The people, the idiots
There’s another rather bizarre Kenny Farquharson column in today’s Times. Under the headline “Holyrood wasn’t built for a one-party state”, it asserts that “the Scottish Parliament is no longer fit for purpose” on the grounds that the opposition parties are useless, as if that were the fault of the electoral system rather than their leaders.
After that, though, it just gets flat-out insulting.
Farquharson was until recently the deputy editor of Scotland On Sunday and has been a Scottish political journalist for donkey’s years, yet in the article he oddly claims not to know how Holyrood elections are meant to work.
A lottery? Foretell the future? The Scottish Parliament electoral system (known as the Additional Member System, or AMS) is transparent and straightforward. You get two votes, and you can either give them both to the same party or split them between two parties if you like them both. At the ballot-box end it’s not rocket science.
The votes are then counted and the system approximates the total number of seats for each party to the total share of the vote they got. It does so imperfectly, but that’s a consquence of trying to maintain the link to individual constituency MSPs, and it still results in a vastly more accurate reflection of the political will of the country as a whole than the First Past The Post (FPTP) system used at Westminster does.
(It’s difficult to use AMS “tactically” – which seems to be what Farquharson means by “use the system intelligently” – because it’s specifically designed to remove the need for tactical voting in the first place. Tactical voting is a crude sticking-plaster for FPTP, and in a proportional system it’s unnecessary, because even votes for losing candidates still ultimately count towards a party’s representation.)
The real problem Farquharson and his ilk have with AMS is precisely that it DOES accurately represent the will of the people, and the current will of the Scottish people is for the country to be governed by the SNP. The party is polling at 60% and above, three times the vote of its nearest opponent.
Farquharson protests that such a vote imposes no checks and balances on the SNP in government. But Scotland is NOT a one-party state. People are free to vote Labour or Tory or Lib Dem if they want to, but they’ve chosen not to. They’ve chosen to give the SNP unhampered power.
We can only speculate on the many reasons which have contributed to this choice by the electorate. It may partly be that they witnessed the Unionist parties ganging up to block numerous SNP initiatives between 2007 and 2011 and decided that if the opposition couldn’t oppose constructively it didn’t deserve to play a part in decisions.
What matters is that the electorate used the system it had available to it to deliver the result it wanted, and it’s not up to the likes of Kenny Farquharson to start moving the goalposts and changing the rules because he doesn’t like that result.
We’re not aware of any movement, grassroots or political, for reform of the Holyrood system. If the voters decide the SNP are abusing it then they’ll vote the SNP out, or at least back into minority.
But if the public has decided that Scottish Labour are a bunch of incompetent morons who it doesn’t want influencing Scotland’s governance then that’s their choice, and it’s the absolute height of condescending arrogance to tell them that they’ve only done that because they’re too stupid to understand what’s good for them.
It’s an attitude that’s found all over the British media at the moment with regard to the UK Labour Party. For years the party has been dragged to the right by a leadership insulated from its own membership by an antiquated electoral college. When Labour shifted to one-person-one-vote, they opened up the possibility for ordinary people to take their party back, and they appear to be seizing that opportunity with a level of enthusiasm unseen for decades.
The response of the party and much of the commentariat has been to demand that the leadership election be shut down because the wrong candidate is winning, and that if he succeeds he should be immediately overthrown – an extraordinary position to take in a democracy, and one that would be more at home in North Korea or Zimbabwe.
Yet again the voters are being told that they don’t know what they’re doing, and that only their leaders (most of whom are career politicians hopelessly adrift from real people’s lives) and their intellectual superiors in the media should be allowed to decide, to save the poor ignorant plebs from themselves.
To all intents and purposes, Farquharson too is calling for a coup – for the people’s free democratic choice to be overridden and replaced by an unknown alternative imposed arbitrarily by an unelected oligarchy comprising him and his mates.
By any sort of measure, Scotland currently wants to be run by the SNP. Journalists and experts have spent years telling us how “sophisticated” the Scottish electorate is, and how well it distinguished between Westminster and Holyrood elections.
Well, this sophisticated electorate used AMS to give the Nats a majority in Edinburgh, then it used FPTP to give them 95% of the Scottish seats in the Commons, and now it’s giving them 60%+ in polls. That seems to us to be a pretty clear expression of the people’s will, and unless Farquharson et al can offer an explanation as to how this sophisticated electorate has suddenly regressed to idiocy, readers might feel that they’d all be best advised to shut up and deal with it.
Just another shitehawk that doesn’t like Scotland or the sovereignty of the People.
How come a useless feckin idiot like Kenny Farquharson was involved in a consultative steering group that help decided how the Scottish parliament should be set up and run?
What other useless feckin idiot chose KF?
Imagine if Farquharson had the balls to engage on this on social media. He’d be destroyed.
well said
And what’s more – they’re doing it deliberately!
People keep asking me how loss making titles like the Scotsman and the SOS keep running. They are allowed to do so as they are propaganda sheets, not serious newspapers,but their previous reputation is used to pretend that they are providing serious political coverage which is then broadcast widely.
O/T
Last night’s by election results
The stupid Scottish electors have been at it again
Falkirk
Andrew Bell Scottish Labour 549
Brian Capaloff Scottish Green 170
Paul Garner SNP 2576
David Grant Tory 431
North Lanarkshire
Marjory Borthwick Tory 385
Maria Feeny SSP 117
Peter McDade Labour 1230
Gerard Neary Lib Dem 37
Neil Wilson UKIP 67
Rosa Zambonini SNP 1915
Thats the thing about Consultative Steering Groups Mr Farqu arse on, they dont consult the VOTERS.
The British democratic way courtesy of our mainstream media – if you vote the way we want you to, that’s democracy! If you vote in a way we don’t agree with the system needs changing.
BTW, I thought a free Scotland was to be the new ‘North Korea’?
@Rev Stu
The response of the party and much of the commentariat has been to demand that the leadership election be shut down because the wrong candidate is winning, and that if he succeeds he should be immediately overthrown – an extraordinary position to take in a democracy, and one that would be more at home in North Korea or Zimbabwe.
This is it in a nutshell. The fact that the MSM have not been questioning why Labour MPs would have any right to force out a newly democratically elected leader shows where we are in the UK in terms of democracy.
Farquharson is a stooge of the British establishment anyway. He probably does not have the self awareness to realise how silly he looks calling for another electoral system for Holyrood, when he has admitted he does not even know how the present one operates! You could not make it up.
The attacks on Scotland have intensified but taken a more sinister turn since the 56 took their seats in the House of Horrors, and the SNP’s standing kept rising.
All very worrying, even if taking for granted an imperialist attitude to Scotland latent in England’s body politic.
As the basis of an essay, I’ve been trying to get a phone interview with Corbyn, (but failed so far) to ascertain his attitude to greater democracy for Scotland.
Stuart – any chance (time) to fire off some questions to him for answer and publication?
He seems to be a bit on the thick side. Ideal qualification to be a political “journalist” in Scotland.
I understand very well what I’m getting when I vote in the Holyrood elections.
I don’t need him and his ilk telling me I’m soft in the head because I support SNP and don’t vote according to his wishes.
Scotland is not a one-party state. The electorate has choices and those choices have been made clear. They will choose again in May 2016.
Democracy frightens him.
Farqu off Kenny.
Ha! So it hasn’t worked out for the Unionists, tough.
“They did not fight that fight to have the Scottish parliament become a single party’s political plaything”
Funny that Kenny never brought this up when Labour was in power at Holyrood *and* Westminster for years. I can only presume it’s only bad to be a single party’s political plaything when it’s the wrong party.
So if I understand this *ahem* journalist correctly:
1. Labour are in meltdown … Boo Hoo
2. Jeremy Corbyn looks likely to win … Boo Hoo.
3. Labour (Branch office) is in meltdown … Boo Hoo.
4. Labour are NOT in power in Holyrood … Boo Hoo
5. It is Labour’s god given right to rule over Scotland for eternity and the SNP should be closed down.
6.Only those in the inner circles of Labour should be allowed to decide who leads the Labour party.
7. Only those in the inner circles of Labour (Branch office) should be allowed to run the Scottish government.
8. SNP … BAAAAADDDD!
Apart from that everything is hunky dory! 😀
Tory, Lib Dem and Labour are not decent opposition parties. They only try to score points against the SNP (the peoples choice). They play the man not the ball.
If JC wins the Labour leadership and is deposed Labour is dead (might be the plan). If the party splits into New labour and Old labour; New is dead but Old may have a chance of survival.
Presumably ‘Last Past The Post’ would the only solution.
O/T Janner might be arrested,he,ll run tae the HOL for sanctury,warrant cant be excuted in HOL.
It was OK until the ‘wrong’ party got in. What he and others want is a committee system that will artificially ‘reflect’ the people who support Unionst parties and over-ride the Holyrood majority.
Grouse-Corbyn is quoted in the record as spouting the usual Brit Nat mantras like “once in a generation/lifetime” and even said a second vote would not be “credible!”
I’ve had this very same discussion in the last week.
Irrespective of it clearly being the will of the people, I do actually think that this level of run-away success is in itself a danger. Even if the relative competence in Government continues, the perception might not turn out quite as we would like or imagine.
O/T
http://www.facebook.com/groups/scot2.scot/665655216902626/?notif_t=group_activity
IDS/Cameron wont see this.
It’s a shame Holyrood is not working the way Kenny Farquarshon and the rest of the bubble around him don’t like. Get used to it son.
We, the Scottish electorate do know exactly what we are doing, and no, we are not stupid. You are. Who the hell do you think you are spouting pish and think we are all too stupid. If there is no decent opposition in Holyrood Kenny, whose fault is that exaclty. Sure as hell is not the fault of the SNP.
Your second last sentence says it all really ” It will require politicians willing to PUT ASIDE PARTY ADVANTAGE for the greater good”
Aye Kenny, therein lies the rub.
The depths of ridiculous double think. A descent into appalling intellectual dishonesty. Can’t be taken seriously.
Cue some eejit proposing that the list vote must not be used for the Party voted for in FPTP.
I always assumed that the Holyrood electoral system had been chosen because FPTP would always produce a Labour government in Scotland (because all the evidence at the time showed that was the Scottish voting pattern) so they chose a system that would give representation to all the parties
but would still leave Labour as the largest party and therefore the party which would form and lead the administration in some form of coalition which would mean they were free from the accusation of ‘one party state’.
They are only complaining now because the Scottish electorate are voting for the ‘wrong’ party.
Exactly the same reason that the Labour hierarchy are complaining about the electoral system they approved for the election of their new leader.
A voting system either produces a result which is a fair representation of the choice of all those voting or it does not. It does not become unfair just because it produces a result the hierarchy did not want.
The rUK is a defacto one-party state.
There may be rosettes of many colours, but they are all bloody tories!
I would love to know where it is written that is Scotlands’ sacred and solemn duty to provide the labour party with a spine and a moral compass.
These people simply cannot grasp that things have changed. But what is worse that are no longer relevant themselves. Its not just labour the majority of Scots are no longer listening to, it’s the media as well.
My message to Farquharson is this: You want labour to win and beat the SNP. Then tell them to stop being shite.
Democracy is only served when the SNP don’t win
Everybody knows that
O/T But it’s nice to see the BBC reporting that “Britains” biggest export is…..wait for it
“Scottish” Salmon
So that’s good then
I don’t understand what electoral system Farquharson is advocating.
Making Holyrood FPTP only? But with the SNP polling 60+%, that’d still probably lead to an SNP majority, especially considering that former Labour strongholds seem to be lost.
Proportional representation? But that would still give the SNP a majority with the present polling figures.
Or is he advocating changing the electorate? Maybe have MSPs appointed from Westminster or something???
There is a key point in Farquarson’s article that you have glossed over. The Scottish Parliament does have a fundamental flaw in that it is a unicameral parliament with little in the way of checks and balances. (I suspect when things were drawn up, the assumption was there would always be a coalition or minority government which in itself would provide the checks.)
Whatever the party is in power, there needs to scrutiny of what the government gets up to. Especially when other means of scutiny are under attack: Police Scotland spying on journalists and SNP politicians demanding that they be given CONTROL of BBC Scotland. (Not even the Tories are going that far in their anti-BBC crusade).
Actually it’s perfectly possible to vote tactically in an AMS election, due to the way proportionality is achieved. The difference is that it’s supporters of the dominant party, rather than supporters of smaller parties, who have an incentive to vote tactically
Parties that do well in the constituency vote get penalised in the regional vote, because in the latter your actual vote is divided by your number of seats + 1.
So let’s say for example that the SNP win all nine constituencies in the Glasgow region (eminently possible). A list vote for the SNP in Glasgow would only count as 1/10 of a vote (1 / (9 + 1) ) in the first round, while a vote for the Greens or SSP would count as 1 vote (1 / (0+1) )
I don’t vote Labour/Tory/LibDems, so I’m an idiot.
I really, really don’t feel like an idiot.
I vote SNP BECAUSE I’m no idiot!:D
“Irrespective of it clearly being the will of the people, I do actually think that this level of run-away success is in itself a danger. Even if the relative competence in Government continues, the perception might not turn out quite as we would like or imagine.”
If that happens, the public can change its will. It’s still very hard to actually get a majority at Holyrood. If the public no longer wants it to happen, it won’t.
Surely the time to mention his misunderstanding of the system was when he was involved in the steering group!
Was the ‘psychology’ behind this not to prevent the SNP from forming a majority government?
“The Scottish Parliament does have a fundamental flaw in that it is a unicameral parliament with little in the way of checks and balances.”
That’s not a flaw. It empowers the people to decide what they want. If they want checks and balances (other than an entire hostile media criticising the SNP, of course), they can vote for that. If they want a majority government, they can vote for that.
I didn’t overlook that point. I addressed it. The parliament is what the people want it to be. If they want minorities and coalitions they can have them. All they have to do is stop voting SNP.
The problem is that the opposition in Scotland is in the SNP. Independence will result in a re-alignment of politics in this country.
The Ukist/Britnat/Statist opposition is still fighting the last referendum, they are running around in circles because the referendum changed their world – there was no return to business as usual with a No vote.
Soon the majority will realise that what they consider to be “British” values are only available in an Independent Scotland, but are being destroyed in the UK.
Article pretty much says it all.
The system was specifically created to prevent the SNP gaining power and the people found a way round that. It appears that Mr Farwossiname and his ilk do not like the idea that the electorate out maneuvered the machinations of both established politics and their ‘steering group’ advisers.
So I take it he’s calling for what? Are we seeing first evidence of the warm up act before the main event here?
EVEL, electoral reform in Scotland, the eventual repealing of the Scotland act? All of the above?
The press have been priming England’s electorate for some time through their continued demonisation of all things Scottish. Who would raise even an eyebrow, never mind a protest, if the state set any such move in motion? A bit alarmist, I know, but I’m not big on trusting that the UKs fourth estate have the electorate’s best interests at heart.
“So let’s say for example that the SNP win all nine constituencies in the Glasgow region (eminently possible). A list vote for the SNP in Glasgow would only count as 1/10 of a vote (1 / (9 + 1) ) in the first round, while a vote for the Greens or SSP would count as 1 vote (1 / (0+1) )”
But that presumes that supporters of the SNP want more Green and SSP MSPs. And if that’s what they want, then they just vote for them. That’s the opposite of “tactical voting”. That’s just called voting.
Democracy and the Union are mutually exclusive.
They really don’t like Scots having a say!
Thanks again Stuart for your guide for idiots. I find it profoundly depressing that Farquharson having been and being in the positions which he has occupied can write such intellectually challenged baloney. There are currently five parties represented in the Scottish Parliament, and this is in his view a one party state. People are simply electing the party which by a vast majority best represents their views on the best party to govern Scotland
“They did not fight that fight to have the Scottish Parliament become single party’s political plaything.”
Who, exactly, are “they”? The argument appears to be that the ‘will’ of a self-selecting group of individuals who campaigned for ‘home rule’ (do we actually have that, Kenny?) should trump the freely expressed wish of the Scottish people. Does this guy call himself a democrat? I’ve heard of political ‘commentators’ arguing for a change of government, but when they start arguing for a change of the electorate, jeezo…..
Farquharson also seems to be a schizophrenic. I recall reading a tweet from him post-GE 2015 where he was salivating over what a ‘powerhouse parliament’ could do.
Am I not correct in saying that the AMS voting system is similar to the one used in Germany?
Thank god I don’t pay for paywall shite.
I’m amused that this guy is so hung-up about constitutional issues when we are forever being told there has been too much focus on that lately. It can’t be the case that discussing them is only ok if the change is one that might have consequences you want, surely?
Kenny Farquharson is only maintaining the usual standard of Scottish MSM political journalism. This democracy things a real scunner, isn’t it Kenny? Trust those cultist Scots to choose the wrong kind.
Over the next two years we can rid ourselves of the dead hand of unionism at the ballot boxes and clean out our political system, like a good pull-through with a tarred rope.
That should get KF frothing at the mouth.
Journalists love the power that they have and they have taken that power for granted for far too long. They expect to be able to say :’here is the acceptable candidate that you must vote for’ and see their readers dutifully voting for them.
All over the world: with Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in the US and with the SNP and Jeremy Corbyn on this side of the Atlantic, we have seen a sea change, where the voters -gasp!- aren’t doing what the establishment wants them to do.
This is the truth that Kenny Farquharson seems to be grasping for but as yet unable to reach.
“It was intended to provide the best possible balance between four major parties”
So, basically, a one-party unionist (Red/Yellow/Blue Tory) state?
(Second attempt as first hasn’t appeared. Are Youtube links filtered out?)
I tried to link to Malcolm Bruce’s valedictory speech where he admitted he and Dewar tried to fix Holyrood to block the SNP. But the democratic will cannot be thwarted and how it must stick in their craw! These people do not want democracy, the treatment of Corbyn is final proof (if it was needed) that Labour don’t want ordinary voters having any say in anything.
Hope this one appears or I’ll have to assume I’ve been banned.
The answer is Independence and the administrator for the Hootsmon.
Fear not Kenny, voting has now closed for the Branch Manager and Deputy. Once the mammoth task of counting 21,000 votes has been undertaken the new leader will hit the ground running and, on current form, will probably slam into a brick wall.
It is not my fault that the smaller parties, Labour and Tory, and the miniscule ones, LibDem and UKIP are crap. It is not my fault that websites like this and social media have opened peoples eyes to the reality that is Scottish politics. Trust me, I am not in a cult, I am not sleepwalking into a one party state.
It has taken the SNP over 40 years to get where they are by playing the game by other peoples rules whether by FPTP or AMS.
Perhaps it is Labour`s turn in Scotland to face the wilderness years. As for the Tories, perhaps evolution will ensure we have one less species to contend with.
As an aside, hopefully Farquharson will have the same effect on the Times sales as he had on the Scotsman.
Certainly Holyrood isn’t for a political landscape that he wants of 850 unelected peers making laws, sucking up resources, business directing social policy.
He joins the DR and Scottish Labour, their purpose is to act as spoilers of change.
@Grouse Beater 11.40am
There was a piece in yesterday’s Guardian on Corbyn and Scotland.
He thinks Scotland is essential to Labour recovering power at WM.
He’s against any further devolution of business taxes, particularly corporation tax. Can’t have the Scots having a competitive advantage. Plus he needs Scottish revenues to contribute to his public spending plans.
Usual guff about the UK ‘sharing resources’. He doesn’t think there should be any deviation of income tax rates between Scotland/England.
There was nothing in the piece which instilled any confidence that the man is enthusiastic about further devolution.
“The home rule movement fought for a century to give Scotland back its parliament. Many men and women devoted their political lives to this cause, and in 1999 celebrated a historic victory. They did not fight that fight to have the Scottish parliament become a single party’s political plaything.”
Pretty sure they didn’t fight that fight for Scotland to have control over road signs, either…
The Additional Member System isn’t perfect, but no system is (personally I think Sweden’s is closest). Ours is broadly similar to the German Mixed-Member Proportionality system, although theirs is a bit more complicated, as they award extra seats if a party gets more constituency seats than they’d be entitled to from their second vote. Regardless, it’s still miles better than the Westminster system.
If someone wants to campaign for Scotland to bring all its voting systems into line, then I’d back that – but as long as we’re attached to Westminster, we’re going to have a minimum of two different voting systems, because the Labour and Tory parties are both obsessed with FPTP. Therefore, it’s kind of pointless.
Voting in our system is quite straight-forward – you vote for the constituency candidate you favour the most (or dislike the least), and you vote for your favoured party in the list. Your vote is only “wasted” if neither the candidate you backed nor the party you backed win a seat.
(If we used the German system, the talk of SNP list votes being a “waste” would stop in a heartbeat, because voting SNP in the constituency and Green/SSP in the list would directly contribute to unionist parties getting extra MSPs to balance out SNP “overhang” seats…)
His thing about renewing Holyrood with courage, honesty, boldness and vision is extremely creepy.
Whatever system they do decide we should get will make no difference, so their only real option is to close down Holyrood, informally, gradually, the Vow fraud is the start.
England’s control of Scotland must be defended at all costs or, here’s all new Labour guy Corbyn in rancid Graun, Corbyn the shining new progressive liberal democrat leader who says democracy is good unless…
“Political change actually comes from the democratic base of our society.”
“Corbyn told the Guardian he would oppose Sturgeon’s call for the UK government to hand powers over business taxes to the Scottish parliament, as that would allow the SNP to cut corporation tax to compete with England’s rates.”
Give the Scots corp tax, are you nuts!
That “democratic base of our society” means absolutely fcuk all for their Scotland region. Vote SLab. Do as your told. Shut up.
OT I watched a fair amount of the big debate on trident that was held fairly recently – the one tabled by the SNP.
I can’t recall if Jeremy Corbyn spoke or attended. He must have done as he is so committed to nuclear disarmament. Can anyone enlighten me?
To the British Establishment a ‘balanced’ Scottish Parliament is the Tories in power.
To the MSM a ‘balanced’ Scottish Parliament is Labour in power.
To them all, the SNP in power in any number is a totalitarian one-party state that must be overthrown.
The sods truly detest the democratic process functioning properly.
The late Hamish Henderson had an intellect far beyond that of Mr Farquharson. He also had an expression for those of Mr Farquharsons ilk – he called them the “self elected elect”
This is another instance of kites being flown which will come crashing disastrously to earth!
The SNP aren’t asking for any more power over BBC Scotland than Westminster currently exercises over the BBC altogether, as you well know, and it’s very telling that this is one of the things that every Unionist party is determined to keep out of the Scottish Parliament’s hands.
I didn’t cast my vote for the SNP out of confusion.
Ever since my Uncle Alec bought me a Sleeping Hat for my birthday several years ago I have been voting SNP.
I put it on just before I go to sleeep everynight and in my dreams I hear the voice of an angel called St. Nicola. She tells me what to do.
Last night she told me to Troll the TabloidTittieTycoon, not sure exactly what she meant but it will come to me I’m sure.
I suppose I should be chuffed but I ain’t.
@ Mr. Farquharson – I would be fascinated to hear you expound on the subjects of human psychology, biosemiotics and social interaction. Not forgetting your specialist subjects, of course, namely bullshit and bamboozle.
Another problem for the Unionists is that the gullibility of Scotland’s people has been broken and they no longer believe the Westminster propaganda disseminated by Farquharson and his ilk.
Stuart Kinnear he is on twitter
Everyday, it all seems to get crazier and crazier.
I don’t do MSM now and I’m a better person for it.
(Sandra 12:36 – you have to take the first bit off the link)
Hmmmmm-t’would seem that KF is trying to take a leaf out of the Tory playbook. Electorate provides an answer they don’t like -change the system & call it ‘not fit for purpose’. Only to be expected after Cameron & EVEL in WM.
What he’s advocating is gaming the system to ensure a continual unionist government in Scotland but the electorate says differently.
If they wanted that they would have voted for it. THEY DIDN’T did they 🙂 so suck it up KF et al. The people know what they are doing 😉
pmcrek says:
Presumably ‘Last Past The Post’ would the only solution.
Surely you’re not advocating a LibDem Government?
Why doesnt he just be done with it and say he wants the SNP banned!
If you don’t like the peoples choices sack the people seems to be the MSM way these days.
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
14 August, 2015 at 12:22 pm
That’s not a flaw. … I didn’t overlook that point. I addressed it.
Indeed you did – “They’ve chosen to give the SNP unhampered power” – which is exactly where the problem lies.
We do not need to go back too far in British history to find a provincial government with a majority infringing the rights of a religious minority (and all legally within the existing government structure).
You may be happy with the “unhampered power” that lets police spy on journalists but don’t assume that we all are.
Sandra, when you post a you tube video only put the link starting with the www. part do not include the http// bit. 😉
The sods truly detest the democratic process functioning properly.
Labour thought they had the permanent foundations of a Scottish Labour stronghold in 1997. Or at least that was their Holyrood spin. Crash Gordon used to say that but did he believe it? Probably.
Sigmund Freud discussed a personality type who derive pleasure by holding in their number 2s until touching cloth.
There may be a similar trait at work in some of these ‘journalists’ … they find the buildup of cognitive dissonance when writing contradictory bunk troubling, yet somehow irresistible.
Farquharson’s memoir out soon: “The Joy of Doublethink”
We should laugh this off. We should ignore this extreme commentary. We should try not to be overly worried about the tone of anti democratic or anti Scottish reporting.
So why am I on high alert?…Desperate people resort to desperate measures and the establishment is, if not desperate, then certainly headed in that direction.
Maybe our wee weegie Isis concern will also turn out to be a Yes voter!
I must be really, really stupid. I go into the voting booth and I vote for the party I prefer. I don’t think about systems and I don’t try and second guess the outcome. I just vote for the party that represents the biggest selection of my views. If that means the SNP get 72 out of 72 seats then that tells me that they are popular and the other much less so.
The solution is for the other parties to start representing people’s views our accept that their own are not desperately popular. How hard is that?
Given that in the UK , ‘ just three companies control 70% of National newspaper circulation ‘ is it any surprise that Mr Farquarson delivers this plea?
Coming from the same narrow , right wing, self interest, elite agenda that all the papers seem to promote ( there are a handful of journalists who are the exception) who is he aiming this nonsense at?
The voters seem to understand Holyrood , in fact may now be turning to Holyrood first rather than Westminster , so to save yourself time Kenny , why not cut out the narrative and just print a picture with SNP – bad.
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is just public relations “. George Orwell
Is this idiot advocating a dictatorship or the removal of the vote from the people of Scotland, SNP would win an election under either FPTP or the AMS system used for Holyrood, and at current polling of 60% SNP would win under any system imaginable , except for a rigged one.
It seems to me that Kenny Farquharson has offered up at least two development needs in his next employee appraisal:
1. He has recognised an apparent need to personally understand the psychological processes of millions of individual voters (well at least 50% of them).
2. He has voluntary identified that he is incapable of rationalising his job as a political commentator.
Democracy Reborn: There was nothing in the piece which instilled any confidence that the man is enthusiastic about further devolution.
Sad. Very sad.
I had hoped a dedicated democrat would propose a new, near-autonomous relationship, renegotiation of a moribund Treaty.
Another 100 years of Scotland subsidising England with taxes, natural resources, and the lives of our soldiers.
Just to show that, in spite of being very busy elsewhere, I’m still reading and paying attention.
I’m no deid yit.
Sae here’s a wee poem in wir ain leid : –
How typical, this is just the same as those unionists who take to the media to attack the SNP but don’t have the guts to say which party they support for fear of criticism
Here we have one who suggests a change is desperately needed in the Holyrood voting system but doesn’t have the guts to suggest what type of for fear of criticism!
All this talk of one party state stuff
We’re in it now, the Tories have the most MPs so they can do what they like, and do, everybody else just gets to object, or in the case of Labour, Abstain
If the biggest party decide something, well that’s what’s going to happen, doesn’t matter if there are ten parties
All we’re doing in Scotland is agreeing with the English that we choose who we want and make them win
Seems fair to me
Robertson: “They’ve chosen to give the SNP unhampered power” – which is exactly where the problem lies.
Did you squeal when the Tories or Labour held Scotland by the balls and yet were not accountable to the electorate?
And making a leap of logic to police is dishonest. What are you implying? SNP administration gives carte blanche to Police Scotland to do as it pleases?
I suppose the question should be would Kenny be writing this stuff if was Labour on 62%?
I suspect not. It seemed to me back in the day when Labour took something like 69 out of 73 seats (or thereabouts)on Glasgow Council the Scottish press were quite proud of the fortress Scotland reputation (excepting our Tory commentators obviously, who bemoaned their lot 🙂 )
David Russell: “Parties that do well in the constituency vote get penalised in the regional vote, because in the latter your actual vote is divided by your number of seats + 1.”
Nobody gets penalised in the list vote (except perhaps smaller parties, as the D’Hondt formula slightly favours larger parties). The list vote is not meant to be a separate election – it’s there to ensure that parties get the number of seats roughly proportional to their support.
Sheesh! I just finished posting that wee ode and went to get on with some more urgently needed work. I looked out the window. Only to see an open top double decker passing by the cottage.
Now we Scots are a hardy lot – but an open top bus today when we have severe weather warnings on the news = is pushing things a wee bit too far.
“Bizarre” and Kenny Farquharson are no strangers to each other.
Clearly it would be more sensible if the Scottish electorate were to be excluded from the process of electing their government in Edinburgh.
A bit like that House of Peers at Westminster!
I’ll bet Kenny understands that
After reading Kenny Farquarson’s slant on Scottish politics today I do not want folk of that ilk in our future, we can do without proud scotbutt anti scottish scum. We wish to be a free independent country achieved via the ballot box, what’s wrong with that!
Still if you are a greedy manipulating unionist I can see you have a problem, your problem not ours! We’ve taken enough of the hand me downs so it’s our time now and we’re on the march and we’ll get there despite unionist cons, smears, scams and fear campaigns.
I’ll vote nothing else but SNP for the rest of my life along with my family,
Phil Robertson@12.12pm
So the tories would not go as far as wanting control of the beeb? Er, they already have control, so no need to demand more control, it’s in the bag and the pretendy anti stuff is just a ruse.
I don’t have a tv but I am sure it’s been some time since the beeb commissioned any decent analytical programmes about the way ukok is run. That’s democracy for you!
Quite fascinating how Mr Farquharson has been able to earn a living as a journalist as he seems more inclined to be a fantasist.
I’d be interested to read his reports on the formation on the parliament back in 1998. Is it the case that he shouted and screamed that the AMS structure would be a disaster, unfair, undemocratic?
He either did not do so, or the rest of the country couldn’t give credibility to anything that he wrote.
I’ll go with both have read this latest nonsense he produced.
I seem to remember Labour signing on up to AMS as they thought that they would get the vast majority of seats, no matter what it was that wore a red rosette, Lib Dems were happy as they thought it would see their share of the seats increase and SNP thought that it was a fairer and better option than FPTP.
Even the Tories were likely to do better under AMS, but ideally we all just shut up and do what Westminster tells us.
In summary, this lunatic thinks that no political party in Scotland should have implemented AMS, as it means the electorate would have an opportunity to identify and vote for the single party that offers to put them first.
Who actually pays good money to read this bile?
a political journalist wrote that ????????
For his next job he better learn to say “do you want fries with that”
Pathetic: so transparently, just a bunch of sour grapes because his beloved Labour Party isn’t dominant anymore.
Jack McConnell admitted, in a television interview before the first election, that the voting system was set up to stop any party having an outright majority. Asked if that meant that it was designed to stop the SNP ever having an outright majority, he admitted that that was the object. Well, now that the will of the electorate has produced the ‘wrong’ outcome, whinging Labour loyalists like Farquharson find the system flawed, and pretend that the voters are confused.
Truly, unthinking diehards like Farquharson are more concerned about the Labour Party as a self-serving organisation than about socialist principles or any concept of the common weal.
Kenny’s one of those people that you know down your local pub. You walk, in you see him, you smile and say hello, but you make sure you sit at a different table. Life’s too short to have your evenings wasted with wee unhappy people like him.
I always think of it like parties…
We’ve all been there when one dude or a group of people are dicks and you just chat to them for a small amount of time and then at your first opportunity you bugger off and go chat to nice folk… that’s exactly what scotland is doing… Labour are the douche at the party right now and they keep calling at you from across the room but you are too busy having fun with the nice folk to bother with those ball bags.
Problem with any attempt at tactically casting your list vote is that you have no knowledge of how accurate the prediction for the constituency vote is until after the event. In addition if enough votes are shifted to “friendly” parties it risks reducing the “PR” part of the vote to less than 50% with neither the SNP or that other party actually gaining another seat.
As seen in the last election it’s possible for a party to gain all the constituency seats and still get another list seat.
For instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_East_Scotland_(Scottish_Parliament_electoral_region)
SNP had 10 regional seats.
List votes were
SNP 1 140,749 52.7%
Labour 3 43,893 16.4%
Conservative 2 37,681 14.1%
Liberal Dems 1 18,178 6.8%
Scott Green 0 10,407 3.9%
In this instance it only takes 1% to transfer their list vote to the Greens for the seat the SNP gained to be given them. But only if all those votes go to the Greens.
The adjusted totals at that point were,
SNP 140,749 / (10 + 1) = 12795
Labour 43,893 / (3 + 1) = 10973
Conservative 37,681 / (2 + 1) = 12560
Liberal Dems 18,178 / (1 + 1) = 9089
Scott Green 10,407
That’s total votes cast divided by (number of seats plus 1)
So the Conservatives just missed another seat by 235 X 11 = 2585 votes. If at least 2144 of those went to the Greens then all that would happen is the seat would be theirs rather than the SNP’s. But as some are advocating SSP and no doubt there are other options then an unfortunate split of those transfers might have resulted in another Conservative MSP.
We won, the people have spoken, get over it! Or words to that effect.
Actually Ken MacColl sort of on that theme but as an aside, yesterday when Mr Mcternan was on Call Kaye, he twice to my knowledge stated something like its Southampton and Derby and somewhere down south that Labour need to win .
What he was saying quite clearly was , Labour don’t want power sharing, they want a majority and it is only the voters in Southampton etc who can do that for them , so as far as he’s concerned ‘ the Scottish Electorate while not excluded ‘ are not relevant to get Labour back in power.
Labour Party first and always , any Labour member listening to that should have been asking themselves some serious questions about where social justice, equality and solidarity fit in to that little power empire of priorities ?
I wanted someone to ask him quite clearly if that was what he was stating unfortunately Kaye was having Gremlins lol
O/T Can anyone advise on this political and corporate
misdemeanour that sees water priced at a higher rate than Scottish produced milk.
It seems appalling that Farmers may spend 32p producing a pint of milk, but then receives 23p from the supermarkets.
I am naturally behind this being rectified, but can anyone offer ideas as to why I noticed roughly 4 out of 5 farmers displaying NO signs in the referendum?
Are they too dumb to see how these gangsters operate, and that next our crops will need to compete against, and lose to genetically modified cheaper alternatives from abroad?
Cattle full of steroids from the USA will become our stable meat source, which will see Scotland with one
working farm. One that acts as a living museum.
@Phil Robertson
“You may be happy with the “unhampered power” that lets police spy on journalists but don’t assume that we all are.”
The Scottish Government has no say in Police surveillance, it’s reserved to Westminster.
“We do not need to go back too far in British history to find a provincial government with a majority infringing the rights of a religious minority”
What’s your point? Yes, that’s British history. pre-’72 Stormont’s conduct and composition can be in a large part attributed to UK gov’s ongoing ‘divide and rule the provinces’ strategy: q.v. Farquharson of the Times.
“a unicameral parliament with little in the way of checks and balances.”
I’m all for checks and balances. Under the status quo, the Crown Office in Scotland is a law unto itself, our parliament has no function of oversight on how our laws are applied. Separating legislature, executive and judiciary is a good idea – but none of them should be unchecked. Maybe an elected second chamber in Independent Scotland, with senators elected as individuals rather than party-reps, should have a role in moderating the justice system?
“SNP politicians demanding that they be given CONTROL of BBC Scotland. ”
Pardon? A majority of the Scottish population have declared themselves dissatisfied with BBC’s news coverage. Why should the only checks and balances on BBC Scotland be via bodies external to Scotland? You know that we know that you know that no SNP politican has asked for ‘control’ of BBC Scotland… there is a popular demand for Scotland-based checks, balances and oversight of its Scotland-related output. You have a problem with that?
Looks like Kenny, on behalf of his WM chums, his having his last out of tune toot on his Unionist flute as the walls of his British Jericho come tumbling down, and the democratic onslaught on his Angloista Jerusalem begins to cause cracks in those walls, too.
Boo hoo hoo, Coinneach. Take it on the chin and man up for neither Cromwell nor “Butcher” Cumberland could ever stand a sissy throwing a hissy fit.
You and your ilk’s game is imminently a Bauge (abogey).
Tough t#tty and Lol.
Of course it’s a mess! It was designed that way! And the reason it was designed that way was that the parliament was designed to be a state parliament, not a regional parliament! It was designed to hold Scotland’s future state representatives, not a few regional representatives.
The fact is, the chamber was always too big for a regional assembly. We were always going to struggle to fill it and make it look like it was designed to be a regional assembly! So the system was designed to add a bunch of also-rans to the chamber to make sure the seats were filled… until the day it could be filled by the state representatives (on independence day).
This of course pre-supposes that independence is a foregone conclusion and was known as such as far back as 1999… go figure!
Difficult to take the ramblings from one of our defenders of democracy seriously when they had no problem with Labour’s dominance of Scotland’s politics.
If they’re contemplating abandoning the leadership election because the “wrong” candidate might win, what chance of them recognising a yes result in IndyRef 2?
What bitter Brit Nats forget is that Holyrood has one of the most accommodating Freedom of Information Acts (much more so than Westminster) which the BBC, the Labour Party and newspapers frequently (often vexatiously) use at a cost of over £100 a pop cost to taxpayers.
The problem is regardless of how well the Scottish government does the BBC is continuing to run wall to wall negative reports
Police- guns on street, call centre, house out O’connor
Nhs-waiting time poor service chaos
Schools-kids crying in exam, stressed teachers
The isn’t goes on
They are building image of bad government
Effijy-that’s a very good point about the no voting farmers. Must be masochists.
In this article Ben Bradshaw reports on Council by election campaigning for Labour in Glasgow and berates local activist with
”
As we went door to door, street to street, it was soon clear to me we had almost no data. When I raised this gently with the excellent young volunteer running our team, he nodded and said that until 2012 our contact rate in this constituency had been zero. Zero! Just for comparison, the contact rate in my own constituency, Exeter, is 75 per cent.”
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/08/ive-been-travelling-throughout-scotland-what-ive-learned
Perhaps Ben Bradshaw might explain how the Tories won yesterday’s council election in Pinhoe (Exeter).
@PaulaRose 12.56 and Lesley-Anne 1.01
Thanks! 🙂
Sandra
You need to delete all characters before www when posting youtube links, otherwise they are binned by wordpress.
Tired and tiresome journalism from Mr Farquharson, not funny, not clever and completely out of touch
Re Corbyn-This guy is another britnat unionist dont be fooled by him.
Another Unionist squealing, if we wants to really see what is unfair, then I suggest he visit the Rev’s informative comments.
However, education is not his mantra, ignorance certainly is.
@Simon 12:48
That’s so weird, I had the exact same dream. Did yours include the sound track?
“Its all about the mon-e, mon-e, mon-e
I just need your money, money, money
Just to make my world dance…”
Effijy says:
The problem is the supermarkets, they manipulate the price of milk, call it a monopoly.
I had a house in France for 5 years and they deal with things somewhat differently. Example, I went along to a large supermarket, however I could not get in. The farmers
were fighting the same problem, ie being paid too little for their milk.
They took tractors and dumped earth, and a lot of it, across all the supermarket car park entry points. Then stood en mass behind them.
The Police arrived, but could not convince them to remove the stuff, they did, a couple of days later when the supermarket caved in and gave them a better price.
No one was charged, as in France you don’t mess with the farmers. Why, they have big political clout, the French authorites are loath to take them on in case it escalates across France.
They did another thing when it came to fish, they walked into a number of supermarkets and removed all foreign supplied fish. They gave it all away to customers in the car park. This depriving the supermarket of profits on it.
The fishermen were complaing again about poor prices due to imports.
If only we could do things like that with no fear of prosecution, aye right.
Is Fahkwason saying that Westminster should do a ‘Stormont’, and close Holyrood for the good of the country(UK/England)?
They can do that any time they choose.
Iain Macwhirter ?@iainmacwhirter 9 mins9 minutes ago
SNP should be worried. These are people who voted Yes. And say Labour has come home.
…with a very nice twitter photo making JC audience look enormous. So there you go Kenny of the Times, loyal brits and unionists, its all over now and you can all go back to normal:D
Nae doubt about it, if SLab ever get back in, we’re all fcuked for life and we will all pay for our disloyalty. Its interesting how JC hasn’t made any actual real world economic policy public, like why HS2,3,4,5 all terminate at Leeds, maybe Newcastle, currently getting an new A1(M) that ends at Newcastle while A1 single lane until just south of Embro and so on.
Scotland really is stuffed with cringing gits.
Labour’s Ben Bradshaw, from the article Sinky linked above:
“I was shocked to discover when we received the membership lists for my deputy leadership campaign that, in spite of having had more than 40 Labour MPs here in Scotland before May 7th, the membership numbers far from reflected that widespread support.”
Care to put a figure on those membership numbers, Mr Bradshaw? 😉
John H. says:
14 August, 2015 at 2:03 pm
“If they’re contemplating abandoning the leadership election because the “wrong” candidate might win, what chance of them recognising a yes result in IndyRef 2?”
Got it in one. The self determination of the Scottish people will never be accepted by the establishment. Have no doubt the current Labour leadership candidates are fully paid up card carrying members of that establishment, including Corbyn.
I agree with Macart the public are being primed to accept that (after next May’s Hollyrood walk over by the SNP) the parliament is not fit for purpose.
At the very least they will attempt to change the system to suit themselves. At worst they will repeal the Scotland Act and dissolve parliament.
Oh no they won’t I hear many of you cry. I say they can’t afford not too. The rUK economy would collapse if Scotland became independent.
Remember they have previous for this kind of interference. They will use every dirty trick at their command to stop independence from happening and damn the consequences. You just have to look at the dubious result they manage to engineer at last year’s referendum to see how these “dirty bastards” operate.
I hate to be the naysayer here but I am – he has a point. Scotland will never get its freedom while there is one Scottish parties and a bunch of London based parties representing the Scottish people. The SNP should take their rightful place as The Labour Party of Scotland. There should be sufficient Scottish conservatives to create a Conservative Party of Scotland etc. etc. The unionist parties can do whatever they like; amalgamate, spit, spat, whatever. The legitimate parties, genuinely representing the Scots can debate what form of freedom is best for the country.
The fundamental flaw in the thought process of
Farquarson is very obvious. The current SNP vote represents a political movement, rather than his so called one party state.
Scotland is getting behind a vehicle for change. This is not an ordinary party polictical choice between economies of scale. Or a simple manifesto choice of two varying hues.
The movement is change whatever that means. Whether it be anti austerity, or in the main independence. The people of Scotland have recognised the power of the movement, and jumped on board.
This is not a party, it’s a revolution!
The Tories told us that Scotland’s Regional Authorities were unfit for purpose and did not represent the desires and aspirations of voters. They painted a picture of over-centralisation and remoteness to justify the unitary authorities we now have.
IMO, unitary authorities were aimed at undermining Scotland’s democracy and freeing up space for private sector expansion into roles most suited to public oversight. The STUC went along with this, if memory serves.
The empirical evidence does not appear to support this image of ‘remoteness’. From memory, voter participation in Regional elections increased every year the Regions operated.
This is not the first time in my 47 years, that our political masters have sought to change a system of government which they no longer support ideologically, or are confident in being able to continue gaming.
Heedtracker Mr McWhirter talks a lot of mince most of the time and I seriously doubt his word carries a whole lot of weight, certainly he flips and flops from one view point to another. I am sure there will be those who will go with the Labour flow but I am also sure that many will wait to see where Mr Corbyn is going.
Prior to the referendum I, and several others, warned of the consequences of a No vote. One of the things I warned of was an orchestrated series of attacks on those institutions which symbolise Scotland’s distinctive political culture. And so it has come to pass. The British media has been filled with stories, often painfully contrived, denigrating and undermining NHS Scotland, Police Scotland, our educational system and much besides.
It was always obvious to me that the Scottish Parliament itself and our electoral system would also be targeted. I wasn’t wrong.
Again I remind you all.
“Power devolved is Power retained”
Think if Scotland had voted YES to “Do you think Scotland should be an Independent Country?”
WM then reply…
“Well we don’t”
Then?
Scunterbunnet
Re. Phil Robertson. He’s not very good at this, is he? 😀
The Brit Nat scum doth protest too much!
There are so many unelected corrupt sleazy etc Brit Nat Tory, Fib Doom and Labour peers in the House of Lards that have a say on Scottish matters that any vote in Scotland can be effectively overridden and Brit Nat filth like Farquharson know that all too well.
Farquhar’s article reminds me of the near disaster in 2007, when Douglas Alexander set up the counting machines to reject ballot papers which only had votes for the proportional list and not for the FPTP constituency. This resulted in nearly 3.5% of the votes being rejected and probably cost SNP a couple of seats.
The Unionists don’t do democracy.
He has to fill his column with SOMETHING every week and, from what I’ve seen of it so far, he’s a second rater struggling to find anything worthwhile to say. Hence pish like this.
Macart says:
14 August, 2015 at 12:26 pm
…Summed up perfectly Macart. We were to have a Labour/LibDem pact running for ever with the Tories waiting to come on as subs if required.
They managed to control everything in the design but forgot the one variable they cannot control fully – the electorate – US 😉 🙂
As someone said earlier, I don’t do MSM anymore. And I’m loving it!!
Sadly, the likes of Kenny Farquharson still seem to get paid for writing this tripe. Worse, some daft fools still pay to read it!
Seems to me Mr Farquharson is not keen on Democracy.
Are you also suggesting, Mr Farquharson, that people voting in Scotland are too stupid to understand our voting system?
There is a term in Physcology for that: Projection.
Helena totally agree regarding Mcwhirter. There is a man who genuinely doesn’t know what he believes.
Used to think he was a clever thinker. Now I just get confused as to whether he is indi, indi lite, home rule or federalist. I think in his world he has jumped on the indi movement as it’s politically convenient rather than a true belief. He should really be a Liberal.????
Helena Brown says:
14 August, 2015 at 3:36 pm
Heedtracker Mr McWhirter talks a lot of mince most of the time and I seriously doubt his word carries a whole lot of weight,
Well his “Labour comes home” is rather ascue to his federal teamGB schtick but he is an establishment dude so and etc…
The issues are seriuosly economic though.
JC says he will not allow Scotland corp tax control for the usual UKOK pooling and sharing, yet England has and is investing massively in its own transport infrastructure decade after decade and all to give it that UKOK/English advantage.
Sure Scotland has had a new dual carriage now and again but Scotland is bizarrely backward with transport. Look at how its practically pointless driving to and from Glasgow/Edinburgh or check out the deadly A9 to Inverness?
I know, we voted NO, shutup, Labour’s coming home, SLabour and England will save us 2020, 2025, 2030, rule britannia yada yada blah blah bleh.
How did we get a Scottish Parliament to dissolve prior to the Union in 1707? How did we get Doctors to sign up for the NHS in ’48?
Answer – Filled their mouths with Gold.
In order to beat your enemy, you first need to think like him. We need a strategy for ‘bribing’ pensioners.
Suggestions on a postcard please – mines is to raise pensions by 0.5 or 1% above rUK pensions for a minimum period of 5 years, guaranteed.
In simple terms, we need to bribe the old brainwashed bastards into voting Yes to win next time.
@ahundredthidiot
They can’t vote from the “other side”. Crossing the Styx is a one way journey!
How it is possible for someone as thick as Farquharson to be in a position of any influence is beyond me! He has just admitted that he doesn’t understand what he’s been writing about in a professional capacity for umpteen years, for God’s sake!
As for Corbyn…he’s just another UKOK Britnat politician who doesn’t give a flying f**k about us here in Scotland. And if he’s such a socialist or even a half decent human being what the hell is he doing still being in the Labour Party? Is he just another slow learner?
Sandra @ 12.36pm
Is this the utube vid you want to display…
MPs leaving Parliament in 2015:
Sir Malcolm Bruce speech (26Mar15)
The meat in the vid starts about 1.30 minutes in.
I use a different route to display a utube vid.
WoS appeal report to be on Radio Scotland Drive Time in a few minutes.
Tuned in already… we’ll hear all about it??
Hmm! No twitter box link on my table top computer running windows 8.1 for a few days now…but still there on my older lap top running Windows 7.
Any advice or reasons?? 🙁
@heedtracker
The A96 scares the living daylights out of me and not just the A9. The SNP/SG plans to dual it will no doubt be held up by vested land interests just as the Dukes of Gordon & Richmond held up the Fochabers bypass for 70 odd years.
How many of our transport infrastructure schemes have been held up or just cancelled or become so expensive to implement due to vested non resident or other landed interests effectively having a veto on them. I don’t think there is enough fingers between the two of us to count them all.
Brit nats like Farquharson are still in an utter state of denial, dazed and confused and mad as hell as they see the union slipping away. Karma is lovely isnt it?!
Effijy 1.45
The vast majority of farmers didn’t put up signs supporting one side or the other.I reckon Yes got about 35- 40% of farmers votes which,given the high average age of farmers,isn’t much different to society as a whole.You raise a very good point about the milk price.Supermarkets have far too much power.
“The Scottish Government has no say in Police surveillance, it’s reserved to Westminster.”
Police operations are most definitely devolved to Holyrood.
“What’s your point?”
That unhampered power can have unforeseen/unwanted consequences.
“the Crown Office in Scotland is a law unto itself, our parliament has no function of oversight on how our laws are applied.”
Separation of the executive and the judiciary is a GOOD thing. However the Crown Office is not a law unto itself. It sits below the Supreme Court and the European Court.
“You know that we know that you know that no SNP politican has asked for ‘control’ of BBC Scotland” So, is Mr Salmond not an SNP politician?
So Holyrood’s voting system, which returns an SNP majority, is wrong, but the referendum, which ( apparently ) returns a pro-union vote, is right? The GE voting system, which returned an amazing 56 SNP MP’s is also wrong?
Couldn’t it just be possible that Scots, seeing at first hand how a country can be run in a fairer, more compassionate way, even on a miserly block grant from WM, increasingly support the party responsible?
This is another brick in the foundation work being laid to persuade the English people to back the dismantling of Holyrood. They are prepared to play the long game.
Their main concern at the moment is that Scotland’s success is making Westminster look corrupt, inept and inappropriate, which of course it is.
The English don’t have the equivalent of the SNP, or they’d vote them in too!
@CameronB Brodie 2.41 Thanks!
Roll_on_2015 4.30 Yes, that’s the one. Thanks for posting it!
call me dave says:
14 August, 2015 at 4:37 pm
Hmm! No twitter box link on my table top computer running windows 8.1 for a few days now…but still there on my older lap top running Windows 7.
Any advice or reasons?? 🙁
Yep wipe em both and install Linux
“Big Jock says:
14 August, 2015 at 4:04 pm
Helena totally agree regarding Mcwhirter. There is a man who genuinely doesn’t know what he believes.
Used to think he was a clever thinker. Now I just get confused as to whether he is indi, indi lite, home rule or federalist. I think in his world he has jumped on the indi movement as it’s politically convenient rather than a true belief. He should really be a Liberal.????”
Mr McW is a self-confessed federalist, Big Jock. The Liberals have had this as their policy for over a hundred years (how has that worked out?) and it could never work, given the asymmetrical nature of the present UK (e.g. size of English population). It is a policy which allows them to say they favour home rule, knowing it will never happen, like those Labour supporters who “abhor” nuclear weapons but say we must have a multi-lateral solution. I have never been fully convinced that independence is a sine qua non for him. I may be doing him a disservice, of course.
He also makes excuses for the BBC, despite having suffered at their hands and I’m not surprised you’re confused by him: if memory serves he thought Ed was doing well and being satisfyingly left-wing during the GE. Then came The Edstone and oblivion.
Unfortunately, he may be right that some recent SNP converts may be attracted to Corbyn’s Holy Grail of Socialism message. This might be a problem in the short term for independence if he is allowed to win the leader’s election. Of course, it could equally produce utter anarchy in the Labour Party.
Time date 16.44. Drive time BBC Scotland Radio.
Mention of fundraiser to cover fines for sanctioned woman found guilty of shoplifting.
BBC at obvious pains to not mention source of fundraiser, crowd funded, fundraising by public.
It was not until interview with Manager of First Base Food Bank that Wings Over Scotland was mentioned and thanked, thank you Frank, that listeners would know who was behind this initiative.
Wings is definitely on the blacklist for censorship at BBC RS.
Very very obviously!
@Clootie
Ah, but they thought we were trained and tamed. Votes in the bag and all that. All it took for them to alienate us was a few decades of ignorance, ineptitude, abuse and taking us for granted.
Interesting to see that Farquharson was on the consultative steering group which set out the rules for how the parliament should work. 😀
How’s that’s working out for him d’you think? 😉
Anyroads, I see Corbyn has set his stall out on the local branch, FFA and independence. Not quite the man of the people as advertised after all.
Who knew?
ahundredthidiot says:
14 August, 2015 at 4:13 pm
“In simple terms, we need to bribe the old brainwashed bastards into voting Yes to win next time.”
A good idea, but I think you’ll have to be a wee bit more diplomatic than that. 🙂
Rancid Graun
“Gordon Brown will break his silence on the Labour leadership contest this weekend after a string of senior figures from Tony Blair to Alan Johnson warned that electing the frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn could split the party.”
Uhoh! So Labour isn’t coming home then.
Wish they’d start pooling and sharing their own ukok freak show. I’m guessing Crash is not coming out for JC. The way they’re prostrating themselves in front of JC, it may as well be the real Jesus Christ. By they, I actually have no idea who they are, red tory britnats maybe like rancid Graun, who say it’s all the lost and afraid Slabour vote that evil and cruel SNP pinched from SLab with their wicked ways. The rest just hate anyone not a red or blue tory really.
Make you’re dumb arsed minds up teamGB perlease.
Re. Mr. Corbyn. I smell an imperialist at heart.
Old Labour = English Socialism = Crypto-Communist One Nation Oligarchical Collectivism.
New Labour = Red Tory = Crypto-Fascist One Nation Oligarchical Collectivism.
What chance the English? What chance the Scots if we don’t give the Westminster system the bum’s rush?
Macart – 5.17pm.
“Not quite the man of the people as advertised after all.”
It’s still fun to watch him upset them though. 😉
@woosie
The English don’t have the equivalent of the SNP, or they’d vote them in too!
That’s what I’ve been banging on about. If the SNP were to facilitate an English political party sharing the SNP’s manifesto aims and promising to affiliate with the SNP in Parliament and support the SNP’s independence aims they would be a shoo-in from Berwick to Chester.
Think on the anxiety concerning UKIP with 1 seat; now think on the total brown straining panic the idea of the SNP at the head of not 56 but 156 or 256. JC will do us no favours, killing “Labour” in its North England heartlands will.
Farquharsons article has nothing to do with changing the voting system.
Simply it is an argument for removing the power from the voters since they proven to be too stupid to choose the “right” party.
He wants the Scottish parliament scrapped because the great unwashed have found a voice through voting SNP, which is just nor cricket.
@Phil R
I know you’re either trolling, or so misinformed as to be beyond help. But for the record…
ME: “The Scottish Government has no say in Police surveillance, it’s reserved to Westminster.”
YOU: “Police operations are most definitely devolved to Holyrood.”
No Phil, control of the choice and application of surveillance methods by the police in Scotland is explicit reserved to Westminster: by the Scotland Act 1998, Schedule 5, Part 1, Clause B8 (b) http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/46/schedule/5
ME: “the Crown Office in Scotland is a law unto itself, our parliament has no function of oversight on how our laws are applied.”
YOU: “Separation of the executive and the judiciary is a GOOD thing. However the Crown Office is not a law unto itself. It sits below the Supreme Court and the European Court.”
It’s a law unto itself in Scotland, Phil. People try to derive SNP = BAD from things like the bin lorry driver not being prosecuted, or the Crown nobbling its own case in the Coulson perjury trial. The Crown in Scottish legal cases isn’t answerable to the Scottish Government, Parliament or public. That’s one of many ways that even if the SNP are elected with 100% of the vote next year, their government will have nothing like the ‘unhampered’ power you suggest.
ME: “You know that we know that you know that no SNP politican has asked for ‘control’ of BBC Scotland”
YOU: “So, is Mr Salmond not an SNP politician?”
Mr Salmond may have asked for broadcasting to become a devolved matter. That would mean nothing more than The Scottish Government having a say in the funding arrangements and legal status of BBC Scotland (or its successor organisation), in exactly the same way that The London government now affects the funding and legal framework of the BBC. I’m sure you know that already. Do you have an implicit assumption that Scots and/or the SNP are intrinsically more corrupt or less liberal than the English and/or the majority Tory WM government?
I believe I have seen a few comments just lately about the SNP unjustly having a majority in Holyrood, it looks like some of the brit-nats are trying to lay some groundwork to try and abolish our parliment in Scotland sometime in the future.
Well bring it on yeh daft bastards, wer’e watching you.
Lanarkist, I have absolutely no doubt wings will be blacklisted as source of any positive news given how frequently they are shown up as a unionist propaganda tool by this site.
On that very subject yesterday’s lead BBC story was a belter with a conservative shock horror expose of a crisis in primary school head teacher roles being filled. The figures were presented as primary school head vacancies versus secondary making the apparently high number for primary look like news. The truth was that these vacancies are running at about 2.5% of head teachers for both. Hardly a crisis. any attempt at journalism would have addressed this.
It’s rather pathetic really. They are desperate to make the SNP look like a poor goverement.
Robertson: So, is Mr Salmond not an SNP politician?
Are you Jim Roberston, from ‘Neighbours’?
You remarks are pure soap.
“YOU: “Police operations are most definitely devolved to Holyrood.”
No Phil, control of the choice and application of surveillance methods by the police in Scotland is explicit reserved to Westminster: by the Scotland Act 1998, Schedule 5, Part 1, Clause B8 (b) http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/46/schedule/5”
Which would be true if it were done legally. However it was illegal and carried out by Police Scotland’s Counter Corruption Unit! It’s firmly in Holyrood’s domain.
@ Phil 12.12pm
“Approximately half the world’s sovereign states are unicameral”
http://Www.en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicameralism
How on earth do they all manage I wonder without a second chamber?
OT Publicity for WoS fine paying fundraiser …
https://archive.is/WZhxn
@John H
“It’s still fun to watch him upset them though”
That it is John. 😀
Whoever comes out on top in that stramash they’ve got a long hard internal fight ahead of them. Labour HQ is going to be a warzone for some time to come I think. No clear unopposed leader will emerge from that campaign and whoever wins has absolutely zero interest in our local branch. They know only too well which electorate puts a PM in number ten and that’s the one they’ll be focussing their attention on.
That’s when their necks aren’t on full swivel watching their own backs. 😉
A safe bet is at least another two terms of conservative government.
“it looks like some of the brit-nats are trying to lay some groundwork to try and abolish our parliment in Scotland sometime in the future.”
BBC and co demolish Scotland’s faith, trust, confidence in Holyrood, bent cops, terrible NHS, illiterate kids, honest decent journalist spied on by most dangerous women in teamGB Sturgeon, Westminster massive devo for councils, Highlands and Islands. Fluffie and Carmicheal been up to Orkney already, and all coming to you next UKOK parliament, via Jakey Bird etc.
Holyrood’s finished. Our imperial masters have had enough. BBC in Scotland will make sure you like it though.
Cal,
Have a look at the first one on the list, Angola, to see how well it works.
I suspect there will be a secret BT arrangement among the per ties and forces of Unionism to try to reduce the SNP surge. They will try to erode support and deny the SNP an overall majority at Holyrood. No majority, no chance of indyref2.
We can expect
– all the false NHS etc propaganda to continue
– smearing individual SNP constituency candidates in an attempt to hold seats
– talking up Greens and other list parties to split and neuter the Indy vote
– false flag online abuse of Unionists blamed on ‘cybernats’
@CameronB Brodie
Aye, its amazing just how much he revealed of himself over a few simple questions last night.
Dearie me so one of the people who helped design our parliament system says he doesnt know how it works,well KF you are either
A a liar
B an imbecile
So which one is it Kenny boy? oh and congratulations you just managed to earn one of my dunce caps.
O/T
The fundraiser has now broken the £10k
I’m now offishully greetin, against all the evidence in the Media, people are decent caring humans. Well done Stu & we’ll done everyone who chipped in.
Absolute waffle. Not your analysis Rev but the original article. To me the question raised by this article is how does he get employed as a serious journalist and how did he get to the level of deputy editor?
Earlier in my life I considered a career as a journalist but feared I didn’t have the ability. Over the years I’ve seen countless examples that made my decision seem ill judged. This recent example backs up that view.
O/T
Live at 7.30pm Mark Thomas A Hundred Acts of Minor Dissent on Livestream
http://livestream.com/IndependenceLive/events/4248853
A wee message for Mr Fuc*erson.
If the majority of the Scottish electorate vote for the SNP, then the SNP will govern the parliament.
Me thinks its called something like DEMOCRACY.
If Mr Fuc*erson struggles to understand the concept of democracy, perhaps he should seek another form of vocation.
I am no rocket scientist, but even I can fathom out how elections work.
Iain More @4.40pm
Spot on.
How many more unnecessary road deaths?
Oh, and Aberdeen, ‘oil capital of Europe’?
My fucking arse.
Not exactly OT, as this is who we are also bound to and there is a similar network of revolving doors in Warmonster. Remember, the interests that created the EEC and NATO also created the Bilderberg Club. That was their Trojan horse and enabled the formation of the ‘evil twin sisters’, IMO.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-nato-military-deployments-economic-warfare-goldman-sachs-and-the-next-financial-meltdown/5467943
C4 news also going quite big with JC saving/bringing back YES voters to teamGB, shock. Its a try at a UKOK angle I guess.
“Do you think JC can keep England’s control of their Scotland intact, voxpop chappie?”
JC’s bottled it talking to Christian Guru-Murthy though. Never a good omen.
Got a great twitter thing going has Christian.
https://twitter.com/krishgm
Thepnr @ 5:50pm
My mistake. I should have read the article but life is too short. 😉
Macart
That’s what I was (Labour war zone) meaning about J Mcternan on Call Kaye.
He had the brass neck to tell the callers ( the majority who appeared to be Labour voters) in Scotland , you don’t matter.
The votes of Southampton, Derby etc are what will get Labour back in power.
He was quite upfront about it . “The people, the idiots ” are being treated with utter contempt
The votes of Southampton etc
Unfortunately the callers were too busy thinking they were talking about their Labour Party ( which no longer exists)
As for the rest, I remember hearing someone on TV tell the story, at a dinner party at the Balls house, one of their children was there. When a guest asked about their Daddy becoming PM ,the child innocently replied to the effect ” oh no it’s Mummy who is to be PM ” . Out of the mouth of babes!
There’s panic in the ranks because all the plotting and scheming may be thwarted by those pesky voters -imagine! M
RE the perils of alleged one-party government does Fraquarson want The SNP to start pleading with the electorate to stop voting for them and vote Labour?
There is, however, a one-party government which is a danger to democracy.
It resides in Westminster and has the power to suspend the Holyrood Government at the stroke of a pen followed by abolition.
Sorry – diving in with O/T so may be duplicating..
Live independence livestreaming Jeremy Corbyn from Glasgow
Jeremy Corbyn candidate for leader of the Westminster Labour party, will be giving a speech followed by a Q&A.
http://tinyurl.com/onygfke
Ot:
Corbyn live.
http://www.independencelive.net/
Krishnan Guru-Murthy asks “I wonder what it means…” (Gordon Brown’s impending speech on “Power for a Purpose”)
He’ll be selling Crypto-Fascist One Nation Oligarchical Collectivism as a kinder and more humanitarian face of the neo-liberal hegemony over English politics. Or in other words, selling liberal imperialism as socialism. It’s Labour’s nature. Unsurprisingly, they have a lot of form.
Any chance of a mentoring fee, Krishnan?
Have a Nice weekend ye all !
Haha beat you to it for once cH 😀
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-33928117
Rejoice! Miserable gits have to report, if they really really have to.
I think I need to put my tinfoil hat on.
Could the British State actually manufacture a Corbyn mania to hurt the cause of Scottish independence?
Just listened to Billy Kay’s “The Cause, a History of Scottish Nationalism”, which I missed last time it was broadcast. Catch it on the iplayer or on Radio Scotland Tuesdays and Sundays.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mwwjx
Episode 2 next week should be interesting – on Keir Hardie and Cunningham-Graham founding the Labour Party with Home Rule as a central policy.
Can’t blame the electorate for not wishing to be represented by a Labour Party MSP – Moaning Shouty Person.
Well what do you know.
Never a day seems to go by these days without yet another excellent example of why we are all in it together and better together.
http://www.itv.com/news/2015-08-14/grieving-pensioner-charged-160-for-staying-too-long-at-wifes-grave/
@Molly
Never a truer word. 😀
You win a few by elections, your approval ratings go up,
The odd report says you’re sweeping the boards
You’ve got the new Labour guy paying a wee visit but really making no difference no matter how much BBC or STV shout about it
What always happens in these circumstances when things are looking bright?
The TROLLS come out in fucking force to try and bring us down to the level we MUST learn to accept
It’s like they’re programmed ROBOTIC VOICE (Put down the Nats Put down the Nats )
And the more they do it, the more we know we’re winning
!£%&£* YEAY %$!^*£
Ooh, Coming to Embra tomorrow fur the book festival
I’ll be the one with the big smile
The Daily Psychopath…
We already have a one party state in the UK as the only parties that can be elected are the blue tories and the red tories and they are two cheeks of the same arse.
When the only so-called opposition abstain on policies put forward by their friends in the blue corner then what else can it be but a one party state in all but name and they are fooling no one.
To paraphrase Henry Ford, “you can have any policy you like as long as it’s right wing”.
Hi Dr Jim.
If you’re heading to Embra tomorrow, why not meet up with the Wings gang – Ronnie Anderson, Jock Scot (Yew Choob), CameronB Brodie, TJenny, Tam Jardine and so on?
They’re gonna be having a chinwagging session about an Embra Wings get-together next month.
See here (Jock’s post):-
http://wingsoverscotland.com/off-topic/comment-page-27/#comment-2047806
O/T Beyond Endurance from the Rev’s earlier Headline.
This story sits in parallel with Victor Hugo’s novel of 1862, Les Miserables. This story made a great impression on me as a young teenager, and was one of several books that formed my political view to one that is Left of Centre.
Should anyone on the planet not be familiar with the plot. Jean
Valjean is a very poor Frenchman who tries desperately to find work, food, and shelter, not only for himself but a widowed Sister-in-Law, who is ill, and without money for medicines, and for her starving children.
When all hope has gone, he “steals a loaf of bread, gets caught and is sentenced to a remove island prison colony for a life of hard labour and with little chance of surviving.
Almost everyone who reads the book or watches the play, Tory and Blairite Labour excluded, reflects on the injustice, the horror,
the inhumanity of that era, and thanks God that those are gone for good.
Now it seems the UK Better Together Parties have dragged us back down that same road and 150 years back in time!
If our victim was sentenced to imprisonment for the sake of
common sense and decency plus 75p, she may have been given a 6
moth sentence.
If it costs £2,000,00 per week to incarcerate someone on Her Majesty’s Pleasure, and the court case will cost another £3,000.00, This Government will spend £55,000.00 of our hard earned money in order to bring justice to a Mars Bar that has been recovered, and no doubt sold on for profit.
What a pathetic mindless shower of B*****’s that run this government, and who apply this ruling as justice.
I’d be happy to dig a tunnel, swim shark infested waters or just vote for SNP twice on my next ballot paper to get rid of them.
I pledge to contribute!
Capella
By ‘Old Labour’, I meant Labour after the Fabian Society got involved but before they merged with the Tories in 1931. Also, the period covering the post-war ‘new deal’ up until inflation and globalisation put the kibosh on Statist government.
The World Bank forced structural reform on Callaghan’s Labour government, similar if not perhaps as severe as those imposed on Greece and the rest is soggy neo-liberal cereal, as they say. 🙂
Angry Weegie says:
pmcrek says:
Presumably ‘Last Past The Post’ would the only solution.
Surely you’re not advocating a LibDem Government?
UKip surely.
Btw my lovely darlings – please support our lovely Boorach http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/home-straight-for-bill-s-battle-bus#/story
Anyone have any reports on how Jeremy Corbyn’s Glasgow gig went this evening? Couldn’t get the Indy Live link, it was stone-deid for me. 🙁
Oops, sorry. I wasn’t thinking about hammers. Too busy getting rid of all the page-returns.
Hi sexy Ian and Cameron – no change, Jeremy has enjoyed visiting Scotlandshire and talking to the natives, turned down the chance to wear a woad skirt.
Judging by some responses from Labour voters concerning Corbyn I have the feeling the epitaph on Scottish Labour’s collective grave will be, “We thought, this time…”
So, 50+% of Scots vote SNP and all the DevoMinimalist parties are in free fall.
The Unionists could have played this completely differently.
The Tories in Scotland could have recognised that the London Posh Boy brand was totally toxic. They could have reverted to their pre 60s status as an independent, all be it Unionist, party. Then embraced devolution to the extent which Scots wanted all along.
Labour is Scotland could have actually been ‘the party of devolution’ instead of just pretending to be. Again, they could have fought to get the level of power transfer we have actually made clear in many surveys.
Then the sad LibDem. Instead of brown nosing the Tories they could have actually been the ‘party of Home Rule’, like they have claimed for over 100 years.
None of them needed to get into the unholy alliance to trash Scotland that was BetterTogether – a channel for no more than false promises, lies and fearmongering.
They could have all played the cards before them quite differently. They chose to ignore what the people were telling them …. and now we are all where we are. All makes perfect sense with hindsight!
Are we seeing the fore-running, by the Brit Nat establishment, of a coup from above to overturn the Scottish Parliament and put the Scots back into our play-pen, to be toyed with by the Brit Nat elite?
@ Dr Jim side entrance at Waverly Station 11am Sat is it Market St.
Aye Rev Stu
It appears that your kindness in Kidderminsterhas hit the Independent.
No mention of WoS!
.
You’re not off topic Effify,
These issues are all linked, to mankind’s imminent return to MEDIEVAL VALUE, whereby…
Ownership is everything,
Until everything is owned,
Then freedoms are given a value,
And they too are stolen.
So all that remains…
is aspiration to own,
in a world out of reach.
The merchants coup.
Twas Nicola Sturgeon wot won it for the blue tories, shriek the red tories but does she get any credit for good Bettertogether news? No. Rancid Graun’s such a petty crew.
https://archive.is/1yl5i
Corbyn.
Phoenix from the flames?
No, JUST GTF LABOUR, DIE, SICK OF YOUR SOAP OPERA SHIT.
@Ian Brotherhood
Livestream worked here ok his speech was dull full of soundbites nothing more. Leadership qualities missing as was any passion in his oration.
“Ian Brotherhood says:
14 August, 2015 at 9:07 pm
Anyone have any reports on how Jeremy Corbyn’s Glasgow gig went this evening? Couldn’t get the Indy Live link, it was stone-deid for me. :(”
I saw some of it… but it kept cutting to Mark Thomas in a bookshop, and then back again.
They had a band singing in between speakers – the band were good, the speakers less so. The band played Hamish Henderson’s ‘John McLean March’, and Corbyn and Owen Jones both clapped along. I take it that means they both support a Scottish republic ;P
Jones gave a long-winded panegyric about Jeremy’s gonny save the world, he said “this island” about a hundred times – never once mentioned ‘Scotland’, ‘Britain’ or the ‘UK’ … I’m pleased they’ve clocked on that “UK” is a toxic brand up here now, even for Labour acolytes.
Neil Findlay was next up. Mumbled some rubbish and sat doon again (oratory’s no’ his forte, kezia wi’ a deep voice). He was gazing at Corbyn all night as if to say, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom”. Corbyn disnae like him, it seems from the body language.
Corbyn was alright, reminds me of an alkie geography teacher I had at school. He’s the most inoffensive Labour politician I’ve seen since the ’70s. Nothing earth shattering in his speech. You could sum him up as, ‘everything the SNP said, plus nationalise railtrack’. I fear for him if he wins the leadership, a decent guy it seems, surrounded by careerist red tories with daggers drawn.
I’ve just heard,on radio 4,the presenter talking about Scottish Labour leader candidates Kezia Dugdale and Ken McDonald.”I mean McIntosh.” That must really hurt.To be pretty much ignored by “your betters”.
“Do you have an implicit assumption that Scots and/or the SNP are intrinsically more corrupt or less liberal than the English and/or the majority Tory WM government?”
essentially this is an explicit and common argument put forward by many who are against independence for Scotland, so I would reckon the answer to the question is yes…
Perhaps Oor Kenny is a disciple of the wanna be USA Congressman Dick Tuck who, when he was soundly beaten at the polls said ” the people have spoken..the bastards”
No one should ever feel sorry or guilty for the Labour party’s demise. They deserve everything they got.
Right up until the first count in 2015. They were spouting their hatred of the SNP. Had they won in 2015 they would have carried on as before. Treating Scotland like a branch office. I still think they have further to fall.
Labour in Scotland as a branch of Labour UK are finished. The Blairites in England will win the day. England wants right wing government. Scotland wants left. How can the Labour party controlled by the right ever win in Scotland. They can’t it’s autonomy or decline. They have chosen decline.
Galamcennalath 9.31
trouble is,these unionists genuinely believe we simply don’t have what it takes to run our own country.They think it’s better to have another country in charge of us.
@ cynicalHighlander & Scunterbunnet –
Many thanks for the updates.
Sounds like I didn’t miss much, apart, perhaps, from the musical interludes?
@Mealer
…. and our big problem is some of those unionists are Scottish!
If the establishment is looking to steal Scottish democracy…
How safe are our assets, if we hold off independence too lon?
It is coming, but the speculators are already here, looking to capitalise.
The process of ref 2 can be used to stop rUK poaching our industries.
http://livestream.com/IndependenceLive/JeremyCorbyn
Roll on 2015 @ 10pm
Thanks for the Ind link . I noted they ref to Stuart as the Reverend Stuart Campbell ………………
and as you read down they post a pic of a Reverend Mannie .
Aye they know what they are doing , trying to mislead ! Barstewards !
Ian Brotherhood ,
Was that Katy Clarke on the platform with Corbyn ?
Naturally Neil Findlay supports JC too.
Another interesting few weeks ahead.
@Phil 6.43pm
Oh dear. Do I detect a hint of superiority in your response? Is Angola not a proper country? How about some European examples? Bulgaria, Portugal or Slovakia perhaps? No, still not respectable enough? How about Luxembourg, Denmark,Norway Sweden and Finland? All are unicameral and all do not benefit from the stabilizing influence of an “upper” house of prostitute frequenting cocaine addicts with a predilection for paedophilia. So I’ll ask you once again, how on Earth do they manage to govern themselves?
@ Mealer
Sorry, but that’s not correct. They know full well we have what it takes to run our own country. The trouble is they also know that they don’t. They know that without Scotland’s financial input they will drown. That is the truth that’s never spoken.
Scunterbunnet wrote:
“Neil Findlay was next up. Mumbled some rubbish and sat doon again (oratory’s no’ his forte, kezia wi’ a deep voice).”
LLF, very well put!
🙂
As for Corbyn, i’m with Wuffing Dug and others, who gives a feck!
Sick to the back teeth of the Labour freak show.
It’s becoming the proverbial fly in the independence ointment.
A distraction we can well and truly do without.
GTF back to London, you’re not needed or wanted here.
This is properly off-topic, but requires the broadest possible appeal.
The attention of Weegies of a certain vintage is required:
Can anyone remember what was, according to Radio Clyde ads, ‘halfway down Robertson Street’?
Ian Brotherhood
Never caught it Ian- I did see him speak for the first time on Scotland 2015 last night. Just let that sink in a moment.
I’m interested in politics, watch the news when I get the chance, late night politics shows etc and I listen to radio 4 and Scotland from time to time. I wondered how long it would take the media to expose me to a dose of Corbynmania without seeking him out. It’s taken an age.
Of course the media in Scotland now need to punt this guy to try and dent the SNP… even though Kezia has run off her mouth before engaging brain. She must be aware her remarks slagging JC will now haunt her forever.
Corbyn is everything Kezia is not – principled, thoughtful and with some strong ideas, but as usual Scotland is seen as an errant child, or piece of property.
Another unionist at a time even Kezia is toying with balloting members on slab position on Scottish Independence.
The labour party are something else – swing right in left wing Scotland whilst simultaneously swinging left in right wing England!
O/T
http://caltonjock.com/2015/08/14/crime-sex-orgies-politics-the-forces-that-drive-westminster-part-3-ultra-right-wing-a-second-top-tory-orgy-organiser-and-a-jock-to-boot/
We were overwhelmingly Labour for decades and no one complained then.
Robertson Wallpaper and paint ” halfway down robertson street”
If I may….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmbury_St_Mary
It’s probably because I still need glasses, but I checked Beatrice Webb’s wiki page and didn’t find any mention of the ‘left’s’ dirty little secret.
http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/eugenics.html
and here’s a couple of re-posts:
http://www.newstatesman.com/society/2010/12/british-eugenics-disabled
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/feb/17/eugenics-skeleton-rattles-loudest-closet-left
English socialism is very ‘blood and soil’ in it’s origins. If it has ever represented the best interests of society, New Labour killed that hope stone dead. British Labour are now simply a vote collecting machine. Or otherwise, as the case may be.
“Can anyone remember what was, according to Radio Clyde ads, ‘halfway down Robertson Street’?”
I’ll hazard a guess: was it “What Every Woman Wants”? They were in that neck of the woods, until they expanded to what’s now the Merchant City, down beside Goldbergs and so on. If memory serves.
I was wrong. It wisnae Wah-Wahs … the internet says it was Robertson St Paper and Paint. What-Everys were at the corner of York St., one doon fae Robertson.
Iain Brotherhood @11.20
Hmmmm
Carpets?
Vynil floor coverings?
Or ‘Glens, Hutchisons, robertson & stepek’?
FFS I NEED TO KNOW!
BTW D.O.B. 1972
“Corbyn the Soothsayer is not so sooth”
Your late night reading here:
https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2015/08/14/the-corbyn-effect/
Scunterbunnet
‘he reminds me of an alkie geography teacher I had at school’
Maybe we had the same teacher.
I was about to say –
Even if Corbyn does win Labour leadership,and serves the purpose of useful idiot for the London Establishment,( winning Scotland back for Labour). By 2020 election he will be exposed as the geography teacher he should have been.
Any Labourite ‘international socialists’ out there who think the great grey hope Corbyn will take them to their Shangri La are gullible in the extreme.
It’s clear that labour, both sides of the border, are on the woad to nowhere.
Gordzilla being resurrected (again) to save labour this weekend 🙂
https://archive.is/PVT4k
Still Kezia and ‘what’s his name? MacDonald… er Macintosh… result today.
Yeah doesn’t woad well for labour at all.
Even big Brian hasn’t posted on the BBC since July 8th and his contributions on the radio were faint praise indeed. 🙂
McAveety pounces first in Glasgow leadership bid.
THE starting pistol in the race to lead Scotland’s largest local authority has been fired, with several nominations expected in the aftermath of the Labour leadership contests.
https://archive.is/6N9ro
Ian Brotherhood 11.20
Stepek perhaps.
“The fourth MP in the contest, Andy Burnham, meanwhile, voiced hopes a silent majority of voters could defeat Mr Corbyn”
Oops, the silent majority strikes again. I take it ALL the votes in the Labour leadership race are by post then? I’m thinking maybe a couple of hundred thousand of the new members are registered at the same address: “c/o GCHQ, Cheltenham” 🙂
Before Chomsky fans start bealing about me posting Bogdanor.
http://bigwhiteogre.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/response-to-paul-bogdanors-top-200.html
McAveety pounces first in Glasgow leadership bid.
MvAveety, McAveety
The epitome of depravity.
🙂
Kenny Farquharson? Journalist? What can i say about him?
Well, not much but when you have Sevco fans questioning your credibility i think it’s time to chuck it. Oooh the irony!
Enough said!
Night, folks, have a great and safe weekend.
😉
Democracy Reborn says:
14 August, 2015 at 12:44 pm
There was a piece in yesterday’s Guardian on Corbyn and Scotland.
He thinks Scotland is essential to Labour recovering power at WM.
He’s against any further devolution of business taxes, particularly corporation tax. Can’t have the Scots having a competitive advantage. Plus he needs Scottish revenues to contribute to his public spending plans.
———-
Surprise surprise. London MP Jeremy Corbyn wants to keep the ‘level’ playing field in the UK, where London has huge natural advantages for business and investment.
I mean, seriously, here we all are, asserting that we can responsibly run our own nation, look after each other and bladdy-bladdy blah, but we can’t, between us, remember what was ‘halfway down Robertson Street’?
🙁
Do we have to wait for some BTUKOKer to tell us?
GET ON IT!
NOW!
Oh, i almost forgot this thought, i read further up the thread that Neil Findlay, Dippy Dug and Katy Clark all attended the Corbyn show. Apparently to show their support?
Does anyone know what Corbyn’s stance is on WMD because the aforementioned 3 ass-lickers all have differing stances on WMD.
Goodnight, folks, i’m away to throw another log on the fire.
😉
Can anyone remember what was, according to Radio Clyde ads, ‘halfway down Robertson Street’?
I do remember this ad, but not for what it was for? A furniture store?
O/T
http://caltonjock.com/2015/08/15/crime-sex-orgies-politics-the-forces-that-drive-westminster-part-4-high-society-lady-takes-it-all-to-a-higher-level/
@Grouse Beater
That’s right! The cat that’s never there. 🙂
To be honest I haven;t a clue how this new leadership of the labour party in both parts of the UK will play out. It’s only the MSM, mainly the BBC in Scotland that’s managing the bilge pumps at the moment.
But the chocolate fountain and the fondue set are coming out of storage and I’ve got the popcorn on order.
PS:
John Pirrie, who set up an engine hire firm with his brother in 1980 and sold the Glasgow-based business for £60 million in 2006 after they transformed it into the biggest independent generator hire company in the UK, said he had been “flabbergasted” to learn of Ms Mone’s new role.
He said he was in “complete agreement” with comments made by Douglas Anderson, joint managing director of major tool and plant hire company the Gap Group, who wrote to David Cameron labelling Ms Mone a “a small-time businesswoman” and saying a mooted appointment to the House of Lords would be “highly divisive”, given her outspoken opposition to Scottish independence.
https://archive.is/Nqryl
A highlight for those not interested in the btl discussion in the above link.
http://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1439597975&sr=1-3&keywords=Jacques+Ellul
Call Me Dave: The chocolate fountain and the fondue set are coming out of storage and I’ve popcorn on order.
Ha ha! 🙂
My previous link, obvs.
Great article Rev. Just catching up with your site again. A lot of articles to read! Imagine a one-party Labour state! Sadly we’ve all been there, seen it, done it, and got the T-shirt! British parties good; SNP bad! Smiling that there is still more one-party state-shness to come!
“14 August, 2015 at 5:17 pm
Time date 16.44. Drive time BBC Scotland Radio.
BBC at obvious pains to not mention source of fundraiser, crowd funded, fundraising by public.
I heard that too. The efforts the presenter went to avoid mentioning WoS would have been comical if it wasn’t so predictable. I know the fund raiser was not done for the publicity but it really does say a lot about our media that they deliberately omitted that key bit of information, and the BBC are not the only ones who have reported the story that way. Even the local paper Stu linked to on Twitter did the same.
Greham Ballantyne says
“He has to fill his column with SOMETHING every week”
maybe if he filled it with a fish supper sautnsauce! 🙂
__________________________________________________________________
Mealer says
“The vast majority of farmers didn’t put up signs supporting one side or the other.I reckon Yes got about 35- 40% of farmers votes which,given the high average age of farmers,isn’t much different to society as a whole.You raise a very good point about the milk price.Supermarkets have far too much power.”
I told Tesco that as long as the Angus, Perthshire and (not so much) Fife farmers insist on putting Union flags on their strawberries I wont be buying them, latterly I see same producers selling their produce with Saltires on them, personally I dont want ANY flags on my strawberries I just want to eat them without thinking about the fact that Im supporting a no voter (or indeed a yes voter)
The referendum debate has caused enough division, and I hold the no campaign totally responsable for that, and of course the BBC who’s hands (no matter how many times they wash them) will never be clean again.
__________________________________________________________
Call Me Dave says
“Hmm! No twitter box link on my table top computer running windows 8.1 for a few days now…but still there on my older lap top running Windows 7.”
Try upgrading to windows 10 its free to 8.1 users.
________________________________________________________________
Phil Robertson
At last Ive found the source of my tinnitus. 🙁
shut the hell up for Gods sake!
___________________________________________________________
Phil R
“Cal,
Have a look at the first one on the list, Angola, to see how well it works.”
Aint alphabetic order great Phil!
Selective arent we?
Why didnt you mention Norway, Finland, or Sweden for that matter, selective facts work both ways pal.
________________________________________________________
Wuffing Dug says
“Iain More @4.40pm
Spot on.
How many more unnecessary road deaths?
Oh, and Aberdeen, ‘oil capital of Europe’?
My fucking arse.”
I made that point a couple of years ago on here when I checked and found that the UK has over 2000 miles of motorway but Scotland has only 236 miles of it much of it is only two lanes,
most notably (for me at least)the stretch between the Forth road bridge and Perth which can see traffic moving at motorway speeds leaving the bridge to turn the corner at the Pitreavie (heading north) junction to find traffic moving as slow as 20mph due to slow moving lorries overtaking on the outside lane on a hill,
In contrast Wales has 75 miles of motorway with a land mass of 8018 square miles while Scotland has a land mass of 30.141 square miles and 238 miles of motorway, even if you only multiplied the amount of miles in Wales you would get 284 miles of motorway in Scotland but that doesn’t take into account that Aberdeen is indeed the oil capital of Europe, can anyone imagine Dallas in Texas having a single lane road as its main artery?
Lest we forget the Labour opposition has continuously complained at the SNP for dragging its feet in upgrading the A9 when we all know its faced with circumstances the Labour/lib dem administration in Holyrood was never faced with,
reductions in the block grant,
and Jack McConnell couldn’t think of a bleeding thing to spend the money on and handed back billions to the treasury in London
YOU COULD NOT MAKE IT FUCKING UP!
oh btw England has 50.301 square miles so if Scotland has 30.414 (simplistic I know) but that would mean Scotland like for like should have roughly 800 miles of motorway!
I calculated that England (alone) has 1689 miles of motorway
The Corbyn show was an effort to reproduce the atmosphere of Indyref. There was a decent crowd of c 1000. The MC was enthusiastic and constantly reminded us they were in Glasgow. Much harping back to the glorious heyday of international socialism. Red Clydsiders and the Scottish brigades of the Spanish Civil War. Strict avoidance of mentioning the UK.
Too many speakers. Owen Jones telling us how sound JC really is. Neil Findlay waffling about something. Interminable songs from some trio. Katy Clark wheeled on to make the final intro.
At last, at 9.00pm, JC gives his speech. Spelt out his general anti austerity stance which incorporates most current SNP policy without independence, of course. Strict avoidance of Scottish issues. Sounded tired. No wonder after sitting through the run-up.
Ended with stirring rendition of anti Franco version of Red River Valley. Did I mention the Spanish Civil War?
The media trail a speech by Gordon Brown for days…. Gordon is about to say something. It’s like they’re natives waiting for a volcano to erupt.
‘Power for a purpose’. Could be a game-changer…. but wait, what’s this burning rage that’s building in the pit of my stomach? Oh aye- we’ve been here before.
We’ve had the days of trailing, briefing to build this guy up. We’ve watched speeches pushed by the state broadcaster as manna from heaven in venues rammed to the gunwales with vetted supporters where GB prowls about like stage, demented and absurd. And we’ve seen the political commentators cream themselves over his pronouncements, still in awe.
It is like a circus. Or more accurately, a freak show.
Gordon Brown was the one punted by the media as the multi party focus of the unionists campaign. He was portrayed as the guardian of Scotland, our Great Protector thrashing out a settlement for the Scots to stay loyal.
In this small country of ours there can hardly be a political figure so discredited in our history. Gordon promised the earth, promised he would act as guarantor of home rule etc etc etc. Then he left the commons to live in the states once enough weak minded folk had bought his message. What a fucking fraud.
And the press want to know what GB thinks of Corbyn. Jesus.
Grouse Beater said:
“McAveety pounces first in Glasgow leadership bid.
MvAveety, McAveety
The epitome of depravity.”
The heirs of TS Eliot are gonna sue…
Excellent blog on The Corbyn Effect, GB.
Can I summarise?
Jeremy says, “Scotland, know your limits!”
@John King
I’m with Mealer on this one. There are Farmers and there are Farmers. Not all are the same. It wos the fecking landowners who stuck up all the big NO signs.
FarmersRus 🙂
One Party State? The opposition may be useless but they are not proscribed. Even supporters of those parties understand that!
https://grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com/2015/08/14/one-party-state/
It should be noted that 25 years ago New Zealand democratically chose MMP (like AMS except a national not regional lists). We had a national conversation about voting systems and we considered STV, AV and others. We chose MMP and it ran off against FPTP and won handsomely.
We did it against opposition by the politicians. They were forced into it by a big petition, the old fashioned paper sort. I remember signing it.
So this system gets chosen by well informed electorates.
McAveety in the running to be the LabLeader of GCC FFS,sheesh dont mention ma (Talcum Powder),but it will be all White on the nite ( dependant on the purity).
@Tam Jardine
“What a fucking fraud”
Now your fucking talking, that’s the spirit! We won’t get past the winning post post without a wee bit fire in our belly. Glad to you share yours Tam.
“MvAveety, McAveety
The epitome of depravity.”
I’d guess that Lords Rice n Webber now own the words, so long as they’re sung..
All together now….
This wasn’t Old Labour, it’s Very Old Labour. But Scottish politics is something of a minefield for them. Mention Keir Hardie (cheers) but don’t mention Home Rule, Red Clydeside (cheers) but not Jimmy Reid who joined the SNP.
Most of the “progressive” policies are already being implemented by the SNP, such as no tuition fees, no privatisation of the NHS and building Council houses again. Rail nationalisation is a reserved matter.
Corbyn is in a tight corner. Too left wing for England, too Unionist for Scotland.
We still have the exciting cliff hanger of the Scottish Labour leadership contest to look forward to later today. Keep calm everybody.
Thepnr says
“It wos the fecking landowners who stuck up all the big NO signs.”
There was a farmer/landowner who stuck up a vote no sign in every field (he owned)from Perth to Dundee implying a lot of support I seem to recall someone highlighting that fact that all of those no signs represented the views on only one man, maybe No no no Yes can shed some light on that one? 🙂
@Capella, 7.24.
Thanks for sitting through that lot, Capella. You deserve a medal. Sounds like they were pressing all the usual old buttons, but not necessarily in the right order.
I like Red River Valley as much as any dewy-eyed oldster but don’t see its relevance to a party that is clearly up the creek. And what Ethel Macdonald, Motherwell’s finest, would have made of it is anyone’s guess.
Just as well you wore the trench coat and dark glasses: that tutu would have been a giveaway. ????
Thepnr
Thanks. I’m saying nothing new of course but it bears repeating!
FarmersRus 🙂
Oi ger orf my traactor. 🙂
@ Tinto Chiel
I confess – I watched it from the comfort of my own sofa on livestream. You too can enjoy the splendid evening of music and upliftment here:
http://livestream.com/IndependenceLive/JeremyCorbyn
BTW to enjoy the musical interludes you have to scroll down to the fourth video – the event in full.
Call Me Dave says
“Hmm! No twitter box link on my table top computer running windows 8.1 for a few days now…but still there on my older lap top running Windows 7.”
Try upgrading to windows 10 its free to 8.1 users.
Read the EULA for Windows 10 you’ll find it’s not free you pay a heavy price with your privacy
Windows 10 privacy policy can be summed up in one sentence…you don’t have any
Cameron on Beeb there, looking like he’s on the pooders.
Askit fights the miseries, shame the Tories create them.
Ps.. SIR Tim Rice, is a County fan. He also coined
“keep them yelling their devotion.. And add a touch of hate at Rome (current invaders)
” we will rise to a greater power.. We will call this place a home..”
It’s from JEREMY CORBIN SUPERSTAR…
Now it’s VJ day – FFS does it never end?
Feel the love from Tory tweeter in England:
“just over a million scum in Scotland vote SNP out of a nation of 64 million. Hardly representative.”
Re Corbyn, I think all the anti Corbyn stuff is to try to show he is ‘not one of the establishment’ and yes, some of the die hard labour lot will fall for it, in fact they are desperate to believe.
This is a concerted effort to get Scotland back in it’s box.
Hopefully all the red clydesider stuff will mean nothing to younger voters who will not be conned.
IMO independence is the only way for us, and I don’t trust Corbyn.
Arabs for Independence says:
15 August, 2015 at 9:13 am
Now it’s VJ day – FFS does it never end?
No it is endless war.
And we’re supposed to ‘celebrate’ this anniversary.
The endless war provides endless veterans, forever convenient, to use their personal loss/bravery to mask the true horrors and greed of war.
Thanks for the link, Capella, but I don’t think It’s my kind of upliftment. Now root canal treatment, that’s more my kind of thing.
My main concern is why a smiley appears as four question marks whenever I emojify.
GCHQ I expect.
Ian Brotherhood , could it be Robertsons Rainwear?
and just a wee question , WHY do you NEED to know?
I think Mr Corbyn should be sent an e-mail telling him how little he needs us in any election ,after all he has 591 seats he could win without our help.
Windows 10 sitting in my todo box but I’m very wary of taking it at the moment as it does things I may not want or need. I’ll decide when the dust settles.
I Davidson on BBC radio a wee while ago predicting that the ‘teflon coated’ SNP will suffer a rapid decline once the Corbyn effect takes hold and the new Scottish leader lays bare the utter chaos in our education, NHS and the ‘fact’ that police Scotland is out of control.
I only heard him mind you, but I think he had his fingers crossed and a rabbit’s foot in his pocket.
The presenter said well you’ve had your free go, now answer the question…still waiting!
Let the young learn and understand the RED CLYDESIDERS and how their favourite son became fully committed to Scottish Independence.
Mr Robinson regrets…but it sells books just the same.
Not as many as Mr Salmon though.
https://archive.is/8NbTz
PS:
I suppose we’ll find out when Mr Swinney announces it but MR Muddle can’t wait it seems.
Still on the woad to nowhere in that photo.
https://archive.is/waW0O
Tinto Chiel: Excellent blog on The Corbyn Effect, GB.
Can I summarise? Jeremy says, “Scotland, know your limits!”
Much obliged. 🙂
https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2015/08/14/the-corbyn-effect/
RE: Windows 10.
I tried it. It lost all my pics, music, docs and who knows what else when I transferred. Now reverted to Windows 7. Got all the stuff back when I did that.
I say the Ad was for “Duncan’s- Half way down Robertson St”
They were a lower end furniture store.
call me dave says:
15 August, 2015 at 9:49 am
Windows 10 sitting in my todo box but I’m very wary of taking it at the moment as it does things I may not want or need. I’ll decide when the dust settles.
Believe me Dave it will do a lot you don’t want or need or even know about.
Think very carefully (Now where have I heard that before ?)
RE. WINDOWS 10 I tried to upgrade my asus laptop, and ended up with a flashing desktop screen, tried trouble shooting and found C Drive to be locked. Im not upgrading anything else
According to ONS Scotland has the best education system in the world. Labour/Unionist were means testing student loans on household incomes. Students with straight ‘A’ couldn’t get a full loan to go to University.
(Glasgow) Police have always been out of control. House appointed by Labour/Unionists is in their pocket to cover up their criminality. Political show trials cost £5Million. People put in police cells for minor misdemeanours, especially at week ends. The ‘charges’ are dropped. Helicopters cost £10,000 an hour. Orange Marches every other week end in Glasgow ruining the local economy, to which the Police should object
One of the best Hospitals in the world has just built in Gasgow.
Fiona says
“I tried it. It lost all my pics, music, docs and who knows what else ”
I checked my computer when you said that and my photos and music are fine but I have to admit I didn’t know about the privacy issue that Keevee helmet mentioned.
VJ Day. What sort of salute will the royal family give today? Will Harry be wearing his party armband?
Anyone considering Windoes 10 might want to read this,
One of the biggest worries, though, is Microsoft’s policy on disclosing or sharing your personal information. The following is an excerpt from the privacy policy:
“We will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to protect our customers or enforce the terms governing the use of the services.”
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/windows-10-violates-your-privacy-by-default-heres-how-you-can-protect-yourself/
Another article states,
According to Ars Technica, even after you tell Microsoft that Windows 10 shouldn’t make any Internet-related inquiries while you’re using it, it appears that Windows 10 still pings Microsoft for various information.
http://bgr.com/2015/08/13/windows-10-cortana-search-privacy-settings/
Dipity Dug will thankfully win the SLAB leadership today.
She is a hopeless politician who can only operate with a
bought and paid for script.
She is however sleekit enough to chop and change her political views to let the public hear whatever they want to hear.
She has just changed her mind and become a Corbyn supporter as she
now sees that he is going to win.
When Corbyn wins, what becomes of the Dug, Burnham, Cooper
and all who said that they would depose him and that he has no prospect of forming a government?
If they stay in the party, they cast iron prove that they are just in it for personal gain, if they leave, they form another party that no one wants, or just come out of the closet and admit they are Tories who thought the Labour train was the easiest way
into Parliament and a ticket to easy street.
Apologies for being O/T but this is where the question was asked.
To Ian Brotherhood @11:20
It was Robertson Street Cash and Carry Warehouse. Sold wallpaper, paint and tiles. I can never forget that bloody advert and its incredibly annoying echo-fade because my husband did the Nighthawk show on Radio Clyde at the time and I used to sit in with him sometimes.
It was a cheap advert and, as his show was the cheapest time to advertise, he had to play the damned thing again and again and again. As a kind of antidote one night, Jim invited in a bunch of assorted fellow patrons of Tennent’s Bar for a sort of semi-drunken, freeform talkshow between tracks and introduced the show as ‘Half Way Down Byres Road’. That was a damn good night! Some of you may well have heard it.
Brilliant riposte to another ignorant media elitist: “I can’t win! It’s my baw…I’m taking it hame wae me”. This is about the infantile jist of it. Farquharson convoluted Byzantine interpretation of the simple Holyrood electoral system is evidence of cognitive dissonance on overdrive…in fact its been driven off a cliff.
Could not agree more Louis b. argyll
O/T
I can see why I was totally baffled by the voter registration form. The correct one arrived today.
:/
Thanks for windows 10 info
Ha ha! In the cafe now and older grandaughter, when hearing the wee lassie at the next table, expecting the tooth fairy.
Dave, she whispers ” Did you know there’s no tooth fairy … or Santa”
“What!” OMG I say. “You’ll be telling me there’s no such thing as the Scottish labour party next”
“What” says she puzzled look….she never got it!
Can’t wait till the count turns out….WOOO!
Problem with your Labour party?
Have you tried switching it off and restarting it?
The Corbyn effect:
https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2015/08/14/the-corbyn-effect/
Honestly guys anyone thinking of upgrading their computers/laptops should at least consider Linux,
Here’s 10 good reasons why
(1) Open source (No malicious code)
(2) Virus free
(3) lightweight and faster
(4) infinitely configurable
(5) Much more secure than Windows
(6) Completely free (as in beer and as in speech)
(7) Secure package management
(8) No product keys no validation
(9) (Simple to install, on its own or alongside Windows costs nothing to try
(10) can be installed on to a USB stick or CD/DVD so you can try it without changing anything on your PC/Laptop
The Dug is Het!
Announcement made that she is the latest incompetent Scape Dug
in the North British Labour Party!
Kesia confirmed New Leader SLab!
O/T @Kevee Helmet
I used Linux for years.But the BBC iPlayer used Adobe Flash and then Adobe stopped supporting open source so the iplayer wouldn’t work. (BBC of course denied discriminating against open source software).
Are you able to use the iPlayer?
“We have to be careful not to raise false hope. That’s what I saw in the yes campaign during the independence referendum: a sense of false hope,” she said.
“Filling out a big hall or a big stadium doesn’t necessarily mean you have all the answers, all the ideas that we will need to have to form a UK government or promote a credible plan.”
Dugdale waffle above
JC waffle below
“Corbyn insisted that raising business taxes at UK level would be a crucial tool in increasing public spending. Confirming that he would expect a future Labour administration in Edinburgh to keep any Scottish income tax rates closely pegged to the UK rates, Corbyn set out a firmly pro-UK financial agenda.”
Usual red tory Guardian England in charge so shut it goonery yesterday but, Smith Commision shyste “gave” Scotland Paye control and now JC says no to all that Holyrood stuff.
Future JC plan, Lab.gov 2020, future SLab First Minister Dugdale told by future PM JC what Scottish Paye rates will be, to keep any Scottish income tax rates closely pegged to the UK rates. So much for their historic The Vow fraud on Scotland, is there anything left of it at all?
Or they just scrap Smith Commision shyste altogether. Come in Crash Gordon, timely important intervention’s going to be a real hoot, if only to watch Lab getting a taste of their own UKOK ProjectFear slandering, roared at them Gordon Brown style.
@ Ian Brotherhood, Alex Waugh has the right of it, the Isle of Man Steampacket Company was also in that neck of the woods but it wouldn’t be them.
I’ve heard of folk who weren’t the full shilling being described as “Half Way Down Robertson Street”.
Hi Capella.
“Jarama” is a quite well known song. I’ve played this version (medley) since the 70s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNcpoyxjY18
I told you he would return. Glasgow need to remember his record
http://caltonjock.com/2015/07/01/frank-the-silver-fox-mcaveety-glasgows-favourite-pun-son-and-leader-his-rise-fall-rise-again/
Capella says:
15 August, 2015 at 11:30 am
Are you able to use the iPlayer?
I use Ubuntu and the iPlayer website works fine. If you want to record from iPlayer*, there is get_iplayer and it’s webpage frontend get_iplayer_web_pvr that has certain advantages over the BBC version.
Win10, that’s a wonderful joke. Yep, it collects every detail of your life for Microsoft to share with whoever.
Had to replace my laptop a couple of months and the new (cheapest) one had 8.1. My opinion of it is not suitable for such a polite website as this.
The upgrade reverted all open source software back to newly installed status (nice one MS!) but left most other stuff in situ.
The second update screwed the system. So went to put Linux Mint alongside. The installation disc ‘couldn’t find another operating system’. I agreed with it’s assessment of win10 and wiped the lot.
Capella says:
15 August, 2015 at 11:30 am
O/T @Kevee Helmet
I used Linux for years.But the BBC iPlayer used Adobe Flash and then Adobe stopped supporting open source so the iplayer wouldn’t work. (BBC of course denied discriminating against open source software).
Are you able to use the iPlayer?
I’m using Peppermint which is an Ubuntu derivative and iPlayer works fine, Netflix on Linux can be a problem in Firefox due to Mozillas policy on DRM & Silverlight but it works fine with the Chrome browser in Linux.
And so it was that JC came among them and He brungeth words not much heard in the Kingdom of Ukania for many a yonketh. And it was said that JC did cure the afflicted and raise the dead. And crowds did flock and gather to hear him speak the long lost words of the Prophet Loonius Leftis.
But then a shekel did drop and a voice rangeth loudly:
‘He’s not the Messiah …’
So if Corbyn wins he is for getting rid of TRIDENT. Dugdale is with the tories and wants to keep.
Will the branch office toe the line or will Dugdale announce she is always been against trident. I go for the latter!
Missed out on the pub crawl, sorry scouting mission. So…
Re. scheme appraisal of trunk roads and motorways in Britain. This is a perfect example of how a one-size-fits-all approach fails to adequately address the UK’s development needs.
Basically, the Treasury controls the process as proposed schemes must produce ‘user-benefits’ that achieve minimum rates of return on the investment. Traditionally, the main user-benefit considered is journey-time saving. Thus, the process is structurally biased against meeting Scotland’s transport needs, as denser population concentrations inevitably produce larger user-benefits on comparable investment.
However, I doubt if Scotland would have much of a road network if Treasury rules were the only consideration. The reason being, scheme proposals in Scotland struggle to meet Treasury requirements, largely because of insufficient usage forecasts. Also, have you noticed that our motorways are really dual-carriageways.
Scotland does have a lot of trunk roads and motorways which failed to meet Treasury requirement though, and which will never produce adequate returns to justify their development. So what other considerations do you think override the Treasury’s primary concern of achieving value for money. Might it be England loves us? Might it be they need the revenues generated by Scotland’s economy, to continue flowing south?
http://theorwellprize.co.uk/george-orwell/by-orwell/essays-and-other-works/how-a-nation-is-exploited-the-british-empire-in-burma/
@ BDTT
Good song. I did think that the stage “comrades” were hamming up the old international socialist memes a bit though!
@ Kevee Helmet and Paul D. Thanks for the feedback. I will have another go with Ubuntu. I certainly don’t fancy Windows 10 – or indeed Windows anything but I have a touch screen all-in-one which came pre-loaded.
I do use get_iplayer. Very useful at times!
@Alex Waugh, Dorothy Devine and a’body else who helped finally work out what was ‘halfway down Robertson St.’
Can’t even remember why I wanted to know. It’s been bugging me for years.
It seems to prove the power of simple, repetitive advertising, but then again, was it really effective if we struggled so hard to recall what/who it was publicising?!
Aye, Alex, ‘Nighthawk’ – it had an alternative title, eh?
Tinto Chiel
Being able to prioritise appropriately is indeed, an important life skill.
I suspect you use a Mac? I’m afraid I can’t help. 😉
Hi Paul D.
You typed,
“get_iplayer and it’s webpage frontend get_iplayer_web_pvr”
What’s the url link (web address) for the web page version? I can’t find it.
BTW: I use the Mac version of the app regularly. I’d like to explore the web version.
Kenny Farquharson is a clueless idiot unsuited and unqualified for his job and has declared himself as much via this article. He has lost all reason and grip of reality. This type is why the dead tree press and the rest of the old media are dying.
@ BDTT
When you download get_iplayer the pvr version downloads at the same time I think (I haven’t used it but the icon is there). See the manual notes on usage:
https://github.com/get-iplayer/get_iplayer/wiki
Ian B @ 7:07pm
“Aye, Alex, ‘Nighthawk’ – it had an alternative title, eh?”
I haven’t the faintest idea what this means. That was the name of the show; Monday to Friday 1am to 6am, followed by Davie Marshall. Why the sneer?
Thanks Capella.