it, and moreso a government that’s supposed raison d’etre is to breakaway from said country.

    The SNP under Sturgeon and Murrell’s guidance has caused terrible damage to Scotland, and they haven’t moved the indy dial any closer to independence in the last eight years.

  61. SusanAHF
    Ignored
    says:

    It would be madness to elect an avowedly anti white candidate in a 96% white country. Never mind his other faults so amply discussed by others

  62. Ebok
    Ignored
    says:

    Yes Chris, a brilliant depiction of another obedient soldier being promoted. It’s all in the game, it’s the British way of co-operation and patronage which has at least five unelected control groups pulling the strings – Royalty, Lords Spiritual, Bankers, Moguls, MSM.

    Promoted politicians will merely follow orders handed down from those groups above. The remaining politicians are enforcers, enabling the extraction of every last penny from the working class while turning a blind eye to racketeering in protection, gambling, corruption, drugs, money laundering, prostitution and trafficking.

    Prosecutions brought against power players are unheard of, actions against compliant promoted politicians are rare, but any strays, particularly if the politics of socialism or independence are involved, are frowned upon and dealt with, just like Corbyn and Salmond, though exceptional contributors to the system are venerated and can move up to become trusted advisers to the unelected, as in the case of Blair.
    I wonder if Sturgeon thinks she’s revered by the top honchos.

  63. Robert Hughes
    Ignored
    says:

    @ J Gedd

    Aye , J , Robin dispenses with his customary restrain and empties both barrels at the ” moronic inferno ” that is this leadership contest & Nu SNP generally .

    If there wasn’t so much at stake , I’d love to see Humza the Yummy Dummy * win * . The comedic possibilities are endless .

    But , there IS so much at stake . Not least the probable extinguishing of whatever dim hope remains of any of us seeing Independence in our lifetimes , or anyone’s lifetime ; certainly that’s the case if Yousaf wins , probably ditto if Forbes wins

    Ash Regan being the only one offering the prospect of progress on Independence and a reorientation away from the * gender * ideological mind-warp . Two reasons why she is unlikely to win . A third reason being , in all likelihood the fix is in and the continuity of abysmal failure candidate will be duly installed to ensure a smooth transition from Worst Minister to even Worse Minister . Though THAT would be an achievement of sorts . Just not the kind we urgently require .

    Excellent cartoon as per , C.C

  64. Al-Stuart
    Ignored
    says:

    .
    Thanks Chris & Stu.,

    That political sketch is worthy of the original Punch.

    It would be incredibly funny, were it not so absolutely true.

    Though I am still flummoxed why anyone with an iota of intelligence would vote against Humza Yousaf?

    Whoever is elected First Minister on scheduled 27th March 2023, they need to be useless and so utterly incompetent as to make the NuSNP UNELECTABLE on 7th May 2026.

    Not so bad as we ONLY have Yousaf for 560 days on the FM chair in Holyrood.

    Then it’s time to think the unthinkable.

    It will be a Rainbow Coalition, First Minister on 7th May 2026 and not the rainbow are Pickle_Bee likes.

    Either Labour or Tory FM for a spell.

    The ideal outcome is to have the SNP bowels disinfected of the Woke parasites.

    What better way than some sachets of Humza-Political-Bowel-Cleanser?

    You could not design a better way than to killl off the NuSNP and get rid of the Woke Parasites, than elect such a useless chinless eejit as Yousaf.

    Think about it please?

    Humza has been the most incompetent in all the ScotGov departments and is a political Amadan.

    Only Humza can get the NuSNP voted out of office.

    This also gives Alba a decent chance to grow as the MSM will focus most of their impotent energies on the Humza Comedy Show of Fu**-ups.

    Surely, in this logic, Humza is the best choice?

    —————————————————-
    Holyrood sits for 36 weeks and 1 day per year. Deduct 2 days of 7 because Holyrood does NOT sit at weekends. That gives 180 days out of 365 that MSPs work in McTammany Hall. If Humza is elected First Puppet, the gig runs from 27 March 2023 to next electionTgursday 7th May 2026.

    Humza will be in that job for1137 days. As Holyrood only sits for 49.3% of the year, that means we suffer Humza Yousaf for 560 days in Holyrood.

  65. Stravaiger
    Ignored
    says:

    @Geoff Anderson
    Aha! That Ellie Gomersall- I thought I recognised the face. He/she was on the news talking about the GRR bill but was not introduced as an activist/journalist but just presented as an ordinary member of the public.

    Never trust what you see on the BBC news.

  66. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    1hr 24 to 1hr 28, Ash Regan spells it out on our exit out of this union at the Inverness hustings today.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZeZj-5rzNk

  67. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    This kind of sums up what a farce this contest is turning out to be.

    https://twitter.com/CraigMurrayOrg/status/1632003585712979969?cxt=HHwWgoCw6amnhaYtAAAA

  68. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    Fabulous comedic cartoon Chris if only it wasn’t so true

    Ordinary Scots are being betrayed left right and centre by the scum who are supposed to protect them , the media , the broadcasters , politicians of ALL parties , the establishment , the judiciary , the police service , their own government,

    THAT is why we MUST have a PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY to EXPOSE AND PUNISH these trai tors and reviled creatures

  69. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    As if Humza Yousaf isn’t compromised enough without this, this will be another tether used by the Britnat media and the Sturrells to keep Humza an obedient puppet when Murrell declares him the next FM.

    https://twitter.com/ABalharry62/status/1631909744645488642

  70. Chic McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Eyelashes Andy Burnham would give his back teeth for.

    He might have a better chance being the Mancunian Candidate if Burnham decides to go back into Westminster.

  71. Calum
    Ignored
    says:

    Ebok says: 4 March, 2023 at 2:15 pm

    “The remaining politicians are enforcers, enabling the extraction of every last penny from the working class while turning a blind eye to racketeering in protection, gambling, corruption, drugs, money laundering, prostitution and trafficking.”

    Yet this is what Scotland has suffered the last 8 years of Sturgeons reign and likely you voted for it at the time, so own it now with pride.

  72. Shug
    Ignored
    says:

    Does anyone know this Aberdeen pair just heading to jail
    Are they known unionists of the orange variety.
    All articles have they coming out of nowhere which seems very strange

  73. Chris Darroch
    Ignored
    says:

    The pure political wreckage Sturgeon has left behind her self serving idiocy.

  74. Alan McHarg
    Ignored
    says:

    Excellent! The only thing missing is the union fleg!

  75. Kcor
    Ignored
    says:

    Ron Clark says:
    4 March, 2023 at 12:18 pm

    “I remember the days, not so long ago, when we used to look down on the Tories and Labour Party and say, Our SNP will never end up like those corrupt and undemocratic losers.

    And here we are, a few years later, where our beloved SNP is now the most corrupt Party in the UK.”

    With hindsight, we can say it was all predictable.

    On comments on Wings Over Scotland, Yousaf was glowingly talked about as a future leader by Robert Pfeffers among others.

    (The Rev. Stuart Campbell can look that up if he doesn’t believe me).

    Alex Salmond is one of the very few exceptions, but one can never trust politicians.

    Cherry has been talked up as a leader but IMHO, she is nothing more than a Sturgeon in waiting.

    If she could fight for the useless cause of reopening the Westminster parliament, she could have challenged the SNP establishment now and stood for leader.

    There was nothing to stop her from standing.

    But she didn’t want to risk her comfortable Westminster seat.

    That is why she is still in the SNP instead of really fighting for independence from within ALBA.

    If Yousaf “wins”, Forbes and Regan should leave the SNP and join ALBA.

    If they don’t, we will know how much they really care about independence.

  76. Anton Decadent
    Ignored
    says:

    I recently watched an I, Claudius boxset and Scotland is currently still in the Caligula stage with his/her/its horse being proclaimed a senator.

  77. christy m
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s my impression folks that Humza, in addition to all the other advantages the party has thrown his way, might also be said to have his own ring fenced constituency in this election. By contrast, the two woman candidates appear to be battling it out for all the rest. Am I wrong in this? From an “anybody but Humza” perspective this could be very difficult, if true.

  78. Tom Kane
    Ignored
    says:

    Brilliant, Chris!

    Whatever collection that goes into, I will definitely buy.

    Those unnecessarily small venues, prepacked with salaried party apparatchicks and no space for members… All orchestrated by Peter Murrell… This does not only shame the SNP and our media commentators… It shames our police. What is taking so long…

    Is there some kind of deal along the lines of… Alright Peter… alright, stitchup your election, but this is the last one, mind… get it done in a month, after that we need to talk to you down at the station…?

    Because that’s what it looks like.

  79. SusanAHF
    Ignored
    says:

    I admit I am anti trans in my life. I reject transwomen (trans identifying men) because they’re men and transmen because they deny that they’re women. Who wants to deal with such high maintenance fuck ups?

  80. Alf Baird
    Ignored
    says:

    Republicofscotland @ 3:23 pm

    Ash Regan is right, once we return an indy majority at an election the political representatives must be prepared to use it to secure indy. Lets show some courage for a change. Which means most of the current crop of SNP MSPs need de-selected before the next election to ensure there are nae mair s.30 blind alley imposters elected.

    Yousaf and Forbes are both “marshmallow” s.30 blind alley candidates and should be de-selected as they are clearly not serious about independence. All nationalist candidates must be committed to deliver independence via a majority vote at the next election, that is the only true measure of their commitment to our cause.

  81. President Xiden
    Ignored
    says:

    Big Jock says:

    ‘I am sure there are other things I have missed. But for God’s sake, the guy is a laughing stock.‘

    You forgot his latest ‘achievement’……banning certain anaesthetic gases from hospitals due to ‘climate change’. Clown world.

  82. Tommo
    Ignored
    says:

    SusanAHF says:
    4 March, 2023 at 5:49 pm
    I admit I am anti trans in my life. I reject transwomen (trans identifying men) because they’re men and transmen because they deny that they’re women. Who wants to deal with such high maintenance fuck ups?

    Step onto the podium, Humza…

  83. SusanAHF
    Ignored
    says:

    Tommmo, fuck off.

  84. akenaton
    Ignored
    says:

    Independence will now mean “The long haul”. Regan is a lightweight, the SNP vote in the country is rapidly dissipating and will reduce further when the doings in Holyrood are exposed.
    That we must wait a number of years to rebuild trust of the electorate is a negative, especially for people of my age, but the fact that people like Mr Campbell and his supporters here have saved the nation from becoming a gutless political wilderness is a huge positive.
    Remember, the status of a country means nothing if people cannot accept the social or political regime

  85. Andrew scott
    Ignored
    says:

    @susan etc
    Tommo go fcuk yourself!!!!!!!!

  86. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “Independence will now mean “The long haul”. Regan is a lightweight”

    akenaton.

    Regan isn’t a lightweight, on the contrary she’s breath of fresh air, for eight years we’ve suffered Sturgeon’s poisonous fumes of lies and deceit with countless mandates wasted, and along comes a SNP leadership candidate with a simply but effective plan that she’s not afraid to spell out to the somewhat forlorn indy masses, and the Britnats, their media media and the unions House Jocks hate her for it.

    Regan’s plan is a great way out of this union, a union built on lies and deceit and House Jock support, however I fear she’ll be cheated out of her victory by Murrell and Co.

  87. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    The talk seems to be this one and that one wouldn’t make a good leader?

    How did Boris get on with a disparaging report from his school master.
    Having been sacked twice from jobs for lying,
    Leaving his wife and Mother of his children when diagnosed with cancer,
    Making 5 different women pregnant,
    Not being able to understand what constitutes being at a Party,
    Having the Police called after physically restraining Carrie who is screaming,
    Saying black women have watermelon smiles and Muslim women look out thru letter boxes
    Called Scots vermin,
    Illegally tried to close parliament.
    Lied to parliament

    How is that for the type of character you need to better?

  88. ronald anderson@gmail.com
    Ignored
    says:

    ekenation 7.54 .

    Ash Regan is the only one out of all the candidates to put Independence first & foremost with the addition of joining EFTA to get us back into the single market .

    Both Forbes/Humza are continuity for the union for however many years .

  89. Chic McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    OK here is where I am, three hustings in.

    I have three criteria.

    In order of importance.

    1 Who is most genuinely for independence?

    2 Who do I trust the most?

    3 Who has the political nous to deliver?

    So far the scores are

    Kate Forbes 3

    Ash Regan 2

    Humza Yousef 1, maybe, and in the least important category.

    I have to admit that on that third hustings I had to, FF Humza because the platitudes were just too grating.

  90. Robert Hughes
    Ignored
    says:

    ” Remember, the status of a country means nothing if people cannot accept the social or political regime ”

    Remember , the status of a country means nothing if people cannot accept that they are a People . A People with a distinct history , culture and national consciousness .

    Why is just about every Politician in Scotland so fckn tepid about addressing this basic fact , so ready to disassociate themselves from the blasphemous ” N ” word ?

    They would do well to emulate the genuine passion & dedication of people like S Salyers / SALVO , Alf Baird et al , working tirelessly – mostly gratis and against constant waves of negativity from all sides , mostly ” our own ” – to bring about a general awakening of our latent power , long unacknowledged & in danger of being lost completely .

    Fuck Westminster . Fuck asking our jailer for permission to leave our confinement . How can you be given something you already own ?

    Competence/Stability/Probity etc are all necessary for good governance – obv – but not the decisive factors in a People’s struggle for Liberation . And that is precisely what we’re engaged in ; though you would never know it from the collection of inert Union employees that waste space in Holyrood

  91. John H.
    Ignored
    says:

    I have a friend who has been a member of the SNP for many years. He was and still is at heart loyal to Nicola Sturgeon. Talking to him recently, it’s obvious that he has now transferred his adherence to Humza Yousaf.

    I sometimes wonder if being a nationalist is some kind of game to people like him. To them is independence something to be pursued, but never to be attained? A kind of hobby that gives them something to do, without ever having to worry about the responsibility that would come with independence. He’s now started talking about 60% being the goal we must aim for. Something that, without a strong campaign we are unlikely to achieve, particularly when we have people flowing north over the border at the present rate.

    He doesn’t seem to be a rarity in the SNP at present.

  92. McDuff
    Ignored
    says:

    John H
    I know similar people John and i just can`t figure them out.

  93. Geoff Anderson
    Ignored
    says:

    John H

    I know plenty of them too. The 30/40/50 year badge of membership is all. They see the Party success (continuation) as all.,

    The are soo conditioned to identify as “SNP” that they have forgotten why the joined the Party in the beginning.

    That Party logo is now more important than the future of Scots. They even repeat the TransCult mantras as if they actually believed it…as if that is why they joined the Party. I have less and less in common with them with each passing year. Sturgeon has delivered her MI5 handlers objective.

  94. James F. Mcintosh
    Ignored
    says:

    Do you think we would have got the same deal as Ireland if the catholics and protestants in Scotland had been blowing each other up for the past 20 years?

  95. robertkknight
    Ignored
    says:

    John H, McDuff…

    Sturgeon’s rancid SNP is stuffed with Wee Ginger Fud types who think it’s a social club for pensioners, or the social anarchists who think that because society won’t accept how a minority want to live their lives, they, like a bunch of spoiled, needy brats, want to tear up every social norm and convention in a kind of retaliation against the grown-ups.

    The whole SNP project is now a slow motion car crash thanks to Sturgeon/Murrell and their acolytes. I hope they all rot in jail – not that justice can be found anywhere in this country these days. More’s the pity…

  96. akenaton
    Ignored
    says:

    ROS, I resigned from the SNP within months of Mrs Murrell becoming FM. I have been interested in politics all my life, changed sides several times on economic issues.
    I pride myself in being able to weigh up people pretty well and IMO Ms Regan will not make the sort of leader who can handle the “Long Haul” which will be required to rebuild support.
    You obviously have not been concentrating when I said that SNP voters in the country, not Holyrood, are becoming disillusioned with the whole idea of Independence, through the behaviour and ideology of the Scottish Nationalist Party in power.
    Political popularity is transient especially when influenced by the Media…on a mission, Re Boris with an 80 seat majority which will have melted like Snaw aff a dyke by the next Westminster election.
    Forbes has staying power, speaks well, has a grasp of economics and relates well to voters. The fact that she does not wield the claymore or wave the banner continuously will be a positive in the eyes of the many canny Scots who have a realistic view of politics.

    Congratulations on your many interesting comments which I always read.

  97. robertkknight
    Ignored
    says:

    JFM…

    “Do you think we would have got the same deal as Ireland if the catholics and protestants in Scotland had been blowing each other up for the past 20 years?”

    Nope – because there are no heavy weight politicians of Scottish Catholic descent on Capitol Hill, or in US politics in general. Do you think the Windsor whatever would’ve been done if Uncle Sam wasn’t insisting the EU/UK NI/RoI/GB mess be sorted to ensure the continuation of the Good Friday Agreement? It’s the future of the GFA, on which any US/UK post-Brexit trade deal hangs, that’s driving it – nothing else.

  98. Gordon Gekko
    Ignored
    says:

    akenaton

    “Forbes has staying power, speaks well, has a grasp of economics”

    Clearly both you and Forbes has no idea about economics if you actually believe this nonsense.

    She is fully invested in

    a) The tax payer money myth.

    b) The government deficit and debt are like that of a household myths.

    c) The free market tooth fairy is always there with their chequebooks open ready to hire the unemployed myth.

  99. President Xiden
    Ignored
    says:

    I will say it again: SNP = Scottish Nonce Party.

  100. Gordon Gekko
    Ignored
    says:

    This is about the rub of it by David Jamieson. In my view one of the best I have read regarding the current situation.

    https://www.conter.scot/2023/3/1/the-snps-neoliberal-cartel-is-breaking-up/

    What isn’t mentioned by David is the fact that there is also another faction. That is the anti EU faction.. Who will only end up in two places. Either with the “true” left or the Tories. The only 2 camps that make a very good case against the EU.

    So here’s my prediction for what it is worth.

    Our parliament was designed to never have a majority. To keep a heel on our necks. To divide and conquer us. The next Scottish election will produce a hung parliament. With many divisions, with the days of the SNP getting most of the votes being over. The UK and Scottish establishment declaring a resounding victory over independence.

    All of Scotland’s assets will be sold off to the rent seekers from which to extract rent. As the Skye bridge economic model engulfs the whole of Scotland.

    It will set back the whole independence movement for decades to come.

  101. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    @ akenation you obviously didn’t watch ROS link to the Inverness knitting bee where the snp cultists were applauding anything Forbes or Useless uttered but were so reserved when the rebel Regan put forward reasonable suggestions

    You said Forbes had persuasive arguments in trying to convince no voters and undecided voters to vote for indy, and that’s what she said her policy would be to SHOW voters the benefits of independence

    That would be a reasonable position to put forward and for indy supporters to get behind
    BUT
    I have said it endlessly WHAT have the snp done or produced in the last 8 years to convince ANY voter to vote for indy, where is ALL the educational material, where is ALL the repudiations of WM lies , where are the figures to show voters that indy is doable , where are the figures to show WM is ripping us off , where is the evidence that Joe and Jill public will be better off
    So Kate Forbes is going to do the same as sturgeon, tell us mutts to get out and convince people and wait another 8 years for NOTHING , NADA , ZILCH

    TBQH I want the snp and everyone in it to be DESTROYED,the snp is no longer a political party it is a haven for deviants, perverts and paedophiles , supported by a shower of cultists who cannot think for themselves

  102. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    James F. Mcintosh says:
    4 March, 2023 at 10:16 pm
    Do you think we would have got the same deal as Ireland if the catholics and protestants in Scotland had been blowing each other up for the past 20 years?

    Yes, but with absolutely no need for violence.

    The Northern Irish backstop was based upon an international peace treaty.
    The Scottish backstop should have been based upon the Claim of Right.

    Both are International Treaties, but the signatories of one treaty demanded it be respected whereas the the signatories of the other treaty didn’t.

    If Sturgeon had defended the Claim of Right in 2016, the Treaty of Union would not have survived Brexit. Her capitulation threw away an open goal to secure Scotland’s Independence in 2016.

    Tho only question remaining is whether it was done through incompetence or design.

    That’s my answer James, but paradoxically however, you could be right too, and argue that the Claim of Right, at least the principle alluded to in the Declaration of Arbroath, was a Peace Treaty too, because there is a credible argument that the Pope’s recognition of the Declaration of Arbroath was eight years coming, and was related to the Edinburgh Northampton Agreement of 1328, an actual peace treaty between Scotland and England.

    All the Irish had in 2016, which Scotland lacked completely, was a moderate degree of constitutional literacy and political acumen. No need for any Scottish “troubles”.

  103. Lynn
    Ignored
    says:

    @twathater,

    I think your are exactly right . I enjoy this site I am not for or against independence or for or against W/M , I am absolutely disgusted at the state of politics and the lack of integrity throughout . So really it’s fertile soil .

    I would love to hear some convincing information and particularly around the economy and how that would be taken forward . But that’s not what I get . By the end of the first sentence it’s normally laden with an insult . I have only met one man who is able to explain some of it and has a very sharp mind on economic matters .

    I listened the other night and thought I heard absolutely nothing of a plan , just sound bites . No actual substance and that’s what I am sitting waiting on and I think one line is not enough . It ok saying get people chapping doors but now I would be wary of opening a door to anyone political . I would however sit and read a good proposal that was well written .

    Is that so impossible . No one has every asked me what would convince me . A thriving economy.

    Right now all I see is a brain drain of talent . Most of my friends kids are heading south or abroad . A relative moved a thriving business abroad . This is what I see . I would love to hear a plan that might encourage the next generation to stay .

    Right now I have never been so far removed from politics in my life .

  104. Robert Hughes
    Ignored
    says:

    ” Tho only question remaining is whether it was done through incompetence or design.”

    My instinct tells me it’s the latter , B .

    To think it was simply misfortune that just when the YES support had picked itself up after the disappointment of * losing * the Referendum ( hmmmm , aye , ” losing ” ? debatable at best ) and was more than determined than ever to keep the surge going , along comes the * gift * of a human wet blanket , dampening the fire and steering the energy generated by 2014 up one self-defeating blind alley after another , lobbing one IED into the YES unity after another and – as if that wasn’t sufficient damage , displaying unbelievable levels of incompetence in Government .

    How VERY convenient for our opponents , eh ?

    I suspect it may be a combination of being * compromised * ( or even the threat of same ) & personal ambition re her post- FM future, narcissistic / defective character traits that are behind the carnage she created and left in her wake

  105. Etticus
    Ignored
    says:

    I see we’ve been treated to some classic craig Murray again.

    He knows Humza Yousaf is a liar, a cheat, an adulterer, incompetent, stupid, arrogant, corrupt, part of the Sturgeon/Murrell cabal, was involved in the anti Alex Salmond conspiracy, puts the rights of rapists before women, a hypocrite, a danger to women and children, won’t progress independence….

    And yet craig Murray would vote for that man.

    That says it all.

    This sort of deranged cult behaviour is why we ended up with Nicola Sturgeon and it’s why craig Murray’s opinions on anything are worse less than zero.

    Humza Yousaf has no place in politics, any party that selects an idiot like him as even a candidate let alone a leadership candidate needs to take a serious look at itself.

    Craig Murray doesn’t support independence, he’s just got an axe to grind with the UK gov for firing him. Before he got in bother he was quite happy being a Lib Dem. His muddle headed hypocrisy exposes him every time.

  106. North chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    “ Twathater says @0310 am “ . “ So Kate Forbes is going to do the same as Sturgeon “ , hopefully not ! My interpretation was that Kate Forbes recognises where Sturgeon has failed ( No strategy and a list of associated failures which you highlight within your comments). Hopefully Kate Forbes realises that it requires our FM to propagate the case for Independence and the economic case will be a significant factor . Hence my interpretation is that Kate Forbes if elected will take the lead on this by making the economic case for Independence going forward . She needs to demonstrate to the people how they can have a better future as an independent state.
    As you say she needs to show where Scotland is being “ ripped off” by Westminster ( oil& gas for the past 50 years and now renewables ) . She needs to show how a small country should have a much lower administration cost as a proportion of GDP compared with the ridiculous 45 percent or thereabouts re the current Westminster government. She needs to commit to the establishment of the current “ reserved “ ministries to our major cities ( department of Energy Aberdeen , Tourism & environment Inverness, Home office Edinburgh , Health & Social security Dundee , Defence Stirling/Perth , Employment & Trade / Industry Glasgow etc
    Etc with the repatriation of thousands of Whitehall jobs to Scotland . Thereafter she needs to demonstrate how OUR Civil service can be run much more cost effectively than the present Westminster shambles .
    She needs to show how our Capital city of Edinburgh can benefit significantly economically & culturally from the influx of foreign embassies to our newly Independent state. . She needs to show how our Export led economy ( what’s left of Oil&gas , renewables, agriculture & fisheries , our unique & world class whisky industry etc etc would underpin our Scottish currency instead of being stolen from under our noses by Westminster, as is at present) .
    She needs to robustly counteract one of the principal arguements which will be deployed against Independence by the unionists ie Defence , by having a policy in place to ensure that Scotland will have a highly trained & skilled military with the very latest in technology as regards hardware . She needs to emphasise defence cooperation with our nearest neighbours both within the former UK and with our Scandinavian neighbours , Norway , Sweden, Finland Denmark , Ireland , Iceland , the Baltic states etc . ( Obviously NATO membership would be retained/expedited .
    In summary , not only does our new FM have to manage the devolved day to day government but concurrently move forward with the STRATEGY for INDEPENDENCE ( This is where Sturgeon singularly failed since 2014 ) and MAKE THE CASE to our people from DAY 1 ).
    My hope is that Kate Forbes not only knows what is required , she has given an unequivocal undertaking as I see it to take Scotland forward to Independence.
    If she wins , appoint Ash Regan as her deputy FM , as at the very least she has shown some “ guts” at the hustings . Something sadly lacking in recent times .
    Yes No more “begging “ Westminster for permission to have a vote on Independence. Hopefully “ those days are past”

  107. Big Jock
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert. The tragedy being. We could all have written the script. Divide and rule. Our masters had our own leaders do their dirty work. Humza is the final piece of the jigsaw.

    The patsy for the Murells , the Murrells the fifth columnists.

    The hardest question to address, is how we stop this?

    The SNP are the Ship Of Theseus.

    The Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment about whether an object which has had all of its original components replaced remains the same object.

  108. Big Jock
    Ignored
    says:

    Etticus…context!

    Craig said he would take Humza over Ross or any other unionist leader. That is not what you are suggesting. He is not endorsing Humza at all. He is suggesting he is the least worse out of 4 turds.

  109. President Xiden
    Ignored
    says:

    Big Jock 8:52
    ‘ The Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment about whether an object which has had all of its original components replaced remains the same object.’

    A bit like Cher?

  110. socratesmacsporran
    Ignored
    says:

    President Xiden

    Or Trigger’s Broom, Or Glasgow Rangers?

  111. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    President Xiden , not Cher more Joycelin Wildenstein.

  112. Etticus
    Ignored
    says:

    @big jock

    The problem with that is that some people (like Humza Yousaf) have no business in politics no matter what the context.

    Craig Murray seems to think living under a single party state, where freedom of speech (even inside your own home) is banned, the party leader is a puppet of corrupt people like Peter Murrell, where elections are rigged, where criminals are not only protected but the state conspires with them, where people are expected to ignore their eyes and ears and believe the “truth” the party dictates is independence.

    Independence should be about person freedom, about being closer to the decision making, making politicians accountable for their actions.

    What Craig Murray and the rest of the SNP cult want is anything but that, it’s about turning scotland into an open prison.

    In my view all 3 of the NewSNP leadership candidates are fundamentally flawed and will be incapable of winning over the people they need to, no voters.

    Yousaf I’ve dealt with. Regarding Forbes, anyone that believes in science denying creationism, while they can have these views if they want, isn’t fit to run a country and as for Regan she seems to be dealing in fantasy where things like mortgages and roofs over peoples heads don’t matter and she’s alienated all the people she needs to win over.

    The NewSNP is done in my view, it needs time out of government and if say Ash Regan is serious about having a top place in politics going forward the best thing for her to do would be to lose rather than inherit the poisoned chalice of SNP leadership now. No matter who wins I think the party will split and it will need to go away and rebuild itself because trotting out the same tired old crap it has been for the last 10 years isn’t working. The SNP hasn’t had a fresh idea or a leader who can win people over since Alex Salmond resigned.

    Just look at the state of the Westminster party. Stephen Flynn and Mhairi Black, one a dribbling idiot who’s a classic example of dunning Kruger who seems to have got high on his own supply, the other a parody of a poor person dreamt up by her well to do parents. Then we’ve got the Alyn smiths and Jon Nicolsons of this world, a pair of creepy self obsessed troughing parasites if there ever was such a thing. What a state. All thanks to people like Craig Murray. If someone isn’t fit for politics they aren’t fit, it doesn’t matter what colour rosette they wear because it won’t change who they are.

  113. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks says:5 March, 2023 at 7:16 am

    If Sturgeon had defended the Claim of Right in 2016, the Treaty of Union would not have survived Brexit.

    Breeks makes the usual mistake of assuming that in a multi-variable, real-world situation, where the values of all the variables are at least partially dependent on all of the others, that one variable could have been changed, and the rest would have remained the same.

    He assumes Scotland could and should have ignored the settled and persistent majority support for the Union just because of a disputed interpretation of the EU Referendum question.

    He makes the gigantic and completely unsubstantiated assumption that we would have voted exactly the same in the EU Referendum, even if told beforehand that a difference between our vote and the rUK vote would have automatically ended the UK.

    He leaves it unsaid, but accepts the risible claim (for about the thousandth time) that the EU would have let Scotland remain in the EU, but on the UK’s Terms & Conditions.

    It all hinges on that misinterpretation of the EU Referendum question that leads to the trope that Scotland was dragged out of the EU against its will.

    Realists will recall that Scots voted to retain the UK in the EU, as part of a referendum that asked everybody in the UK the same question. It is thus accurate to say that the UK was taken out of the EU against Scotland’s will, but in full compliance with the terms of the EU Referendum question.

    I could go further and claim some traction for the view that Scotland would like the UK to be back in the EU.

    Nobody can rationally claim to know anything about the view of Scots on the position of an Independent Scotland towards the EU.

    We have never been asked. We have never been told what the different options will cost us in terms of lost sovereignty and hard cash.

  114. McDuff
    Ignored
    says:

    North Chiel
    The sturgeon didn`t “fail” she was a great success, given her “strategy” and behaviour which can only be interpreted as a desire to destroy the SNP and with it independence.

  115. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Lynn says:5 March, 2023 at 7:43 am

    I would love to hear some convincing information and particularly around the economy and how that would be taken forward . But that’s not what I get . By the end of the first sentence it’s normally laden with an insult

    I listened the other night and thought I heard absolutely nothing of a plan , just sound bites

    Welcome to the club! Keep asking and you might eventually be told to “just have faith”, or be presented with arithmetic as follows:

    If Scotland has a GDP of £X per annum, and there are Y Scots, then post-Indy, each Scot will get £X/Y per annum.

    I would be wary of opening a door to anyone political

    My intention is to have just one question prepared for any doorstepper and to insist on a straightforwards answer:

    “What is a woman?”

    That should be enough to separate the wheat from the SNP & Green chaff.

    My opinion has always been that the Indy movement needs to tap into the stereotypical image of the grasping Scot and show us the money. That has the important side effect of converting the ever-increasing numbers of New Scots to Indy as well, because they are, by definition, even more rapacious, greedy and sharp-elbowed than us locals. It’s why they sell up and move half way around the world to come here.

    Broaden the attraction of Indy by soft-pedalling on irrelevant hobby horses and sideshows such as abolition of the monarchy, revenge for Brexit and Culloden, etc. etc. and Indy would have a solid majority around 70% IMO.

    As somebody once said: “It’s the economy, stupid”.

  116. David Hannah
    Ignored
    says:

    I love this Ash Regan, just listened to her on Kussenberg. She’s brilliant!

    The Independence convention.

    The Independence infrastructure.

    The independence thermometer.

    The independence case in the hands of the people. 50 + 1 test. Clear. Straightforward, internationally recognised.

    It’s a Yes from Ash. She wants to surround herself with the best.

  117. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Etticus says:5 March, 2023 at 9:38 am

    Regarding Forbes, anyone that believes in science denying creationism, while they can have these views if they want, isn’t fit to run a country

    I can’t find any source for your claim that Forbes is a Creationist. I can’t find any source stating that the Free Church Of Scotland believes in literal Creationism.

    These are serious claims you are making. Please provide evidence.

  118. Alf Baird
    Ignored
    says:

    North chiel @ 8:48 am

    “my interpretation is that Kate Forbes if elected will take the lead on this by making the economic case for Independence going forward . she needs to show where Scotland is being “ ripped off” by Westminster”

    What does Forbes know about ‘the economy’, she is barely out of uni with a history degree? Any new FM should first read this by Sara Salyers and Salvo:
    https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2023/03/04/all-scotland-needs-to-know-this-we-are-being-robbed-daily/

    A new FM would be better advised to take these multiple treaty violations (which includes our nation being ‘ripped off’) directly to an international court. As the treatment of Scotland has been and remains unlawful then this must be remedied.

    Looks to me as if Forbes and Yousaf, like Sturgeon, are more than content to leave Scotland subject to a repeatedly violated and highly damaging treaty agreement, happy to administer the colonial department on behalf of our oppressor, nothing more.

  119. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Scotland being a sovereign country is the only country who voted remain who has not been permitted to remain.

    We see a stolen colony across the Irish Sea who voted remain who have been permitted to remain after billions having been spent on supporting that desire and as Scots money goes to
    Westminster we were actually paying to deliver remain in N Ireland.

    Scotland now sees that they are no longer in the running for any major manufacturer looking to set up in the U.K. They would be incredibly stupid not to have N Irelands free access to both markets.

    We have been labelled a Colony with no powers that cannot be over ruled and a lesser Colony
    than N Ireland.

    First and foremost I refuse to accept that my country, Scotland, is a powerless 2nd rate trophy of the Empire.

    The Tories said it was unacceptable for the EU to influence laws in other countries and they condemn Russia as a large country should never hold power over another neighbouring country.
    Not only do they suggest this is fine for Scotland but we have never even crossed their minds.

  120. Andrew scott
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh dear a very wishy washy interview by KF this am on the guiser prog
    Unimpressed

  121. Bernard de Linton
    Ignored
    says:

    Etticus.Perfect description in your last 2 posts.i totally agree.

  122. James
    Ignored
    says:

    John Main: “….It all hinges on that misinterpretation of the EU Referendum question that leads to the trope that Scotland was dragged out of the EU against its will….”

    We voted to leave then did we?

    You’re an unashamed Tory Brexiteer.

    Only a fool would vote for Brexit. How’s your fruit and veg supply doing?

  123. Shug
    Ignored
    says:

    National has big article on Forbes and Humza and only passing mentions of Regan.

    That tells you something, they really hate the independence now message.

    Not dissimilar to the national not banging the drum on Scots paying £1000 more for energy than the rest of the UK.

  124. Etticus
    Ignored
    says:

    @john main

    I suggest you get better at research. The free church campaigned for the teaching of creationism in schools. I used to work with a wee free whose father in law was a wee free Minister.

    Outwardly an intelligent and capable guy, but he was also an alpha course tutor and as fundamental Christian as you could get. Now nothing wrong with that but it meant that he would not make a good leader of a country as his beliefs meant he ignored scientific fact in favour of scripture.

  125. Gordon Gekko
    Ignored
    says:

    Here’s the problem and probably Ash is the only person that might understand it via some people in the Common Weal. I mean very few within the Common Weal.

    What many placard waving ideologues don’t realise is that the private sector of a given industry often exists as a peripheral cluster around a state-led anchor company/policy.

    The bigger scale (heavy machinery) the more this is rather than smaller (restaurants).

    The single market is a terrible thing.It is where all the nasty stuff is in the EU treaties. So that Brussels and the EU control spend and tax government policies.

    We should decide our own spend and tax as a sovereign nation state. Using our own free floating currency and reign in the rent seekers and commercial banks. Leaving the only constraints on spend and tax as the skills and real resources we have as a nation. Nobody talks about these constraints our skills and real resources. They falsely claim the deficit and the debt are the constraints. Use the household analogy myth, the tax payer money myth, to privatise anything that isn’t nailed down.

    The neo-liberal era has also been marked by a major reduction in Departmental capacity to design and implement fiscal policy – given the obsession with monetary policy and the major outsourcing of “fiscal-type” government services to the private sector. Many of the major government policy departments in the advanced nations are now just contract managers for outsourced service delivery.

    So this diminution in the overall capacity of the government machine to implement efficiently and speedily complicated nation-wide infrastructure programs has to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

    So what is the cost the actual cost ?

    Most people define it in monetary terms. The number of blips created from thin air by the issuer of the currency. That is a huge mistake as the numbers are irrelevant. The real cost is in people and real resources. what the government proposes to use the skills real resources for, where it is going to get those skills real resources from, and what the alternative uses are/ were for those skills real resources.

    What is so revealing about debates over military spending. When the chips are down the numbers become irrelevant. Not one government minister anywhere has ever said that they can’t bomb Baghdad, Bazra or the Balkans because they don’t have the budget.

    Of course that is because the numbers are indeed largely irrelevant for all government spending. In fact the numbers have become a mechanism in debates to avoid talking about the substance of government intervention in the economy?—?what the government proposes to use real resources for, where it is going to get those real resources from, and what the alternative uses are for those skills and real resources.

    I listened to the parliamentary debate about Trident. and it struck me early on that people were mostly pulling figures out of the air, and that the government had not actually put a figure forward for the monetary cost of Trident. A few MPs actually asked that precise question and didn’t receive an answer.

    That is to be expected, because Trident costs what it costs to produce. Whatever is required to get the job done will be procured and placed at the disposal of the project. The cost, as with any government intervention, has nothing to do with money. If it is available for sale in the government’s denomination, then the government can always purchase it?—?whether that is missile systems or social housing. And, if it wants to, it can set the price in its own currency?—?simply by banning or restricting alternative uses of those resources until it gets what it needs. You see this all the time when a country is at war, but people act like Homer Simpson when you suggest it at other times.

    The cost is, in fact, the people and resources required to create and build the submarines, crew the submarines and the ancillary services and suppliers that feed into the process. The unions representing these workers asked what else these people would be doing instead if Trident was not renewed, and there were very few answers to be had on that point in the debate. MPs opposed to Trident failed to make any reasonable case for alternative used of these skills and real resources.

    Most MPs opposing the motion talked in terms of money, about how the money could be spent on the NHS, social care, or housing. But again the use of figures masked the actual problem.

    The problem is never finding the money. An index finger and a computer keyboard and a spending bill passed in parliament finds The money. The votes that passed the spending bill funds it.

    The ship builders on the Clyde, or in Barrow don’t get up in the morning and think “today I’ll be a doctor”. The Navy staff don’t decide that they will build houses on a Thursday instead of piloting boats. It’s a ridiculous notion, and one that is rightly dismissed by the unions as hand-waving.

    But it shows how ill-informed our representatives are about the way government spending works. They implicitly rely upon the magic of the tooth fairy – free markets to provide ship builders, navy crew and parts manufacturers with alternative orders and engagements. The tooth fairy assumes that people are mutable between professions at the snap of a finger.

    It was down to Scottish National MPs to make an actual case. The engineers engaged in Trident could perhaps be used to create more wind farms, or renew other Navy vessels instead of Trident. But it didn’t seem to be at the scale or intensity require to replace the whole of the Trident proposal. Certainly I found no comfort in the suggestions, and I doubt the unions would either.

    Those opposing Trident failed to win the argument on that point alone. They really had no alternative plan for the people working in the industries. And that always seems to be the case. When government lays people off, there is never a list of private sector employers sat there with cheque books at the ready. Even outsourcing’s open secret is that it is really a way for government to fire people without getting their hands dirty.

    Government never seems to realise that the only way it can fire people is if they are hired and retained by the private sector. If that doesn’t happen then government just goes from paying people to do something, to paying people to do nothing. Hardly a sensible approach and what a job guarentee program would fix in a heart beat.

    So we have learnt a great deal from this debate:

    1. When the chips are down numbers become irrelevant to a government, because they are largely irrelevant. Government spending is a matter of people and stuff. Always is. Always will be

    2. Numbers are used by those in charge as a way of avoiding the difficult questions relating to real people and alternative uses. Used by ideologues to save placards and shout slogans.

    3. Government is very willing to deploy vast quantities of people and resources on a huge white elephant project, but refuses to do so on anything more useful to mankind.

    It is time to break down the frame of numbers. It is time to refuse to speak in terms of numbers, and start talking only in terms of people and real resources required to get things done.

    That way we can avoid the nonsense of pretending submarine crew can become surgeons overnight. We can address the actual shortage of skilled staff without believing they will magically pop into being just because you’ve taxed some rich people.

    And we can debate the actual use of the nation’s skills and real resources and ask if what people are currently doing is actually the best thing they could be doing.

    The only constraint on government spending is the skills and real resources we have available. Trade is the same get rid of the numbers and actually look at what people are doing with the real resources instead. What type of real resources we receive from other countries.

    No raid on wallets required. As it is spend then collect the tax. Not collect the tax then spend.

    Forbes thinks skills can be moved around like ignots of steel and there’s always the free market sitting with Chromebook open ready to hire the unemployed.

    Forbes will make the same mistakes Thatcher made when she moved vast amounts of skills and real resources out of mining and ship building and low end manufacturing into services and high end manufacturing. Forbes will create mass unemployment like Thatcher did because of her failure to understand the failure of supply side economics. When Forbes carries out her green transition and moving the vast amount of skills and real resources that will be required.

  126. Etticus
    Ignored
    says:

    @effigy

    A yes vote in 2014 would have mean scotland out the EU and UK and I was perfectly happy with that being an old school jim Sillars type nationalist.

    Pretending scotland would slip seamlessly into that corrupt, broken and anti democratic shambles that is the EU is just fantasy. It would not be independence either; we’d be subservient to unelected Eurocrats.

    The reasons scotland has declined these last few years is Nicola Sturgeon. Instead of working with people to encourage business and enterprise like Salmond did she’s made free enterprise a crime in Scotland. People genuinely think that the way to get ahead is for the state to provide, a state that Nicola Sturgeon bankrupted. Sturgeon has achieved nothing these last few years; her time in office will looked back at as a black hole, a dark ages so to speak where the scotland we all know and love was snuffed out by a corrupt and incompetent personality cult

    Of course the reason Nicola Sturgeon was allowed to do this was people who ignored their eyes and ears and elected her despite the fact she was unfit for office, corrupt, incompetent (and at the last election they also knew she was a criminal). So ultimately the people responsible for the current state of Scotland are NewSNP cult members. I hope they are proud of what they’ve done.

  127. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    I see a few desperate comments attacking Craig Murray’s independence credentials, very few have done more to further the indy cause than Murray, the Rev being one of them, so I have to chuckle when I read such dross.

  128. Gordon Gekko
    Ignored
    says:

    This is how you do it.

    A bottom up grass roots approach instead of a top down economic approach.

    When moving vasts amounts of both skills and real resources which are the only constraints you have as a nation. You run a job guarentee beside it to catch the unemployed. You reign in The rent seekers and force them to compete for Labour for the first time in 50 years. Knock them off their monopoly perch from which they extract rent.

    You reign in the commercial banks.

    You take the view that monetary policy is largely useless as a stabilisation device, and what is known as the horizontal circuit (“bank money”) should be left to operate as a market rather than being manipulated all the time. Therefore you leave the base rate at the natural rate of 0% and stop artificially trying to hold it above that, particularly stop moving it around.

    What that means is that government stops paying banks “welfare on reserves” payments. No Interest on Reserves. No Bond Coupons. Any income banks earn they have to get by discounting collateral in the private economy and charging for that service (aka making loans).

    System stabilisation can then be done using the vertical circuit (“central bank money”) which is added and removed as required to commercial bank’s balance sheets and forcibly creates additional bank deposits in the hands of individuals – because bank money is pegged one-to-one to central bank money.

    The result is that the bank money system operates within a containment vessel defined by fixed banking policies, not ones that change month to month, and the banking system ebbs and flows within the policy boundaries, with the government’s vertical system counter cyclically matching the ebb and flow.

    This is where the Job Guarantee sits. The wage is paid with vertical money and matches the ebb and flow of bank money spending countercyclically. But importantly it does the same thing on the production side with labour hours – injecting and removing labour hours countercyclically with private and public sector demand keeping labour hours near constant relative to the working population.

    A guaranteed alternative job replaces bank credit manipulation as the stabilisation process. The production system gets a change in output, not a dead loss. You get income in your pocket, not a debt millstone around your neck.

    And that’s how you get to true full employment and price stability within an economic system where demand is satisfied.

    https://new-wayland.com/blog/running-a-modern-money-economy/

    There’s no reason to issue government debt. The only bonds an independent Scotland needs are Granny bonds.

    https://new-wayland.com/blog/the-only-bonds-we-need-are-granny-bonds/

    Financial Stabilisation:

    When you move from the JG to the private sector, government spending reduces as the private sector spending increases. This is because your wage is now paid by the private sector, not the government.

    When a private sector firm goes bust, you lose your private sector wage and get a job guarantee wage – which may be lower. That increases government spending as the private sector spending is withdrawn, and nips back any boom wages that may not have been justified since the bust operation failed to push forward productivity.

    Those payments and reductions are spatially targeted precisely where they are required. So you can have an area where private sector employment is increasing. Government spending on JG jobs will reduce in that area. While at the same time, the JG is increasing spending in a weak area elsewhere in the country.

    That’s the financial stabilisation half.

    Expectation Stabilisation :

    The JG wage is a fixed living income wage. It never competes on price.

    Because there are people on the JG, working and turning up every day, that is a greater threat to the living wage worker in the private sector – since they can be more easily replaced if they ask for more money.

    However, the worker doesn’t have to put up with sweat shop wages and can move to the JG at will. So Uber et al have to pay a wage that reflects the risk and reward of the job or they won’t get any labour.

    Similarly if a firm tries to raise its prices because they now can’t pay sweat shop wages, then that negates the “non-competitive” protection in the JG and JG labour can be used by social enterprises/local democracy to replace the operation trying to raise its prices.

    The result is that firms that drive quantity expansion by automation are favoured. Firms can shed labour as automation proceeds, safe in the knowledge that the JG will catch those people and make sure they have a job and an income in the area they want to live in.

    Demand stays up and productivity is driven forward, and that is where the higher level wage increases can come from.

    That’s the expectation stabilisation half.

    JG is a credible threat to both workers and firms. The only degree of freedom left is to do more with less.

    Both the financial half and the expectations half work together to anchor wages and prices.

    Either you have an unemployment buffer doing the stabilisation (as we have now) or you have an employed buffer. The MMT analysis is that the employed buffer is superior, to the extent that it can replace the interest rate targeting mechanism we have now and base rates can be left at 0% permanently.

    Which ensures mortgages remain low.

  129. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Ash Regan defends Scotland’s right to say no, as the other two continuity candidates keep quiet. Alas (HES) Historic Environment Scotland whose board is picked by Sturgeon’s government will more than likely hand it over to England before this farce of a contest is over.

    “ASH Regan has said that she would refuse to return the Stone of Destiny to England for King Charles’s coronation.

    The SNP leadership hopeful said she would stop the transfer of the ancient artefact should she become first minister, saying that it needs to stay in its “rightful place”.”

    https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenational.scot%2Fnews%2F23363884.ash-regan-says-block-stone-destiny-returning-coronation%2F

  130. akenaton
    Ignored
    says:

    Can someone please explain, what is this “Nu SNP”? They appear to be the same seat warmers who were always the SNP.
    I joined by being influenced by Jim Sillars, Salmond and a few others whom I felt were authentic, The rump of the Party were always apparatchik arseholes, this was brought home to me after conversations with our Argyll MSP and has anyone actually tried to converse with Mike Russell?
    I’m beginning to think it is simply an extension of the Braveheart cult, tailored to provide as much gravy as possible to the incumbents of HR.

    The dream is dead and I don’t think given the state of world politics, we have time to resuscitate it.
    There is a distinct possibility that we are gobbled up again by the failing EU and looking forward I visualise involvement in a killing war with the East, US isolationism and permanent enslavement. We have not been concentrating for the last 20 yrs, the world has moved on while we re-enacted Culloden, Flodden, The King ower the Watter, The Clearances, Evil Thatcher, Glasgow Rangers. Ah blame it aw oan the “pictures” masell?!

  131. akenaton
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry Etticus cross posted, but you are so right. I needn’t have bothered adding to what you have said.

  132. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @James says:5 March, 2023 at 10:50 am

    We voted to leave then did we?

    The UK voted to leave, yes. It was a UK vote. Read the question again, maybes you will understand it this time around.

    You’re an unashamed Tory Brexiteer.

    Deploy the insults! The arguments aren’t working!

    Only a fool would vote for Brexit.

    If you say so. I guess then, that in your world, only fools vote for a smaller country to leave a union with bigger countries, in the hope that the smaller country will do better for itself. Whoopsee! The case for Indy just sunk without trace!

    How’s your fruit and veg supply doing?

    I’m a Scot. I never touch the stuff. Assuming you are a regular consumer, it’s not doing anything for your cognitive abilities. Maybes cut down eh?

  133. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Etticus says:5 March, 2023 at 10:54 am

    I suggest you get better at research

    I suggest that as you are already a self-id-ing research expert, you provide a link to Kate Forbes stating she believes in literal Creationism.

    Then again, if you wish to be written off as just another who is making it up as they go along, you can continue as you are.

  134. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    The useless Fergus Ewing bigging up Kate Forbes, Ewing even has the chutzpah to say that its Forbes that Westminster fears becoming FM, when its actually Ash Regan they fear.

    There’s only one true independence candidate and that’s Ash Regan, the ruddy faced Ewing should stick to what he knows best, and that’s coming out of my local Sainsbury’s with a bottle of alcohol in each hand, head down afraid to look anyone in the eye incase they ask him a question on why the SNP under Sturgeon’s tenure has been so bad.

    https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenational.scot%2Fpolitics%2F23363586.fergus-ewing-endorsing-kate-forbes%2F

  135. craig murray
    Ignored
    says:

    Etticus,

    I have no idea who you are or what your peculiar motivation is to come here and lie about me. But to be clear.

    I am a member of the Alba Party.

    I support Ash Regan and then Kate Forbes in the current SNP leadership election. I would vote Ash 1 and Kate 2. Though I am obliged to say I am worried that Ash is being intimidated away from her more radical Independence position.

    The tweet to which you refer stated specifically I do not want Humza to win this current election.

    It then said that I would still prefer Humza as FM over Douglas Ross, Anas Sarwar or the Lib Dem arse. WHich is true.

    But unless the SNP adopts a more positive approach to Independence – which is most unlikely under Humza – I shall be arguing Alba must stand to replace the SNP in all elections, including FPTP.

  136. Gordon Gekko
    Ignored
    says:

    The MASSIVE issue with Kate Forbes which will cause huge problems for us is that Kate completely fails to understand

    The paradox of productivity.

    Her History degree fails not only to understand it but not even recognise it.

    The neoclassical Keynsian, monetarist and Austrian view still believes that the economy tends to fix itself. If we just sit back economic growth will go back to its maximum. That’s Kate’s belief.

    Unemployment will drop to 2% what we consider full employment but it might need some help now and then. The Paul Krugman mainstream view. That There are no business cycles. Remember that when the globalist neoliberal UK Parliament via Gordon Brown claimed the business cycle is dead. That’s Kate’s world view that neoliberal globalist Brussels will save us.

    However, you could have the purist free market economy in the world but still have BIG unemployment numbers because the system tends to move towards breakdown.

    Why ? Why does the system tend to move towards breakdown ? Kate has no idea it even tends to move towards breakdown. Human Mynsky understood it very well.

    “Why can’t it be that higher wages force firms to invest in better management techniques and the most advanced technologies in order to get the most out of their higher cost labour?”

    That’s known as the paradox of productivity. Productivity improvements just lead to falling prices, so firms try to avoid doing productivity improvements and prefer to try and obtain monopoly power instead. That’s what a ‘market niche’ is. That is what neoliberal globalism is.

    Oh boy have we seen this monopoly power as the public sector was transformed into rent seeking monopolies. With a big 2 or 3 in each sector rigging the prices between themselves.

    Higher wages will lead to some firms failing, which releases people onto the labour market, driving down wages. If you try to hold those jobs up, and force losses onto the other side you end up with an investment strike and the whole house of cards collapses into stagflation.

    Remember those privatised public services threatening the government with investment strikes last year. I do as the rent seekers refused to cooperate .

    Failing to match higher wages with higher product *must* result in *both* investment capital and the demanding wage earners taking a cold bath. The economic system is a referee. It must not favour either side in the football match.

    ” And why would firms in a competitive capitalistic system ever try to avoid productivity improvements? ”

    Simple-

    Compare the cost of a concert violinist to a loaf of bread in the 19th century vs today. That’s what productivity increases do over time – because it takes less human time to produce an item, and time is really what everything ends up being priced in.

    That’s the paradox of productivity. Productivity improvements ultimately leads to cheaper prices not increased profits. Because that’s what competition is there to do. The profits can go further – in that they can buy more stuff. But capitalists and rent seekers like to accumulate units of account.

    In essence and what Kate doesn’t understand the dynamics of pure competition leads to an oversupply in the market which brings prices down until firms start to go bust to eliminate the oversupply. Therefore market players try to stop competition happening by constantly seeking a monopoly perch on which to extract rent.

    Oh boy we have we seen this happening time and time again.

    The myths of free market beliefs say it all sorts itself out. It clearly doesn’t. The system has to force competition onto essentially reluctant players, and eliminating the clarion call of “what about the jobs” is one way of doing that – let bad firms go bust. Create a job guarentee to catch the unemployed so that the dead wood can be purged from the system.

    A company that can produce more with the same inputs (costs) is going to do that if there is a market for their product.

    That’s the huge problem, there isn’t. Because the costs is the income that is used to buy the product (in aggregate). Henry Ford was the first to point that out.

    If you expand output then you are selling to the same income which implies the price must go down to shift the increased amount of stuff. Theoretically their competition will eventually learn how to do the same and the excess profit will disappear.

    Not theoretically. That is exactly what happens. The dynamics of market share maintenance then kick in and prices go down. You get a short uplift and then a nosedive. When you’ve been in business long enough you know that getting into a niche is better than constantly trying to run up the down escalator. Because items are ultimately priced in person time used to create them.

    Kate fails to understand this. Believes in the free market tooth fairy.

    Crucially what it boils down to is actual demand must match actual supply at the point of effective demand – whatever Kate’s plans are. She simply doesn’t get it.

    ” Effective demand” is a whole different ball game compared with aggregate demand. Not recognising effective demand is the failure of supply side economics. Kate’s world view.

    As explained beautifully here – Training does not equal jobs. Effective demand does.

    https://www.billmitchell.org/blog/?p=1868

  137. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    Following the announcement of the date for Charles’s coronation, a debate over where the stone should be kept resurfaced with more than 3000 people signing a petition calling for it to remain in Scotland.

    Good to see Regan speaking out for 3000 of us Scots.

    I had kinda hoped she might have more important things concerning the other 5,497,000 Scots to care about, but maybes she has already thrown in the towel.

    Jeezo.

  138. Etticus
    Ignored
    says:

    @republicofscotland

    I’m presuming you were a NewSNP 1&2 voter last election.

  139. Anton Decadent
    Ignored
    says:

    Re disconnection from politics. Up until 2010 I had never voted, I saw the entire political class/machine as malevolent spivs. I then fell in with the if you do not vote you can’t complain mantra and voted three times over the next decade, SNP 1, Green 2 then SNP 1 and no 2 then Alba 1 and no 2 and I am now back where I was thinking that the entire political class/machine are malevolent spivs. I am waiting for someone to represent me and my interests and hope that I have the critical skills necessary to recognise this when I see it.

    Re the abandonment of women by the political class, back in 2014 a march was held in Govanhill by womens rights groups in response to the spiralling sex crime figures in the area. The march drew thousands, as a local I attended to show support and then witnessed the spirit of the march being snuffed out and replaced with Roma Day marches, DARVO in action. People had it made very clear to them that support of women, in particular white women, would have a very damaging effect on their careers and, in my own case, even personal safety. About a year ago I went and looked up the website of the people who had organised the march and it appeared to have been abandoned by them and taken over by TRA mentalists.

    Making it clear to people that they are of less value than imported organised crime groups is not conducive to maintaining their support.

  140. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Etticus.

    You presume wrong.

  141. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @akenaton says:5 March, 2023 at 11:28 am

    Best post on this thread so far, thanks.

    Or maybes, the post that best aligns so far with my views 🙂

    Rev Stu doesn’t like us discussing the war, and that’s fair enough – it’s his site. A short-sighted attitude IMO.

    In reality, it’s now escalating war until one of the sides can claim victory. If “our” side wins, we may be allowed Indy by the big players, once it is clear post-war that the big players can cope with the potential disruption to the flow of Scotland’s energy resources, and the damage to the US hegemonic position that will arise from the break up of the UK (and thus the loss of the US’s “second vote” at the UN).

    If “our” side loses, all bets are off, as the UK, the EU, wider Europe, the US, and the West as a geopolitical concept, will bear little resemblance to what we see today, once the new anti-western powers are calling the shots in the NWO.

    Interesting times.

  142. Effigy
    Ignored
    says:

    Etticus – of course I respect you have your own opinion on the EU.

    I can’t see why anyone wouldn’t want to be in the world’s biggest trade market.
    28 countries had seen the benefit and their is a queue to get other countries in.

    Quite a thought all those countries are wrong and the English Tory elitists are right.

    If Scotland was in the EU we would be an equal partner rather than our current status of a controlled English Shire with no economic leavers or real powers.

    It was never explained to me at Indy Ref 1 how if Scotland broke away from the U.K., the U.K. being a treaty between Scotland and England only, the England would remain in the EU when their declared equal partner has ceased the UK’s existence.

    How could a country called the U.K. that no longer exists remain in the EU.

    If Scotland was asked to reapply then equally England would have to.

    Sure the EU is far from perfect but as I’ve listed many times look at the catastrophic disaster Westminster and the English electorate has imposed on Scotland.

    I seen Kate Forbes on TV earlier and like every other SNP official I don’t see them prepared with the right answers to Unionist questions.

    I.E. Scotlands islands needs many more new ferries- how can they trust SNP?

    What the answer should be is that they tried to save jobs in Scotland for Scotland.
    We tried to put experienced professionals in post to carry out the work and it has been a let down.
    Can I ask you the interviewer if you or the BBC has asked Tory Ministers if they could ever be trusted with £150 million down the drain with Grayling’s nonexistent Brexit ships, or the late and £600 million over spend on London Crossrail or the HS2 English rail project now estimated at £60 BILLION overspend and no longer starting or finishing in the desired destinations. You could also ask them about the £45 Billion on the world beating Track and Trace project no other country would touch with a barge pole.

    While we are looking at performance you can look at Labours Edinburgh’s Tram link disaster and the Holyrood build that again was late on the £30 Million proposed cost that had the plug pulled on its accounts when it reached £400 million.

    The BBC can answer how their director general got the job for introducing Boris to a contact willing to give him access to £800,000 unsecured loan.

    Attack the bastards with a mirror and facts at every opportunity.

    Look how we’ll Ireland is supported and how just about every EU member has more workers rights, better pensions and earlier retirement.

  143. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Republicofscotland says:
    4 March, 2023 at 8:23 pm

    “Independence will now mean “The long haul”. Regan is a lightweight”

    akenaton.

    Regan isn’t a lightweight, on the contrary she’s breath of fresh air, for eight years we’ve suffered Sturgeon’s poisonous fumes of lie….

    I don’t think Regan is a lightweight, but if she sets the SNP onto the correct trajectory, (and it sounds like she’s the only one trying), she doesn’t need to be. The Claim of Right and sovereign constitution will do a lot of the heavy lifting, and if the one party SNP approach can be “mellowed” into a wider YES Movement alliance backing a Convention of the Estates, then we will not be so dependent upon any one individual being either a lightweight or a heavyweight.

    What Regan seems to have which the other two don’t, is vision; a clear perception of where we are versus where we need to be.

    In that context, she is front runner by a country mile. The other two are still in the starting blocks. As far as I can see, IF people want Independence, this is a one horse race.

    The SNP’s problem is the “if”.

    Give the Indy people a good option, even stubborn cattle in the SNP, and there’s a fighting chance they’ll take it.

    Looking at it from the reverse perspective, those people who reject Regan as leader, are in truth, rejecting a whole lot more than her leadership. They are rejecting and turning their back on a resurrection of the YES Movement; it’s plan, it’s people, it’s cameraderie.

    By similar implication, “IF” those same people actually want Humza, they are choosing a continuation of all that has gone wrong under Sturgeon and Peter Murrell. I fear such people are no further good to us in the Independence struggle.

    The SNP might have badly taken their eye off the ball under Sturgeon, but ALBA did not, and the SSRG and SALVO have been doing a power of work that has yet to bear fruit, but I firmly believe it is coming for a’ that.

    This is NOT the time for SNP introspection, although I fear that’s what many SNP people have on their agenda.

    I don’t care about Regan’s leadership credentials. She is the necessary cog which fits the machinery. YES is in a much better place if she wins.

  144. Etticus
    Ignored
    says:

    @craig Murray

    I tell no lies. You know how unfit Humza Yousaf is. You know Yousaf pulled strings as justice minister to protect Nicola Sturgeon and allow her to avoid giving evidence in court during Alex Salmond’s trial. You know he is an enemy of free speech. You know he’s been a failure at every single thing he’s done. You know the consequences of electing him will likely include innocent people going to jail and the crimes of Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell being erased….

    Yet You choose to ignore your eyes and ears because the fool standing for election is wearing the right colour of rosette. Thing is you are not the only one who is prepared to wheesht for Indy but given the information you are privy to regarding the endemic corruption of the SNP your stance is worse than some ordinary Joe voter who’s swallowed the lies of the national.

    And while I have your attention, I have no idea what you are playing at re MacDonalds emails. If it had been me in your shoes I’d have handed them over to various journos anonymously and hoped they did their worst as well as getting them hosted on a website somewhere so anyone could read them. No one would have known it was me it just would have happened. Sitting on and editing them looks awfully like them being used for self promotion tether than ripping another piece of the scab off the SNP.

    I never thought I’d be wishing we had more journalists like Elizabeth Oakcroft or whatever her name is, but they way she has exposed the clown Hancock is tremendous. Just dump the whole putrid mess out in the public forum and let the public decide. That’s how you do it.

  145. fruitella the hun
    Ignored
    says:

    extract from Iain Stewart The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland 7:43 pm, 16th March 2021 speaking in Westminster:

    Let me take each issue in turn. In this House, matters of parliamentary privilege are regulated by Parliament alone. Parliament holds sole jurisdiction—known as exclusive cognisance—over all matters that are subject to parliamentary privilege. That principle underpins all privilege, with article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1689 being the most important statutory expression. It says that the

    “freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament”.

    In comparison, Members of the Scottish Parliament are protected against defamation as set out in section 41 of the Scotland Act 1998 but are not covered by article 9 of the Bill of Rights, so they have fewer protections. It is within the gift of the Scottish Parliament to amend the situation if it so wishes. As my right hon. Friend will know, there are Scottish Parliament elections in a couple of months’ time; the new Parliament can explore this matter, should it wish.

    The second point is on the dual role of the Lord Advocate, who is the Scottish Government’s most senior Law Officer and principal legal adviser. Although not a member of the Scottish Government Cabinet, he or she may attend Cabinet in that capacity, and they represent the Government in civil proceedings. Given the inclusion in the 1998 Act of the role of the Lord Advocate, any formal separation of their responsibilities would require legislation in Westminster

    ———-

    Full piece on “they work for you” website. Found whilst musing about the sort of links we find in some countries between organised crime funds, law enforcement, the judiciary and the legislators. Reference to AS is coincidental, the search was on parliamentary privilege in Scotland.

    https://archive.vn/NVLa6

  146. Etticus
    Ignored
    says:

    @effigy

    The EU stopped being a free trade block the day it was created out of the EEC. The EU is about creating a European superstate and destroying nation states in the continent of Europe.

    If the EU was so great why is that after 30 years of membership scotland trades 5x more with the England wales and Northern Ireland than it does with the entire EU? That’s because the EU is not about trade, it’s about bribing nations into giving up their democratic freedoms. I’m of the view that the EU is not going to last, people’s will only allow themselves to be bullied into compliance for so long. .

    I also detect a little element of excusing SNP corruption because of disasters south of the border. Excusing the SNP got us here, they have done their best to destroy everything that Alex Salmond achieved and we’ve gone from his approach of using good governance as a means of converting people to making an utter mess of everything and then saying “aye but in England” or “it’s englands fault”. Sturgeon seems to have gone through life screwing up and the. saying “it wisnae me” and some bizzare reason she got away with it and for some even more bizzare reason millions of Scot’s have bought that life strategy as a credible way to run a country. It isn’t.

  147. craig murray
    Ignored
    says:

    Etticus,

    You do indeed have no idea.

    I have directly offered access to the emails to several newspapers, including the Herald and the National. All have refused, citing legal grounds. (In fact of course they have zero interest in exposing NATO stooges).

    I am not the only person who has the emails by any means. It is not my cache, I did not hack them, I just have been given access, and indeed I need to discuss what I do with them with others.

    Now piss off.

  148. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Etticus – That’s seems easy enough to answer. The EU does want to build a super state with free easy movement and trade between them.
    Protecting each other and giving smaller countries equal status at the negotiating tables.
    They funded numerous projects in poorer areas in Scotland and Wales that England neglected.

    Scotland trades mainly with England because that is the way England designed it and imposed it.

    I’ve got to laugh out loud at your suggestion the EU bribing nations to give up their democratic freedoms.

    You have noticed that if every single possible Brexit vote in Scotland we would still have been dragged out of the EU against our will?

    You did notice every English Party walk out of Westminster walk out as SNP stood to deliver their thoughts on Brexit?

    You did notice that Englands Supreme Court ruled that Scotland has no powers whatsoever
    that England cannot over rule?

    I recall Canada seeking a trade deal with the EU where every state was in agreement except
    Wallonia, a very small state in Belgium that has very significantly more powers than Scotland.
    The agreement was tweaked to take account of Wallonia’s grievances.

    We owe it to Westminster corruption and lies that we never got to benefit from our oil reserves like Norway who are our almost identical neighbour who live debt free with world class infrastructure an health care and with £110,000 surplus in the treasury for every man, woman and child in the nation.

    Now tell me again about how mighty and important Scotland is in the U.K. and how we are better off with retirement at 75 and a privatised health service.

  149. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Well said Craig, just ignore him/her they’re obviously just trying to get a rise out of you, they’re not worth a reply.

  150. Etticus
    Ignored
    says:

    @craig Murray

    “I have directly offered access to the emails to several newspapers, including the Herald and the National.”

    Lololol!

    I’d have put them on multiple untraceable usb drives and posted them to every single political journo I could think of. I certainly wouldn’t offer them to the national! Fgs they’d hand them straight to SNP HQ for guidance!

    They’d also be hosted on some conveniently non UK based website, perhaps in the USA, where freedom of speech trumps upsetting the SNP HQ where anyone could find them.

    And your comments about NATO say it all, pre the war you were banging the drum for Putin only to be forced into an embarrassing uturn when once again your shocking judgement was exposed. Now you’re back at it again. How anyone could even try to justify Russia invading Ukraine is beyond me.

  151. Etticus
    Ignored
    says:

    @effigy

    So the total destruction of the Greek and other economies by the EU has passed you by? The EU dictating to countries like Poland how they run their affairs never happened? Ireland being told tae think again when they rejected the Lisbon treaty was a mirage? The EU selling out European security so Germany could get cheap Russian oil and gas didn’t happen? You never heard of qualified majority voting?

    Thankfully a lot of other people noticed and the EU is on its way out.

  152. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    Any moment now this Cairnstoon will come to life and some political character will emerge from the dark circular hole declaring “That’s All Folks!”

    In essence, Yousaf is a Looney Yoon.

    Here is Humza Fudd preying on the gullible SNP members:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_I17-ITirxI

  153. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    You will find the Greek’s economy imposed its own idiotic schemes in order for the government to remain in power.
    A bit like Labour’s PPI initiation to build new schools and hospitals.
    They cost £50 Billion and unbelievably the return for private companies is £305 billion.
    Or the hundreds of Billions the Tories gave to their own with Emergency tender free contracts and PPI and NHS Drug deals for friends and families.

    Sorry for those who read this before-
    If you were the owner of a factory in Greece that provided jobs and did very well financially
    that owner wasn’t asked to pay tax.
    A millionaire moving into the country just outside Athens could buy a donkey farmers cottage and land cheaply, build the Taj Mahal on it and keep one little corner of it unfinished with a couple of breeze block walls and retain the local tax levies the farmer had until its finished.
    No one finishes the work.

    Doctors earn over €100K each year.
    They can fill in a predicted earnings self assessment form saying that they will earn less than €40K, the band were the percentage tax increases.
    They also pay a couple of thousand Euros with that form that acts as insurance in case you earn more than predicted the tax man can’t come after you for the rest.

    The EU helped the gridlocked roads by funding a wonderful new rail network.
    Only tourist among the million users buy tickets for it as there are few inspectors and I’d
    an inspector catches you, you just have to buy the ticket at its face value.

    Not the EU’s doing to build this mountain of debt.

    If other countries feel concessions given are not worth it they can vote with their feet.

    I don’t like the hundreds of billions being spent on England’s rail network and stations but Scotland doesn’t even have the right to ask for feet let alone March.

  154. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    Effigy has never heard of “ever closer union” either.

    Astonishing how people will post about sovereign Scots and the destruction of our legal system, national language and particular cultural heritage, then post a few hours later on how we just have to be in the EU, or the EFTA.

    That kind of cognitive dissonance might be possible if you suffer from Scottish Exceptionalism – Scots will drown under free movement, and our unique culture will disappear under harmonised laws and standards emanating from overseas, but at the same time we will be an Independent Sovereign Nation.

    The BS meter is off the scale on that one.

  155. James
    Ignored
    says:

    John Main – so, we’re through the looking glass now eh?

    Scotland voted to leave the ‘EU’ and was not taken out against it’s will by our ‘equal partner’ in the UK. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

  156. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    What Effijy says is he respects other opinions, sees clearly how Indy ref was stolen by the promise No keeps Scots in the EU where the majority appeared to won’t and that was irrefutably confirmed by 62% of Scots in the Brexit referendum.

    We may never again see 62% of Scots agreeing on anything.

    The first thing I want is independence from the most corrupt and immoral Westminster government I have ever know, one that Scots never voted for, one that has decided they
    Own Scotland and we can only do what they permit.

    Secondly we can have an EU referendum and that result I think can be easily predicted but I’d happily follow the will of a Scottish majority.

  157. North chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    “ Alf Baird says @ what does Forbes know about the economy ? She is barely out of uni with a history degree “ . I would suggest that you do not require to be a Professor of economics to be a LEADER Alf . The choice of Leader is between the three candidates is it not ? , neither of her rivals would have “ masters degrees in economics” either I would suggest . A LEADER is to be elected and LEAD by appointing advisors ( including economic advisors) and DELEGATING.
    As regards your interesting link to Salvo , I would also suggest that having a “ history degree” , perhaps KF would already be aware of the “ multiple treaty violations” you mention ?

  158. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    North Chiel.

    In my opinion the candidates should be judged first and foremost on their plans for independence, and Ash Regan stands head and shoulders above the other two on that, for without independence Scotland cannot move forward, they’ll be plenty of time to surround themselves with experts on matters of governing, but that means nothing if independence isn’t obtained.

    No country can really compete on the international stage with one hand tied behind its back, and only independence can give Scotland that fighting chance.

    Basically if Ash Regan doesn’t win this contest it will just be more of the same.

  159. Aquarius
    Ignored
    says:

    @Lynn at 7.43

    Have a look at Businss for Scotland’s finance info. Here is the link

    https://www.businessforscotland.com/scotlands-finances-the-truth/?doing_wp_cron=1678032672.7829220294952392578125

    It has a lot of the type of info you are looking for

  160. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @James 3:10

    Read my post again. Read the EU referendum question again.

    You are allowed a dictionary to help with your comprehension. It’s not an exam.

    I would ask if you have a grown up in the house to help you, but don’t want to be misinterpreted, so ignore that.

  161. North chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    “Republic of Scotland @ 0530 pm”. Agree with much of what you say re “ one hand tied behind our back “ etc . However, Ash Regan albeit the most radical candidate I feel would lose in a run off against the “ continuity” candidate HY . Consequently, KF would possibly have a better chance against another 8 years of little progress. If either win against the status quo HY then I would believe AR could become deputy leader to KF or vice versa . Therefore a more radical policy towards accomplishment of Independence would be a strong possibility with this pairing

  162. James
    Ignored
    says:

    John Main; brilliant, keep on digging.



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