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Wings Over Scotland


The poisoned pens

Posted on April 05, 2020 by

Scotland’s media is still unable to contain its outpouring of bitter, resentful rage over Alex Salmond’s exoneration by a jury on trumped-up sexual assault charges.

Flailing blindly in all directions it’s achieving little other than to embarrass itself, such as last night when Scotland On Sunday had to change its front page in a late panic. But the media’s toxic fury at being denied Salmond’s head on a pole has also led it to do something far, far more serious and reckless.

And every one of them knows exactly what they’ve done.

As Kenny Farquharson of the Times pointed out in the above tweet from Thursday, it is a very serious criminal offence to publish information which enables a person whose anonymity is protected by a court order to be identified by a third party – even if the information does not in itself directly identify the person.

For obvious reasons this phenomenon is known by the term “jigsaw identification”, because it’s providing pieces which alone do not show the full picture, but when added together might as well be a full LinkedIn bio and a picture of their house.

All nine of the women who accused Alex Salmond are still protected by a court order hiding their identities. The Crown Office And Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) felt it was necessary to remind people of that fact just days ago, and to explain why.

And yet in the intervening time, almost all of Scotland’s newspapers have repeated a piece of information which would enable anyone, in a matter of seconds, to identify not just one of the complainers, but one who is at the very heart of the alleged conspiracy to have Alex Salmond wrongfully convicted.

It is a piece of information which was revealed in the court, but should not have been reported, just as large parts of the proceedings were banned from being discussed in the public domain. At least two reporters were chastised and/or removed from the court during the trial for actions which risked identifying a witness directly or indirectly.

Ironically, the Scottish media has been fulminating self-righteously against people who did NOT identify anyone in the way almost every newspaper now has.

No prior knowledge of the case would be required to utilise the information. Armed with a single sentence from any of the articles, a newly-arrived alien from the Andromeda galaxy could type just TWO WORDS – the two most obvious ones – into Google and immediately be presented with the name of the woman in question, in circumstances putting it beyond any doubt whatsoever that she was the person being discussed.

We’ve already been contacted by a number of people expressing their shock, who were all able with no prior knowledge to correctly identify the woman using that one piece of information alone. Some have also volunteered, unsolicited, their willingness to provide an affidavit to that effect if requested.

The contempt of court is SO blatant that this site isn’t going to even quote the specific paragraphs or sentences in question for fear of repeating the contempt. All that we’re willing to do is list – for the benefit of the COPFS – all of the people who’ve put her anonymity at risk, and the articles in which they did so. When the articles in question are removed, so will the references to them here be.

We’re also not going to link to any the scores of articles which the piece of information “unlocks” to provide the name of the woman by completing the jigsaw. Nothing in this article adds any information whatsoever to the public domain which hasn’t already been put there by all of these newspapers.

(For that reason, we believe it would in fact be perfectly lawful for us to screenshot the offending paragraphs. However, while we consider the woman in question to be a malicious liar who deliberately and knowingly colluded in an attempt to imprison an innocent man for political reasons, we still respect her right to the protection of the law more than the Scottish media who hypocritically laud her “bravery” do.)

NB If you determine the woman’s identity after reading this piece, DO NOT post the name in the comments, obviously. If you wish to discuss it, use the Contact form.

We take this extraordinary step in the hope of impressing the seriousness of the matter on the collective Scottish media, in the hope they will stop repeatedly endangering the woman’s anonymity. So far their complacency about the situation is breathtaking. In Garavelli’s case she has repeated the identification today even after being repeatedly told what she’d done the first time her article was published.

(So astonishingly transparent is the identification, as correctly deciphered by numerous completely unqualified readers of this site, that we must conclude she had it “legalled” by some passing small drunk children, or perhaps a badger.)

In the view of David Leask the people below are “bloggers, conspiracists and general scumbags”. In the opinion of Kenny Farquharson and Dani Garavelli, they all deserve a jail sentence. This site prefers to leave that decision to the proper authorities, and we have accordingly passed all of the information in this article to COPFS and the police.

They are, in alphabetical order:

Kieran Andrews (the Times), here and here.

Steve Bird (Telegraph), here.

Severin Carrell, (Guardian), here.

Mure Dickie (Financial Times), here.

Kenny Farquharson (Times), here.

Dani Garavelli (Tortoise Media, Scotland On Sunday), here and here.

Paul Hutcheon (Daily Record), here.

Magnus Linklater (Times), also here and here.

Izzy Lyons (Telegraph), also here.

David Mackay (Press & Journal), here.

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929 to “The poisoned pens”

  1. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    Cameron

    As a uk citizen, as decided by the majority of SCOTTISH voters, you have exactly the same human rights as me. Grow up.

  2. Colin Alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    If the Scottish Parliament can hold referendums, what I’d really like answered is:

    Why didn’t the SP hold a referendum on Devo-Max following the indyref result instead of the pathetic Smith Commission stitch up?

    As the SNP assert they believe the people of Scotland are sovereign, Why didn’t the SP hold a referendum on whether Scotland should remain in the EU?

    (Assuming a YES win) Then mount a legal constitutional challenge to the Lisbon Treaty Art. 50 withdrawal from the EU vote by UK parliament, as constitutionally unlawful, as Scotland’s sovereign people had voted to remain in the EU.

    My answers would be: because the SNP tell gullible indy supporters what they want to hear.

    The SNP talk sovereignty to indy supporters but by their actions the SNP are loyal British colonial subjects, when they represented Scotland to the UK and EU.

  3. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Sensibledave
    It is the English electorate who will remove Scotland from the EU, despite every electoral ward in Scotland voting to remain in the EU. That indicates Westminster does not consider those living in Scotland to possess a legally defensible identity. That’s not consistent with the moral law reading of the British constitution, and is incompatible with social democracy.

    You’re a patronising wank dave, live with it or do better.

  4. Colin Alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    highseastim

    I can understand that. I am also concerned about the lack of PPE for NHS staff and also carers and their clients.

    Home Care personal care services provided by Glasgow City Council and other councils, as well as carers working in care homes in the private sector have failed to provide adequate PPE so place carers and clients at higher risk of catching or transmitting Covid-19.

  5. christine500
    Ignored
    says:

    The AIMSIB (independent doctors collective) has published an analysis well worth reading re the virus.
    They speculate that the virus has already mutated a few times i.e there are now 4 versions of it!They show the differences in the genetic codes.

    I personally worry that the toxic “cleaning” chemicals sprayed everywhere are creating worse versions of the virus and all sorts of bacteria too.
    Could barely stay inside the bank office ,it was choking in there.Imagine in a care home…PHE said normal cleaning is enough.

    i also wonder why the chemicals are not replaced with the uv c robot for sterilization of care homes /hospitals if only experimentally.Why never an article about it?

  6. terence callachan
    Ignored
    says:

    I will certainly not be out clapping my hands for BJ tomorrow night
    I expect silence in my street

  7. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Dan.

    Unfortunately I’m only about halfway through, Declaration of Arbroath deniers on Facebook have kept me occupied or should I say entertained. Very reminiscent of 2014, quite enjoyed it really.
    Ill get back to the film tomorrow, bit more peace. Had a quick look at the synopsis for survivors, guess it would be YouTube now.

  8. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    CBB

    … nope. Scottish voters voted in the referendum to remain uk citizens and to have the same rights, one man , one vote, as me.

    You appear to be arguing that Scottish voters should have the right of veto on any Westminster government!

    More people in the south east of England voted Remain in the EU ref’ than in Scotland, were their human rights taken away … or were we just outvoted democratically?

    You are full of S••t Csmmy. Lots of long words (cut and pasted btw, nothing original) but no cogent thought. Lots of bluff and bluster and then …. nothing.

    Read the thread above and the previous threads. Complete shambles! The SNP is split from top to bottom. NS Is a “Yoon”. NS Is an MI5 plant. New young Indy voters are going to replace dying toons … except those young Indy voters also want GRA! AS Is gonna return and save you. A man who’s own solicitor described as sex pest? Really?

    The independence movement would appear to be imploding all its own … without Westminster doing a thing.

    As a final thought for tonight, to all those above wishing I’ll will on our Prime minister. Doubtless the screen shots of your magnanimous comments will be used to demonstrate the mindset of many independence supporters. I am sure that the average Scot will be drawn to such attractive traits. Or maybe not eh. I am sure you know what you are doing. Your tactics have worked well so far?

  9. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Same human rights,

    If every Brexit vote in Scotland was for remain
    It doesn’t matter if 60% of England’s votes were for Brexit.
    Doesn’t work the other way around

    I’d I was a Scottish MP voted in as Prime Minister
    I wouldn’t be permitted to contribute on English legislation with EVEL.

    If I want to open up Scotland’s doors for foreign Health Workers I cant
    As the English say we can’t.

    If I hold the Commonwealth games in Scotland it will receive no funding from Westminster
    If you hold them in England -Birmingham you can get £72 million from Westminster.

    If England wants to steal 6,000 square miles of Scottish waters they can
    Scotland can’t even apply to get it back.

    When corruption abounds at Westminster like the McCrone Report, Thatcher’s son getting government contracts without competition, the Dunblane Massacre, the Westminster Child abusers
    Can all be made top secret so you can’t see how rotten Parliament is.
    I and Scotland can’t do that.

    I can’t apply for a US visa at an American embassy in Scotland.

    I couldn’t stop the Poll Tax being applied to Scotland only for testing.

    I’m getting tired of listing these things but have no doubt you have nothing like the equal rights of the English.

    England is leaving Europe as they say its madness to have another country
    Dictating your government policies. He forgot about Scotland- Again.

  10. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    Tonto!

    Where did you put the fecking mask?

    Times have changed, Kemo Sabbe.

    https://twitter.com/tifffanycuh/status/1246227095522553857

  11. Tannadice Boy
    Ignored
    says:

    Some of the comments on this thread remind me.. we are a long way from the necessary environment of being able to make Independence a viable option. Take the country with you for the umpteenth time. I took a long time to get over the 2014 result. Scotland doesn’t consist of Yoons and Independistas. We are not a homogenous society. Persuade..Persuade..Persuade.

  12. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    Effigy

    … yes. Exactly the same human rights. We are the uk. You and I have exactly the same rights because Scotland voted to keep the same rights as me.

  13. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    @mike cassidy

    There’s some crackers there, but I still reckon I could take them…

    self isolate – Self Isolate – SELF ISOLATE

    https://twitter.com/SMacD49/status/1242403805536419840

    All that effort I put in and she only got one fuckin like! lol

  14. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    Effigy

    Time to put up or shut up. Name me one human right that I have that you don’t have.

  15. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Dave the Hypocrite.

    The fact that Scotland is out voted on all parameters makes the notion of democracy in the UK a joke. However we do have a veto. We denied the Queen the right to sign the Withdrawal Bill, which was a clear violation of our Sovereign right, that makes the bill unlawful. This is an issue that will have to be dealt with either through the Scottish Parliament or directly through the courts, and I would remind you that neither the Crown nor Parliament are above the law.

  16. defo
    Ignored
    says:

    Auntie’s keeping her knickers firmly on with regards to the Vorlich 3.
    As are the ‘journalists ‘ herein mentioned.

    Over the bridge to Fife BAD. V v bad.

    Arrochar Alps still open ?

  17. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Sensibledave
    You are arguing from the perspective of British constitutionalism and sovereignty of parliament. Scotland does not locate sovereignty the same way as England. Scotland locates sovereignty and political power, in the individual.

    You are seeking to defend constitutional majoritarianism that would redefine Scotland’s legal identity. That’s not consistent with liberal constitutionalism.

    You are either rather obtuse or incredibly thick, dave.

  18. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Is there a psychiatrist in the house for Davy Ricket.

    FFS What an imbecile.
    Is cognitive reading too much to ask for.

  19. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Sensibledave at 11:50 pm.

    You typed,
    “You appear to be arguing that Scottish voters should have the right of veto on any Westminster government!”

    That is the case. Under the terms of The Treaty of Union (1707), the two legal systems, Scots Law and English Law, were protected for evermore.

    Under Scots Law, the people of Scotland are sovereign, not the monarch.

    If a majority of Scots disagree with an English/Westminster decision, then we have the right, under our legal system, to reject it.

  20. Famous15
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC. Continue to use Nightingale Hospital Glasgow.

    The death rate in the original Nightingale hospital in Crimea was 52% and alarmed the British Army HQ so much they despatched an enquiry team but the war ended before they completed their inspection.

  21. Patrick Roden
    Ignored
    says:

    @ gus1940:

    “Why could they not have along with the French set up a defensive line round the Dunkirk area instead of running away.”

    I think the problem was, that the German army was so far ahead of the British army in both equipment and tactics at that stage of the war, that it would have been a complete massacre, had the whole British army tried to fight them off.

    Remember the Chamberlain “peace in our time” nonsense meant that the UK was not properly prepared for a fight.

    Lions lead by donkeys, again and again!

  22. Willie
    Ignored
    says:

    Boris Johnson is sick.

    How sick we are not being told as the press briefings feed us the pap about him being in fine spirits, in control, and only in hospital for a few tests whereas he is actually in intensive care.

    Latest statistics record that over 50% of people who go into intensive care die whilst 70% of those who die are men. Such statistics reinforce the gravity of the illness. So yes we should not misunderstand how Ill the PM may be. Trump understood that when early yesterday he made a statement about hoping his great friend would recover. But of course, unlike the fake news fed Great British public, Trump would have known the true health of Boris Johnson?

    So who will replace Johnson if he were to die. Someone else who was equally committed to the policy of austerity, universal credit, benefit sanctions, reduction of state support and the underfunding of the NHS.

    Another prime minister equally committed to helping exclude foreign doctors and nurses and making life as difficult as possible for foreign workers through the hostile environment.

    Another prime minister who could could preside over staggering national shortages of essential health equipment.

    Yes, let us all express our outpouring of support for Boris Johnson as a son, a father, a brother but let us not either forget the others who are equally suffering through him and his conservative government’s brutal economic and social policies.

    Dominic Cummings horrendous quip about it all being about herd immunity, protecting the economy, and if a few pensioners die too bad, rings loud at this terrible time.

  23. stuart mctavish
    Ignored
    says:

    Even if Boris does not die, his catching the illness should be treated as an act of war and/or multiple counts of gross negligence by the agencies that exposed him to the risk in the first place.
    Odd nonetheless that he went to a hospital named after doubting Thomas and not the one built specially for the illness.

    Also odd that Catherine Calderwood was given a police warning for doing something specifically excused (moving between houses that she had the right to live in) in the unlawful legislation

  24. Oneliner
    Ignored
    says:

    Today is the 35th anniversary of the killing of Willie MacRae. One cannot help but wonder what he would have made of the Bute House trout hatchery.

  25. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Just for clarity, Alex Salmond did use a Section 30 Agreement to hold the 2014 Referendum, but Section 30 is Section 30 of the 1998 Scotland Act. It was not an ad hoc arrangement cooked up between himself and David Cameron.

    In my humble opinion, back in 2014, Scotland wasn’t sufficiently constitutionally aware even to consider holding a referendum outside the strictures conventional government. 2014 was a celebration of hope and optimism, but not properly rebellion.

    2020 might be different.

    In 2014, nobody wanted to hear criticism of the media. It was a crank notion in 2014, but finally, the greater majority of the people seem to have tuned in to sophistry and indoctrination that is oozing from their TV’s and radios, and what is laughingly called newspapers. People forget what 2014 was like. The Establishment propaganda now being held in such contempt by the people is an important new phenomenon that is unlike 2014.

    Perhaps it goes too far, and the perfidious news industry has destroyed it’s integrity beyond Scotland. Maybe it is not a unique phenomenon. What is perhaps unique to Scotland is that a propagandist media in it’s death throws is an ailment in their grotesque monster, it’s not ‘our’ anything, and many of us would welcome it’s collapse and failure. It would hardly be the loss of a news service anyway.

    I “think”, it’s early days, but I think the YES of 2020, maybe 2021, will also be different. Pantone 300 seems a little darker, because there is rebellion in the air. If the UK Government would accede to a referendum, we’ll have one anyway. If the SNP are useless, then we’ll form a new Independence Party that isn’t useless.

    Maybe in 2014 we were the mash that in 2020 is finally fermenting into whisky.

    Just like criticism of the media was running uphill in 2014, so was trying to open people’s eyes to Scotland’s sovereign constitution. Nobody wanted to listen.

    But now, at last, people are beginning to listen. You see more and more people talking about sovereignty, and in it’s correct context too. People are ‘getting it’.

    Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty is powerful and indelible. In time, I believe Scotland will recognise our media, news, and politics are so riven with dishonesty and conspiracy that they are dysfunctional, and our entire democracy is broken. Perhaps then, Scotland will finally be persuaded to put it’s faith in our Law and sovereign Constitution, and trust that to bring down this obscene fallacy of Union.

    The Union is a manipulative parasite which stifles Scotland’s democracy and self defence. The Establishment has us trapped believing this is a catch 22 situation; we can only use our democracy to save our democracy from the affliction which paralyses that democracy. How can our paralysed democracy ever hope to be unparalysed?

    The solution is right in front of us. Use our Constitution, our SOVEREIGN Constitution to repel the parasite which suppress our defence mechanisms while it sucks the life from us.

    I know, legal autocracy is not the way of the democrats, it is unpalatable, I know. But trapped as we are in a compromised and manipulated democracy, an emergency Constitutional adjudication that is specific to Scottish Sovereignty won’t be the end of our democracy, it will be it’s salvation and freedom. Don’t manage what ails us, cure it.

    It’s maybe flippant to say it, but maybe we need to switch Scotland off and back on again, and let our Nation re-boot from it’s most basic primary Constitutional essentials. Keep the bits we like, purge the crap that chokes the system.

  26. Jock McDonnell
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks – of course as you know Breeks, a S30 is only one route. It only applies to devolved government. As you suggest, other paths are available.

  27. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    OT.

    Fk sake. Another comment with at least half a dozen words missing.

    Wtf is wrong with me? Why are so many typos and missing words invisible to my eyes until I hit ‘submit comment’? I am literally reading what I write, LOOKING for mistakes, but see none. My brain seems to reading what I meant to say rather than what my eyes are actually seeing. Fk me it’s annoying,… but it’s every fkg time!!!

    Fair do’s maybe 10-15% or errors are down to asinine spell correctors replacing whole words by themselves, but wtf? Am I normal but just extra sloppy? Lazy and inattentive? Is it a mild dyslexia or something? Or some kind of brain malfunction I should see a doctor about? I cannot seem to train myself out of it, and yes I do concentrate and I do try to pay attention.

    I KNOW there will be an error in this. Even though I’ve read it five times now and don’t see any… but when I hit the green button… they appear and scream at me.

  28. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:


    Breeks says:
    7 April, 2020 at 8:56 am

    … LOOKING for mistakes, but see none. My brain seems to BE reading what….

    AAAAARRRRGGGGHHH!

  29. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Fair do’s maybe 10-15% OF errors…

    Sigh….

  30. Rm
    Ignored
    says:

    We need two separate parts to the running of Scotland, one for the day to day running of the country the logistical side of looking after the people, then the Political side whole not bow down to another country’s whims of how we should live, patriots who will fight for Scotland’s interests 110 percent, 25 hours a day,366 days a year.

  31. Famous15
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T Immunisation particularly BCG for TB is being studied urgently as there are indications that people in countries that had a BCG programme are ten times less likely to acquire and also to die from Covid19.

    Scotland and Ireland had extensive BCG because TB was very prevalent rest of UK not so much. India and many African countries had BCG programmes but Spain,Italy USA not routine. BCG also used to fight bowel cancer and there is a shortage of BCG in US but India helping them out.

    There is even a view that ANY immunisation challenges and strengthens the immune system so make sure your children get immunised and do not listen to the nutters.

  32. Almond Chutney
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks, don’t forget about that trusty spellchecker.

  33. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    Anyone heard anything about the health of Union Jack?

  34. SOG
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks – elsewhere (particularly FB) I can re-read and correct errors after fifteen or twenty minutes. I believe that after typing the mind sees what it intended to write, and needs a while to refresh or re-load. It doesn’t happen with hand-written text, I may try that route, longhand then copy.

    It’s not only you.

  35. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    So De Pfeffle is in ITU, and no doubt will take some time to recuperate. I envusage a Tory leadership and PM change coming. Surviving severe, Corona knocks the proverbial stuffing out of you for a long time. Takes time for the body to fully recover.

    In that light, it is interesting, is it not, that in the last two days, a certain careerist Ruth Davidson has been all over the airwaves. National TV yesterday, Lorrain Kelly today. Lengthy TV slots.

    I think I read it correctly. The craven nature of some careerist Tories beggars belief.

  36. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks at 809am,

    Quote “Pantone 300 seems a little darker, because there is rebellion in the air.”

    Excellent stuff.

  37. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Just read someone else’s copy of the Glasgow Times.
    It cost 70p and the pensioner who buys it likes their crossword. And
    And uses the TV guide.

    It’s a fest if we sacked nasty chief medical officer and SNP are bad.
    Page after page after page of reporters and Red and Blue Tory politicians.
    5 pages of colouring in and crosswords

    8 pages of sport making it look obvious that there is no sport.

    They now specialise on old Glasgow pictures from their files and carefully
    Selected readers letters who must have SNP Bad in if its to be printed.

    Not so many Adverts In it now as you must be mad to think many people
    Would waste 70p on this astonishingly poor Herald propaganda supplement.

    Terrible waste of a healthy tree!

  38. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Subservient Scot and TV Millionaire gushing as the Tory House Boy
    Ruth Kim Jun Un Davidson is coming on to speak about poor Boris ?

    Really? They made it perfectly clear they couldn’t stand each other and she
    Stepped down knowing Scotland would react to how disrespectful he was to
    Scotland. To use his words he would put Scots in a ghetto and eliminate them!

    There is a clue in there about Scotland’s future under this clown.

    Can’t Stand Lorraine Kelly, Boris or Ruthless so I can’t risk being sick if
    I should witness them both live bombing the architect of NHS’ demise.

  39. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    I note that no one had come up with a human right that I have, that Scots don’t.

    Clearly, you have said this stuff so many times, unchallenged, you started to believe it.

    I also note that many of your arguments hark back to times when laws were made by kings and queens, where in unelected lords and lairds ran the show, and where ordinary folk had little or no say. You prefer times if subjugation rather than Scots determining their future at a ballot box in a referendum on independence. Go figure!

  40. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    What`s the script wi masks,

    aye or no,

    wish someone would make there mind up.

  41. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    @Effijy

    Stopped buying the Ev Times years ago, along with the Rutherglen Reformer, they just drip of unionism. I admit the Times crossword is the easiest I’ve ever encountered, I just assumed it was the level of difficulty unionists could cope with.

    Also the so called Rutherglen Reformer no longer has any physical presence in Rutherglen, probably is just a single person in his bedroom now sending his stories to HQ. I think most of these local papers are owned by one of the larger ones now (Daily Record I think for the Reformer, imagine you could believe it’s impartiality with that owner). Last time I saw one James Kelly still had a column, even after he was ousted from the constituency.

  42. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    So the unions foot soldiers in Scotland the O/O are calling for a special parade through Scotland to celebrate all that the Tories are doing for us right now.

    Its a kin to wayward Venezuelans demanding a day of celebration for US President Trump.

    I doubt the O/O will call for a day of mourning for all the folk who’ve died indirectly due to the decade of Tory austerity.

  43. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Dave the Hypocrite

    would have you believe that somehow it is unique to Scotland that we hark back to ancient times, that our laws and traditions don’t count because antiquity has made them irrelevant, because lords and barons made those laws they should be discounted. He would have you forget the celebrity status of the Magna Carta and the current house of lords, unelected but still deemed relevant to democracy UK style. None so blind eh.

  44. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    Golf nut

    You have chosen to miss my point. Of course we have laws that go back to those times. However, if the “people” vote to change things then clearly that takes precedence … or it should … unless you favour tyranny.

  45. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    … still no one demonstrates differing human rights.

  46. Breastplate
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood,
    I watched the video last night.
    Fascinating, scary and inevitable.

    Watching it put me in mind of Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine and as they say in the video “never let a crisis go to wastel”.
    When our focus is collectively on one thing our civil liberties are eroded by the powers that be, as we witnessed the day after our independence referendum with EVEL. That particular kick in the teeth would have been unthinkable before the referendum but it was their opportunity to give us one more kick when we were on the canvas.

    Back to the video, as Capella points out much of our information is available to our governments and the corporate world.
    Our privacy will continue to be eroded until we have none, the digital ID is part of that. It will track where you have been for how long and with who. The technology is already in use and is not in itself a bad thing but it will certainly be misused by our lords and masters.
    That is what I see as scary and inevitable.

  47. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:


    Scot Finlayson says:
    7 April, 2020 at 10:01 am
    What`s the script wi masks…

    Don’t know, but IF you wear a mask, and you’re exposed to virus, doesn’t your mask become a thing you need to decontaminate? Won’t the virus you maybe stopped going in your mouth just be sitting there on the mask when you put in on again? Shouldn’t a mask be used Only once then either sterilised or replaced?

    So a mask used correctly should be a help to reduce risk, but used incorrectly when stocks are low and in short supply, maybe it could potentially make things worse. If you cannot trust millions of people to cope with the hygiene factor, maybe no masks is the lesser of two evils. But I don’t know…

    If you choose to wear a mask, have a regime to keep it clean, replace it or clean it in between every use and possible exposure. The rumours of nurses having to wear the same mask for days seems horrific. I hope they can sterilise the masks between shifts… washing it, or UV on a washing line… I don’t know, does overnight in a deep freeze kill virus like it does bacteria?

    Wash your hands, wash your face, wash your mask if you use one. Same deal.

  48. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Face Masks.

    So many experts say that they do little so why is it every
    Health and care worker must have one.

    I’d tell everyone to wear them if you have them even if it only makes
    You feel better about having to go shopping.

    I’ve seen pensioners with no protection lifting packs of mince and
    Holding them 6 inches from their face to read the sell by date.

    Having touched packs and breathed all over them I’d hope they are not
    Covers in the virus for the next shopper.

    I’d like that pensioner to wear a mask and gloves.

    Many of us take precautions but not the 100% precautions.
    If you wore a mask and gloves do you bin them outside your home?
    Are you able to use anti bacterial wash as you enter?
    Do you realise the virus could be on your carrier bags, especially handles.
    Are you wiping down all of the tins and packages you purchased as you don’t
    Know who touched them?
    If you have a newspaper delivered do you wipe that down?
    It will have been in a floor, in a van and touched by others unknown when you get it.

    I’m running out of everything that I need for doing all that so as the contamination figures grow
    How can I expect the shelf stacker or delivery lad never to catch and pass the virus?

    Can I chip in about the absurdity of the Tesco process.
    The ask you to take your trolley up to a cleansing station where they wipe the handle for you.
    Don’t they see that a customer who has the virus still has it an hour later when finished shopping
    They put their trolly back outside where the metal frame slips into the trolley in front and someone
    Pushes another into it.
    The carrier will have touched the metal frame and put items touched into it.
    The next person touches these trollies and has the virus on their hands as they
    Go to get the handle wiped down.

    I’m being pickie here but we are only fooling ourselves that our attempts at precaution are all they
    Should be with a killer virus that is spreading like wildfire.

  49. Col.Blimp IV
    Ignored
    says:

    Just watched about half an hour of Oor Loraine’s TV show and Last Night I saw Trevor McDonald front an ITV promo, the theme of which was “It is our duty to tell you how to think…and yours to comply”.

    Not sure that Independence alone is a big enough bomb to put underneath this lot.

    Am I alone in being under the impression that Super-Scot Kelly lives in Dundee and commutes to London for work? – I see her daughter speaks like an Eastenders cast member.

  50. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    A friend called me to say his family are worried sick about a family
    Member who was backpacking in the Philippines.

    He and other Brits are stuck there but desperate for weeks to come home.
    The Embassy is closed and staff on the phone really don’t give a damn and
    Offer no advice or help but just want their own door locked to keep everyone out.

    I heard the same story about the Embassy in Peru where hundreds were stranded for weeks.

    Yesterday Rabb was bragging how great the Tories are that they have chartered planes and brought many back. Yes but weeks after they appealed for help and the Embassy had ignored them.
    Other nations reacted much better and some even let Brits board to get nearer home.

    Yet another abject failure for the Tories that won’t see the light of day if UK Media has anything to do with it.

  51. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Wee Ginger Dugs article in the National newspaper really hits home in my opinion. There were no offical events to cancel the 700th anniversay of the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath.

    In contrast the 800th anniversary of Englands Magna Carta in 2015, saw special coins minted, special commemorative stamps issued by the Royal Mail, BBC documetaries fronted by Melvyn Bragg and David Starky, RAF fly past Buckingham Palace, a parade of schoolchildren bearing specially designed flags to commemorate the signing of the Mana Carta.

    Commerative events at Westminster, special artworks commissioned to commemorate the Magna Carta, and a whole host of other events and slots on tv programmes to do with the signing of the document.

    What is wrong with the people of Scotland I ask, have we been so much subsumed by all things English that we don’t care about our own history, and the part it played in shaping not just Scots but Scotland as a whole.

    None of us will be around to see the 800th anniversay of the Declaration of Arbroath, I wonder how Scotland will fair then, if it isn’t absorbed completely by England before then.

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/18362406.lack-arbroath-anniversary-events-tells-yes-movement/

  52. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    And by the way… I have a little alarm bell ringing that “mash” fermenting into Whisky is an Americanism… Mash whisky is bourbon and “stuff”. I think the Scottish Malt method is different, but I’m circling the drain of not knowing what I’m talking about…

  53. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Republicofscotland says:
    7 April, 2020 at 10:46 am

    None of us will be around to see the 800th anniversay of the Declaration of Arbroath, I wonder how Scotland will fair then, if it isn’t absorbed completely by England before then.

    I’ll settle for most of us being around for the first anniversary of Scottish Independence. I reckon one candle on the cake will look absolutely fine. 😉

    But, if COV19 has kinda rained on our 700th Anniversary Parade, don’t forget, the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath wasn’t recognised by the Pope until 1328, so with all due cause and legitimacy, we could have a wee bit of a bash in 2028… the 700th Anniversary of Scotland’s Declaration securing International Recognition.

  54. North chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Re “ Colonel Blimp 1V @1033 a.m. “ .How ironic talking to her daughter from the “ Sovereign “ City state of Singapore that her daughter pointed out how they could do things differently / more effectively from the “ U.K.” because they were so much smaller ( or words to that effect) .
    Day by day the “ Breeks Sovereignty argument” makes more sense for our country.

  55. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks @11.02am.

    Even though Covid-19 has spoiled our chances of celebrating enmasse the 700th anniversay of the Declaration of Arbroath, bear in mind and think about this, the Scottish government, that supposedly wants Scottish independence didn’t need to cancel any commemorative events with regards to the anniversary, for they planned none.

    Just how could a party whose raison ?etre, is (again supposedly) Scottish independence first and foremost, fail so miserably to organise any events fir the most important missive in Scottish history.

    What does that say about the SNP, if they’re not interested in our history, what chance is their of converting others to our cause by knowning through knowing our past.

  56. MaggieC
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC news have managed to find Ruth Davidson as she’s on Bbc news channel live just now talking about Boris being in hospital , wonder if she can talk to her constituents . Talking her usual shite about bad Snp government as well .

  57. jackie
    Ignored
    says:

    Republic of Scotland 10.36am

    The London Mint print commemorative gold coins for all things British.

    They have coins to remember things like the DDay landings, Concorde, the Royal family.

    And their most recent is not the 700th anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath, it is to celebrate the song by Dame Vers Lynn, “we’ll meet again”.

    This of course ties in with the Queen of England’s speech the other day.

    So, as per usual, anything Scottish isn’t even an after thought from our Colonial masters.

    https://m.facebook.com/pages/category/Retail-Company/londonmintoffice/posts/

  58. Patrick Roden
    Ignored
    says:

    Sensibledave says:

    “I note that no one had come up with a human right that I have, that Scots don’t.”

    You, as an Englishman, have the right to vote on your constitutional future, if that is what you as a nation want.

    We Scots were and still are told, ‘now is not the time’

  59. Col.Blimp IV
    Ignored
    says:

    Effijy

    Suitable industrial respirators are still available, especially at the higher end, as are goggles, paper suits with elasticated cuffs and hoods, disposable gloves may be harder to come by but any old gloves and wellies will do.

    You can make an ad-hoc de-contamination station with a tray a pressurized weed-killer applicator and copious amounts of whatever disinfectant you can find, if you don’t fancy shelling out £300 or more on a proprietary kit.

    But we will have to put our heads above the parapet sooner or later.

    And if we catch the virus then … we would be more likely to die of embarrassment than anything else.

    On a serious note, I agree with what you said about supermarkets, when livestock are threatened by an epidemic, on entering or leaving an enclosure you have to walk through a bath of disinfectant and spray the wheels of your vehicle to prevent transmission of any contaminants to or from the ground the animals may come in contact with.

    One would not think it unreasonable to afford humans the same level of protection – i.e. no one allowed into a shop without a mask and fresh or decontaminated gloves and that the trolleys leaving the shop are disinfected thoroughly before being allowed to re-enter.

  60. admiral
    Ignored
    says:

    Sensibledave says:
    7 April, 2020 at 9:59 am
    I note that no one had come up with a human right that I have, that Scots don’t.

    The right to be represented by governments the people of your own country voted for in a democratic election.

  61. MaggieC
    Ignored
    says:

    Two excellent columns from Wee Ginger Dug re The Declaration of Arbroath , this from yesterday which I admit brought a tear to my eyes reading it –

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/18359973.looking-ahead-different-scotland-declaration-arbroath-anniversary/

    And this from today –

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/18362406.lack-arbroath-anniversary-events-tells-yes-movement/

  62. Marydoll
    Ignored
    says:

    I see that ‘clap for Boris ‘ is trending on twitter. Trying to hijack the NHs initiative. There will be almost complete silence over Scotland.is there any connection between that and RUthless turning up again .

  63. Al Dossary
    Ignored
    says:

    My hatred for Bojo and his cabinet of clowns is severe. I do not wish him harm in any way, however that a man who would have seen as much as 60% of the population infected is hospitalized by the same diseases rather fitting.

    I would hope that he now is beginning to see the error of his judgement but I somehow doubt that in his case.

    In the meantime, one of the russian news agency has reported that he is on a ventilator. The UK response? “It is Misinformation”. A telling response that they flat out did not deny it.

    It took Iran 4 weeks to progress from 8k to 50k cases. The UK has done it in 2 weeks, and in the meantime one by one the personal tragedies are starting to trickle in. Most of us by now will know of at least 1 person who has suffered from this disease and I suspect by the time it is under control we shall all know of at least 1 person who has died of it.

    Meanwhile the Swedish government has applied for additional powers as a recognition that their current strategy is not working.

  64. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    A Scottish based MP cannot be Prime Minister
    Due to EVEL. They could not participate in English only matters.

    A basic right denied to Scots.

    Rev, it is good practice to confer unionist idiots but some are just
    Mindless zombies spoiling legitimate discussions.
    I’d like to block them but they just come back under a new name
    In a government approve e-mail address.

  65. Ron Maclean
    Ignored
    says:

    @Sensibledave

    You have a guaranteed majority and we have weak leaders. Yes, I know we voted for no change in 2014.

    ‘There is nothing permanent except change.’
    Heraclitus – who almost certainly was not trained by the Royal Town Planning Institute.

  66. Col.Blimp IV
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks@ 10.49

    I think breweries and distilleries the world over use the term mash for the stuff that they ferment into alcohol, the big tub that they put it in is called a “Mash Tun”.

    If this goes into the “awaiting moderation pile” – something strange is going on.

  67. Weechid
    Ignored
    says:

    Effijy says:
    7 April, 2020 at 10:32 am

    Face Masks.

    Are you my undescovered twin? All these are exactly the procedures I’ve been following – since about the 10 March. I’m sole carer for a family member who has COPD. He doesn;t fancy his chances much if he catches this virus – and is convinced he’d be denied a ventilator because he is on benefits. Trying everything I can to keep him safe, including wearing masks, gloves and disinfecting absolutely everything. When I thought I was going to have to go into the surgery to collect his medication I was going to make myself a disposable suit out of bin bags. I’m sure I’ll be ridiculed but if I can keep my relative safe I don’t bloody care what people think. Apart from wanting to keep himalive I don’t want these b*****ds to have any opportunity to cull vulnerable members of society.

  68. Malcolm
    Ignored
    says:

    Stuart can you please unblock me on Twitter https://mobile.twitter.com/MalcJo I never swore at you and have always defended you I just want to read your shit

  69. Weechid
    Ignored
    says:

    Marydoll says:
    7 April, 2020 at 11:39 am

    I see that ‘clap for Boris ‘ is trending on twitter. Trying to hijack the NHs initiative. There will be almost complete silence over Scotland.is there any connection between that and RUthless turning up again .

    Really? I don’t remember a Clap for Saddam Hussein or Bin Laden and I won’t be clapping for this terrorist dictator either. No doubt some, the same who believe you should “never speak ill of the dead” will be out with their posts and pans. F**k ’em. I’m really pissed off at their hypocrisy.

  70. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    effigy 11.35

    “A Scottish based MP cannot be Prime Minister Due to EVEL. They could not participate in English only matters.”

    … totally and utterly wrong sir.

    Try again.

    A basic issue that you keep refusing to accept is that all EVEL laws can only be passed by the FULL House – just like any other law. Scottish, Welsh and NI MPs vote to pass or not pass in exactly the same way. The only thing that is different is English MPS get a chance to discuss things on their own. You will forgive me therefore for saying if that is the best you can come up with .. then you have got nothing.

  71. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Dave the Hypocite

    The tyranny of Brexit perhaps, where not only has our expressed will been ignored but the withdrawal bill was amended to remove the necessity for consent. We reject that as has our Parliament.

  72. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    After being told that we must put the thought of independence to one side and this was no time for politics. The BritNats have never stopped the politics of the union, they have tried to exploit every situation during this crisis to promote the union.

    Did the Britnat parties care about the CMO going to her holiday home, it would seem unlikely as they were gallivanting in the hills in a group whilst the social distancing was being pushed on the populace, you were told not to visit your mother the same weekend. No they seen the opportunity of the CMO as the chance to strike a blow for the union and galvanised their colleagues in the MSM to lead the charge.

  73. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    I don’t wish Boris Johnson any harm. I want him to be a better person, and for that, he needs to survive and begin to appreciate the NHS people who saved his life.

    What I do want is the health of Boris Johnson to be where it belongs, in the ‘foreign affairs’ category of news.

    And thanks Col.Blimp IV… mash was the word which came to mind, but then I registered there was a distinction between mash whisky and grain whisky, but I think that’s all American. Maybe I just confused myself.

    I “think” a Malt Whisky has to be barley, and only barley, (pure malt) whereas mash whisky can be maize, rye, tattie peelings if you’re a POW, antifreeze and all kinds of stuff, and mixed ingredients. I think if I’m correct Bourbon is considered mash whisky. Jack Daniels is sour mash whisky, but I don’t know what makes it sour. Probably being a “whiskey” born in America and not Scotland. 🙂

  74. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Malcolm at 11:58 am.

    You typed,
    “Stuart can you please unblock me on Twitter https://mobile.twitter.com/MalcJo I never swore at you and have always defended you I just want to read your shit”

    Try logging out of Twitter, then going to

    https://twitter.com/RevStu

    I don’t have a Twitter account and I can read his stuff ok.

  75. liz
    Ignored
    says:

    Another great post Breeks.
    I’ve always been pro indy Scotland since I could learn to think for myself but I had no idea about our sovereignty although I had heard of the declaration of Arbroath.

    That, to me, is the big difference between Alex S and NS.
    He used a section 30 at the time because it was the best option, then, the people needed reassured that this was legitimate.

    Now, we are more informed, few trust the press, we laugh at all the unionist parties, we now know we are more powerful than we realised.
    It’s NS who is the ultra conservative

  76. Bushman
    Ignored
    says:

    I have read all the articles and for the life of me can’t fathom who these Women are. What am I doing wrong,

    Yours
    The alien from the Andromeda

  77. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Just received a letter from Boris advising on how to
    Wash my hands and keep clear of the virus.

    This of course means he has to resign as he hasn’t followed his own rules.
    He demonstrated on TV that he hadn’t a clue of how to wash your hands and
    He is recorded bragging about shaking hands with everyone in a Corona Virus Ward.

    He has to go and I look forward to every form of UK media giving this priority for day after day
    After day.

    After him lying yesterday when saying he was fit to run the country.
    That was one of his better lies having a double edged sword .

    Bye Boris

  78. shug
    Ignored
    says:

    Sensibledave

    nice to see you back on shift

  79. shug
    Ignored
    says:

    still cant see the english cases on their web site

  80. Col.Blimp IV
    Ignored
    says:

    “CLAP FOR BORIS”

    What a terrific idea!

    Anyone out there with access to a P.A.?

    What better way to spend an evening, than to slowly cruise the streets urging the proles to come out and clap for Boris?

    A posh English accent, accompanied by rousing “patriotic” music, not essential but would be an advantage.

  81. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    Shug 12.21

    … there’s is none so blind …

  82. Mist001
    Ignored
    says:

    Well, told you so. The UK is looking at lifting the lockdown restrictions by June this year.

    So France is looking at the schools going back May 4th
    Germany, Italy and Spain are looking at lifting their lockdowns soon.

    Exactly the timetable I said would happen.

  83. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    France, Spain and Italy will be stupid to send anyone back anywhere until
    The Virus has extremely low numbers of new cases that can be supported
    With immediate testing and isolation for everyone they came in contact with.

    Greater Glasgow is working on an emergency mortuary in Renfrewshire.
    I’m guessing that would be the ice rink at Braehead?

    The worst is still to come to Scotland and still the doubting Thomases won’t have it.

  84. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    Jings! Gove self isolating. 🙁

  85. Col.Blimp IV
    Ignored
    says:

    callmedave

    I suppose a whole bunch of them have been in close contact with one and other over the past week or so – I’ll bet they wish they had been stockpiling underpants. .

  86. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    I see the highly effective Scot Govt daily briefing has now become an EssEnnPeeBaaad session for the Colonial Media!

    Can’t have the Scottish Government looking more competent than UK Government can they (usual attack on delivery of Devolved NHS resumed).

    So much for not politicising the pandemic.

  87. admiral
    Ignored
    says:

    Weechid says:
    7 April, 2020 at 12:01 pm
    Marydoll says:
    7 April, 2020 at 11:39 am
    I see that ‘clap for Boris ‘ is trending on twitter.

    To be fair, it probably wouldn’t be the first time in his life that he’s had the clap.

  88. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    When we compare the UK performance on the virus we should be comparing it to other islands and not places on mainland Europe with many borders. In this measurement the UK and because we followed WM the Scotgov performance has been poor. Look how well places like NZ and Iceland have performed compared to Scotland, we could have closed our borders and adopted a test and isolate approach. The BritNats would have gone mad but I would put up with their ire if it saved more lives.

  89. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Seriously, just been sent footage of the US announcing an attack on Venezuela !

    They attempt to justify it saying that drug cartels there intend filling the US with drugs
    While the country is focused on Corona Virus.

    I have lots of video clips that look very real to me.
    US commander in one with Trump making the announcement?

  90. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    I nearly asked if Venezuela had oil?

    Germany was the last country the US invaded that didn’t have oil.

  91. Jason Smoothpiece
    Ignored
    says:

    Surely the O/O plan to march to thank the Tories is a wind up.

    These poor ignorant people suffer more than most from the policies of the evil Conservative and Unionist party.

    It’s 2020 folks time to read some books and websites you may be strangers to. As always think of your families there is a better future out there to be seized.

    Really is time to change and wise up to Unionism, it is not your friend, most Tories would call the Police if any O/O type ventured near the tennis club or Waitrose.

    Just not their sort I’m afraid.

  92. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    Laura ‘I only have eyes for you’ Kuenssberg believes we are now in a crisis. I can understand it may be a personal crisis for her as that hotline is no longer available, and Dominic Raab doesn’t look like the fluttering eyelash type.

  93. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    Partner’s daughter is a registered nurse but working in a large care home. Last night during a phone call about how she was she used the word ‘scare-home’ (we didn’t laugh) and she wished they had better PPE.

    Partner’s really worried about her and her colleagues and all the old folk in the system.

    These carers especially those on minimum wages deserve all the support we can give them when every shift is a real risk to them.
    🙁

    74 reported dead in Scotland this morning.
    (catch up number from the weekend)

  94. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    I see that 5 days ago the US Fleet was sent off shore to Venezuela
    But the clips I have shows major US troop movements filmed my South
    Americans in their cars.

    Different Spanish speakers in different cars filming US Troops and
    Military Vehicles heading down their roads.

    One clip is of a military helicopter with Marines dropping down a line
    And into a field with many others.

    Nothing on the UK news but that’s the last place I’d expect to find it.

  95. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Breeks.

    The cuts to NHS A&E England already in the pipeline are going ahead. On Facebook yesterday, will try and find the story. Also Matt Hancock when asked about a pay rise for NHS staff said that now is not time. Ok for the MP’s and lords though. Don’t hold your breath for any road to Damascus change of heart from this lot.

  96. MaggieC
    Ignored
    says:

    Re all the cabinet going down with corona virus , maybe if Nadine Dorris hadn’t returned to Westminster so soon after being diagnosed with it they wouldn’t be ill . She was told to self isolate on 11th March and returned on 24th March and no doubt attended any cabinet meetings held .

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-51827356

    https://news.sky.com/story/amp/coronavirus-nadine-dorries-applauded-as-she-returns-to-commons-after-covid-19-recovery-11963026

  97. MaggieC
    Ignored
    says:

    Re above post about Nadine Dorris , I’ve just found this which suggests self isolation should be longer than 14 days –

    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1247206316814336002.html

    So if above thread reader is correct it means all the people self isolating for 7 or 14 days is not long enough to protect other people as this news page tells us –

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51506729

  98. Weechid
    Ignored
    says:

    On BBC “Coronavirus in Scotland: Sturgeon says ‘all of Scotland’ willing Johnson on”. Sorry FM – on this ocassion you don’t speak for me – and I hope you don’t believe that “being nice” is going to win you any favours. His type don;t change.

  99. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    OK:
    England figures for England on the scrolling screen for the first time! 🙂 Good old Auntie.

    Deaths reported as follows 🙁

    Scotland 74
    England 758
    Wales 19
    NI 3

    Uk Total today reported OH wait! I’ll have to add it up!!

    UK total = 854 That’s better Auntie How’s that Dave?

  100. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Effijy – yes Venezuela has around the highest oil reserves in the world. American companies regard them as their god given right to exploit. Hence the attempts at regime change.

    Try Telesur for S. America news. They were based in Venezuela but the US imposed sanctions and blocked access to Venezuela’s money held in American banks. So they may have had to move. They have nothing on an invasion atm but I would expect them to report it if it’s happening.

    https://www.telesurenglish.net

  101. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    Call me Dave

    I am sure if you write to the prime minister, and explain to him how stupid you are, I’m sure, when he’s not got anything else to worry about, he will arrange a special course for particularly stupid people to teach them to find data that no else has a problem with.

    You and shug should be the first two on it!

  102. Col.Blimp IV
    Ignored
    says:

    Weechid

    “Sturgeon says ‘all of Scotland’ willing Johnson on”

    On his journey to Malebolge?

    Why wouldn’t we?

  103. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    Haha I take it you’ve given up on the human rights “thing”.

    Once again, when actually challenged, a lot of the guff repeated in this echo chamber, melts under the smallest scrutiny.

  104. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    @Sensibledave

    Dave you were wrong!
    Lots of folk don’t have a computer so rely on the main BBC news page of the TV.

    By the way there is no figure for England deaths yet on the BBC website coronavirus ‘England’ box main page web site BBC at the very bottom or the corona virus UK box.

    But all the figures are for Scotland , NI, and Wales are in their respective boxes.

    So as I word-process this the BBC are still not telling us the whole figures.

    Only on the scrolling screen has it appeared.

    Sorry Dave your a roaster.

  105. Robert of Gunn
    Ignored
    says:

    OT. Wow,there’s a lot of reading for me to catch up on while I’ve been Off-Line during the last few weeks.

    Keep up the good investigative work Wings.

  106. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    Surely some mistake screams every transactivist in the world.

    Prof Philip Goulder, an expert in immunology at University of Oxford, said: “It is becoming increasingly recognised that there are substantial differences in the immune system between males and females and that these have significant impact on outcome from a wide range of infectious diseases.

    “The immune response throughout life to vaccines and infections is typically more aggressive and more effective in females compared to males.”

    http://archive.is/C2yQd

  107. lothianlad
    Ignored
    says:

    You get the feeling that sturgeon and her pitiful supporters would be more at home in the liebour party or lie dems!

    What use is she to the cause of independence?
    She has already brown nosed to the political classes in England and the London establishment.

    Does she not know that she will only ever be seen as the dumb subservient jock who is articulate but well controlled?

    My fear is that she and her cronies could do real damage to the SNP and indy cause form within.

    She certainly seems to care little about independence and may already be in the back pocket of the brit secret service.

    Backed by a unionist media who foam at the mouth at any opportunity to undermine Scotland, Sturgeon could be the brit states secret weapon Against Scotland!

    Any other leader worth their salt would have probably got us independence by now, or at the very least, done irreparable damage to the british state.

  108. admiral
    Ignored
    says:

    Effijy says:
    7 April, 2020 at 1:27 pm
    I nearly asked if Venezuela had oil?
    Germany was the last country the US invaded that didn’t have oil.

    Grenada?

  109. James
    Ignored
    says:

    Sensibledave talking bollocks as usual;

    “.A basic issue that you keep refusing to accept is that all EVEL laws can only be passed by the FULL House – just like any other law. Scottish, Welsh and NI MPs vote to pass or not pass in exactly the same way. The only thing that is different is English MPS get a chance to discuss things on their own. You will forgive me therefore for saying if that is the best you can come up with .. then you have got nothing..”

    How it actually wotks;
    The Speaker judges which parts of a bill relate to just England, or England and Wales
    An England-only committee stage considers bills deemed “England-only in their entirety”
    Membership of this committee reflects the number of MPs each party has in England
    Where sections of legislation relate only to England or England and Wales, the agreement of a Legislative Grand Committee composed of all English, English and Welsh or English, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs, is required

  110. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    Yes, I think its safe to say Grenada has no oil!

    http://archive.is/eZs6d

  111. Ayeright
    Ignored
    says:

    Afghanistan oil production bbls/year = zero

  112. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “Col.Blimp IV

    “Sturgeon says ‘all of Scotland’ willing Johnson on”

    On his journey to Malebolge?

    Why wouldn’t we?”

    Col.Blimp IV.

    Nice reference to ditches their, very fitting.

  113. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    FuckingdumdDave

    People have been listing points for you on why Scots are not equal under Westminster terms.

    My country cannot get the government it voted for because the English won’t let it.

    In Holyrood elections the country next door set up a process to just about endure SNP cannot get a majority. We have complete Fannies in the Tory Party getting a seat for coming in 4th in their constituency. Can I ad a Scottish enforce that in England? NO is the answer if you need help.

    I can’t as a Scottish MP become Prime Minister with EVEL.
    That doesn’t apply to the English.

    In Scotland I need to travel to another country to get an American permit signed off.

    In Scotland there is no pro Scottish News Media outlets.
    I’ve been battered to death with calls for Calderwood to resign for travelling
    Yet 3 back door Tory MSPs go hill walking and no UK media outlet wants to know about it.
    In the UK every media outlet is pro England First.

    The Thatcher Poll Tax was I legally imposed on Scotland to test it.
    Nothing imposed on England first.

    As a Scot I was proud to hear we held the best ever Commonwealth Games Ever.
    Westminster refused Glasgow any form of funding and yet Birmingham are to get £72 Million for their games.

    Scots will need to pay Billions for the Nuclear Weapons we don’t want and Billions
    For HS2 that comes no where near Scotland.

    Scots are not equal as we can hide our corruption by making disgraceful and disgusting acts top secret.

    Get someone to read some of this out to you and then fuck off to England you cretin.

  114. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “Col.Blimp IV says:
    7 April, 2020 at 12:23 pm
    “CLAP FOR BORIS””

    Col.Blimp IV.

    Don’t tell me Boris has got the clap as well as the virus, no wonder he’s in ICU.

  115. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    @republicofscotland

    To be honest it wouldn’t surprise me that even on a ventilator (which he definitely isn’t) he still managed to impregnate a couple of women.

  116. Andy Hay
    Ignored
    says:

    Syphilis Dave

    Why do people engage? It will crawl back under its bridge if it gets ignored.

    It’s the same script day in day out.

  117. dakk
    Ignored
    says:

    English/british media dumbing down the horrific English covid death figures again.

    When comparing their garish, headline coverage of the Italian, and Spanish deaths you only realise now they were actually gloating over poor Johnny foreigners plight.

    Transparent british propagandists, no surprise there.

  118. Col.Blimp IV
    Ignored
    says:

    Captain Sensible is not stupid nor being deliberately obtuse, he is just a bit deluded.

    He thinks that we, like him are subjects of Good Queen Bess, and must therefore enjoy all the privileges, freedoms and restrictions that were granted/imposed on him and his fellows by Magna Carta [not sure why they never stick a ‘the’ in front of it] and all subsequent English Parliaments.

    Meaning we stopped being Scottish way back in 1707, so it is not possible for Scots to have any more or less rights than he does – because [in his mind] we do not exist, other than as residents of an administrative sector of England and it’s pseudonyms.

  119. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    The true number of coronavirus victims in England could be 80 per cent higher than official figures show. The Government declared just 926 fatalities by March 27, compared to 1,649 deaths recorded by NHS England.

    Don’t tell me Westminster could lie about figures.

    England now behind the US, Italy, Spain and Iran in the number of Corona Deaths
    The article above probably takes them above Iran.

    Let’s pray for Boris who is greatly responsible for what is going on
    and it is only dispensable plebs that are actually dying.

  120. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    As for Venezuela

    Crisis Stricken Venezuela Faces Mounting Pressure From The U.S.

    http://archive.is/0FaxL

    As for Afghanistan.

    Lots of oil there.

    But not sure much has changed since 2016.

    Opium Rules: Afghan Oil Will Never Get Out Of The Ground

    http://archive.is/MrAjQ

  121. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    James 3.06

    …. keep the very good explanation going James and tell everyone what happens next.

  122. Col.Blimp IV
    Ignored
    says:

    Republicofscotland

    Looks like he passed it on to Sensibledave @ 3.25pm

  123. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    @Effijy

    They can run but they can’t hide in the long run, we will be able to see the statistical changes in recorded deaths. If there is a deviation from the normal stats I think we will be able to work out the lies. Of course it requires the media to report this, will they cover up for the Tories if the stats prove they are lying.

  124. Col.Blimp IV
    Ignored
    says:

    mike cassidy says

    “Opium Rules” –

    Not until the Taliban, who had banned production of the stuff were overthrown by an American invasion.

  125. Pete
    Ignored
    says:

    James
    Even after all those procedures which you mention, I still think that English only legislation still has to be voted by the whole HoC.
    I’m not an expert on constitutional matters but I rather think that sensible is correct on this.
    Please expand your case as I’m quite interested.

  126. Colin Alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks

    Blended whiskies are often mainly grain whisky (not malted) and then often mixed (flavoured) with some malt whiskies, so cheaper.

    Malt Whisky is made using malted barley, eg germinated barley, so is a longer process and more expensive.

    Mash is part of the process.

    http://www.scotchwhiskyexperience.co.uk/about-whisky/making

  127. Alan Mackintosh
    Ignored
    says:

    Ayeright

    Afghanistan opened the route for a pipeline to the Caspian sea. I remember Tommy Sheridan talkingf about it. (the only politican who did)

    The company was Unocal, there were US negotiations with the Taliban re the pipeline. They were given the ultimatum- you can have a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs. That was in July, then September 11th happened which gave the US the excuse to go in.

  128. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    Live Reporting
    BBC Scotland News if your looking.
    Live Scottish web page

    Posted at 15:2115:21

    Food parcels for vulnerable families
    Picture of bags of messages in the Glasgow hall which is good. 🙂

    Half a loaf in each of the 2000 bags in ‘union jack’ wrapping.
    🙁 Hovis.

    Good old BBC. Photo opportunity:

    PS:
    For younger viewers a Scottish half loaf if called a ‘loaf’ darn Sarf.

    As my real auntie from Sheffield found out when she came up to shop in Scotland years ago. Sadly no more.
    ””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””’

    PS: Forgot to mention that the main news scrolling screen which used to give the UK total deaths….is no more gone! nada!

    Maybe Raab will tell us the UK total at the latest briefing or stick to ENHS figures.

    5 will get you 10 that he will.

  129. Colin Alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    Scotch Whisky

    Last time I looked 75% of the Scotch Whisky industry is foreign owned, mainly by multi-nationals.

    Grants is one of the Scottish family owned Scotch Whisky companies still around and was a major donor to Better Together.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-28183123

    “Scottish independence: Distiller William Grant and Sons donates to Better Together”

    The Scotch Whisky Association came out strongly in favour of NO to indy, citing concerns about independence meant leaving the EU.

    Did Grant and Sons cry “this is a Brexit betrayal” after UK promises of a NO vote meant staying in the EU and switch support to Scottish independence?

    I haven’t heard of it, have you?

  130. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    Just a minute ago the UK deaths appear on the BBC news scrolling screen. Somebody must have counted them up at last.

    Just in time for the Raab update.

  131. Doug
    Ignored
    says:

    English/British nationalist media controlling SNP agenda again. SNP don’t seem to mind.

  132. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    dave notes that no one had come up with a human right that he has, that Scots don’t. British constitutional law lacks incoherence and comparability with international human rights law. Parliamentary sovereignty is incompatible with the principle of Scottish sovereignty, i.e. equality.

    The Right to Development at a glance
    https://www.un.org/en/events/righttodevelopment/pdf/rtd_at_a_glance.pdf

  133. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry….lacks coherence…. I’m not simply lazy, I actually have a bit of a learning difficulty.

    Linguistic Competence
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/linguistic-competence

  134. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    COMPARABILITY, sorry.

  135. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I did it again, and it wasn’t deliberate. COMPATIBILITY!

    If law and public policy lacks regard to the natural law, it can’t be considered compatible with international human rights law.

  136. boris
    Ignored
    says:

    A country controlled by a small percentage of very wealthy people who deny opportunities to those who are poor. The poor work for little wages and struggle to achieve a basic human standard of living such as having food and shelter. The poor are carefully controlled by the oppressors and prevented from organizing or resisting the will of the wealthy.

    https://caltonjock.com/2020/04/07/the-1707-act-of-union-handed-scotland-over-to-a-very-wealthy-english-elite-supported-by-lickspittle-unionist-politicians-who-maintain-their-power-through-the-impositon-of-oppression-on-scots/

  137. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    The BBC now running eulogy after eulogy about what a great person Boris Johnson really is, when he reappears he will now be lauded a hero. Many thought that was the plan all along. If they keep this up soon the only way I’m going to believe this was all not just a great ruse to cover up the disastrous government handling of the crisis is if he does pass on.

    The media is now fixated with Boris Johnson and criticism of the government has all but disappeared.

  138. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Can you see in Rabb’s eyes the delight should he could become PM if Boris
    Chokes on a blocked hoover bag on his Dyson?

    Rabb dies have the arrogance and condescending attitude to
    Fit in at the top level in England.

  139. Mike d
    Ignored
    says:

    Colin alexander 4.30pm. Re scotch whisky, I’m a JD man myself but if I did drink scotch, it wouldn’t be those BT a***holes brands. More like springbank distillers whose managing director Neil Clapperton said before the indy vote ‘independence would be a huge boost to Scotlands brand’

  140. Meindevon
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve just been invited on a Facebook page to clap for Boris at 8pm. A next door neighbour. There are several different pages on friends pages. Some are just never mind his politics as a human being with loved ones and the PM let’s hope he pulls through. Others have photos if BJ with hearts on and we love you Boris and pray you get back to running the country magnificently style messages.

    My problem is whilst I sincerely hope he pulls through, If I don’t clap at 8 will I be looked upon as a hater and as someone who wants him dead? Will my Tory supporting friends and neighbours shun me? This feels a bit scary in these times of heightened emotions.

    I bet none of them would do it for Jeremy Corbyn or Nicola Sturgeon.

  141. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    OT

    Courtesy of dictionary woman, Susie Dent.

    hurkledurking – lying in bed or lounging around when one should be up and about

    hufflebuffs – old,scruffy clothes you laze around in.

    So having had my once-a-day-exercise

    I shall spend the rest of the time hurkledurking in my hufflebuffs while catching up on “In The Line Of duty” series 5.

  142. Merkin Scot
    Ignored
    says:

    Boris is one of the most loathed politicians in memory.

  143. robertknight
    Ignored
    says:

    Doug @ 4:44

    “English/British nationalist media controlling SNP agenda again. SNP don’t seem to mind”

    No, they don’t mind one bit. Biggest obstacle to Scottish Independence? The SNP in its current form; cosy-devolutionists, career-troughers, ultra-Wokes and paper tigers in three-piece suits. Quite the motley crew in both parliaments. Scotland deserves better.

  144. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    Did you hear what Raab never said at a live news medical update to the UK nation?

    On a day when the highest UK death rate on a single day should have been reported he never told us what it was it was disguised in a litany of figures where the total number of UK deaths to date was given instead.

    PS:
    I lost my bet above when I said 5 will get you 10 that he would.

    It’s the way they give the news! It is deliberate.

    Maybe an alert reporter will ask the question… there is still time but they are obsessed with Boris. 🙁

    More Boris Boris Boris nobody will ask.

    Oh wait! Someone mentions the shocking outcome today in the figures but doesn’t say what it is.

    Raab has an opportunity to tell us…but Nooo! 🙁

    Shurley schome mistake!

    I have re-listened to it and I believe this to correct.

  145. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Peston challenges Rabb about Great Germany having vastly superior control over the virus than the UK is. Why!

    It may be due to the Germans paying for and carrying out testing while the Tories didn’t order tests
    And didn’t make provision to man the tests.

    This has caused many UK lives and continues to do so.
    And people want you to clap the clown behind this?
    The idiot who went about shaking hands in a Corona Ward
    Against his own advice.

    The UK is losing 91 lives per million of population at this time and the daily death tolls are increasing
    Great Germany has a larger population including over a million refugees and they have lost only 23
    Citizens per million with their number steadily decreasing.

    In summary you are 4 timed mire likely to die with this virus under Boris than you are with Merkel

    Boris and the Tories have blood on their hands and it’s not their own blood.

  146. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    And was instructed in the acquisition of this knowledge following a serious brain injury. Fortunately this instruction guided me in decolonising my intellect and Theory of Mind. Makes you wonder about the power of propaganda, eh?

    JUSTICE, EQUALITY, AND NATURAL RIGHTS CLAIMS: A RECONSIDERATION OF AQUINAS’S CONCEPTION OF RIGHT
    https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-law-and-religion/article/justice-equality-and-natural-rights-claims-a-reconsideration-of-aquinass-conception-of-right/E3AFD5AC34517E181E205C9EB213D16A

  147. Jock McDonnell
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T really but Interesting read on XY stuff.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52197594

  148. Pete
    Ignored
    says:

    callmedave et others
    A lot of today’s deaths actually relate to the weekend when the Registrars are not working so the stats are a bit meaningless.
    NS explained the same problem at her news conference.
    You guys are always looking for a grievance!
    So lacking in self confidence.

  149. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC scrolly thing states that.

    “The foreign Sec ‘confirms’ 786 UK deaths”

    No he didn’t BBC 🙁 You did on your scrolly thing.

  150. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Dorothy Devine – I found the reference to gargling with saline in the Chinese medics’ Handbook for COVID-19 Prevention and Treatment. On page 13 of the document (page 18 of the pdf) it advises to gargle with saline solution and swab mucous membrane to disinfect if contaminated with the virus.

    https://www.alnap.org/help-library/handbook-of-covid-19-prevention-and-treatment

    No idea where I read that hot drinks such as tea are good for getting rid of the virus if in the throat. But it can’t do any harm.

  151. Mike d
    Ignored
    says:

    Lothianlad 2.55pm she’s definitely not in the same league as George borg Olivier who gained independence for Malta against all the odds.

  152. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    And this is UNESCO’s ‘one world’ ideology that has recently been subject to misrepresentation. Living in Scotland, folks should know what that feels like.

    Human rights and natural law
    https://en.unesco.org/courier/2018-4/human-rights-and-natural-law

  153. shug
    Ignored
    says:

    Haw Dave

    Got a new foil hat and managed to calculate the numbers for you
    N Ireland 73 1.19%
    Scotland 296 4.81%
    Wales 212 3.44%
    England 5578.00 90.57%
    Total 6159

    I dont know what they pay you

  154. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    Pete
    What you said has nothing to do with weekend figures
    I never said anything about the figures being ‘too’ high it is a fact that they are what they are.

    I have never sought or compared deaths in the 4 countries only stated the numbers

    My contention is with

    Reporting the facts in a straight forward way
    The WM Gov and the BBC are a hand in glove puppet they are the ones that lack confidence not the UK general public and not me.

    They massage the news they obscure the things we should be told

    This is not about grievance nothing at all.

    We want the truth …. we can handle the truth. ‘Good Film that’

    I hope that’s good enough for you.

  155. shug
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry – I don’t know what they pay you to squat on this site. They could not pay me to visit the Scottish branch office for the conservatives.

    Did you manage to get a visit to Ben Vorlich??

  156. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Got it Pete

    In your world a repot on 786 deaths is only a problem because
    The registrars don’t work the weekend.

    Count the moons on your planet and get back to us.

    I’d like to know why all deaths are not reported to a central bureau
    Spread sheet as they happen.

    Access should be available to the public too that they could see if London
    Has started to condemn older patients with ventilators running out.

    No way the Tories will permit accountability or freedom of information.

  157. highseastim
    Ignored
    says:

    I have e-mailed Police Scotland today asking if they have cautioned Murdo Fraser and Liz Smith for flouting the corona virus rules.

  158. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ callmedave – the BBC website says that the “UK” stats don’t include people who have died in the community. I’m pretty certain Nicola Sturgeon said that the Scottish stats do include deaths outside hospital. I think we have to accept that the actual numbers are too scary to mention. Raab and his team dodged answering the question about why Germany has a much lower death rate.

    Some university in a far off galaxy will be keeping tabs.

  159. Mist001
    Ignored
    says:

    The UK are going to announce next week that they’ve ‘flattened the curve’.

    I keep trying to tell you all that European countries, including the UK are pushing to get this over by the summer so people can go on their holidays otherwise the airlines are going to go bust and the governments can’t afford to bail them out after announcing all their furlough payments and whatnot.

    My prediction is that after summer, there will be a second wave.

    People of a certain age, including myself, have had years of experience with how governments think and work, so all the information is out their about the likely direction that governments are going to take. All you have to do is join the dots.

  160. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    @shug

    Nobody pays me.
    I can’t make out what the figures mean?

    As I said before I have never offered a comparison between countries. Just the facts in numbers is what I question and the way the BBC present them.

    Just the facts? …….. Oh Joe Friday! Dragnet

    In the case corona virus we really are all in it together.

    Right off to get cuffed on the on-line chess.
    I used to be a contender … Oh…On The Water front! 🙂

  161. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Highseastim,

    Good for you in doing that.
    Keep us updated.

    It might be an idea to have a petition to demand the same justice as they call it
    For those connected to the SNP looking after Scotland and the Tories looking
    After England.

    Then we can ask why Prince Charlie hadn’t resigned for travelling up here with the virus.

    We can ask why Boris hasn’t resigned for not following his instructions not to shake hands.
    He should resign just like Doctor Calderwood.

  162. Shug
    Ignored
    says:

    Call me dave
    Was directed at sensible dave
    That we’ll known oximoron

  163. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC now have their Scotland agenda, care homes, only in Scotland are care home residents catching the virus. BBC Scotland started on this track a couple of days ago, now been moved to main news.

    All Scotland (Wales & NI also) reporting must be negative, none of the uplifting reports as used in England allowed. The agenda is so transparent it’s unlikely to work, except for the Britnat loons, where is AC-H?

    Of course no measurements of deaths in England care homes, I suspect their death numbers are now being hidden here. As I’ve read elsewhere if the maths of the death rate are not matching other countries that took the same route then they are being hidden.

  164. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    @shug

    Ok shug! 🙂

    @Capella

    FM said she would but I think that they are just getting the figures for ‘out of hospital’ deaths sorted.
    Maybe tomorrow I hear

    It will be a severe shock ‘you ain’t seen nothing yet’ believe me

    (Bachman Turner Overdrive 1974)

    Deaths numbers will sky rocket.

  165. Doug
    Ignored
    says:

    The end of this health crisis can’t come quickly enough. Then we can change the FM for someone who has the guts to fight for Scotland’s independence. The current FM’s latest best wishes [on behalf of all of us, it seems] to liar and coward Johnson is boke-inducing.

  166. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    @Doug

    Aye but Doug ( the reality is its just a meaningless convention)

    It’s a bit like the golf thing.

    “Oh dear what a pity… my friends in the bunker….
    “Oh F*ck! The bastards on the green”

    That’s all it is.

  167. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    EBC Scotland in top gear anti SNP propaganda.

    It seems to be their fault 29 elderly people in care homes
    With underlying health issues have died to date.

    Care home manager blames SNP for lack of personal protection. Kit.
    It sounds like these kits are only in short supply in Scotland but apparently
    There are shortages right across the globe but they can’t mention that.

    Half of these care home deaths are from one site where there dies need to be
    be a deeper investigation but as Scotland had not been compared to England that
    Automatically means the care home deaths must be very much higher.

    EBC Shortbread you are a shower of corrupt bastards.

  168. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    Surely for all these privately run care home it is the company that runs them responsibility to have a procedure in place to protect their staff. These are the companies that often won’t pay for their staff travel time now trying to tell me their staff is their highest priority.

    As far as I can see many companies are avoiding looking after their staff but trying to pass on the responsibility to the government. Looks like many are expecting the SHNS to run after them rather than them put any effort in.

  169. Shug
    Ignored
    says:

    Just listening to BBC jockland
    Private care homes have a duty to provide and protect their staff. It is not for the Scottish government to provide. Clearly omitted by the BBC.
    If you are a carer keep a copy of all circulars issued by your employer. You may need they for a legal claim later.
    Kilgower seems to connected to the cbi hence the free access to the BBC to say the government is not providing for his staff unchalenged
    BBC up to usual tricks

  170. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Why would our First Minister want to add potential out of hospital Corona death figures
    To our totals if England doesn’t do it.

    I want our apples compared with their apples, nothing else.

    We shut ourselves in the foot with this previously with drug deaths.
    Scotland counts Kidney failure as a drug death if the situation was
    Caused previously by taking drugs.

    They don’t do it that way in England and no way do the media want to report it as apples vs oranges

  171. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    Once the care homes are included in the Scottish figures then a more realistic death rate across the UK can be interpolated from this figure as we should know the difference between the pre/post numbers. The percentages are likely to be similar across the UK, so if it works out 50 % more in Scotland then it is more than likely 50% more elsewhere in the UK.

    My suspicion is we are closer to 1000 per day than the numbers that are currently being released (UK total).

  172. Jock McDonnell
    Ignored
    says:

    @Effijy – our Government would get sh1t anyway – at least this way they can say they are open & that the figures are gathered differently from England’s which is why they are different
    but .. yeah, still crap

  173. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    @Effigy

    Yes the MSM will use the figure to berate the Scottish government but they can try putting their heads in the sand if they want down south. The numbers will come out eventually then it will be seen as a cover up, the MSM (BBC anyway) is going to chase this up anyway they are already locked in on the care home scenario.

  174. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Effijy says at 6:53 pm.

    I’m guessing you type your comments in Microsloth Word, or a similar abortion, then paste them into the comments box.

    PLEASE preview in the preview box below the “Submit Comment” button, because your comments are appearing with spurious line breaks and new sentences starting on a new line, in the middle of a sentence!

    Makes it really awkward to read.

    However, even with the difficulty in reading your comments, you do post some thoughtful stuff.

  175. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    Capella

    A little perspective…

    The figure for the overall death rate in England is circa 33000 per month (just over 9% per annum). Other than those that died in accidents, the rest of them, we can assume, are ill and/or “dying” each month in the “natural” course of events.

    The Coronavirus deaths we sadly hear about, are in the main, people that died WITH Coronavirus or suspected cv19. We don’t know whether cv19 was necessarily THE cause of death on its own.

    We had around 5000 deaths from people with cv19 in the uk.

  176. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Brian

    Thanks
    I’m having to use my I phone to post.
    I’ve had to move out of my home to look after
    A sick relative with no internet and poor phone signal.

    My apologies for the poor format but my sentiment is in the right place.

    A good time to say thank you for all the good like minded people here who
    Believe in Scotland, Truth and Justice.

    Too many of my posts are fight backs against the idiocy of the Unionist Trolls
    The Media and Westminster.

    Good people with common sense on here keep me sane.

  177. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    I may have got my figures a bit wrong. 9% death rate overall suggests about 500,000 deaths per year in England … so under “normal” circumstances it’s nearer 40,000 per month.

  178. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    England don’t record Covid-19 deaths in care homes to their National Stats @ jfngw says at 6:33 pm but Scotland do.

    http://archive.is/AN2bF

    Fudging the figures South of the Border but BBC and BritNat MSM in Scotland don’t report this as they attack SNHS!

  179. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Contrary to Troll stats
    There is well over 5,500 Corona deaths in England
    and we know the true stats are being delayed.

    8,000 would be a likely figure and there will be more
    Than 10,000 when England cares to adjust and report
    This weekends figures.

  180. Pete
    Ignored
    says:

    Sensible Dave
    I think you mean the death rate is 0.9%per annum.

  181. highseastim
    Ignored
    says:

    I have had a reply from Police Scotland

    OFFICIAL
    Good Afternoon,

    Thank you for your email, unfortunately we would not be able to comment whether individuals have received warnings or not.

    If you wish to make a complaint about anyone not adhering to social distancing, please call 101.

    ———————-
    I find this answer extraordinary as they were very public on their cautions for Catherine Calderwood, her husband and the Aberdeen fc players!!

  182. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    Pete

    … yes, major typo on the %.

    However, we are talking about 120,000 “normal” deaths per month in England … so 40,000 per month stands.

    Thank you.

  183. Col.Blimp IV
    Ignored
    says:

    Pete

    England has a death rate of 0.9%per annum !

    Is that because the average life-span is 111
    or has immigration sky-rocketed since Brexit?

  184. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    The ONS publishes figures for deaths in hospital, care home or home for Engand and Wales. Unfortunately, the figures are more than a week out of date. However, there were 20 deaths in care homes in England and Wales in the week up to 27th March. There were 501 deaths in hospital and 15 at home, 2 hospice and 1 elsewhere. I think the figures must be considerably higher now.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52196978

  185. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Highseastim,

    Absolutely typical police up here working for Westminster promotions
    And Betty Gongs.

    You have reported the who where when but they have passed the buck.
    I’d appreciate someone with a spine in the SNP to enquire one rule for Tories
    And another for SNP.

    Can they confirm they received a complaint on that phone number for Dr Caulderwood?

    Corruption controlling Scotland !

  186. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    Effigy 7.53

    We need to understand the numbers a little more as per my previous and subsequent comments. The figures are imperfect for a number of reasons. If someone is nearing the end of life and has a terminal condition, as I understand it now, if they have cv 19 or are suspected of having cv19 then they may appear in the cv deaths stats.

    It’s very hard to get a grip on the numbers. “Normally”, in England, around 17000 people die through respiratory disease (1400 per month), 2500 a month from cardio vascular disease, 1400 a month from injuries ( has that number plummeted in the lock down?), 3300 a month from neoplasm.

    How many of the people that were going to die, are being included within the cv19 numbers if they died with the symptoms as well?

  187. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    “Surely for all these privately run care home it is the company that runs them responsibility…..Looks like many are expecting the SHNS to run after them rather than them put any effort in.”

    Agreed @jfngw says at 6:53 pm

    One of the positives that SHOULD come from the analysis of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Scotland IMHO MUST be the removal of Private Industry from the Care Sector in Scotland.

    When the care of the old, infirm and disabled is used to generate a profit then society suffers.

  188. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Thinking about that Police rebuke

    They had no problem commenting for the UK media
    On Dr Calderwood.
    An official statement was signed and sent.

    Double standards again.

  189. ben madigan
    Ignored
    says:

    A little perspective on CoVid-19 fatalities and a home-made guide to estimating deaths.

    Try and access the death notices (usually inserted by the family), in your local paper in the online archive. Choose a date in March or April 2019 and compare the number of deaths with the same date in 2020.

    They did this in Bergamo, a terrible Coronavirus hot-spot in Northern Italy. In 2019 there was a page and a half of death notices, which was accepted as about normal. In 2020 at the height of the epidemic there were 10 pages. No matter the number of notices on each page, you can see there was a tremendous rise.

    There won’t be such a rise in Scottish towns and townlands, of course, but you should get some idea of how many people have succumbed to the disease in your area.

  190. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    The BBC posts articles on the grim crisis of care home deaths across Europe (which excludes England obviously).
    So that’s Scotland and Europe with care home deaths.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52147861

  191. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    ONS reporting UK gov under reporting Hospital deaths by 78%. Anybody else picked up on this.

  192. Ron Maclean
    Ignored
    says:

    Craig Murray’s first attempt at a podcast – ‘The Declaration of Arbroath, and the Way Forward Now’ – makes very interesting listening.

    craigmurray.org.uk

  193. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    The BBC article I posted above is from 3rd April. Here’s one from 31st March about care home deaths in Europe. Grim indeed. But no articles on care home deaths in England.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52094491

  194. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    To be honest I don’t think we will be able to make any judgement on fatalities until we are able to compare figures against averages across the last 5 years. We have Feb 2020 at 4715 in Scotland which is 6.7% drop on the average for the previous 5yrs. It’s that kind of comparison which will give us a better understanding of what’s happening.

  195. Col.Blimp IV
    Ignored
    says:

    Effijy

    My response to your post @10.32 was quarantined for reasons unknown – if you can read this, it must have been for something I said in the first couple of paragraphs.

    On a more serious note, I agree with what you said about supermarkets, when livestock are threatened by an epidemic, on entering or leaving an enclosure you have to walk through a bath of disinfectant and spray the wheels of your vehicle to prevent transmission of any contaminants to or from the ground the animals may come in contact with.

    One would not think it unreasonable to afford humans the same level of protection – i.e. no one allowed into a shop without a mask and fresh or decontaminated gloves and that the trolleys leaving the shop are disinfected thoroughly before being allowed to re-enter.

  196. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Capella.

    Talking up Scotland did an article on this, its certainly making the local papers down south.

  197. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I just remembered some of the bio-neurological drivers of HMG’s response to Covid and Scotland’s democratic rights. Tories are simply bio-neurologically impaired in terms of cognitive flexibility, cope poorly with change, and tend to think in the immediate to short-term. Their boundaries of perception are, subsequently, inadequate to the task of ethical government. Trust me, or do you want tones of links? 🙂

    Toward a computational framework for cognitive biology: Unifying approaches from cognitive neuroscience and comparative cognition
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S157106451400058X

  198. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    Cammy

    … yawn!

  199. dakk
    Ignored
    says:

    Eh, the virus has only been with us for a couple of months so when it spreads through the population we’ll see the general death rate increase.

  200. Col.Blimp IV
    Ignored
    says:

    Ron Maclean says @8.47:

    “Craig Murray’s first attempt at a podcast… makes very interesting listening.”

    What he is saying from 20mins in onwards, goes way beyond interesting.

    It is vital that every Scot hears it and our duty to ensure that they do.

    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/

  201. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Cameron B Brodie.

    Tones of links sounds good, setting them to music is a brilliant idea.

    Keep on posting.

  202. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    We can sir!

  203. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Golfnut
    I’ll do my best, hopefully when most appropriate.

  204. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Here’s one for starters.

    Constituents of political cognition: Race, party politics, and the alliance detection system
    https://www.cep.ucsb.edu/papers/2015Pietraszewski_Constituents%20of%20political%20cognition_Cognition.pdf

  205. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    Today remember Willie MacRae, 18th May 1923 – 7th April 1985.

    Scottish Lawyer, Orator, Naval Officer, SNP activist, politician and anti-nuclear campaigner.

    This is the 35th anniversary of his murder by the UK Security Services.

    or,

    for those who don’t believe in conspiracy theories,

    This is the 35th anniversary of the day he shot himself twice in the back of the head, wiped his fingerprints from the revolver and threw it 20 metres though the car window!

    http://archive.is/AtYpx

  206. Mike d
    Ignored
    says:

    Well that’s me just finished watching channel 5’s ‘ A country life for half the price. All about a family who moved from Exeter to the shetland isles. It was Britain this Britain that ,northern Britain. Not once was the word SCOTLAND mentioned. Yes they are desperately trying to airbrush our country out of existence . They really must be panicking now.

  207. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    Just realised my post at 7:19 should say extrapolate, not interpolate.

  208. defo
    Ignored
    says:

    Apropos..
    Shout out to all those kindly souls who bought up half of Embra to make an air b’n’b killing.
    GIRUPY
    Watch the values plummet!

  209. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    My bother just pointed out that those living in Scotland are apparently unable to register to access an HMG sponsored scheme run by Tesco, to support mind and bodily unity of vulnerable customers. That would appear to be a discrimination in the justice of access to life essential services.

    Social justice, access and quality of healthcare in an age of austerity: users’ perspective from rural Iceland
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5549823/

  210. auld highlander
    Ignored
    says:

    Channel 4 did some number crunching on the deaths and these will certainly raise an eyebrow.
    https://www.channel4.com/news/new-data-suggests-coronavirus-deaths-could-be-higher

  211. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    Dakk 9.34

    …. not necessarily (if you had been paying attention).

  212. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    @auld highlander

    Good catch on the link to the lag in the system of reporting virus related deaths.

    I suspect all this chat about changes of reporting has been thrashed out across the UK by the 4 country cobra meetings and all will be using the same criteria beginning soon.

    STV’s Colin Mackay tonight saying he’s seen some data in Scotland ONS that might be in the FM’s report tomorrow.
    Big numbers hinted at. 🙁

  213. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Jings! A sombre sober Trump in his press conference.

    Actually quite articulate in brief moments. Might be getting it!

  214. dakk
    Ignored
    says:

    @ sensibledave

    Not necessarily, but the global economy is in lockdown for the first time ever and the 55 Yr old UK PM is in intensive care with virus.

    Nothing to see here.

  215. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    Golf nut 8.49

    Amazing! We appear to be on the same word on the same line of same page!

    Who’d of thunk it.

  216. Ron Maclean
    Ignored
    says:

    Col.Blimp IV @ 9.39pm

    Thank you for sorting the Craig Murray link.

  217. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    Dakk

    As usual, you are so busy looking for a fight, you miss the point that a number of other contributors have grasped.

    Let me try another way.

    1, How many of the people that have/are dying with Coronavirus were going to die within a short period regardless? It sounds harsh but we are having a difficult conversation about death. We keep hearing about people with “underlying” conditions (that is not say that fit and healthy people can die from it.

    2. Because of the lockdown, how many fewer deaths happen at work?

    3. How many fewer are dying in car accidents?

    4. How many fewer people are dying as a result of other accidents.

    Think Dakk think!

  218. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    And here’s a bit more on the bio-neurological nature of prejudice and discrimination. Unfortunately this knowledge is unavailable to Scotland’s government, as the Scottish civil service have been instructed to follow an approach to law that is ideologically opposed to a legal respect for biology. Distinctly anti-founadtional in nature, and incompatible with the potential for justice to occur.

    That’s is the legal philosophy underpinning contemporary British constitutional law.

    The Health Stigma and Discrimination Framework: a global, crosscutting framework to inform research, intervention development, and policy on health-related stigmas
    https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-019-1271-3

  219. Tom
    Ignored
    says:

    Others have already recommended a listen to Craig Murray’s new podcast:

    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk

    But be sure to listen to the end; about 36 mins in he says that “one way or another” he will stand in the next Holyrood election, “along with others”.

    He also says his home office is being equipped as a broadcast studio.

    I know what all this leads me to conclude. Anyone else agree?

  220. dakk
    Ignored
    says:

    Can’t be bothered thinking tonight Dave.

    Can’t be bothered fighting either.

    Maybe tomorrow.

  221. robertknight
    Ignored
    says:

    Sensible @ 11:19

    How many will not see Christmas 2020, but who might have done had their scans, biopsies, procedures, treatments, surgeries, etc. etc. not been cancelled due to the current situation?

    Will such collateral deaths, which are a direct result of the current pressures on the NHS, be included in the final analysis? I doubt it.

  222. Still Positive
    Ignored
    says:

    Wonderful video from Craig Murray and I totally agree with him.

  223. Still Positive
    Ignored
    says:

    Wonderful podcast from Craig Murray and I totally agree with him.

  224. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    The President of Venezuela has written a letter to the people of America
    To advise that the biggest crisis that faces us all is the Corona Virus.

    Donald Trump has decided that all drugs entering the US come from Venezuela.
    This is completely inaccurate and we do all we can bring drug producers and dealers
    To justice.

    America put illegal sanctions in this country and made it difficult for us to source
    Medical supplies but as we took immediate actions to test and socially distance
    Our citizens and it has had great affect on minimising their spread and the number of fatalities.

    As Trump refused to accept the severity of the Virus, just as he has rejected global warming,
    The US Faced a death tally measured in the hundreds of thousands.

    This attack on Venezuela is no more a smoke screen to cover the disaster that has been the US
    Government response to this deadly virus.

    Venezuela only wants peace.

    President

    Moduro Moros

    Sorry I can’t paste the actual letter here and I have abbreviated the letter while trying to stay true
    To the content.

    If anyone in the UK Media would like lessons on this just let me know!

  225. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Effijy.

    I tend to forget that peeps are commenting from phone, because I do all my commenting on iMac at work or MacPro at home.

    I even detest having to use texting and Whatsapp from my phone. It’s a lot easier to type on a REAL keyboard than on a virtual keyboard onscreen.

    That’s what’s fine about being confined to barracks; I have Whatsapp on my home MacPro so have the use of a real keyboard.

  226. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Mike D 10.04pm Mike I watched about 5 mins of that programme before I couldn’t take anymore , the smugness was palpable , is there now going to be a new wave of incomers selling up down south to take advantage of the lower house prices up here and to escape the morass that is London and the denseness of the population

    Another massive hurdle for our own youngsters to overcome in their attempts to get housing and a mortgage , and you can also forget about independence

  227. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Here’s another way of comprehending Scotland’s circumstances, if you’re a legal scholar that is. This is essentially where I’m coming from, in terms of a legal understanding informed by linguistic philosophy and stuff. This is why I’m pretty sure the legal terminology describing Scotland’s current predicament is, “getting pumped from both ends”. 😉

    Law as a Linguistic Instrument Without Truth
    Content?
    On the Epistemology of Koskenniemi’s Understanding
    of Law

    https://www.zaoerv.de/77_2017/77_2017_1_a_199_234.pdf

  228. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    And here’s why the language used to construct the law, needs a rational epistemology.

    Epistemic Justice and Democratic Legitimacy
    https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/hypa.12173

  229. Patrick Roden
    Ignored
    says:

    Alan Mackintosh says:


    “Afghanistan opened the route for a pipeline to the Caspian sea. I remember Tommy Sheridan talkingf about it. (the only politican who did)”

    If my memory serves me right Alan, what this was about was that one of the American presidents men (Bush was president) was involved in building a pipeline that would move oil and gas through the middle east and supply the huge markets of Pakistan and India, when it was suddenly announced that Iran was building a far more efficient pipeline to supply these countries (as well as China) by routing it from Iran through Afghanistan then straight into Pakistan.
    The Province where the Iranians had started building was (you guessed it) Eacty where we were told by the Americans & Tony Blair et al, that the Taliban were at their most dangerous.

    So ‘we’ invaded and blew another country to hell, killing countless hundreds of thousands of people, both fighters and civilians, all to feed the greed of American corporate interests.

  230. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    For the sake of accuracy, I actually had my accident half way through my course. The prognosis was uncertain as to whether I would regain independent living. I was badly buckled.

    Scotland should have no fear of lacking a capacity for self-determination, if it were to choose to re-boot the moral psychology of Scotland’s constitutional environment. All that would take is a re-connection to the epistemic justice of our sovereign legal identities.

  231. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    P.S. Epistemology is a Scottish invention, so why are we ignoring it in public life?

  232. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    I use the World meters site I found on Wings to monitor the lates Corona Stats.

    I see overnight America is showing over 400,000 who have tested positive for the virus.
    With their different time zones you should see the number rise again today.

    With Trump and Boris taking up the cross your fingers and hope it goes away attitude
    In the early stages and the big corporations running the health facilities it is going to be
    Carnage over there as the virus picks up pace.

    With millions who don’t have any health insurance Trump will need to find a way of not including
    Those who die out with a hospital.

    If there is a positive factor in all.this here, it will delay the Tory quest to sell our NHS to Trumpland.

    Another insulting frustration that I have wishing to monitor Scotland’s stats is we don’t exist as an entity on this site and I don’t think any others .

    I can get a specific account of the stats for places like the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands
    Both tax havens for the very rich.

    Scotland is obviously classed below these mighty nations who can get special deals with Europe.

    Why would the Island figures count as England’s figures if they are served by the same NHS?

  233. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    I can now see that the above tax haven islands have their own Health Services
    But so does Scotland so again why have their on Stats and Scotland doesn’t?

  234. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    “ FORMER prime minister Tony Blair spoke to students about Labour’s failings in Scotland last month – and said the party could be rescued if they emulate Ruth Davidson’s (below) successes.”

    Nobody told me Tony Blair was doing stand-up comedy now.

  235. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Sky News Banner-

    English Health Minister Tory Edward Argar advises
    that he is sourcing Ventilators from the US?

    They said weeks ago that Tory Funders James Dyson had
    An order for thousands to be manufactured?

    Tory Funder at JCB said they could make them?

    Owner of G Tech made a reliable and functioning prototype in
    Collaboration with NHS Medics and was ready to go into production
    If the government placed an order.

    With China now dealing with small numbers they must have an enormous
    Supply of ventilators.

    The EU offers to include the UK in sharing ventilator supplies.

    Why would Trumpland have spare ventilators when they looking at the greatest
    Loss of life since the Vietnam war?

  236. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:


    Effijy says:
    8 April, 2020 at 7:05 am

    With Trump and Boris taking up the cross your fingers and hope it goes away attitude
    In the early stages and the big corporations running the health facilities it is going to be
    Carnage over there as the virus picks up pace.

    Hopefully the West will begin to realise that for decades it’s been investing too much money preparing for the wrong emergency. Instead of training soldiers, they should have been training nurses.

    There’s a line from a Del Amitri song that always stuck in my head…

    “ Computer terminals report some gains
    in the values of copper and tin
    While American businessmen snap up Van Goghs
    For the price of a hospital wing”.

    Seems extra poignant lately…

  237. Rm
    Ignored
    says:

    Just about a total blackout about anything Scottish, hardly a mention, what are the Scottish Government going to do about this, it’s like we don’t exist surely a sovereign country has the right to communicate with its population regards anything that happens in their country apart from this virus problem, what’s wrong with our government, just get on and do it, it’s like ethnic cleansing by stealth, in fact it’s quite blatant for anyone in Scotland and the world to see. We need our own media communication company’s. Get away from this pathetic union now.

  238. Alan Mackintosh
    Ignored
    says:

    Effigy,
    have a look at this for Scotlands figures

    https://www.travellingtabby.com/scotland-coronavirus-tracker/

  239. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Knight 11.19

    … indeed, We won’t know what has actually happened for some time.

  240. Sinky
    Ignored
    says:

    Murdo Frazer who broke Covid advice with another Tory MSP in Scotsman today saying Declaration of Arbroath endorses the Union. Has he read the words?

  241. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Radio shortbread Garry telling us that the SG are adopting their new accounting methods for corona virus numbers today.

    PS:
    Shortbread having a SG are bad day on PPE not adequate supplies and even there was it’s not good quality. 🙁

    100 health professionals send (J Freeman I suppose) a letter.

    High list vulnerable groups don’t include kidney patients and others etc etc

    Hardly worth getting up to shower & shave but sun shining fine!

  242. highseastim
    Ignored
    says:

    I wrote back to the Police saying I was astounded by this decision and giving my reason why, the reply was

    OFFICIAL
    You can submit a Freedom of Information with regards to your query below.

    Regards

    ——————

    Anyone like to follow this up, as I haven’t a clue how to go about it.

  243. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Today’s Glasgow Times excels in UK Fake Journalism again.

    An unnamed nurse claims to be unable to buy essentials with her pay so she dies Agency work on top? Miss Makebelieve is said to work more than 63 hours per week?

    Not for the rag to give you a true picture, this nurse would have had a bursary during training that you wouldn’t get in England and she would be paid more than an English Nurse serving fewer patients.

    At home her average council tax and rent would be lower than England’s but Shhhhh.

    Now I would be pretty sure that while training she would be aware of the pay scale and as an experienced Charge Nurse she would earn £35,486.00 per annum on basic hours.
    Overtime payable.

    A claim is made that the London Nightingale Hospital is willing to pay £13.5K more for a nursing assistant. Good luck with that temporary job and weekly rent £500.

    This heroic nurse is even limiting her water intake so that she can do even more work?

    Seems she wants to ask Jeane Freeman what incentive is there for a nurse to work overtime?

    I’m going to take a guess that it’s because Scotland is in an unprecedented global health crisis
    and you have an opportunity to earn extra cash if you live beyond your means.

    I’d like to ask the Times/Herald why anyone would waste their money on this obvious propaganda
    Pamphlet?

  244. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Effijy.

    I’m pretty certain that working 63 hrs a week is contrary to the working time directive, even across multiple employers. It would in the past( 10yrs since I had any dealings with this )have triggered a ridor report( not good) which her main employer( SNHS) would have been held responsible for. Is it the same nurse Nicola got ambushed with during 2014 indyref.
    On another note, I remember my mum, an auxiliary nurse at Queensbury house, many yrs ago, coming home in tears, because of the number of deaths occurring, 15 in one week was the straw that broke the camel’s back and she went to the Western General to work in one of the clinic’s. Watching so many of the people she became so attached to die in such numbers was to much for her.

  245. Tony Hay
    Ignored
    says:

    Really enjoyed the CM podcast,I didnt really understand the whole sovereignty arguement but now have a much better handle on it and about legitimacy of Scotland as a nation basically telling “Perfidious Albion” to bolt.

    Looking forward to the next podcast.

  246. jackie
    Ignored
    says:

    The Johnston stage managed rush to the intensive care unit is designed to show his gullable english followers that he fought and defeated the evil Corona virus.

    All in time for Easter and to get the message out that staying at home is the right thing to do.

    Boris is a serial liar and at no time was near deaths door.

    Boris will emerge from hospital as a Churchillian hero and expect the grovelling English media to portray him as such.

    “There’ll always be an england”

    Rule Britannia.

  247. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    call me dave 8.44

    That letter explained.

    Unionists gonna union – even while people die.

    https://twitter.com/msm_monitor/status/1247787128894787584

  248. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    I think Craig Murray’s webcast will be a good thing. It will hopefully turn into an Indy Chat show but with added spice because I expect there will some interesting people invited on, and some conversations that really do take you to unfamiliar places and get you thinking.

    I admit, I had all but given up on Holyrood doing anything for Scotland while it held the Colonial Scotland Act as both it’s gospel and constitution. After listening to Craig Murray’s first broadcast, I think I need to recalibrate where I stand regarding Holyrood. I’ve not budged an inch over Constitutional Sovereignty, but maybe Holyrood isn’t the total dead loss I thought it was.

    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/04/the-declaration-of-arbroath-and-the-way-forward-now/

    Why is this webcast set apart from others? Well, just my opinion, but “whatever” form the next moves towards Independence take, whether that’s a Constitutional declaration and a plebiscite, a referendum with or without a Section 30 Agreement, or whether it’s standing on an Indy ticket at the next Scottish Elections, whatever form the next stages take, the Pro Independence movement will be that much stronger if we all share a single mainsail to best capture the wind.

    In my opinion, that means presenting people with a credible, objective, and sequential path to delivering Independence. It needs to be as far removed as it can be from Nicola Sturgeon’s airy-fairy top secret ‘wait and see’ non-strategy. No more of this. I cannot bear it.

    Whether you’re in the SNP or not, whether for or against Sturgeon, for or against Salmond, …whatever. Take your coat off, sit down, and let’s have a frank conversation. We need to get ourselves singing from the same hymn sheet, and for my part, I think that has to begin with a deliberate roadmap that delivers Independence when we win the campaign. We will know the end point, we will know how to get to that end point, and we will know when we have achieved our objective.

    This is the time when we need to be stitching that sail together. The central strategy which everybody can get behind, and which won’t be derailed by any individuals apathy or complacency.

    Yes, perhaps it is wise to keep secrets tactically, but only tactically. The main thrust towards Independence will strategically unstoppable. It’s the nature of a Dreadnought to fear nothing. So it goes with the case for Scottish Independence. The moment you embrace secrecy, and anybody who even mentions Sun Tzu, you limit your options.

    Let as talk to the EU and UN and have them fully briefed of our intentions, our strategy, and the objectives we are working towards. Let them know our case and our circumstance before it’s presented to them formally. Let the EU know Scotland is on the way back. Give them a narrative they can react to .

    The plan for Independence needs to be like the Saltire itself… everybody knows what it stands for at a glance, the message is clear and accessible whether you’re five years old or ninety five. Everybody can fly one, and it’s a central idea which caters for us all and doesn’t turn anybody away. Our path to the Independence Finish line needs to be just like that. One song, with everybody knowing the words.

    IF it’s going to be the 2021 Elections, then let us agree it. Make that decision.
    IF that Election is to be a referendum on Independence, then let us agree it. Make that decision.
    IF we should seek probationary or interim International recognition, then let us agree to do it.
    IF we want to underwrite our democratic status with Constitutional Test cases, then let us agree to it and do it.
    We need A plan, not 100 plans, but one, a central plan with prudent contingencies.

    We have time on our hands. Get this agreed between us, now. Get the YES clans preparing to come together.

    I know there are storm clouds over Nicola and Alex Salmond, but these are two people who would both vote for Independence. Whatever needs to be addressed, let it be addressed quickly. If anyone give less than 100% to the Great Independence Plan, then the Great Independence Plan goes forward without them.

    Let us make ourselves unstoppable and have everybody know it.

  249. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    So it turns out that the 17.5 million testing kits ordered by the British government, in the fight against the Coronavirus don’t work properly.

    It looks like the British government, (and Scotland if we stick with their plans) are still a long way away from a reliable screening programme, whilst other countries are already testing.

    Another reason, on top of the millions of other reasons, why Scots must, when the chance arises vote for independence, it’s a no brainer as they say.

  250. Pete
    Ignored
    says:

    Cameron Brodie
    I thought the reason that the supermarkets were unable to give preference to the vulnerable in Scotland, as opposed to the rest of the UK was that the SG had not released the data due to the Data Protection Act.
    Maybe you should take this up with the SG.

  251. Pete
    Ignored
    says:

    Jackie 9.50
    You are a real nasty piece of work.
    God help us from your ilk.

  252. Famous15
    Ignored
    says:

    Wow only two planes flying now in Scottish airspace.Some helicopters off Aberdeen.

    Small plane off South Ronldsay and JFK to Moscow flight entering airspace.

    US airspace full of planes.

  253. James F. McIntosh
    Ignored
    says:

    Just watched an interview with John Pilger on RT just finnished. Boy did he get ripped into the GB and American govs. and the press in not so great britain. Pity we don’t have reporters like him in Britain telling the truth.

  254. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    @mike cassidy

    Thanks Michael. The back story to the letter is telling 🙁

    PS:
    @Republicofscotland

    The National:
    Aye! The test kits that don’t work… 17.5m ordered by WM.

    Still I heard Trump yesterday at his daily dribble conference saying he had a plea for help from the UK for ventilators and he’s sending his friend Boris 200 🙂

  255. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    So Johnson has spent a second night in ICU, apparently two-thirds of patients are sedated and on a ventilator within 24 hours of enterning ICU with Covid-19. It wouldn’t surprise me one little bit if this was the case with Johnson.

    If that is the case, then its not surprising that Tory spokespersons are coming out with all manner of reports, he’s fine, he’s a fighter, etc, also if Johnson is in a very sickly way that might further scare the market,which is of course more important than just about everything and everyone else in Tory mantra. However Dominic Raab saying, his prayers are with him, suggests to me anyway that Johnson is in a far more serious condition than is being relayed back to the people.

  256. jackie
    Ignored
    says:

    Pete

    Does hearing it as it really is hurt Pete.

    Are you sitting in your wee bedsit somewhere in the Home Counties ready to wave your butchers apron as soon as BoJo appears at the hospital door???

    Typical english propaganda bullshit, any excuse to wave your flag you do it.

    It was Lizzie last weekend and it will be BoJo very shortly.

  257. jackie
    Ignored
    says:

    Surely not!!!

    Just heard on Sky News that there is a shortage of PPE equipment in england.

    And here was me thinking that it was only Scotland that had a shortage of this life saving equipment.

  258. Sharny Dubs
    Ignored
    says:

    After watching Craig Murray’s pod cast I finally see some clarity and a viable plan for a way forward.

    Thank you sir, I have donated, my SNP membership is on notice.

    I await developments with optimism.

  259. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    Guess what.
    Big Auntie News says there is a great shortage of PPE in the ENHS and care system and a surgeon doctor chap says that’s correct.

    PS:
    Oh! There is a risk to and from cats as well.

    Keep it in the house fur safety’s sake. Good luck with that. 🙂

  260. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Its interesting to note the hypocrisy and political stance, of broadcaster Julia Hartley-Brewer, who rightly responded to those on Twitter who appeared to be pleased that Johnson might not make it.

    Hartley-Brewer, added that he (Johnson) is someones father, someones son, someones partner.

    However Hartley-Brewer tweeted in 2016 (which can still be seen as of last, night on her Twitter account) that she was delighted that Cuban leader Fidel Castro had died.

    Castro was also a father, and grandfather, and a brother, does that not count for Castro, but counts for Johnson, who on his best day couldn’t lace Castro’s boots

  261. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Corona Stats

    I see Spain has a death tally of 300 per 1 Million of population.
    That formula in the UK would see Circa 20,000 deaths but things
    Are continuing at an alarming rate in Spain.

    Quite astonishingly if accurate China has only 2 deaths per 1 million?

    Italy my match Spain’s figures later today.?

  262. jackie
    Ignored
    says:

    For the conspiracy theorists out there.

    Rumours have it that this virus was deliberately spread around the world by the Chinese.

    It was done so as to destroy the World economy and let China emerge from it as an even stronger force in World Trade.

    And remember,,,I am only the messenger.

  263. jackie
    Ignored
    says:

    $20 trillion lawsuit against China! US group says coronavirus is bioweapon
    Coronavirus update: The plaintiffs have sought USD 20 trillion, which is a bigger amount than China’s GDP, claiming coronavirus is the result of a biological weapon prepared by the Chinese authorities

    https://www.businesstoday.in/current/world/usd-20-trillion-lawsuit-against-china-us-group-says-coronavirus-bioweapon/story/399071.html

  264. Breastplate
    Ignored
    says:

    Well said Breeks,
    Everyone who believes in Scottish independence (that’s not you Sensibledave) should watch or listen to Craig Murray’s podcast. It is incredibly important that we in the Yes Movement have the proper information and as Breeks has already said, that we are all on the same page.

    We must be able to understand individually and as a group Scotland’s rights and options and to instantly recognise and counter Unionists who talk nonsense (that’s you Sensibledave, that’s you and you can’t take it back).

    Make a bit of time, watch the podcast, get those views a lot higher than 3k and let’s get on the march to independence.

  265. Breastplate
    Ignored
    says:

    Jackie,
    Conspiracy theories are legitimate but I would say their legitimacy is dependent on a combination of possibility and probability.
    Is it possible that China purposefully spread the Covid 19 virus round the world as you say and some people believe? Yes, that is entirely possible.

    Is it probable that China purposefully spread the Covid 19 virus round the world? No would be the answer but people tend to believe what they want to believe.

  266. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Jackie @11.10am.

    I’ve no idea if that is true, or not, however the Chinese authorities, if I’m correct, said the outbreak began in a Wet Market, or there abouts in Wuhan district.

    Since then all manner of reports have surfaced with regards to unhygienic practices with regards to animals domestic, or from the wild, in which they are kept in close quarters to each other in small cages, later to be eaten, or used in medical treatments.

    Of course most of us have witnessed the practices of these markets via our tv’s and no doubt we’ve been appalled by them.

    I suggest and others have as well that those Wet Markets should be kept under strict health and safety guidelines in the future, however, how to enforce such guidelines in one of the most secret and restrictive countrty’s in the world is another matter.

    China does have form though, when it comes to the origins of a virus.

    “The 2002–2004 SARS outbreak was an epidemic involving severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) caused by SARS-CoV. The outbreak was first identified in Foshan, Guangdong, China in November 2002. Over 8,000 people from 29 different countries and territories were infected, and at least 774 died worldwide.[1] The World Health Organization declared severe acute respiratory syndrome contained on 5 July 2003, however several SARS cases were reported until May 2004.”

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002–2004_SARS_outbreak

  267. TheBuchanLoony
    Ignored
    says:

    Famous15 @10.04 On Flightradar24 with the number of helicopters still flying off Aberdeen and the construction and other non essential industries closed down it looks that even at $20 a barrel Scotland’s ‘useless’ oil is still an essential part of Westminster’s income!

  268. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    This has a all to familiar ring about it.

    “This is the doctor who *coordinated* the letter “obtained by BBC Scotland” that attacks the Scottish Govt’s supply of protective equipment for health staff. He’s shown here at the launch of a Scottish Labour NHS campaign in 2015 that attacked “the nationalist government”.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/msm_monitor

  269. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Re my 10.34am comment, on Julia Hartley-Brewers great pleasure on the death of Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

    Here is the offending tweet.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/JuliaHB1/status/802454734661619712

  270. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Republicofscotland says:
    8 April, 2020 at 11:33 am

    This is the doctor who *coordinated* the letter “obtained by BBC Scotland” that attacks the Scottish Govt’s supply of protective equipment for health staff….

    Tories = Labour.

    Labour = Tories.

    Two cheeks of the same BritNat arse that shits on Scotland with neither guilt, conscience or remorse.

  271. SilverDarling
    Ignored
    says:

    http://archive.is/HNZFO

    All the evidence was there. The changing picture was not acted upon. The scientists didn’t shout loudly enough, apparently.

    The picture of Johnson doing his act having been briefed the day before of the enfolding picture may be the defining image of this scenario.

    His account of his decision making process will be vital. I hope he recovers, on a human level firstly but questions are already being asked as to how this was allowed to happen.

  272. jackie
    Ignored
    says:

    Republicofscotland 11.25am

    Can I put the question to you about these “Wet Markets”.

    They have probably been used in China for many centuries, so I am wondering why no similar virus has emerged from them?

    Countries around the world are starting to publish their 1st quarterly results on their economy,,,and it makes grim reading.

    Can you imagine the state of the world economy if this runs into three quartelies.

    It would surely show about a 70% drop.

    And what news are we hearing from China today,,,,they are lifting all travel restrictions across their country.

    Makes you think…

  273. admiral
    Ignored
    says:

    jackie says:
    8 April, 2020 at 12:20 pm
    Republicofscotland 11.25am
    Can I put the question to you about these “Wet Markets”.

    I am not quite sure, but I believe there is a trend in modern China for the newly wealthy middle classes to eat more and more exotic wild animals captured to be sold at these markets, as some sort of symbol of their wealth. Thus I have read that the new coronavirus was caused by someone going to one of these markets to buy either 1) a bat or 2) a pangolin (read both as possible sources), animals outside the established food chain for humans.

  274. North chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    “ Breastplate @ 1124 a.m. “ re the possibility or probability of “ conspiracy theories” . I seem to recall a “ dry run” /trial lock down in a certain Cathedral city ?

  275. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    So the virus is just a weapon used by China to wreck Western economies.

    That would make it a spectacular own goal then.

    Cos if you are successful, who the feck is going to buy your goods?

  276. dakk
    Ignored
    says:

    It is also possible that covid is a bio weopan, but was accidentally or maliciously leaked from the Level 4 security super lab in Wuhan, 15 miles from the wet market.

  277. Breastplate
    Ignored
    says:

    North Chiel,
    Yes, the narrative then was Russia bad, the narrative now is China bad.

  278. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    If I have this correct the total number of deaths on Sunday in Scotland was recorded as 220 (this number from wikipedia so sorry if it’s wrong), this has now been revised to 354 when the death has been recorded as the virus having been a contributing factor. This is around 60% more.

    This would indicate that the deaths in the UK are over 10,000 now as I believe the same under estimate is happening in the other UK countries (over 9,000 in England). What’s the chance of the MSM using this to expose the under estimate in England, or the will it just be used against the Scotgov.

  279. Doug
    Ignored
    says:

    Once again the English/British nationalist bbc drags up a known anti-independence agitator and uses his comments as “fact”.

    The SNP/SG once again refuses to criticize the English/British nationalist bbc. It seems the SNP/SG is happy to be hampered in such a way. It is feart, it is gutless.

  280. Sinky
    Ignored
    says:

    Close relative of Anas Sarwar Dr Shahzad Hanif, who appeared in Labour Party political party broadcast attacking “the Nationalists” on health a few years ago “co-ordinated” a letter from 100 NHS workers which was “obtained” by the BBC on the lack of PPE.

    Before going public, did he use the official help line which has been in place for health and care workers concerned about lack of protective equipment? If so what was the response?

    Easier to play politics.

  281. defo
    Ignored
    says:

    Shift change time…

  282. robertknight
    Ignored
    says:

    From:

    The National Interest… “Dangerous Demographics: China’s Population Problem Will Eclipse Its Ambitions”. (September 16, 2019).

    https://nationalinterest.org/feature/dangerous-demographics-chinas-population-problem-will-eclipse-its-ambitions-80961

    “The nation’s elderly population could reach 400 million by the end of 2035, up from 240 million last year, according to government forecasts.

    This is already hitting government budgets. Pension payouts reached 640 billion yuan ($90 billion) in 2016, up 140 percent from five years earlier. Analysts suggest this figure could rise substantially, to as high as 60 trillion yuan annually by 2050, accounting for more than 20 percent of total government spending.

    This is despite China’s social security, pension and healthcare system being relatively limited, with an estimated 900 million Chinese living with little social safety net.

    These projections have added further fuel to claims that Asia’s biggest economy is “already getting old” before it gets rich”.

    Too many old people in your population? Want to keep the young and the healthy who can drive your economy but be rid of those considered to be a drain on resources; the old and the sick? What could you possibly do???

  283. Famous15
    Ignored
    says:

    Sinky you just beat me to it. DR Hanif is also a big pal of Kezia

    Yesterday a care home owner,of many care homes,getting stuck into the SG but behold he was a failed Tory candidate.

    So let us put politics on the back burner ?

    Aye right!

  284. Mist001
    Ignored
    says:

    This is why Chinese people tend to eat unusual animals. At one point, there was nothing else for them:

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward

  285. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    I watched the film ‘ Contagion’, starring Matt Damon, I think 2010 was the release date. Wasn’t a particularly good disaster movie, but the storyline is nigh on identical to what’s happening now, originates with bats in China, same kind of symptoms, same language i.e., social distancing, wash your hands, don’t touch your face even down to the time it would take to create a vaccine. Coincidence, no, because the reality is the film is based on pandemic resilience gaming and procedures.
    There is nothing happening now, that hasn’t already been gamed.
    What should have happened is that procedures should be in place to cope with this kind of situation.
    That is clearly not case in the UK and the question should be why not.
    We have a media in full flow covering the arses of the people responsible for allowing this to happen. Dominic Cummings is getting the blame/credit for the herd immunity fiasco, but perhaps that was the UK planned response as policy. Perhaps the UK gov decided to set aside the results of the exercises because the priority for them and their backers was privatization of the Health service.
    We have seen the UK gov financial support package rolled out piecemeal through a civil service that has had equally devastating cuts and hadn’t a hope in hell of delivering, nor do these financial proposals serve any purpose other than create debt. We have already seen the financial vultures circling ready to pick the meat of the bones.
    There is absolutely no way that we will ever change the system until we start putting those responsible in the dock.

  286. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    How appalling that the BBC is again using Labour activists to attack the SNP government. At a time of crisis such as this covid-19 pandemic, it is absolutely scurrilous to spread such fake news.

    A journalist also read out a letter from the GMB making the same complaint at the midday report back from Nicola Sturgeon and Jeanne Freeman, at which they both dealt extensively with the PPE issue. It is obviously a co-ordinated attack.
    Shameful.

    https://twitter.com/msm_monitor/status/1247787128894787584?s=20

  287. ALANM
    Ignored
    says:

    “Shops across Scotland are closing. Newspaper sales are falling. The Herald needs you. Support The Herald in producing unrivalled analysis, insight and opinion. We need your support to sustain our trusted, quality journalism. £2 for 2 Months”

    – Herald website 08/04/20

    Best laugh I’ve had since the virus lockdown started. I especially like the bit about trusted, quality journalism.

  288. Fireproofjim
    Ignored
    says:

    Jackie
    These wet markets in China have been implicated in several epidemics over recent years. The Asian flu of 1957, also known as bird flu, originated in markets selling duck in China and spread like Corona virus although it was not so deadly.
    All these markets are disgusting places of cruelty and and lack of hygiene. I hope the Chinese decide to clean up their act.

  289. george wood
    Ignored
    says:

    I think we can be pretty sure it wasn’t a leaked virus from a Chinese biological warfare lab.

    China’s slow response to the outbreak would tell you that.

    This is more to do with Trump’s inept response to the virus. He delayed far to long before doing anything and should have got lock down measures into place much quicker. He was more concerned with his re-election than he was was about American lives.

    This is just an attempt to shift the blame from him to China and the WHO – he has been also talking about withholding funding from the WHO

  290. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    There you have it, ex Tory candidate, rumoured relative of Labour MSP who appeared in their PPB, these are the stable diets of BBC Scotland. I actually discount most of its reporting now. It’s Britnattery is so pronounced you would need to be blind to miss it.

    So while we twiddle our figures about independence the Britnats are still operating at full power in the political and media fields.

  291. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:


    mike cassidy says:
    8 April, 2020 at 12:46 pm
    So the virus is just a weapon used by China to wreck Western economies.

    No, I reckon it really isn’t.

    I’ve had a holiday in China, and guess what, they are people, just like you and me.

    China has enough on its plate modernising a massive economy from a backward economy with peasants working in fields, to producing 5G global phone systems. But they are good people. If their economy was better, maybe they wouldn’t be eating wild animals for protein.

    But they know as much about us as we know about them, which isn’t much, and what they see in us is our bullying in the Middle East, colonised North America, colonised Australia and New Zealand, parts of Africa, parts of Asia… and parts of China, it occurs to me the Chinese have good cause to be highly suspicious of “our” noble intentions.

    The Chinese were backing “the enemy” in the Korean War and Vietnam, but look at a map, and ask yourself whether China was the aggressor, or just didn’t want an Imperialist colonial power perched on it’s immediate borders.

    The USA nearly went to nuclear war because Cuba hosted soviet missiles too close for comfort. What would anybody expect China to do if US forces were allowed to take over Vietnam and Korea and put their missiles right next to China? It’s not rocket science…

    And by the way, the Russian annexation of Crimea is not so very different in principle. Europe effectively annexed Ukraine first, but that was a ‘good’ annexation wasn’t it?

    “The West” is not the good guy you see in the movies. The West is the scary Imperialist armed to the teeth and sticking it’s nose where it’s not welcome. The whole Middle East powder keg is a consequence of British Imperialism, and now the Israelis can flout UN resolutions with impunity and treat Palestinians like dogs because the US wants a footprint in “oil country”. It is NOT right.

    Don’t give in to China-phobia or Russophobia, or Islamaphobia… it’s the West, the US, the UK, Israel, and France who are the real scary animals. Just look at what’s unfolding in Venezuela, doomed to war, colonial threat and instability because it has oil which America wants.

    Who is to stop the American’s doing precisely whatever they want with total impunity if it wasn’t a strong Russia and China, who are forced to ask themselves decade after decade if they are next?

    Europe is the other big player at the table, and frankly, I’d rather Scotland be in with the Europeans who at least respect the Russians, Chinese and Arab players, than the blood thirsty colonial aggressors of “the West”.

    So if you’re sitting there feeling threatened by the Chinese or the Russians, just take a moment to consider why they feel threatened by the warmongering West, with 3/5 of the permanent seats on the UN Security Council, and the permanent blind spot for the atrocities in Gaza and the West Bank.

    Not in my name. They are outraged that Chinese Huawei 5G phones have the audacity to do Microsoft has been doing to us for decades. Don’t want the Chinese rigging elections when that’s America’s job eh?

    Scotland has friends in Europe, friends in Russia, friends in China. It is an alien phenomenon to me, that people want to go to war them. I want no part of it. These people might be our economic competitors, but they are not our enemies, but I am afraid that some dumb Boris or Trump imbecile will bungle their way into a new and thoroughly unnecessary war.

    Europe knows war. Europe knows the worst kind of war. It feels like Europe learned a big lesson in the last century and now it knows better. It has recovered, and now exists on a higher plane. I want to be in and part of that, striving for things to be better, not stuck outside with the murderous warmongering bampots who are still living in the 19th Century.

  292. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    I see the police are now stopping people buying things to occupy their time in the house. Possibly the government instruction is if they have nothing to do they will turn to the BBC to be brainwashed and we will all be clapping and shouting ‘Boris is a hero’ by the end of this.

    Get an online streaming service if you can. The output of the BBC is at dross level now,

  293. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    The 4 countries daily figures using the old method are in as follows

    England 828
    Scotland 70
    Wales 33
    NI 5

  294. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks

    I was being sarcastic about the claim!

  295. boris
    Ignored
    says:

    2020 and the return of a Zionist-controlled and funded New Labour Party

    The worst fears of the Labour party in Scotland branch office were realized by the recent election of Keir Stamer to the leadership of the party.

    His election and speedy embrace of the Zionists signals the start of an internal power struggle amongst party activists in Scotland as the English born UK party leader directs it away from the “lefty” policies of Corbyn.

    Expect to see the demise of Richard “the lemon” Leonard and his supporters before the 2021 Scottish General election.

    https://caltonjock.com/2020/04/08/labour-leaders-hitman-ian-murray-to-purge-the-left-in-the-scottish-labour-branch-the-changes-could-be-bloody-and-will-further-enhance-the-importance-of-the-second-vote-in-the-2021-scottish-general/

  296. jackie
    Ignored
    says:

    https://images.app.goo.gl/KhcGKa5t6daoyUmo6

    Boris who we are told is ” comfortable”

    I bet you he is.

  297. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    I see there is a popular tweet going around today, I think this is it.

    Heard a noise outside, clock is slow. I opened my front door to the sound of my amazing neighbours all dressed as the devil, cheering and shouting, ‘come on Boris.’ I’ll admit, I cried.

  298. wullie
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks says:
    8 April, 2020 at 2:13 pm

    mike cassidy says:
    Ah. China the new bogyman. Anyone with a smidgin of Chinese history would realise that the west has very little to teach China. What did they have a thousand years before the west. Drilling for oil and gas piped to where it was needed, paper, blast furnaces, chromium, stainless steel, writing, printed press, global shipping. The list is endless.
    Ive been to China a couple of times just with my partner I may add. Not in a tourist group. We travelled extensively throughout China I have never met such charming, helpful, pleasant, cheerful people in my life. What a fabulous life style they have, if I was younger I would try to go and live there forever. The one thing that strikes you when you come home from China is that you have walked back into the Stone Age in this shithole of a country

  299. Col.Blimp IV
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks @2.13

    Well said … I’m off to youtube to binge on David Rovics songs.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPi-p_WT1Ts

  300. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    clearly many on here have never actually been to a Chinese wet market. Devoid of all compassion.Cruelty beyond belief to almost every living thing ,and frequented by most of the rural population ,either buying or selling. You wont see them on the tourist trail.

    My aunts were brought up in China owing to their father being in the diplomatic corps They maintain to this day to never trust the Chinese. The image they present is often far removed from the reality.

  301. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Pete
    I’m not concerned with attributing blame, at this point in time. I was simply alerting folks to the possibility that Scotland’s vulnerable may be lacking adequate life support. I try not to concern myself with politics, that’s largely why I’m able to value truth and respect the rule-of-law.

  302. dakk
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘China’s slow response to the outbreak would tell you that.’

    What if someone in the lab breached protocol, accidentally infected themselves and were inadvertently spreading it for weeks with no one knowing?

    I wouldn’t rule out human error.

    Doubt we will ever know.

  303. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC Propaganda unit celebrating the absurd fact that Scotland wants to find
    Other deaths on to the Corona figures?

    Unbelievable for SNP to keep loading guns for the media and the Tories.

    It seems that someone with severe underlying health conditions dying at home
    Can be counted as a Corona death without a test if the doctor wants to add it in?

    That is completely and utterly misleading and dumb!

    We do still recognised that Scots will die each day from other illnesses?

    I can see Unionist Doctors attending people on the road after being struck by a
    Number 9 bus doing 50mph and marking it down as Corona Virus Tyre Marks on chest.
    Died as no SNP ventilator at the road side.

    FFS

    Have all the SNP MPs and MSP’s left their marbles behind and headed for the hills.

  304. robertknight
    Ignored
    says:

    Effijy…

    “”

  305. robertknight
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry…

    “Have all the SNP MPs and MSP’s left their marbles behind and headed for the hills”

    Yes.

  306. James
    Ignored
    says:

    Breastplate “Yes, the narrative then was Russia bad, the narrative now is China bad”.

    Correct….wonder when we will ever get “Portondown Bad”?

  307. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    @Effigy

    Don’t worry too much the other 3 countries will be doing the same soon.

    PS: Latest figures: (probably get garbled when I send it) 🙁

    Todays reported deaths England 828 Total deaths England 6483

    Todays reoprted deaths Scotland 070 Total deaths Scotland 366

    Todays reported deaths Wales….033 Total deaths Wales….245

    Todays reported deaths N Ireland 05 Total deaths N Ireland 78

    Todays reported deaths in UK….936 Total deaths UK …7172

  308. North chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Another fine post from “ Breeks@ 0213 pm “ . Not so long ago Trump was criticising Angela Merkel over her oil & gas imports from Russia . ( Perhaps she could have offered Trump “ a slice of cake” if he could better or match Putins price? Capitalism at work Mr President?). A German led EU with closer trading ties to Russia & China was obviously not in the USA interest. Not surprising therefore that Trump enthusiastically backed the “ U.K.”’s withdrawal from the EU then .
    Since Trump came to power his “ America first “ policy has resulted in increased trade tensions globally and he certainly does not want to be overtaken in the world stage by China as regards his beloved USA economy .
    Trade wars & global exploitation of finite resources have been ongoing for centuries . Leading to wars , famines etc .
    Consider at present “ Nuclear conflict “ ensures MAD and is “ off the table” re the Nuclear Superpowers
    Conventional warfare is acceptable as long as it’s regional and via “ proxy” in the main NIMBY as
    far as the principal players are concerned.
    This does not leave many warfare options? ? “ on the table “ and history tells us that sadly eventually it repeats itself . As Breeks says the “ people” of Russia China etc . are very much aligned with ourselves wishing to better themselves & families . However, it’s the government’s, administration’s , secret services etc. which are running our world and in the main keeping the people “in the dark” .
    An Independent Scotland within the EU ( with an honest government. Is that asking too much?) should be (and is )our immediate priority. We are after all part of Europe . Trump has his own priority remember ( in peace or war) . “ America first”.!

  309. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    Could I just repeat

    I was being sarcastic about the claim the virus is a Chinese weapon.

    It doesn’t take an economic genius to realise there is no point in damaging the economic well-being of the people you depend on for your economic well-being.

  310. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks
    The 20th century was one of almost perpetual global war, all as a result of political aggression grounded in racism and imperial ambition. Brexit articulates the latent racism and imperial ambition present in contemporary English culture. Without an approach to constitutional law that respect the Moral Law, the SNP will remain powerless to defend Scotland. British constitutional practice lacks a respect for the Moral Law, so can not hope to provide a means of protection.

  311. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    @mike cassidy

    Michael most of us knew!

    PS:
    Auntie who for days have reported the daily death rate in Spain today doesn’t… It reports the total in Spain deaths so far is rising.

    Coincidence that for the first time the figures today are higher in England 828 than in Spain 747 or (774). Good old Auntie!

    Michael that might be a conspiracy?

  312. george wood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Effijy

    I think you are getting carried away here.

    It is not uncommon when people die to have a range of things contributing to their death. In the past, doctors used to put one down and not mention the others. This did not really help with assessing the impact of various conditions.

    Nowadays they report the other conditions – Alzheimer’s was on my mothers death certificate even though I think it was the pneumonia that killed her.

    Doctor’s will only be putting down corona virus if they think the patient had it. It is upto the experts on how they interpret the data they get back from reports of death certificates.

  313. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC start it’s update by reporting Scotland’s total deaths to England’s daily deaths, either a shambles or intentional?

    No attempt to draw the conclusion that if the deaths in Scotland’s death are 50% higher then England’s are as well. This would indicate there was around 1200 deaths in England in the last 24 hours, this is never going to be reported I suspect.

    Interviewing doctor as expert who doesn’t seem to understand what tracing means, ‘what does tracing mean anyway’, bit worrying at this level of knowledge.

  314. dakk
    Ignored
    says:

    @ callmedave Thanks for latest figures.

    Prior to the UK and US becoming the new red zones Sky News had the new daily deaths from Italy and Spain in giant yellow garish banner headlines.

    You couldn’t avoid being shocked by the visuals.

    Now the UK is the new red zone there are no such giant bottom of screen fixed headlines.

    They were gloating on highlighting Italy and Spain’s plight.

    Now the reportage is more subdued,rightly, out of respect for the victims.

  315. Colin Alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    Boris Johnson was taken to hospital because he started to think he’s an armchair.

    When asked how he is, the hospital replied: “comfortable”.

  316. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    Will the wee scrolly ribbon on big Auntie new suddenly soon show the daily total UK figures for virus deaths. (highest so far)

    If it does will Raab actually mention it or, like yesterday, waffle round it with other figures (genuine numbers) and not actually speak the number?

    We shall see.

  317. Colin Alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    “Will Boris soon be fit to be Prime Minister?”

    “No”, replied the hospital. “We can help him recover from Covid-19 but we’re no miracle workers”.

  318. Blair Paterson
    Ignored
    says:

    Momentom in the Labour Party need to break away and form a real Labour Party with the values it was founded on the present party is full of infiltrarers who are really tories Sirs Dames etc., they should be no such thing as right wing or middle ground only extreme left wing that will cancel trident and all tax loopholes and the House of Lords and spend the money on the poor and if condemning murder and theft is anti Semetic then so is telling the truth I say to momentom be brave and form a Labour Party that Keir Hardie meant it to be rid yourselves of these parasites

  319. shug
    Ignored
    says:

    Well having looked at the BBC website for my usual update on the figures I sense panic. Previously for Scotland Wales and Ireland they provided a good table but did not publish the English numbers, only later on would they mention the UK total allowing one to calculate it.
    Now the Scottish section is awash with numbers and no consistency to the main site.
    Yesterday the ONS advised that the real death rate was around 70% higher than those being reported
    From what I can see on the BBC today the figures are

    N Ireland 78 1.27%
    Scotland 366 5.94%
    Wales 245 3.98%
    England 5470.00 88.81%
    Total 6159

    If you add 70% to these number they might be around 10K in total.

    The impact of care home deaths in England is not being considered as far as I can see.

    A cynic might think the splurge of numbers on the BBC is to cover the real numbers and that they have not been given a good brief on how to play the numbers, other than Scottish Government must be bad.

  320. shug
    Ignored
    says:

    Update to the numbers above

    Deaths % of Deaths

    N Ireland 78 1.10%
    Scotland 366 5.16%
    Wales 245 3.45%
    England 6408.00 90.29%
    Total 7097

    12064.9

  321. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    Rishi Sunak on today and he did speak the UK total daily deaths.

    I also notice Scotland and Wales appear on the graphs for the first time (at last) poor NI (I never saw)

    Too quick for me to get a handle on but fine.

    No reporter has mentioned the way the Scotland has changed it’s recording system and asked if WM shall do likewise?

  322. Pete
    Ignored
    says:

    Blair Paterson
    You should be happy as Momentum have split with a new group Forward Momentum.
    Right up your street as it is adopting all the old hard left Corbynite loony policies.
    No doubt you’ll be signing up.

  323. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    In saying I try to avoid politics, that does not mean I lack an understanding of politics. This is why I can appreciate Brexitania is not a social democracy, and comprehend that contemporary British constitutional practice is incapable of a legal respect for difference.

    Understanding Politics
    Theory, Procedures, Narratives

    https://www.peterlang.com/view/9783631709498/chapter-002.xhtml

  324. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I wasn’t joking when I suggested anti-foundational legal practice is a sign of totalitarianism.

    Full text.

    Politics and the Perceived Boundaries of Science:
    Activism, Sociology, and Scientific Legitimacy

    https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023118769544

  325. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    Well Colin Mackay STV says he has seen the latest Scot ONS figures for total deaths in Scotland (includes deaths in the community as well as ‘hospital’ deaths).

    It is standing at 500+ and the counting not finished yet. 🙁

  326. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    Cammy 5.42

    … no, sadly you weren’t.

  327. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Contemporary British constitutional law defines Brexitania through the lens of English Torydum, and lacks respect for the Moral Law foundations of British democracy. Unless constitutional law and practice constrains itself within the parameters defined through natural law, the principle of equality can not be respected.

  328. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    OT…

    The CMA, if you don’t know, and why would you, is the Competition and Markets Authority. It is described as a non-ministerial government department in the United Kingdom, responsible for strengthening business competition and preventing and reducing anti-competitive activities.

    In 2019 there was a CMA project launched…

    Launch of research project…

    17 June 2019: The CMA announced it is undertaking research into certain aspects of the Scottish legal services market. This work will provide evidence to assist the Scottish Government in determining how to take forward the recommendations made by the Roberton Review, an Independent Review of Legal Services Regulation in Scotland.

    This work will examine whether there is evidence of a similar lack of competition among legal services providers in Scotland, as previously found in England and Wales by a CMA market study into the supply of legal services in England and Wales.

    ****
    Fast Forward to today’s Hootsman, and an article from Michael Sheridan, a Glasgow Solicitor… I won’t link it, because it’s the Hootsman.

    It is clear the CMA seeks to recast the Scottish legal system in the mould of the system in ?England and Wales without insight or regard to the different tradition, size and nature of the Scottish jurisdiction and, incidentally, without regard to the ?Treaty of Union of 1707 in which articles XVIII and XIX guarantee in all time coming the separate entity of the Scottish legal jurisdiction.

    That Treaty may be very old but has been regularly visited and, for the most part, faithfully applied throughout the three centuries since its creation. The CMA seeks to replace the Law Society of Scotland with a new statutory regulator along the lines of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in England and Wales and to make the ownership of solicitors’ practices available to non-solicitors including commercial entities subject to shareholder ownership.

    Perhaps the most extreme contravention of the Treaty of Union is the proposed replacement of Scotland’s most senior law officer, the Lord President of the Court of Session, with Parliament as the head of the regulation of the solicitors’ profession.

    Given the worrying and unconstitutional recommendations of the report, I’m sitting here, in 700th Anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath, I find myself wondering whether now is the time for the Scottish Law Society to exercise a wee bit of sovereign muscle, defend it’s own constitutional integrity and start standing up for Scotland’s Sovereign Constitution.

    Scots Law quietly undergoing constitutionally unsound review to “assist the Scottish Government” eh?

    There would appear to something alarmingly UNCONSTITUTIONAL about this SNP Government’s grasp of Scottish sovereignty.

    Be interesting to hear advice from Joanna Cherry and the Lawyers for Independence Group, and be equally interesting to hear the ahem, ‘furious’ reaction of the SNP Constitutional Department…

  329. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Seems it was the Scottish Government which instigated the review…

    Has our SNP Government gone bad??? Why are they inviting a UK Government Department to make recommendations to Anglicise Scot’s Law?

  330. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    @shug

    These numbers are meaningless now as Scotland is measuring it differently from the others (England anyway). If they measured the same way as Scotland there would probably be over 1200 today in England.

    BBC Scotland now trying to prove the death rate in Scotland is even higher. BBC in England reporting death numbers as low as possible, no questions about outside hospital. BBC Scotland trying to inflate the numbers.

    Reporting Scotland just a stream of negative stories. BBC in London runs positive stories about the the NHS, if they want something negative they go to a devolved nation.

  331. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Its interesting to note that STV news and the BBC Scotland news, are both pushing the suspected deaths from Coronavirus as their main stories. STV news, are now saying the death toll in Scotland from the virus, icluding suspected cases, not confirmed, is now 500. Their unionists counterparts at the BBC in their top story mentioned 600, or even higher.

    I find it in this day and age, that assumptions on deaths especially with this virus, is an easy way to fudge figures, which could allow a whole swathe of deaths to be thrown into a cause that they might not actually be attributed to.

    On the cheap political scoring points that both BBC and STV news continue to shamelessly do during this terrible pandemic, which includes even tonight, as they both name the ex-CMO and her errors of visiting her second home, almost directly after the rise in deaths is appalling in my opinion.

    The fact that England is doing the complete opposite of Scotland and is hiding the true figures on fatalities, by omitting care home deaths etc from the virus, and is not being held to account by the media is shocking, and it smacks of the usual double standards in this union.

  332. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “They have probably been used in China for many centuries, so I am wondering why no similar virus has emerged from them?”

    Jackie.

    I can only imagine that its the possibility of cross contamination. I think the 2002 outbreak of SARS in China was attributed to bats.

    Which led to a new strain forming, or so I’ve read. As a similar virus breaking out as you say centuries ago, I’d imagine it has in several occasions, the difference now is we live in a globalised world, where even the furthest away countries from China can be reached by jet in a very short time.

    That kind of travel would not have been possible back then. Still to play devils advocate, the Black Death in the 14th century, is thought be the most devestating in human history.

  333. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Natural law is coherent with our scientific understanding of the human condition. British constitutional law, not so much.

    Brexit ignores the foundations of British democracy, which means the epistemological foundations of British constitutional law are inadequate to ensuring a due legal respect for difference. Without a respect for difference, the principle of universality can not be defended. Brexitania has destroyed the potential for a universality of justice in the British isles.

    Epistemological Background of Natural Law
    https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3743&context=ndlr

  334. terence callachan
    Ignored
    says:

    CHINA ….ahhh yes now we see the nutters coming out with stuff like
    China passed covid19 through the 5G mobile phone network
    China passed covid19 to the west by impregnating toilet paper with it
    China will have to pay U.K. and USA billions in compensation

    Of course we all know that U.K. and USA were very very slow to react to covid19
    Heard mentality
    Take it on the chin
    It’s just a kind of flu nothing to worry about

    DT and BJ said these things
    Idiots with power
    Believed by more idiots without power

    This is the start of U.K. and USA trying to blame someone else for the failings of idiot DT and idiot BJ
    To them China is a good target

    I’ve yet to meet someone who voted for DT and BJ but then again I live in Scotland
    I look forward to the day I can meet someone who voted for them
    So I can look into their eyes and see if the mist is coloured or just plain grey

  335. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC Scotland and STV may think they are being smart by going for this 600 deaths, which is about double the current number (using the 290 figure as this relates to England’s measurement).

    What it reveals if true is the number of deaths in England must be over 12,000, unless we believe they are recording deaths more accurately.

  336. Mike d
    Ignored
    says:

    TC. reminds me of the time when i first came down to england when thatcher came to power. In all my years down here i never met any cnut who professed to vote for her.

  337. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    The legal epistemology of contemporary British constitutional law, pays no heed to Treaty obligations. A constitution defined entirely through legal positivism, is unable to repect natural law and the principle of universal human rights.

    The Epistemological
    Foundations of Law

    https://cap-press.com/pdf/1692.pdf

  338. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    Diseases accounted for just under 1800 deaths in Feb 2020. Presume the virus will come under this heading for March.

  339. AberdeenPict
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks says:
    8 April, 2020 at 6:38 pm
    Seems it was the Scottish Government which instigated the review…

    That is deeply worrying if the SG did instigate it. Our law is our own and cannot be tampered by outside governments, agencies or influences. That would just be suicide for indy and especially in regards to the courts.

  340. Col
    Ignored
    says:

    @jfngw 7.30
    Nothing new going on here, the same differences in process are being applied to drugs deathS north and south of border too.

  341. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Without a respect for the natural law limitations on political power, democracy is not possible. Brexitania is not a social democracy, so why pretend it is, or think it has the potential to become one?

    When will the SNP adopt an approach to constitutional law, that is compatible with the Natural Law? Tell Westminster to stick their doctrine and practice, and embrace the protective FORCE of international human rights law. To do otherwise suggests one does not understand democracy.

    When will the SNP join up their support for sustainability, with a legal protection of my “Right to Development”?

    Rule of Law and Democracy: Addressing the Gap Between Policies and Practices
    https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/rule-law-and-democracy-addressing-gap-between-policies-and-practices

  342. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    HEADS UP!

    A pal of mine was phoned by Alex Salmond a wee while ago. She phoned me to post info here. (Dundee Annie.)

    The topic of the Alex Salmond Show on RT tomorrow is the Declaration of Arbroath. His guests will include Billy Kay and Sheena Wellington.

    Spread the word!

  343. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Playing politics in a legal environment defined by your opposition is a challenge. Plain daft when your opponent’s moral psychology is unable to respect the natural law.

    Full text

    Constitutional rights as principles: On the structure and domain of constitutional justice. A review essay on A Theory of Constitutional Rights
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/31415651_Constitutional_rights_as_principles_On_the_structure_and_domain_of_constitutional_justice_A_review_essay_on_A_Theory_of_Constitutional_Rights

  344. AberdeenPict
    Ignored
    says:

    Cameron B.

    Here’s an interesting one for you.

  345. AberdeenPict
    Ignored
    says:

    Cameron B, sorry couldn’t get the website link in, still can’t.

  346. Katie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Colin Alexander…..Loving the jokes. Keep them coming. We all need a laugh at this time!

  347. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    AberdeenPict
    What was it about, I might have relevant knowledge anyway?

  348. mr thms
    Ignored
    says:

    Jason Leitch was excellent on the Coronavirus Q&A session on The Nine.

    Martin Giesler showed him a clip of a question Doddie Weir put to Matt Hancock earlier. Not only was the question answered brilliantly, I also imagine it will reassured people who have MND.

  349. shug
    Ignored
    says:

    jfngw

    The BBC up here are roasters and no doubts

    It is interesting to watch the numbers and track them. The game is to try and spot the numbers they no longer report and understand why – they are getting worse!!

    With the BBC don’t listen to what they report watch for what the omit.

    Ir is like sensible dave – an oxymoron – military intelligence

  350. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks

    That Law Review article archived.

    http://archive.is/Q4D

    Is it the Scottish Parliament that is being proposed as the regulator

    Or is it Westminster?

    If it’s Westminster, you would like to think that’s one suggestion the SNP will reject.

    Wouldn’t they?

    Or would Solicitor Sturgeon prefer Westminster control?

  351. dakk
    Ignored
    says:

    Another of Sky News’s spooks Tom Cheshire has just done his report on the lifting of lockdown in Wuhan.

    ‘Thousands died, they suffered terribly’, ‘many feel anger for the cover up and incompetence’ ‘their day of reckoning will come’ how melodramatic.

    Wonder if Sky News will do a similar ‘probing’ report about London or UK which has already lost more than double that of China,with peak not even reached yet.

    Get yer arse back in old blighty Thomas. This is the real world champion RED ZONE, but no suffering here, or days of reckoning for the bungled herd immunity acceleration policy.

    But we’ve got it all sorted, not like the Chinese or anybody else for that matter.

  352. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Breeks 6.38pm WTAF is going on with our supposed SG , if it isn’t bad enough that we have the yoonionist brit Nat twats in and out of our parliament CONSTANTLY trying to undermine and denigrate anything to do with Scotland , now it appears our SG are REQUESTING their engerlish lairds and maisters to review our distinct Scottish legal system , obviously because we as a nation are too stupid to think for ourselves and need the input of our colonial oppressors to keep us right

    Seriously I honestly despair when I read about things like this and I ask myself can the SG and NS really be that detached from the feelings of independence supporters and their aim of self governance , and then I reflect on the past 4 years and their actions and think YES they are dangerously detached

    Not that I am a great admirer of the Law Society in Scotland but if I were a member I would be rightfully outraged at this determined effort to destroy our laws and traditions and replace them with laws and traditions of a foreign country , and TBH I would treat this suggestion as a SLUR on my profession

  353. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Coronavirus in Scotland:
    Agreement reached over care worker face masks

    https://archive.is/P2p3J

  354. Liz g
    Ignored
    says:

    Twathater @ 10.09
    I think ( bear with me ) they don’t know,that we know,that they know,it’s the machinations of desperation going on..
    We’re far too far up to speed on Scots law being unique.And proud of it…
    It was just about all they left us,and, only because they thought we’d never understand it….
    Just you wait till Alex Salmonds back Twathater…… The Yes movement just needs a wee bit of direction and pointing it at Scotland’s Law….will,I think do the trick 🙂 . Alex Salmond will do that effortlessly 🙂

  355. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    To save you some time after the FM has made her report tomorrow I’ll give you a quick run down of what the journalist will ask so you don’t need to bother listening to their shite.

    BBC – Something about care homes, doesn’t matter what as long as it is negative.

    STV – What are the real death figures

    Daily Unionist Press – They will ask one of the above questions but phrase it differently.

    Pales into insignificance though after watching Robert Peston (UK press conf) give a five minute speech to let everyone know how clever he is before getting to a question. I can’t remember the actual question as I had lost the will to live by then.

  356. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    Re The Competition and Markets Authority.

    Basically a modern Monopolies Commission.

    So why is there only one…..

    Here’s Holyrood’s acceptance of the report back in 2018.

    http://archive.is/kd4rE

    Any independent regulator set up would be accountable to Hollyrood.

  357. Col.Blimp IV
    Ignored
    says:

    mike cassidy says:

    “Any independent regulator set up would be accountable to Hollyrood.”

    Sounds more appropriate than the 300 year old status quo, written to take into account the absence of a Scottish Parliament.

    Which is I believe something like … Solicitors – Regulate thy self.

  358. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Contemporary British constitutional practice insists which cultural knowledge is legally valid. That’s totalitarianism, that is, or at least excessive legal bias incompatible with liberal democracy. Why are the SNP supporting this through their actions, or rather lack off?

  359. MaggieC
    Ignored
    says:

    Capella @ 2.01 Re your post about the Gmb union statement , folk should remember that Karen Leonard is the Scottish Organiser for Gmb who is married to the leader of the Scottish branch of Uk Labour .
    This is from J Baillie’s twitter page where she is retweeting Monica Lennons twitter .

    https://mobile.twitter.com/MonicaLennon7/status/1247795275948634118

    Where Monica Lennon is tweeting a link to her column in the Daily Record which is here .

    http://archive.vn/zFYSe

    And this is a statement from HC 1 homecare strongly denying the unions allegations .

    https://www.carehomeprofessional.com/hc-one-outraged-at-scottish-labour-and-gmb-union-ppe-claims/

    Also an interesting post on the Gmb union (Scotland) Facebook page where they state that it’s a carers choice if they want to wear a mask , which is really quite disgusting in my opinion after all their shouting out about Ppe protection .

    http://archive.vn/c66yL

    I just wish a lot of folk in Scotland would waken up to all the bias from BBC , Labour and Gmb not forgetting the tories and the libdems as well .

  360. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ MaggieC – thx – interesting. It’s the sort of article Stu would have written not so long ago. It certainly needs to be posted far and wide. During the 2014 campaign the SNHS was the main target for BBC bile. Looks like there’s another campaign well underway.

  361. End_Imminent
    Ignored
    says:

    Can we please take note of the police state unfolding in front of our eyes?

    https://lbry.tv/@redicetv:1/coronavirus-lock-down-you-can-trust-them:e

  362. James Barr Gardner
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC treats the Postal Strikes like Indy Marches, NADA !

    Mon! The Posties, Mon! The Yesser Posties !

  363. MaggieC
    Ignored
    says:

    Capella Thanks , It’s so easy to dig deep when one link is found and it leads to many others , like a join the dots puzzle and then you get the full picture . All the media now seem to be ramping up their Snp and Scot Gov bad now , even more so since Alex was cleared in court .

  364. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Participation in British constitutional practice can not be considered as political action, I’d suggest it is conditioned political reflex. Action requires cognition and implies AGENCY.

  365. defo
    Ignored
    says:

    “The other 10 residents who died were not tested for coronavirus, a PHE spokeswoman said.”

    Why not?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-52175891

  366. James Barr Gardner
    Ignored
    says:

    Air ambulances in Scotland – 2.

    Air ambulances in Northern Ireland – 1 + 1 backup.

    Air ambulances in Wales – 4.

    Air ambulances in England – 37.

  367. Dog biscuit
    Ignored
    says:

    There seems much confusion around numbers relating to c19 . Westminster and Holyrood seem very reluctant to discuss an endpoint to this house arrest we are effectively sentenced to. We already see what appears to be a side in capricious policing as a result of the emergency powers I noticed Nicola Sturgeon grabbing with both hands .I know this is an Independence website but I fear the power politicians now have over our civil liberties.British government granted themselves a two year period to enact emergency powers. Is anyone on this site prepared for two years house arrest?
    I also have a problem with any politician who makes us all bit part players in our own lives .It was somebody on here who quoted Benjamin Franklin ‘If you trade you’re liberty for security you deserve neither ‘ Quite powerful words. No?

  368. defo
    Ignored
    says:

    “Two members of Kazakhstan’s political elite have won a High Court challenge against Unexplained Wealth Orders.

    The orders centred on three multimillion-pound London homes worth more than £80m and owned by the daughter and grandson of the former Kazakh president.”

    She keeps influential company.
    Scroll down, you won’t believe your eyes.
    (Sarcastic emoji thingy)

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52216011

    Wasn’t this the same mob Covid Charlie was involved with, helping out a hard up aristo or something?

    “Her fascist regime”

  369. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Liz G 10.35pm Liz I bloody well hope so , we are desperately in need of a fighter to lead the cause , this continued acceptance , sublimation and capitulation to all things WM and bozo is daen ma nut in , there are so many bloggers and yes supporters now seeing the absolute clusterbourach we have been subjected to for the last 4 years

    We need a fighter with passion and aggression willing to expose the biased MSM and to highlight and challenge the utterances of the yoonatics , fight fire with fire , call out paedo supporting apologists and force them to resign , call out tango Hill walkers and force them to resign , don’t accept , challenge their hypocrisy , it’s a fallacy the MEEK will inherit the earth , only if the BULLYS have destroyed it first

  370. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Found it. 🙂

    Folks will have to forgive me, as I’m re-connecting to this view of the world after more than three decades. A world view recommended to me on good authority. One that helped me to decolonise my judgement and improve my capacity to protect my biological integrity.

    The Epistemology of Democracy
    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249913402_The_Epistemology_of_Democracy

  371. Sinky
    Ignored
    says:

    Scottish Parliament screened at 12.30. Only 4 party leaders quizzing Nicola Sturgeon. Surely at least one SNP MSP should have been allowed a question as the SNP concerns could be different and with 59 constituency MPs the SNP is particularly disadvantaged.

  372. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:


    Twathater says:
    8 April, 2020 at 10:09 pm
    @ Breeks 6.38pm WTAF is going on with our supposed SG , if it isn’t bad enough that we have the yoonionist brit Nat twats in and out of our parliament….

    I really don’t know. You tell yourself this is just ignorance on someone’s part, they don’t know better and they’ve made a mistake. But sadly, I fear this isn’t a mistake. There is a deliberate and coordinated attempt underway to neuter Scotland’s ancient and sovereign Constitution, and I don’t know what other conclusion can be drawn than the SNP being party to it.

    I still cannot believe the SNP squandered the Constitutional dynamite of our Brexit vote which democratically cleaved the Union in two, and would have kept Scotland in Europe and left the UK Union untenable. Independence was there, in our grasp, and the Brexit BritNats would have carried the can for it.

    But no. Let’s “compromise” if we can stay in the Single Market. That, right there, was a disgraceful betrayal of Scotland’s constitution, and squandered inevitable Scottish Independence.

    I was angry about it at the time, but nobody wanted to listen. Scotland’s Brexit is our ticket to Independence, and the gutless squandering of such an opportunity should haunt every true SNP member who properly does believe in Scottish Independence. It was unforgivable, but was it an error or was it sedition?

    Given recent disclosures, something properly stinks about the SNP under Nicola Sturgeon.

    Get an inquiry going into all of this, because there are very dark questions which our SNP government needs to answer.

    Why didn’t the SNP seize upon Scotland’s emphatic democratic rejection of Brexit, and use the Constitution to weaponise sovereignty?

    Why didn’t the SNP play the Constitutional card when our Nation was excluded from Brexit Negotiations?

    Why is the SNP orchestrating UK reviews of Scots Law with a view to it’s anglicisation and erosion of it’s independence? Was the Supreme Court a big enough affront?

    Why is the SNP or at least parties therein, fabricating smear campaigns against Alex Salmond? Why aren’t they sacked?

    Why is the SNP so tepid in it’s support for AUOB marches?

    Why didn’t the SNP seize upon the Constitutional ramifications after Joanna Cherry TWICE landing knockout blows on Westminster?

    Why is the SNP prepared to forfeit women’s votes through GRA reform?

    Why did the SNP have no events to commemorate the 700th Anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath?

    If Scotland had a second Independence Party, we might see these questions asked in the the chamber, because you won’t be getting an answer to them otherwise.

  373. Pete
    Ignored
    says:

    Dog biscuit
    Completely agree with you.
    Being under house arrest is not good.
    As I keep saying, once the health service is able to cope, and by all accounts, most of the hospitals are operating way below capacity, then t must be back to business with as many safeguards as possible.
    On the whole, apart from a few exceptions, it is the elderly that are in danger (myself) and it is nonsense to ruin the life chances and prosperity of the young to extend the lives of a few old codgers.
    The current policy makes no sense.

  374. Grey Gull
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks. Totally agree.

  375. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Pete

    You go first.

    I’ve worked for 50 years to reach retirement and I’m never
    Going to die to suit a Tory policy of making the stinking rich
    Filthy rich.

    I won’t be a burden on the younger generation just they won’t be when they retire.
    The system of pensions and NHS has worked for generations and it can continue
    To do so.

    Your thoughts leads to removing more and more people from more and more different groups to make money for Bojo’s Lying Circus.

    I’ll let the good Lord call me up when the time comes not Bojo.

  376. Famous15
    Ignored
    says:

    I have some simpler notions than draconian emergency powers.

    Have simple rules about exercising outdoors. Static exercisers should be 12 metres apart.

    Walking exercisers should be at least 2 metres apart.(less body fluids projected,almost said ejaculated) Cyclists and joggers 12 metres apart and no closing up to walkers.

    WHY? Sweat spray,saliva spray and other body fluids dispersal is known to travel 12 metres. Walkers not so much unless they cough or sneeze and these people should stay at home.

    ALSO like vehicles and boats there must be a rule of the road for pedestrians and joggers and since if vehicles are nearby they must FACE oncoming traffic they should KEEP RIGHT. Footpaths and promenades would be so much easier.

    To recap: vehicles including cycles,KEEP LEFT. Walkers and joggers: KEEP RIGHT. Two metres apart for walkers ,the rest 12 metres.

    RIGHT? Right.

  377. Al Dossary
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dog Biscuit, Pete

    “House Arrest” and “Makes No Sense”.

    Is there a reason that you are pushing this narrative? You are under house arrest because too many UK citizens lack the mental cognisance to actually follow the instructions and because the Government quite simply was too weak to implement the measures required to contain the spread.

    New Zealand has had 1 death from around 1300 cases, and around 257 positive cases per million. The UK has had what? 7,000 deaths from 70,000 cases with almost 900 cases per million. New Zealand implemented some of the toughest measures in the world. Yet there are still flights flying into the UK from all over the world.

    And that is NOT counting many of those who have died in their own home or old folks home etc.

    The true figure for both in the UK is much, much higher than that which is disclosed. The true death figure is probably 30% higher than listed day by day “deaths that occurred in hospital” is the reporting statistic that was used, and possibly the tru infected figure is 5 times higher “Those who have tested positive”

    The UK will in all probability overtake Iran if not today, then for sure tomorrow in numbers alone, both for “Infected” and for deaths. Iran has around 80 million population, 20% more than the UK.

  378. Gary45%
    Ignored
    says:

    Pete@9.16
    Rather than the “yoof” being saddled with the world debt resulting from this world shutdown, simple answer.
    All governments of the world simply print money when its all over, if every country does it, then no country can accuse the other of “quantitative easing”.
    Agree a weekly figure of an amount then put into peoples accounts, any front line workers having to work, keep getting paid but also get the handout, the money would then go back into the economies of each country.
    (Not to harp on,the governments did it for the financial sector who kept if for themselves.)so it can be done.
    No one should lose their job or house because of this.

    As we have the schools shut, cancel the school summer holidays and have the schools open if the virus is cleared by then.

  379. J Galt
    Ignored
    says:

    Pete at 09.16

    I’m glad it’s an “old codger” saying that!

    I’m at entry level codgerism myself, however I agree with you that “normality” must be resumed asap.

    I know there are “lies, damned lies and then there are statistics”, however the difference in statistics between Germany and Italy, Spain and now the UK are startling to say the least.

    The Italian authorities themselves have admitted that they are “generous” with recording “cause of death” e.g. a terminally ill patient who dies of heart failure for instance who tests positive for Covid 19 is deemed a victim of Coronavirus.

    The “test” itself is surrounded by controversy even the ones that are not being returned as faulty are admitted to have a false positive rate of 80%.

    Sources for the above are available, however frankly I can’t be bothered and anyway everybody should dig for this information themselves.

    We appear to be in the midst of an enormous socio-economic reset, whether this is by design or an unwonted consequence is debatable.

  380. Colin Alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    As they hooked up Boris to a ventilator, the Consultant questioned the medical students:

    Can anyone tell me what this big tube is called and what its use is?

    “Boris Johnson” says the first student, “but I don’t know what use it has”.

    “it’s used to implement extreme right-wing economic and social policies as instructed by Dominic Cummings and the United States Govt”, says the second student.

    Consultant: What’s the MACHINE called and what does the MACHINE do?

    Third medical student: It’s called the British Establishment. It’s purpose is to screw Scotland and screw poor people, making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

  381. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    @a Effijy

    I’m with you on this, the claptrap about the elderly being a drain on society is nonsense. I read somewhere that the largest drain on our Health service resources was sport and exercise related injury, and A&E is swamped because of the drunken rabble who don’t know when to stop and can’t keep their fists to themselves.
    I’ve paid my dues and more, with the banking crisis and pension raids as an added bonus for the rich. I’m sick of hearing this crap about the old, look at any high street, who do you see keeping the shops open, the buses and cafes turning over, who looks after the weans when parents can’t get childcare.
    Government immigration policy has created the population disparity between young and old, Government has created the lack of opportunity for decent jobs for the young in their local areas, Government policy has reduced the level of social care and funding for our health service, they creak because of a lack of resources, not because of the old. They creak because illness and bad health is created by poverty, old and young alike, rickets is back for ffs.
    Sorry rant over.

  382. Gary45%
    Ignored
    says:

    Colin A@10.13
    Nice One.

  383. Willie
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks @ 9.12 am.

    You summarise precisely the grave concern that so many of us have about the SNP and how it’s leadership have abandoned the fight for independence squandering opportunity after opportunity.

    It is perfectly clear now to even the blindest of the blind that the party leadership has rotted from within and that it is hell bent on destroying those who would resume the fight for independence. Trying to destroy Alex Salmond, distancing from the wider Yes movement, whilst using the partisan weight of the apparatus of state is no accident.

    Sturgeon as a sixteen year old student joining the SNP did not start out as the establishment’s fifth columnist in Scotland. Yes the SNP may over recent years have absorbed many woke individuals not committed to independence but their is something deeper to the SNP’s shift to being Westminster’s puppet government in Scotland.

    Gangs and counter gangs, low intensity operations, infiltration, surveillance and all of the dark arts that go with it are part of how the British establishment operates. Salmond ran them close in 2014 and he has to be stopped.

    Sturgeon for her part and aside of her relinquishing the fight for independence and for Scotland to remain in the EU has, with the exception of the now emerging questions about how she was in viral lockstep with Boris Johnson, been a good presentable First Minister. Ideally faced really to sell the jersey, she is exactly what the establishment wanted.

    But why. What do the security services have on her and or what has she been offered. Maybe like the hapless clown Derek Mackay with his inappropriate texts the security services have stuff on Sturgeon. Mackay’s exposure the night before the budget was no accident. Somebody was watching waiting to launch.

    Whether the grass roots can restore the focus of the SNP I do not know. I would like to think so and really this reinforces why so much effort was put into destroying Salmond and down playing people like the excellent Joanna Cherry.

    An independence list party would certainly be a step in the right direction to initially maximise on the delivery of list seats. With nearly a million votes last time delivering only a miserly four regional seats a list party makes much sense – especially if seen to be peopled by respected independence names such as maybe Alex Salmond, Lesley Riddoch or others of that ilk.

    A list party would also put the bite on the SNP to deliver what they were supposed to deliver. John Redmonds Irish National Party, like the SNP was stitched up all these years ago only for it to be later replaced by another party.

    Truly in Scotland we are fighting an insidious enemy. But it can be beaten. It lost its Empire as colony after colony threw them out. And it can happen here.

    Let’s take back control of our independence movement. The momentum is there. We can win and as a last aside, the part played by Nicola Sturgeon’s Government in being in lockstep with Boris Johnson on a flawed economic strategy to not trace, track and contain the virus may just add to that impetus.

  384. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    Just watched John Pilger on RT , I feel depressed but refreshed that there is still ONE journalist who tells it like it is.

    ONE journalist willing to put his head above the parapet and shout for truth and proper investigative journalism.

    ONE journalist with principles in the mainstream media.

  385. winifred mccartney
    Ignored
    says:

    Can’t believe NS doing FMQ’s with only opposition leaders asking questions. Please remember the Care Home |Owner on BBC Tues night was a failed tory candidate and the leader of the GMB in Scotland is none other than Karen Leonard (Yes Mrs Richard)and of course the doctor complaining about ppe is none other than Anas Sarwar’s brother-in-law. They don’t even have the guts to openly question in their parties name preferring to use proxies – disgusting, and this is them cooperating fully with the SG.

  386. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    @ mike cassidy on 8 April, 2020 at 10:04 pm

    Mike, your link isn’t working.

    Meanwhile for those discussing and interested in this seriously important issue here’s what Sturgeon had to say back in 2019.

    If you can’t be arsed reading it all i’d recommend you fast-forward to the last 3 paragraphs and make of them what you will.

    Nicola Sturgeon’s speech at the Law Society of Scotland
    http://archive.is/Kws9n

  387. cynicalHighlander
    Ignored
    says:

    Stoke@11.15am

    “ If we do that, we can live up to Eddie Morgan’s “deepest dearest wish”. And we can ensure that the next 20 years of devolution, are even more successful than those which have passed.”

    Last paragraph

  388. Colin Alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks

    For the UK to exit the EU, Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty had to be triggered according to the constitution of the UK. The UK tried to do this by executive powers, eg the UK Govt.

    Gina Miller challenged this*.

    The SNP Scot Govt were only second interveners on the basis of devolution: Sewel Convention. It was political window dressing.

    The SNP Scot Govt made no constitutional challenge about UK Parliament being sovereign over the people of Scotland. Truth be told: Neither did Joanna Cherry, Alex Salmond, Stu Campbell, Andy Wightman or anybody else, even though a number of them are no shy of taking court action.

    Now, people say: ah but, the SNP or Scotland can’t risk challenging and losing in court on sovereignty. However, in law, what you don’t challenge by denying or arguing against, means it is accepted. By not challenging, you have already lost.

    In the week we “celebrate” the famous words: “As long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule…”, we should also remember: not one Scot has stood up in court to defend Scotland’s sovereignty or national decision to Remain in the EU.

    *Gina Miller EU case: http://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2016-0196-judgment.pdf

  389. Marydoll
    Ignored
    says:

    I see the Westminster is giving each of them 10000 to help with their jobs during this crisis. I get they so won’t have to wait till June or jump through bureaucratic hoops to get it. Meanwhile nurses and doctors and other key workers are risking their lives. There are no words to describe them

  390. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    If the strategy is to flatten the curve to try to ensure that the NHS can cope with those in critical care, then the evidence suggests that we are, albeit with huge effort, coping.

    With the additional hospital beds being brought on line, the ex NHS staff returning, the NHS Volunteers, the country is putting itself in a position for far worse to come. Let’s hope we don’t need it all.

    Perhaps some of you could take a step back and note the fantastic work be planned, organised and implemented.

  391. Famous15
    Ignored
    says:

    9.48 Corredtion. Latest Danish study says 5 metres if walking in someones slipstream or if very windy. Extreme cycling or running leave 20 metres.

    Woolly scarves and goggles are as good as surgical masks if snugly fitted.

    Jet2 are talking about restarting holidays in 17 June.2020

    Looks like Craig Murray is on the ball with making p 2021 Holyrood election with clear manifestos (plural) a substitute for a S30 Referendum.

  392. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    This was hinted at about two days ago:
    Good to see it come to fruition.
    —————————————————————
    Two Scotland-based companies are to produce 10,000 ventilators for the NHS, the Scottish government has said.

    Plexus and Raytheon UK will make the equipment at their Kelso, Livingston and Glenrothes manufacturing facilities.

    The firms are part of an effort led by Babcock International Group to design and produce new ventilators in response to the UK government’s request for help from industry in the fight against coronavirus.

    Investment Ivan McKee said: “These companies are at the vanguard of efforts to manufacture more ventilators as part of UK-wide efforts to tackle Covid-19.

    “Plexus and Raytheon UK have been supported by Scottish Enterprise to facilitate their involvement in vital efforts to increase capacity for the NHS, and the Scottish government and Scottish Enterprise remain in contact to provide any operational support they require.”

  393. Dog biscuit
    Ignored
    says:

    My agenda right now is to encourage those of us buying the Somme barrage of media stoking what seems an axagerated sense if crisis. Can you see how it stops all politics in its tracks? As for death rates,are people dying of the virus or with it? Is it actually deadly than other flu viruses? I see a lot of critical minds losing their shit instead of a healthy skepticism of politicians. I’m not here to put nationalise anyone.I have genuine fear for democracy.maybe some people feel a little embarrassed by taking cover too soon.

  394. jackie
    Ignored
    says:

    Sky News announces that COBRA will meet today and will also include the leaders of the Devolved Administrations.

    Just call them what they are,,, the leaders of the Devolved Council Chambers.

    The english love nothing more than making you feel like an inferior non-entity,,,,,and that is what Scotland is at this moment in time.

    Cheers Sturgeon.

  395. Dog biscuit
    Ignored
    says:

    Are my questions relevant or should I also defer to power?

  396. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Quote…

    “The medical physics team has a crucial role in maintaining vital medical equipment used within hospitals right across Tayside, supporting our frontline staff to deliver specialist care.

    They have been converting complex anaesthetic machines which would normally be used in hospital theatres, to be used as ventilators. These specialist items of equipment will be used to treat the most seriously ill patients providing critical care to the people of Tayside.

    The repurposed machines have now been now approved for use and will be deployed into the newly-created intensive care areas at the hospital.”

    That’s from

    NHS Tayside staff convert medical equipment into ventilators

    https://www.nhstayside.scot.nhs.uk/News/Article/index.htm?article=PROD_336770

  397. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:


    Colin Alexander says:
    9 April, 2020 at 11:39 am

    The SNP Scot Govt made no constitutional challenge about UK Parliament being sovereign over the people of Scotland. Truth be told: Neither did Joanna Cherry, Alex Salmond, Stu Campbell, Andy Wightman or anybody else, even though a number of them are no shy of taking court action…

    I broadly agree, with the exception of Joanna Cherry. Both in her clarifying Article 50 could be revoked, and that Parliament should not be prorogued, Joanna Cherry on both occasions used Scots Law as the basis for her challenge to what the UK could or could not do.

    Especially in the latter case, when JC totally outstripped the UK’s Supreme Court jurisdiction, bound Boris Johnston to respect the adjudication of a Scottish Court, and actually codified in law a segment of the UK‘s unwritten Constitution.

    In my opinion, Joanna Cherry very definitely did open the lid on Pandora’s Constitutional box, but then, for whatever reason, stopped, and closed it again. I don’t know why.

    I rather suspect the reason might be the same reason why Ian Blackford could talk the talk of Scottish Sovereignty, but would never, or could never, walk the walk.

    It feels to me like both Blackford and Joanna Cherry had their guns spiked, and IF so, then there are big questions needing to be asked.

    I am curious as hell to know how much of Joanna Cherry’s initiatives were her own, and whether or not it was with or without the support of party HQ.

    What frustrates me about Joanna Cherry’s constitutionally based challenges, both of which were successful, were aimed rather low, as if dipping a toe in the water. I hope Joanna Cherry’s third case, which we have yet to see, will bring down the Union and nothing less.

    I feel sympathetic to Alex Salmond too. I seem to recall Alex Salmond was one of the very few who disputed the constitutional validity of the Supreme Court when it was introduced. There are also any number constitutional paradoxes in the establishment of a devolved assembly too… which itself contravenes the Articles of Union simply by existing.

    The whole Union is a dogs breakfast of conventions, implied conventions, breached conventions, ignored conventions and undeliverable conventions. Is it any wonder the truth is whatever people want it to be, and a UK Government initiative with even a modest quantity of brass neck can get away unconstitutional bad practice virtually unchallenged.

    I wish someone would take this dogs breakfast, and boil it in a pan to remove the putrid flesh, and reveal the clean and uncorrupted bare bones of the Scottish Constitution, which as far as I can see would preserve the Declaration of Arbroath’s Popular Sovereignty, and the 1328 International Recognition which recognised the Scottish Nation in perpetuity. Very little else would survive the process.

    Never mind the malignant spaghetti of UK’s myriad of unwritten conventions, even the Articles of Union themselves neither invalidate nor rescind the Sovereign conventions of the Scottish Nation. The Scottish Constitution prior to the 1707 Union was that of a recognised sovereign nation, and nothing has happened to remove that sovereignty. The claim of right, which is the right to depose an errant monarch, is still extant, and that right is the right acknowledged as set upon the Scottish people by the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath. Our Constitution is thus extant too, in spite of the Union.

    For the Union and UK Government to have ANY claim to wield Scotland’s Sovereignty, requires Scotland’s popular sovereignty to be joined with the divine Sovereignty of the English monarch. This cannot be done. The two are binary absolute conditions which are not constitutionally compatible. The two cannot become one without one sovereignty subjugating the other, and such subjugation undoes the fallacy of “Union”. It is a Gordian knot which cannot be undone.

    The Union Government only survives by sophistry, because it hides the truth behind an obscure and unwritten “Convention” of Parliamentary Sovereignty whereby the two sovereignties become one behind a magicians screen which conveniently presents the impossible as having been done, but obscures the mechanism of doing a thing which cannot be done. We are told the two sovereignties became one by consensus… the agreement of both sovereign powers.

    But even IF you accept all of that as the model for how the UK Government functions, then you still have an existential crisis with Brexit, and the subjugation of Scotland’s democratic will by Brexit holes any “convention” of sovereignty by consensus below the waterline, because not only is there no consensus, there is explicit and emphatic disagreement. Scotland’s Brexit is this an act of unconstitutional subjugation contrary to International law.

    David Cameron doomed the Union when he gave the sovereign people of Scotland the democratic opportunity to to say NO when the rest of the UK said YES. To now maintain the UK Government wields sovereignty by consensus and by convention IS …A … LIE. Brexit is not possible by sovereign consensus, it can only be delivered by Scotland’s subjugation.

    That act of subjugation is our axe to fell the Union, and if we hurry, likely save our place in Europe too. What in God’s name are we waiting for?

  398. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    Your reminder on who is politicising the Pandemic:

    1. Care Home Owner on BBC Tues night was allegedly a failed tory candidate!

    2. The leader of the GMB in Scotland is none other than Karen Leonard (Yes Mrs Richard ‘bouncy-bouncy’)!

    3. The GP complaining about PPE in a letter to SG is none other than BLiS Anas Sarwar MSPs brother-in-law and featured on BLiS Election material!

    4. Murdo Fraser, Liz Smith, Tory MSPs hypocritically called for resignation of Scotlands CMO knowing they’d been Up Ben Vorlich in each other’s company (with a PR man) during lockdown!

    5. FibDems Wee Wullie 1p MSP and Wendy Chamberlain MP called for resignation of Scotlands CMO but didn’t criticise confirmed Covid-19 sufferer Charlie Windsor travelling to his holiday home against UK and Scottish Government advice!

    All their whining ably amplified by the Colonial BBC and BritNat MSM.

  399. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    Perhaps during the First Minister’s official update on Covid someone from the National could ask WHY flights from the US and other countries are coming into the UK untested and allowed to waltz off into the pale blue yonder.

    And perhaps query the ‘ it will all have to paid back’ from Mr Sunak .

  400. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    Shock! Horror!

    Someone on the BBC tells it like it is – sort of.

    ..the disease is not a great leveller, the consequences of which everyone, rich or poor, suffers the same >

    https://twitter.com/HichamYezza/status/1248106718762065921

    No doubt the sensibledaves will be on the case asap.

  401. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    The Institute for Health Metrics, data and model show that because the UK went for the herd immunity approach instead of the social distancing one, that the UK’s eventual death toll from the virus will be around 66,000.

    The (IHME) also predicts that UK deaths will peak in around ten days time.

    Now who was it that pushed the herd immunity idea as a good thing,hmmm.

  402. Ron Maclean
    Ignored
    says:

    @Stoker 1115am

    Final words from Nicola Sturgeons speech at the Law Society of Scotland – 24 June 2019.

    ‘And we can ensure that the next 20 years of devolution, are even more successful than those which have passed’

    That from the leader of the SNP, a political party whose primary aim is to obtain independence for Scotland. The dream might not have died yet but it urgently needs life support.

  403. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Breeks

    Aye and rightly so. A warning shot across the bows of the establishment, but also Nicola. I’m minded of the story of Thomas Randolph, he and his spearmen were despatched by Bruce to cover his flank, Randolph noted that a large body of English horse had detached itself from the main body and he rode back to tell the Bruce of the danger they presented. He didn’t receive a warm welcome instead, we can only imagine Bruce’s fury, since Bruce could see that the English cavalry were heading straight for the very place Randolph supposed to be. Randolph raced back to his men having been told a chaplet had fallen from his brow, in other words yer a muppet. Randolph got back to his men and contested the Ford, though outnumbered by the English cavalry, he held his ground. That’s where I think Nicola is, a chaplet has fallen from her brow, but she still has a chance to make good her error/s. I hope she realises that our patience has worn paper thin.

  404. Scozzie
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s so sad to watch from afar seeing the situation back home.

    I’m glad the Scottish NHS is in better shape that the rest of the UK but it’s still a scary situation unfolding.

    When we come out the other side of this, there has to be a groundswell of independence supporters pushing for radical change from the Scottish Government / SNP.

    Independence needs to be the SNPs main focus after this, dump the careerists, the GRA nutters, the soft on independence MPs and MSPs. It needs to be a wholesale clean out and I think that needs to include NS as well as she’s so compromised on more than one front now.

    The SNP has one last chance in the 2021 election to put in place true independent candidates. If they fail to do that they’re toast. We need to force their hand. If they don’t show signs of accepting true independent candidates. Then a new party NEEDS to be formed. They’re on their 3 strikes and you’re out notice – Referendum / brexit / 2021 election.

  405. Scozzie
    Ignored
    says:

    * that’s meant to say independence candidates

  406. shug
    Ignored
    says:

    looks like the 2021 election will either be the referendum or the election that results in the referendum

    I would prefer the one that is the referendum as it forces the unionists to take part

    fully support a wings party to finish the unionist list members

  407. Keith fae Leith
    Ignored
    says:

    Dave @ 11.57

    This might come as a shock to you, but I agree with what you say.

    However, given that there was a test run for how the UK would cope with a scenario starkly similar to the one we are in now, the result was a resounding failure. Why in the name of all you hold dear, was nothing done on the back of it?

    Why do we have to wait for a further 2 years of underfunding the NHS & waiting until after the virus has hit our borders?

    Why do they wait an extra 2 months after being warned about it before trying to cobble together a plan?

    Why have the Governments still not started testing & tracing in volume when they have seen the success other Countries have had doing so?

    Why are flights arriving from Hot Spots without any medical checks on the passengers?

    I wholeheartedly laud those who are acting on it, at the coalface trying to stem the tide of this pandemic. But I will not sit idly by and applaud politicians who have utterly failed in their main duty, which is to protect the public.

    Don’t ask questions, meekly applaud & it will be fine in the future.

    More than your regular petty sniping and occasional point, this has irked me more than anything.

    People do see the good work that’s being done, your problem seems to be, based on your earlier statement, that people aren’t getting enough credit for eventually putting in to place plans that haven’t been made, are being implemented later than they should have been, without proper equipment, without learning from others.

    People are appreciative of the workers, they are rightly questioning the politicians. In my case, of both Parliaments that I have a representative in.

    Come on now, give your head a shake.

    All the good work that is happening now could have been in place months ago.

  408. callmedave
    Ignored
    says:

    Welsh FM gets a ticking off for pre-empting any WM Cobra decision on whether to relax ‘lockdown’

    BBC Auntie says Wales and Scotland ‘lockdown’ to continue for sometime yet.

    PS:
    Do you remember her from Tuesday?

    https://archive.is/D0gju

  409. Dog biscuit
    Ignored
    says:

    Why is it safe for airplanes full of passengers to land at Heathrow and safe for unmasked police constables to get in the publics face but it’s not safe to leave our houses?Im not minimising the effects of covid on its more unfortunate victims but I do think the crisis is being used to slip through very dangerous legislation. We’ll find it difficult if not impossible to get government to give up their new powers. When does any government willingly give up power. I wonder how much money Jacob Smoggs hedgefund is set to make from all this. While we are fixated on death tolls and blow by blow accounts of mankind’s mortality the Tories are making hey.we have no rights left and no discernible future We are in suspension ,in limbo static,marking time while the power to act politically is denied us . Maybe we should institute a fixture list on all fatal conditions keep up to date with all our losses.The bare bones? No freedom of assembly no Independence.Are we being distracted?

  410. David McDowell
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks@9.55am: “IF that Election is to be a referendum on Independence, then let us agree it.”

    We were told for years we were crazy for even thinking such a thing. It’s not looking so crazy now, is it? He who laughs last…

  411. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    Keith

    … it’s good to agree on something!

    Of course I take your point that if we had invested more, earlier, then we could be better prepared.

    Two points come to mind though. There is always, obviously, a conflict for any government, of any political persuasion, what they spend money on at any particular time. If we had bought and stored 50,000 ventilators then we would have been better prepared. However, so far, I am not aware that people are dying because of not enough ventilators, or beds or staff. Plans were made for what to do … so things like the Nightingale hospitals are result of the planning, and their introduction has been “in time”.

    What is our plan for an asteroid strike? A dirty bomb? A nuclear strike? Armed insurrection? Etc, etc.! I am guessing, the plan for the former, is something along the lines of “put your head between your legs and kiss your arse goodbye”. I am pretty sure though that there are plans for a dirty bomb … but that plan will not include the immediate provision of hazmat suits and breathing apparatus for millions of people. Should we be spending billions on those in your view?

  412. Sensibledave
    Ignored
    says:

    Dog biscuit 1.56

    You need to think things through. The lock down measures are to stop the masses moving about to reduce the spread … not stop it. They want to keep the levels of infection under control to control the requirement for hospitalisation within sustainable levels. Do try and keep up.

  413. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    So MP’s are to receive a whopping £10,000 to help them work from home due the virus. This comes on top of the £2,500 rise they received on the 1st of April this year.

    Meanwhile many real hard working folk are relying on sick pay, and reduced wages from their employers, if the employer decides to pay that is.

  414. Fireproofjim
    Ignored
    says:

    Alex on RT in five minutes at 2.30 on the subject of Arbroath Declaration.
    Should be interesting.

  415. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ll put this as simply as I can. If you are not prepared to defend Scottish sovereignty against Brexit, then you do not support the principle of universal human rights. If you are of a woke persuasion, you were already unable to defend the principle, because your world view is detached from reality. The SNP’s legal advisers aren’t HMG, are they?

  416. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Dog biscuit
    As we don’t yet understand the nature of the threat we are facing, the rational response is to adopt a precautionary approach. Of course, if you’re politics swing to the right, then you’re more likely to value liberty over pubic safety. This reflects the bio-neurological drivers of our perception and cognition.

  417. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    The SNP simply no longer appears to believe in reality. Human judgement is established through our genes. Human rights are grounded in biology.

    Social Cognition through the Lens of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6158937/

  418. Sinky
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC on about fake news have they ever looked at their political coverage of the UK gov compared to their assaults on the Scots Gov. Getting clear info on number of Covid deaths,such as pointing out that England figures do NOT include deaths in community unlike the case in Scotland, testing ,amount of PPE etc in England compared to Scotland.

    Loki, whom I quite like, is on BBC TV Question Time at 8 pm but why no SNP rep as third largest party at Westminster for several weeks now.

  419. Dog biscuit
    Ignored
    says:

    We do understand the nature of the threat.Its a strain of flu virus. I wouldn’t describe uk government as rational. I’ve voted SNP most of my life so maybe I do swing to the right.Right now it’s not a out left or right it’s about all of our rights and freedoms.I favour Craig Murray’s approach to Independence by the way.

  420. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Dog biscuit
    I try not to judge and I wasn’t trying to judge you. Sorry if you felt I was.

  421. Joe M
    Ignored
    says:

    There is of course a darker side to the media campaign to present the ‘victims’ as the ones telling the truth and the verdict as inexplicable. What is very clear is that either the prosecution witness perjured themselves and were in a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice or the defense witnesses perjured themselves. The jury believed the defense.
    The Crown Prosecution Service (CSP) is part of the Scottish government. Supposedly independent. Honi suit qui mal y pense.
    Will there be prosecutions? If not how is the public to understand that? A cynic might think the Scottish government did not want to prosecute itself, and the CSP is not independent. So public opinion ‘space’ must be created for the CSP not to prosecute.
    This of course creates the possibility that people in high places will not be prosecuted for very serious crimes, simple because they are people in high places. The justice system would be seriously compromised.

  422. Piotr Berman
    Ignored
    says:

    (So astonishingly transparent is the identification, as correctly deciphered by numerous completely unqualified readers of this site, that we must conclude she had it “legalled” by some passing small drunk children, or perhaps a badger.) <– I know that the author did not have bad intentions, but any suggestion that small children or badgers could be drunk disregards their welfare. There was a well publicized case in Poland when a female badger help herself to the picnic supplies of some beach goers, opened a few beer bottles, emptied the content and was found unconscious. The efforts of veterinarians were in vain and she died few days later. At least small children lack dexterity to open unattended beer bottles.

    But indeed, drunk badgers do exist and one could be found to do the "legalling".

  423. Rev. Stuart Campbell
    Ignored
    says:

    “Try logging out of Twitter, then going to

    https://twitter.com/RevStu

    I don’t have a Twitter account and I can read his stuff ok.”

    Um, all of my Twitter accounts got banned months ago. It was in the papers and everything.



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