The problem with being liberal
We haven’t talked much on Wings about the court case currently in progress against former Scottish Labour branch manager Kezia Dugdale, for hopefully obvious reasons.
The case is currently “in avizandum” – legal jargon for “the sheriff is considering his decision” – and a result is hoped for around the end of this month, and while as far as we know there’s no actual rule against talking about it at this stage, if you’re one of the participants it’s probably not the greatest idea as a general principle.
But what CAN be discussed is a much wider issue which it touched on, as highlighted by Daily Record columnist Anna Burnside while talking about the case during last week’s BBC Radio Scotland media review on the John Beattie Show.
The debate had a fully balanced panel: Burnside, who thought I was an awful person, Stuart Cosgrove, who thought I was an awful person with a sometimes-good website, and Anne Marie Watson, who thought I was an awful person. But it was Burnside who really went in with the boot, as can be heard from 2m 27s on the clip below.
(The John Beattie Show, BBC Radio Scotland, 28 March 2019)
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Let’s take a walk through that.
“I’ve been intrigued to see how Stuart Campbell, the individual behind the Wings Over Scotland website, has tried to position himself through this whole thing. And it seems to me that he really wants it both ways, you know, his defence seems to be that he’s a very right-on liberal person who supports gay rights and would never do a bad thing.”
It may be worth pausing here to point out that that wasn’t my “defence” at all. I didn’t have a defence, as I wasn’t the defender. I was the pursuer (the person bringing the case), and at no point was it claimed that I “would never do a bad thing”. While I am in fact extremely liberal, the case wasn’t about whether I was an all-round number-one super guy, it was about a specific claim that I was a homophobe. Anyway:
“But my understanding is that the liberal way to deal with a situation like this is if you have said something or made a comment that you thought was fine but – in this case this comment is about a gay person – and then a gay person is offended by it and makes that clear to you, the liberal approach to that is to take the word of the gay person, that if they’re offended by it then their voice is the one that you should listen to, and that your reaction is not to head to the courts, your reaction it to say ‘Oh, right, okay, my bad, talk me through that’.
If you need that explained to you, if you need it unpicked for you you get that explained for you, and then you suck it up, basically. You take the voice of the oppressed minority and you factor that in in the future, and if necessary you apologise, you withdraw your comment, whatever needs to be doing. You don’t head to the court and drag the person who’s made this point through what must have been a really distressing and unpleasant court case!”
If you’re not terrified to the very pit of your soul by those words, readers, you should be. Because they represent a toxic form of aggressively anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-evidence thinking which is not only increasingly prevalent among political pundits and activists of all stripes (who could forget the Brexit claim that we had all “had enough of experts”?), but which is increasingly the driving force behind the actions of governments, charities, sporting organisations and the police, and has real-world consequences that are dangerous almost beyond description.
What Burnside calls “the liberal approach” – whereby anything at all that a member of an “oppressed minority” disagrees with or dislikes (whether or not it has anything to do with the thing they’re a minority of) must not be challenged in any way and must be immediately conceded and apologised for – is the most self-evidently idiotic creed to ever take hold of ostensibly sane people in the modern age.
People who think the Earth is flat are a minority. They’re regularly “oppressed”, ie mocked and insulted and disregarded, for the very good reason that the Earth ISN’T flat. But by Burnside’s indignant argument, if faced with one claiming offence we must immediately accept that they know best about the thing they care about, agree unquestioningly that the Earth IS flat, grovel at their feet for forgiveness for ever daring to suggest otherwise, and immediately change every principle of global navigation accordingly, giving hurt feelings precedence over material reality.
But it’s far stupider even than that. Because what Burnside said inescapably means that the view of any single individual from an “oppressed minority” – and from this point let’s use the legally-meaningful term “protected group” instead, which in broad essence means everyone except straight white men – automatically represents the views of EVERYONE in that group.
What she’s saying is that (in this case) Kezia Dugdale was speaking on behalf of all LGBT people – and therefore a protected group which must be immediately deferred to – rather than just for Kezia Dugdale, whose personal opinion on any given subject is of no more weight than any other human being’s.
And that’s plainly a great big pile of bollocks. Who says so? Well, for example, one of the most famously gay people in the world:
“It’s now very common to hear people say, ‘I’m rather offended by that.’ As if that gives them certain rights. It’s actually nothing more, it’s simply a whine, it’s no more than a whine: ‘I find that offensive.’
It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. ‘I am offended by that.’ Well, so fucking what?”
Scores and scores of gay people made a point of saying they DIDN’T find the tweet at the heart of the court case homophobic. There are clearly opinions both ways and in between within the gay community. So who, in Burnside’s view, elected Kezia Dugdale the official spokesperson of all gay people and made all the others wrong?
How does it work? Who gets to define what is or isn’t offensive to any group of people? Is it the first to tweet or to get a quote out to the media? Is it the one with most Twitter followers? Is it the richest one who can afford the best/most lawyers? Is it based on a majority, and if so who’s doing the counting?
Even if Dugdale had been the ONLY gay person on the planet who’d been offended by the tweet, even if every other gay person in the world had thought it a splendid joke, Burnside’s explicit argument is that any person considering themselves to be a liberal would still have to withdraw it, apologise for it, beg forgiveness and promise never to do it again, simply because ONE gay person objected to it.
(And the same would apply to anyone from any other protected group who complained about anything.)
Last year when historic sexual harassment allegations against all manner of men were the subject of a giant media frenzy, one of the Twitter hashtags at the centre of the phenomenon was #BelieveWomen. Many fuddy-duddy dinosaur types with a tiresome attachment to such old-fashioned notions as law and justice and the presumption of innocence gently suggested that this was a terrible idea, because the mere possession of a certain set of chromosomes or genitalia is not a guarantee that any individual is telling the truth at any given moment.
Of course, they were instantly drowned in a tidal wave of shrieking fury, cast out as “misogynists” and “rape apologists” and worse, and hounded off Twitter and out of their jobs and out of decent society with a torches-and-pitchforks mob hot on their tail.
But you SHOULDN’T believe women. And you shouldn’t believe men. You shouldn’t believe straight people or gay people or black people or white people or ginger people or left-handed people or trans people or Christian people or Jewish people or Muslim people or old people or young people. You should believe evidence and facts, because evidence and facts are the keystone of civilisation and the alternative is a regression to witch trials and lynchings and people being hanged for heresy.
The alternative is to set humanity on a path back to the 17th century, when Galileo Galilei – who claimed (or rather, observed the fact) that the Earth orbited the Sun, not the other way round – was forced under threat of torture by the Inquisition to recant his beliefs and spend the last decade of his life under house arrest.
Or in fact, back to 399BC, when the Greek philosopher Socrates was condemned to death by suicide for refusing to believe in the same gods as the rulers of Athens.
We could list a hundred more current examples, from the rocket scientist reduced to a weeping public ruin for wearing a “sexist” shirt to the transwoman Miranda Yardley being dragged absurdly through 10 months of a nonsensical prosecution for supposed harassment, at the hands of a non-trans woman who’d claimed to be offended by Yardley’s statements of obvious and immutable biological facts, and that her taking of offence intrinsically and automatically made Yardley a “transphobe” – and therefore guilty of a hate crime – with no other evidence required.
(The exasperated judge attacked the Crown Prosecution Service for ever allowing it to get to court, saying “there is no case and never was a case”. There was almost no media coverage of the dismissal other than in the Daily Mail.)
Being a liberal means being willing to listen to new ideas, not automatically accepting them all. It means accepting people who are different to you and co-existing peacefully with them, not making yourself their slave and surrendering the power of independent thought to whatever the latest fashions and trends are.
It’s not illiberal to listen to something, consider it rationally on the basis of the evidence, and then reject it as nonsense. It IS, on the other hand, incredibly illiberal to demand that everyone who doesn’t meekly submit to your every whim just because you’re in a minority is treated as a bigot and a hate criminal.
Dictatorship by whoever can be the most offended and can get to their keyboard or a microphone first is an insane way to run a society, and it’s horrifying that such a thing even needs to be stated. But it does, because it’s where we’re going if we don’t get a grip of ourselves as a species pretty quickly.
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Soapbox is a weekend column designed to provoke debate on non-party-political issues. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of Wings Over Scotland, except when we write them ourselves, obviously.
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Great article Stu, and good luck in court 🙂 Agree with everything there.
Did I hear that right? Did Stuart Cosgrove somehow talk about you taking Kezia Dugdale to court for defamatory comments she put in her newspaper article and turned it into talking (8:40 on) about the question of whether Twitter was a publisher, suitably muddying the waters and de facto and implicitly turn it into you being the defendant for your comments?
Far to much common sense in this article and it will go right over Daily Record columnist (no skin in this game) Anna Burnside’s head.
Well said. Absolutely agree.
Very eloquently put Stuart. This should be a column in every National newspaper. It’s about time logic and critical thinking became a mainstay of our schools curriculums. I’ve long suspected we’re moving backwards as a species and have been for some time. Part of that is to do with credence and credibility being given to the views of too many dumb celebrities and other non-experts in the field of whatever subject happens along whilst ignoring the boring facts and evidence of the case espoused by the ridiculed but intelligent experts.
Hey, stop picking on us left handers!
Well said. I agree absolutely.
Picking on the left-handed now? You’ve finally went too far Stu 😉
Excellent post, just a crying shame that it has to be written 🙁
Fortunately in the majority of cases (sadly not all) judges tend to be quite powerful logicians and regular debunkers of daft thinking.
For that reason I expect you to win this case and certainly hope that you do so given that you are wholly in the right.
listened to this commentry where they all went on about twitter, surely the case was about Kezia repeating her comments in the parliament which was broadcast on tv. not twitter, which is not a public media broadcaster. Even though it seems that everyone & their dog use it.
liked the comment that Wings is read by people who have very deep pockets, must be me cause I can’t find any money in mine,pockets too deep or arms too short? being a very old pensioner on state income funding a blog like Wings means something else is missed, but well worth it to help getting the word out.
I’ve converted quite a few people to read Wings who were unaware of its existance, amazing the difference in opinion after a few reads.
It is almost as if the individual lose their unique identity.
They become part of a greater where reference to one is strangely attributed to all.
I know many gay people. Some are brilliant academics and a few are total numbnuts. Generalisations do not fit all,because they all have different outlooks.
Kezia is like others is trying to establish a blanket approach which is insane.
You can’t be Number one super guy? That’s Hong Kong Phooey, as I recall.
“I’m offended” has to be the laziest, most pathetic barricade the hard of thinking can hide behind. It is a true Father Ted “Down with this sort of thing” catch-all.
The only person with any right to be offended in all of this was in fact a straight (as far as I know) white man with an excruciating oratory style. A criticism presumably Kezia actually agrees with…and quite possibly Anna Burnside does too. Who knows, perhaps even Oliver agrees that public speaking is not his strong suit.
Really disappointed with Stuart Cosgrove. It’s not as if he isn’t a sharp cookie – he should’ve nailed Burnside’s nonsense. This certainly isn’t the first time he’s let her away with it.
Good article Stu, here’s hoping you win the case. Burnes, Cosgrove, Watson on BBC radio talking you down, no surprises there then.
People who think the Earth is flat are a minority
WOW!
Who’d have thought that an article about one topic could delve into the “thinking” of the D.U.P. 😀
Just for the record here Stu, as a long established post op T.S. living with my similarly identified female partner I can say with absolute certainty that Dugdale does NOT speak for either of us!
Good luck with the case when the result eventually becomes known.
This reminds me of the blasphemy law debate going on just before 9/11.
There were arguments being put forward that blasphemy cover should be extended to other religions.
Don’t hear much about that these days!
But at the time I jokingly said that, as an atheist, I was offended every time a religious believer opened their mouth.
And nobody was suggesting extending the law to cover people like me.
Looks like its time to campaign for “protected status” for us non-believers.
Just because folk are ‘entitled to an opinion’, others are equally entitled to ignore or laugh at the opinion if it is not based on sound evidence. The remark is also usually used by people who are not very bright but bright enough to know they are losing a debate. And we are surrounded by such people who swallow any old rubbish they read or see on social media.
And they could rename this programme
Lack Of Thought For The Day
O/T Worth a read on the background of Labour candidate Kate Watson formerly campaign chief of Better Together.
link to theclarionmag.org
Common practice for Labour MSPs like Daniel Johnson etc to delete references to their staff positions working for Labour politicians to make gullible voters think they are not political animals.
It’s always worth returning to this clip for re-calibration.
link to youtube.com
Spot on REV, pretty much as usual – I hear you.
There is a lot of crazy nonsense, and its scary because the people behind it are fanatics.
Narratives of oppression, power relations, discourses – rather than facts and logic, objective truth; victimhood (perceived) as a grace and virtue and truth decided by those with most – its dangerous, really dangerous, and it infests all the arts and social sciences. Bad ideas have bad consequences in the real world, e.g. Patrick Harvie is riven with such pompous sanctimoniousness, because he really believes he has a unique moral authority supplied by his bedroom preferences. Truth is just victimology bingo; support Kez because she is a gay woman being attacked by a white cis-male … er, whut?!
– and of course the kids are brainwashed in this; they just spew slogans, not thinking critically at all, some wake up around 30, others just get worse. The nonsense gradually infects all public life, politics, the courts.
to take one example – the current tranny / 56 genders / alphabet soup LGB … etc -insanity all comes out of “queer theory” which comes out of postmodernism, judith butler being the high priestess of it all, a pupil of derrida
– intellectual snake oil peddlers are easy to tell – if you cannot speak clearly about everyday events, speak about plain things in plain language, then someone is conning you
advanced areas of study require specialised systems, jargon, and often the austere precision of mathematics – phenomena with no link to everyday concepts – whether you having a willy makes you a dude, should be more mundane
– this stuff has been on the go for about 30 years or more, and its priesthood have spread everywhere, and what is more its students, students of students etc are now filled up all the bureaucracies; only now has the general public woken up, but the enemy has its people all in place (- the long march thru the institutions)
… did you misgender me? – no, I just called you a cunt … how dare you, front hole is the preferred term …
shamefully the old skool gave this halfwit a gifford lecture
link to youtube.com
this is the real high end of bullshit, but it trickles down to say, bella, which is about 2 divisions below – the kind of people who write for bella would typically be impressed, and very intimidated, by butlers nonsense
try and make sense of it – you can’t – its stream-of-consciousness from a meth head delivered with the most pompous tonality you will ever hear
and check out the audience faces – its the uncomfortable stress of not having shat for 3 days, and yet terrified to leave
how do they get away with it – and what is the motivation …
– motivation is simple – if you are a skilled spewer of bollocks you can spend your life in ivy league academic loveliness, the oak panelled office, the adoration of minions
– getting away with it is also simple – there is no verification, no validation, no testing criteria – that’s the whole point – its narratives and discourse – it cannot be disproved, and so becomes a matter of faith, a new dogma
finding truth, an objective reality which exists independently of us, via reason and observation is a western idea which starts with the greeks – this other crap instead comes from the talmud and its derivations – sophistry, casuistry … pilpul – the idea that one creates truth via argument, and consequently, if you are clever enough, the truth is whatever you want it to be, especially if it is backed up by power
an intellectual masochist could have transcribed that butler lecture and went thru it line by line – it could easily take 20 hours – only to find the nett result of it is zero substance – it says nothing much about anything at all, with no practical or theoretical utility … – but if you are in that game, and looking for letters of recommendation to get into graduate school … it might make a poor choice of action
being from a science background, you would mostly be immune, but this, crazy mutant theory jumped out of literary criticism will not stop – a black lady professor wrote recently that the concept of time itself, was “white” and no doubt, somewhere, there is a bluestocking attempting to formulate a “feminist mathematics”
I just keep my head down – but I see it everywhere in many of the writers and bloggers on independence – for them scottish independence is a sub-category of identity politics, only valid if it facilitates a whole shopping list of narrow demands … well, it fucking isn’t – but if you insist it is, no one will vote for it – and maybe, that was the point all along. NB “identity politics” destroyed the “old left” completely, you cannot even flirt with it safely.
A Dougdale sympathiser there I would suggest.
Excellent thoughtful article.
Perhaps part of the problem is that ‘experts’, genuine professionals, no longer have high enough status.
Societies operate on trust. If we don’t trust others, particularly those who can influence our lives, then society begins to fray. Most of us trust doctors most of the time – we have to! I think in the past there was greater trust in other professionals. People with knowledge and experience.
Many people would now trust the fact-free partisan opinion of a celeb, pundit, presenter, or politician more than a genuine expert.
Real experts are fallible, their knowledge always has limits and they make mistakes. However, on most subjects their views should be taken into account. Assholes with no knowledge or experience base, but lots of opinions, aren’t reliable sources of advice, ever!
What doesn’t help, of course, is a media which wheels out an individual they portray as an expert, when they are nothing if the kind. They are just a person with views which suit the agenda being promoted! It’s difficult for ordinary folks to spot faux knowledge and vested interest when it’s passed off as impartial.
So, society finds itself bombarded with opinions. The problem is, some are learned and some are vacuous, most folks have difficulty seeing the difference and knowing who deserves their trust.
A transparent attempt to re-frame the legal case, projecting the impression that the Rev. is in the dock. Burnside is grossly abusing the definition of “liberal”, as public policy is illiberal unless supported by scientific evidence. Self-ID requires the rejection of biological science, so is inescapably illiberal policy. Those who defend it are acting illiberally, frankly.
N.B. Human sex is characterised by its’ dysmorphism, which is the single most significant determinant of human health, from the perspective of Biological Anthropology anyway.
ejil.org/pdfs/6/1/1310.pdf
The governance of science: ideology and the future of the open society
link to mheducation.co.uk
RATIONALITY, RESEARCH AND LEVIATHAN: LAW ENFORCEMENT SPONSORED RESEARCH AND THE CRIMINAL PROCESS
link to law.shu.edu
Rationality versus reality: the challenges of evidence-based decision making for health policy makers
link to ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
And this is why I follow you. This is why those ‘right on’ Up their own ass arseholes will never get my support.
Anna Burnside is believing her own hypocricy and quite frankly she and her like are why the papers can go feck themselves.
Burnside’s a “stone-sucking” (to use her previous description of Indy supporters) British nationalist super-Cringer and never misses a chance to get the boot in on Beattie’s programme. To be fair to Stewart he did say how valuable the work done by WoS is in debunking media nonsense. As evidenced above…
Sorry, I know that isn’t what the legal case is apparently about but self-ID is somewhere in Dugdale’s political imagination. She has an MA in Social Policy but appears to be as thick as mince. I doubt very much if she could get her head around feminist-standpoint epistemology.
CameronB Brodie says:
Indeed. However, that’s how BritNats operate. They re-frame everything. Never mind the facts … what matters most is that any discussion has an anti Indy/Scottish bias. And subtlety isn’t their style. It’s transparent to everyone with their eyes and ears open.
Hi galamcennalath and others, many years ago my boss took me aside and told me, beware of those who set themselves or who are set-up as ‘EXPERTS’. It has always stood me in good stead.
If I felt I was of an ‘oppressed minority’ I would find Burnside’s words unacceptably patronising.
And offensive.
OK, lets see if we can edumicate yon Burnside, about what ‘liberal’ “open society” might look like.
Science, Coloniality, and “the Great Rationality Divide”
link to link.springer.com
Law and Rationality : A Historiographical Survey of the Understanding of Motivation and Human Agency in Early Legal Anthropology
link to cliothemis.com
Popper, Hayek and the Open Society
link to mobt3ath.com
Nationality in the open society: Popper versus Hayes and Kohn
link to onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Nice One Stu,
I think it’s safe to say you are now in the same category as the SNP, e.g You could find the cure for cancer and the BritNat media would accuse you of causing unemployment in the Health Sector.
Anna Burnside (of the Daily Record ) seems to think that the nationalist movement are watching in absolute horror and distancing themselves.
Shouldn’t she have exempted herself since her employer is supporting Dugdale financially as far as I am aware.
Dear Anna please don’t think that you speak on behalf of your so called nationalist movement in any shape or form.
@Sinky
Thanks for the link to the story about Labour candidate Kate Watson.
I can only say that I’m surprised that her links to Better Together and the 77th Brigade have only just surfaced today in the Herald even though that article is from June last year.
Another cuckoo in the Labour in Scotland nest?
Confused 3.11pm sometimes ( heh heh ) you can be quite controversial in your opinions and phrasing but you inevitably expose the faux academic exclusionary exceptionalist bovine excrement that it attempts to marginalise thought and action
I must admit I am sick of being constantly on guard in case I offend or other anyone , I am constantly confused at the terminology (which is ever changing ) that one has to use in order not to be labelled ( take your pick ) , when talking to people what is the correct address , is it people of colour , or black people , if black people surely brown people could say they are offended , I agree that the n word is totally unacceptable due to it’s denigrating connotations but why is it acceptable for rappers and the like to use it
I am extremely concerned at the possible devastating effect that Nicola and the SNP’S stance on the gender issue will have on the female independence vote , the female members of my family are rightly outraged that THEY are being marginalised
I watched debate night yesterday and brewers droop today , and marra and mcguire were going on about the twattersphere bullying and harassment , my answer to that would be if liebour and tory politicians alongside the msm and bbc would stop their deliberate lies then people would have no reason to confront them
Stu it is the BBC you are listening to
They will never ever ever even if the court finds in your favour ever say you were in the right. You are a nationalist and eternally bad.
Anybody that would support your case would never be allowed on the BBC or near a microphone. It would not be allowed.
Patent horseshit expertly called out. Despite being gay I abhor the thought that by dint of her sexuality, Kezia Dugdale purports to be the arbiter of what’s homophobic. She no more speaks for me than Theresa May does.
I thought the original joke on Twitter was a hoot. Dugdale labelling it as homophobic merely proved yet again that irony is not a ferric adjective. The only demonstrable homophobe in the whole saga was Mundell Snr who, prior to him deeming the climate safe enough to come out, voted against, abstained or absented himself from every vote on gay equality while the coward cowered in the closet.
OK, this is most definitely on topic and is yet another CORE subject. Subsequently, I’m looking forward to see whether the judge tempers his likely propensity to favour a utilitarian interpretation of the law. It’s a cultural thing.
link to core.ac.uk
You were traduced in a newspaper and in the Scottish Parliament as anyone who even read a little bit about the case would realise; so basically Anna Burnside appears to believe that if something derogatory is said in either of these scenarios, the person thus ‘accused’ should just accept it. Och, I give up!
Great post. I agree that some may find that you take getting used to, some find you a dick, etc., but you are not looking for an invite to dinner; you are posting articles online. Some very good articles, it must be said.
Between you and Krazier Dugsbawz, she probably comes out more favourably, personality wise, BUT she does have the minor flaw of being one of the greatest speakers of pish of our time.
As you stated, someone CLAIMING to be offended is not enough to deem something offensive. There are people who would have been offended at seeing my black father and white Mother in public together. EVIDENCE has to be studied to show if, in fact, it WAS offensive, and TBH, to WHOM.
Personally, I saw the joke as an offensive one, BUT, nothing about it appeared to be aimed at homosexuals. Indeed, you were actively ENCOURAGING Mundell Sr’s embracing of this more fully. The entire point of the joke being…as I saw it, that this would have lead to the lack of conception on the part of Mundell Jr. I took that as being a subtle way of saying “It would be prefereable if he had never been born.”
Now, I don’t know WHY this would be the case, other than Jr comes across as as big a dick as his father, and upholds policies abhorrent to most decent humans. That doesn’t make it specifically offensive to one particular group, other than those with that father and that name. I ran out of green crayons trying to make my Venn diagram show loads of offended people. It didnae work.
All the best with the case, in part, because I totally sympathise with your POV, but also to hit back at the hypocrisy of folk like her who are happy to ignore when her counterpart from the other Tories, (the Blue Tory Group), cracked a joke in public about lesbains, and nothing was said. (A bit hazy, but I am fairly sure that wasn’t too far in the past)
Everybody famously doesn’t know who Stu Campbell famously is but they all know they don’t like him
You’re a very bad person who’s a well known Blogger that isn’t well known and not many people read, who everybody knows you made a joke that nobody really knows much about because not many people know who you are even though you have a wide and deep support within the independence movement who widely read your debunking website WOS
It must be a burden to bear to be as famous as you apparently aren’t Stu
Stuart Cosgrove maintaining his BBC job by being diplomatic
Anna Burnside confirming that thinking and speaking simoultaneously is far too difficult for her when she has only one sentence she really wants to say and can’t wait to say it so makes a blurbling noise until she gets those important words from her sponsor out there
John Beattie nice but dim with obviously no first hand knowledge whatsoever of what he’s talking about except what he read by somebody else, but that’s todays programme so let’s fill up the time
And the final analysis, they changed the bloody subject in order to put that bad Stuart Campbell man on trial for daring to object to a MSP using the very media they’re using, and the Scottish parliament to malign his name
If anybody on the planet can’t work out that this is an example of how the *legitimate* media demonise the NOT legitimate media then Stuart Campbell’s original joke (which was not even aimed at grievance Dugdale) applies to them too
Damn you, you’re guilty Campbell and that’s all the BBC there is to it, and don’t ever speak again because you’re definitely bad and by implication so am I because I read your bad words and am taken in and transmogrified by your bad logicalness
Thank you for an excellent and succinct dismantling of Burnside’s statement.
This whole debate is taking me back almost thirty years, so apologies if my approach appears a bit haphazard. My Moral Philosophy and Legal Theory are a bit rusty like.
Morality Has No Place in the Law
link to patheos.com
Causation in Legal and Moral Reasoning
web.mit.edu/tger/www/papers/Causation%20in%20legal%20and%20moral%20reasoning,%20Lagnado,%20Gerstenberg,%202017.pdf
Good Sense, Art, and Morality in Hume’s ‘Of the Standard of Taste’
link to euppublishing.com
Golden Rule Reasoning, Moral Judgment, and Law
link to scholarship.law.nd.edu
Assuming this type of observation is construed as nit picking rather than unpicking, the wider context is sufficiently serious that the stray boot that appeared to sneak in under the handbags at 7m 28s might be worth a request for substantiation and further clarification.
Right !!!
I am now officially offended by Scotland NOT being independent.
I now demand my position of offence be removed by the only way possibly acceptable.
Absolute Agreement that Scotland is independent.
Well, that was easy !!!
Anna Burnside is remarkably inarticulate and ill informed. For a journalist and radio “personality” you would think that would be something of a career hurdle. But not in BBC Scotland. Her humming and hawing and searching for the mot juste is epic.
Their attempt to divert criticism from the newspaper which printed the defamatory remarks, which happens to be Anna Burnside’s platform, and shift it onto the internet was also deeply offensive.
At least, I am offended. Perhaps Anna will reflect on that and apologise next episode. If she needs it explained to her or unpicked then I am happy to patronisingly do that.
It was bad enough listening to that the first time round.
Of course, none of it would have happened – Dugdale’s indignant article, court case and all – if Dugdale had in the first instance either learned to read accurately, or found someone to explain the long words to her. Burnside’s “interpretation” goes in the same smelly bin as Dugdale’s article; just another bit of opportunist, dishonest independence-bashing.
One of the speakers on that excerpt (I can’t be bothered to listen to it again) referred to Stuart’s many supporters & indy supporters as fleeing from Wings over Scotland the site & WingsScotland (Twitter feed). Will someone explain to me how this comment be a FACT. Twitter records 59,734 followers today at the top of his account.
Where have these followers disappeared to? Have they unfollowed Stu? If that was the case then twitter would have reduced the total long before now. In actual fact, that total has been increasing steadily from 54k since Stuart exposed the Green Hand Gang otherwise know as Scotland in Union writing identical letters to the unionist press (using green ink) during 2018.
Inserting unnecessary lies such as this just tells me that the speaker can’t be trusted with the truth. Whether it was said by broadcaster or lawyer it matters not-the evidence is attached to this column. We know that Stuart Campbell doesn’t lie. We can’t say the same for the two male speakers but clearly we have a right to expect the truth from both so called professionals. Not a good idea to over-egg the pudding!
As a former police officer my evidence above is in that website recording, the Twitter records & website analytics transparently available to all of us.
Stuart is known for his honesty but I can’t say the same for Cosgrove/Burnside. That comment was made to add more damage to Stuart’s reputation thus bolstering support for Dugdale’s credibility. The numbers show it didn’t work.
I think this is one of those situations where all publicity is good publicity.
The Brits really don’t like it when someone snarls back at them and they can’t help but publicise it when someone does. Nice of them.I
Only the Brit curtain twitchers will be genuinely offended.
All those words running ultimately to a meaningless void….but it’s worth it to just hear the sound of your gorgeous voice….God the radio world is not only a monopoly but is a perfect example of life’s unfairness.
Rev when you win the case against Dugdale , why dont you go for the jugular the Daily Record . Kezia tried to destroy your reputation for political reasons & used her privileged position as a MSP to further accuse you of being a homophobe .
To test the true nature of Rev Stu’s character we need a fundraiser. Preferably one with a specific pro Indy project. Then we’ll be able to judge how his popularity is these days.
Sky high among grassroots Yessers, would be my prediction!
I think we, Scotland should apply for ‘protected minority’ status given that England, a much larger ‘majority’ polity than us is determined to ignore our vote to remain in the EU, thereby bringing harm and misery to the people in this country. I am deeply offended by this.
And as I now speak for all of Scotland as the only arbiter of what is a deeply insulting situation that Scotland finds itself ‘my views and ‘my’ feelings should now be regarded as the ‘only’ reason for us to become an independent country.
Am I getting the hang of this yet?
Well, this page now has 50+ comments so I guess it’s safe to post something slightly(?) off topic.
Today, I have been looking at videos featuring the events of 19/09/14 in George Square. As you do, I’ve been looking at some of the related links at the rhs.
This one turned up a wee whiley ago.
link to youtube.com
It dates from October 2016 and is published by Deutsche Welle. Don’t worry – it’s in English, hosted by Brent Goff.
(He’s one of Deutsche Welle’s best known faces. Born in 1972, the American journalist has been presenting DW-TV’s Journal for many years and recently began hosting the station’s new chat show, Agenda.)
The interview features James Dorman (SNP) and Prof Ian Begg of the LSE. I found it interesting, looking at it through “hindsight” glasses.
SHAZBOT!
JAMES DORNAN!
Apart from the facts that Scotland is an older nation than England and the Yoonyawn is allegedly a union of two equal partners, residents of Scotland could definitely be considered a cultural minority within Britain.
Minorities, Peoples and Self-Determination
link to brill.com
National Self-Determination and Ethnic Minorities
link to repository.law.umich.edu
Ethnicity, Ethnic Minority and Self-Determination: An Examination of Conceptual Linkage
link to researchgate.net
Towards a General Comment on Self-determination and Autonomy
link to ohchr.org
Fortunately Rev, the case is being judged calmly, carefully and soberly by a respected legal professional. Not by some twatterati knobs with an axe to grind.
And as such I would hope the result to be in your favour.
Another of these videos that appear at the rhs of YouTube pages.
This one was published by “The Economist”, and looked at the situation in East Renfrewshire (Jim Murphy’s seat), a week before the 2015 GE.
“Why Labour is losing Scotland to the Scottish National Party”
link to youtube.com
Kezia Dugdale was the one providing the defence of course as the Rev points out he was the pursuer. Anna Burnside conveniently neglects this obvious fact and implies that that Rev was there in court as the defender.
A big part of Dugdale defence is that in the Record article she never specifically said that Rev Stu Campbell was a homophobe, she argues that it was a homophobic tweet that she wrote about.
However the headline to her article in the Record was:
“Twitter tirade highlights divisions”
Then in the article itself the accusation of a “tirade” was repeated in her own words. “But the Twitter tirade against David Mundell and his son Oliver is sadly symptomatic of our divided politics.”
Of course there was no “tirade” of tweets aimed at David and Oliver Mundell, there was just the one tweet that the Rev wrote as a joke.
Accusing the Rev of a tirade of tweets against the Mundells might not be seen as being the same as saying directly in the article that the Rev is a homophobe. However she did have this to add:
“No elected member of any party should be endorsing someone who spouts hatred and homophobia towards others.”
We can all make our own mind up as to what it was the article implied to your average reader.
If you are interested in other opinions, then
this is an interesting read.
link to opendemocracy.net
Written in a personal capacity by Peter Obourne (Yep, Daily Mail, Tory, Brexiteer etc.)
Stewart Campbell – Wings over Scotland.
Sharp as a tack.
Anna Burnside – Daily Record.
Sharp as Blu Tack.
I was wondering when this would be pulled up when I was listening to this show waiting to pick up the kids from school last Friday, I did like how Stuart Cossgrove said you rightly ripped the MSM to shreds , but the two woman, I need to try and get some of the drugs they are on because they are living in cloud cuckoo land
@cearc
I read that earlier, agree that it’s well worth reading. A very very severe case of “buyers remorse” from a Tory supporting leave voter and journalist.
British academia is jam packed with British nationalist who have still to adopt a postmodern approach to practice and life. A lot of their opinion is mince because it incorporates “positivist” logic and assumptions from old-skool science. Economists are particularly vulnerable to such cultural bias and need to ensure their methodology is robust, from a Critical Realist perspective.
For example, I bet Prof. Beg wasn’t taking account of the “semiotic theory of space and place” or how economic growth is culturally driven. Independence can be expected to generate new practices and procedures, i.e. the production of new culture and so, subsequently, stimulate economic growth. It isn’t possible to predict the future though the theorists have a pretty tight line on how to define reality and make useful forecasts. Evidently, this science was abandoned in making the decision to Brexit. Subsequently, Brexit can not escape the charge of being illiberal.
Excellent article Stuart. I share many of your concerns.
K. Dugdale and A. Burnside appear to believe they are inherently more moral, innocent or trustworthy than those who dare to challenge, criticise or satirise, in any way, shape or form. I find this creepy and dangerous.
A quote from an interesting and relevant article by Meghan Daum: #MeToo will not survive unless we recognise Toxic Femininity.
“ In a free society, everyone, regardless of gender, or any other identification, is free to be a manipulative, narcissistic, emotionally destructive asshole”
OK, so if we want to make sure law is rational rather than moral, how about a bit of Cognitive science?
What makes us laugh? It’s serious research…
link to ox.ac.uk
On the cognitive aspects of the joke
link to sciencedirect.com
It’s No Laughing Matter: Investigating the Cognitive Mechanism Underlying Humor
link to neurosciencenews.com
Cognitive Processes in Humor Appreciation
link to researchgate.net
Here’s JR Lauren’s story:
link to youtube.com
To be offended is a personal CHOICE
I think the Rev Stu has been a low level Rev for far too long. Therefore I promote him to Canon where he can continue to fire blanks.
Mad Unionist
Projection indicates an inner insecurity. Do you not have any worthwhile comment? What is you purpose other than to irritate and cause division?
Hamish100 says:
7 April, 2019 at 3:51 pm
Mad Unionist says:
7 April, 2019 at 11:28 am
stu mac. The reason the CofS existed is because it is and was anti Catholic. Thus the name Protestants. If they had not been anti Catholic then they would likely be still Catholic. So what is wrong with being anti Catholic or anti any other religion?
You write so much nonsense I cannot believe anyone can be so ignorant on so many things. Read up on the Nicene creed including one Holy catholic and apostolic church. Whit!! the Cof S is Kaflic!!
Mad and Bad Unionist– you are mixing up your Canon’s from you Priests and your Rev’s!!
I am AMAZED at the level of ignorance displayed by Yes supporters on the page linked to below.
Where have they been for the last 5 years?
If you have access to Facebook, you really want to have a skeck at this. This ignorance and misunderstanding is what we’re up against.
link to facebook.com
In case you can’t access, what is being complained about, it is Proff John Robertson’s use of a “Better Together” graphic to illustrate a current “good news” story about Scotland.
link to thoughtcontrolscotland.com
link to opendemocracy.net
This article by Peter Oborne is actually a very mixed bag as the comments below the line, though not exhaustive, make very clear.
Time for some Cognitive science of homophobia and stuff? Kind of applies to Brexit, as well, seeing as how HMG has a ‘liberal’ interpretation of the rule-of-law (see Brexit)
Selected Publications on Sexual Prejudice and Homophobia
link to psychology.ucdavis.edu
Intentional Harms Are Worse, Even When They’re Not
link to ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Principles of risk imposition and the priority of avoiding harm
link to journals.openedition.org
Not for nothing did I coin the phrase ‘Dead Tree Scrolls’.
Burnside uses a version of it during her quite astonishing contribution here.
It was a play on ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’. ancient manuscripts which crumbled to dust when exposed to the harsh light of day.
That’s Scotland’s Newspaper Industry.
Unrelenting mince like this broadcast.
That Old Boys and Girls Club, Scotland’s compliant Anglo Media are squealing like stuffed pigs because the new method of communication, the Ethernet, is open to all, not just the cosy wee secret club appointed by the Iron Heel Oligarchy to control what the masses learn, and think.
Burnside writes for a rag that I wouldn’t wipe yours with, and Cosgrove, well, what prompted him to repeat the lie that WoS was merely a Mainstream Media ‘monitor’, and not as is the case, one of the leading sources of journalism and truth in the new medium.
Cosgrove gets offended, so we are all to shut the feck up?
Campbell rips the erse out of politicians, media luvvies, and institutions on a daily basis, based on good solid fact based research.
Our MSM ‘journalists’ and broadcasters are the Lamplighters of literature, vainly trying to defend their ancient but pointless outdated irrelevant black art.
Brewer could not coax a Red Blue or Yellow Yoon Tory out of hiding today on his Sunday Brunch, 5 days before Scotland is expected to meekly leave the EU, like refugees herded on to cattle trucks and sent to concentration camps.
Aye, right?
Cowards ashamed to face the people of Scotland.
Instead we get Old Has-Beens ‘Dame’ Annie McGuire and Peter Duncan the Blue Tory from the dimmest and most distant past who were wheeled on to give us the Media’s opinion on what we should all be thinking and doing.
More of my licence money going in juicy wee fees to Brit Nat also-rans.
And Stuart Cosgrove is moaning about bad manners.
Your tea’s up.
Perhaps there will be work writing wee poems for Valentine and Get Well Soon Cards.
Just saw a BBC article about the effect Brexit has on the case for Indy. A load of waffle. Not worth linking to.
However, occurred to me that all the poor quality largely unsubstantiated stories which infest msm websites are fairly easily generated. Anyone with reasonable levels of literacy could knock them up at a rate of several per hour! A quick google search, a stock pic or two, a few details from the real world, a quote from a partisan player, a large dose of agenda, and wads of waffle. Ezzy pezzy. Most commenters on here could do it!
Contrast that with the real journalism the Rev Stu delivers. Research, facts, analysis, conclusions.
@Brian Doonthetoon
It looks like the post you linked to on Faceboak has been removed.
Anna Burnside & Co are strident Unionists. Their key message is to undermine Wings via attacking Stu.
Many things offend me but the day to day annoyances are nothing compared with the offence of watching people suffering because another country is deciding how Scotland is shaped and managed.
Someone on buckfast swearing like a trooper are minor league in comparison to Tories,DUP and UKippers destroying people’s lives. In short it comes down to perspective and an Old Etonian bastard is still a bastard. I may have just offended some Etonians but I did limit my description to those who are bastards…I’m sure not all are…but on the evidence so far!!!
CamerB Brodie. Have you made any worthwhile comment?
what do you mean, the Earth isnt flat?!
That’s it……I’m voting Tory!
A lot of wisdom in this post, Stuart! I commented in the past that I thought your comment was homophobic, but I’ve since come to be concerned about the notion of “phobic”. Phobia is a personal, psycho-emotional condition. There are people who have a principled view that certain things are wrong or sinful. The Roman Catholic Church is an example; perhaps not a very good example because of all the sexual abuse of boys by priests that has been exposed. Even so, the failure of the priests does not require one to believe that the theological-moral view of that denomination is “phobic”.
I consider myself neither a conservative nor a liberal. I’m a Christian (Protestant but prefer the term Reformational because the Reformation is not finished) and I consider myself to be required to be critically appreciative and critical of both conservative and liberal particular views held by both camps. Why does valuing all human life, including the life of humans not yet born while supporting rights of gay persons in society make one conservative or liberal? Why does understanding and empathising with the aspirations of transgender persons who long for acceptance of their psychological alienation from the gender of their birth and acceptance of an alternative gender, while believing that we need the category of sex based largely on chromosomes and physical characteristics, make one a conservative or a liberal? Why do we have camps anyway?
Which Earth are we talking about?
Hi Thepnr.
I phoned Ronnie about it as he’s a moderator for that Facebook page (The Spider Principle). He deleted it. It wasn’t a problem with the original post – the problem was with the level of ignorance by people btl.
They just didn’t get that Prof Robertson had used a “Better Together” graphic to contrast with what is actually happening NOW.
People were reacting to the “Better Together” graphic, instead of reading the article.
Prof Robertson even had under the graphic,
“Remember this old joke?”
@William Habib Steele
If you read your own post carefully you will discover that you answered your own question.
Same old push from the BBC prostitites peddling their masters line.
Haw Haws the lot of them. My God, they even protect paedophiles .
That’s the good old Beeb
Hi Mad Unionist at 7:46 pm.
You typed,
“CamerB Brodie. Have you made any worthwhile comment?”
Jeethuss Kryst! You’re one to type about the pertinence of your input!
Hamish100 says:
7 April, 2019 at 7:08 pm
Hamish100 says:
7 April, 2019 at 3:51 pm
Mad Unionist says:
7 April, 2019 at 11:28 am
stu mac. The reason the CofS existed is because it is and was anti Catholic. “”
……….
The Reformation in Scotland in the 16th Century was one of the least rancorous of any of the Reformation movements in Europe with the exception of Sweden. See T C Smout, History of the Scottish people, Vol I.
Monks were allowed to remain in several monasteries on the condition that they did not say mass. As late as 1590s some monasteries still had monks in residence.
@Brian Doonthetoon
Thanks for the explanation. For sure there are many on the Yes side whose views are not as enlightened as they should be but are still likely to be better than many others who have been taken in by purely the MSM narrative.
We can never defeat the large amount of ignorance due to propaganda but can play our part in educating those closest to us using word of mouth or facebook or other social media.
As far as I’m concerned, the Rev. made a joke that was directed at excluding David Mundell because of his poor capacity for public speaking. The fact that this act of exclusion was to be enabled through Mundell Snr. embracing his homosexuality earlier than he did, suggests there is something other than reason behind Ms. Dugdale abusing her position in the Scottish parliament.
Some Notes on Allan, The Sovereignty of Law
link to administrativelawmatters.com
Public Legal Reason
scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1869&context=facpub
Public reason and multi-layered justice
link to tandfonline.com
Feminism and public health ethics
link to ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
CameronB Brodie and Mr Peffers, Just keep doing what your doing.
When you get singled out for abuse, YOU ARE WINNING.
Simples.
For the “record” Anna Burnside is a very vocal supporter of Scottish independence.
I believe Anna Burnside and co’s incoherent ramblings highlighted exactly what the case was fundamentally about because it illustrated their innate prejudice, just like Kez.
They cannot separate their personal dislike for the Rev or his politics from what the case is about. they have come to the case with half an idea of what it is about and a whole lot of baggage from the Indyref onwards. Were they to have the case put to them hypothetically without knowing the personalities involved, I believe their take would be very different. Hence they tie themselves in knots trying to make the case fit their personal views – nice Labour Kez versus bad Nat Stu.
Of course, it would help if they actually bothered to know who was suing who.
For all the excess of busy language used on the radio programme, in the end they are just supporting Kezia because she is a British Nationalist.
That’s it in a nutshell.
@Dave McEwan Hill
Just seen your comment on Anna Burnside, that does surprise me. The personal dislike must run very deep indeed. I thought Cosgrove was an Indy supporter as well?
Looks like the two main leadery Numpties at Westminster can’t manage to pin blame on each other for Brexit so Mrs May says it won’t happen at all in the hope of Tory supporters blaming Labour for that, but I have an idea there’s more to it than they want to admit, neither of the two of them are prepared to risk Scotland ending the Union for all the economic reasons we all know and all the odds are in favour of Scotland doing just that leaving whoever’s in charge after a GE responsible for the break up
The only asset the UK has is Scotland and if we go so does our oil our gas our fish our whisky our Gin our renewable energy and all England has left are financial services which are already leaving as we speak and they’re mobile so can go where and when they choose, whereas oil and gas and land doesn’t go anywhere
Some people might say no Brexit’s a good thing, and in some ways it is but others will say there’s no point in Independence if that’s the case, I would suggest there’s exactly the same or even more need for Independence in that scenario, because knowing and realising Scotlands assets are the only thing holding the Union together will spur the extreme right wing of the Tories on to make sure they remove all rights to these things and powers from Scotland to ever bring about Independence ever again, and if Labour are in charge at Westminster they’ll do the same
Then either red or blue Tories will do Brexit without any talk or negotiation of deals
This is not the time to relax the shoulders this is the time to plunge a sword deep into the heart of Westminster before they rally and do it to us
Coz they will! even if they promise they *reasonably* won’t
Dave McEwan Hill says:
7 April, 2019 at 8:22 pm
For the “record” Anna Burnside is a very vocal supporter of Scottish independence.
Good, but that doesn’t add strength to her argument.
@ SilverDarling says:
7 April, 2019 at 8:47 pm
@Dave McEwan Hill
Just seen your comment on Anna Burnside, that does surprise me. The personal dislike must run very deep indeed. I thought Cosgrove was an Indy supporter as well
Who he supports is neither here nor there. I thought he was a smart guy who normally pointed out rubbish. Seems I was wrong and he falls in line with the rubbish to keep his job.
I take offence at your saying not all left handed people are always correct. . Of course we are you idiot. Also, straight white men can be a protected group… They can be fat, they can be blind or deaf etc. The only ones that aren’t protected are the left handed adonisis such as myself.
I am a bit concerned that this push for a second EU referendum has a very good chance of going ahead now and will stop Brexit and more importantly support for our second referendum. It doesn’t seem to be a good idea to support the second EU referendum from a Scottish point of view.
SilverDarling @ 20:47,
There’s likely multiple dimensions happening here. The paper journos are all to some extent jealous of the “indie” internet upstarts and their freedom, whereas they themselves are obliged to write to some kind of house agenda. Likewise, to keep appearing on the Beeb, you have to conform to the broadcaster’s house agenda, otherwise you don’t get invited back.
Some core media commentators like Paul Kavanagh have evidently never been invited at all, whereas Cat Boyd and Angela Haggerty (remember them? =grin=) were regular “indy mascots” because they were minority radical lefties and could be relied upon to carp about the mainstream SNP.
If Anna Burnside is a very vocal supporter of Independence it must only be audible in her house, because it’s the complete opposite every time she’s on TV or radio with her lip curling when she does it
Unless both my eyes and ears are extremely faulty and the Anna Burnside I’m looking at is a doppleganger, in which case she should sue the TV and radio people
Anyone expecting totally neutral and unbiased comments from media personalities/journalists are “aving a larf”.
Anna Burnside is a Record columnist as was Kezia Dugdale at the time the article in question was written.
The Daily Record is now supporting her defence after the Labour party withdrew support. It would seem likely that her opinion of Wings over Scotland and the Rev might be “coloured” by her personal involvement with the parties opposed to Wings.
There are plenty that support Independence but can’t stand Wings, much of that in my view is simply jealousy. Just supporting Independence doesn’t make you any more likely for me to think better of you for doing so. It takes a bit more than that.
Once again we hear slack journos who can’t accurately comment on what actually happened. I wish I could believe the comment about deep pockets, too.
Briandoonthetoon. 8.00pm. Has your CameronB Brodie ever made any difference to the lives of the Scottish people?. The man is a windbag who offers nothing to improve the conditions of the poorer in Scottish society and yet he posts links incessantly with crap from the past. Some policies from the blawhard instead of links could be helpful.
Can or does Scots Law use precedent from English/other Law in its findings,
i noticed the speaker used precedent from the English parliament to rule against a third MV in the UK parliament,
i`m not against his findigs but against the presumtion that the Englsh parliament became the UK parliament.
Gary45%
I could literally do this all night. 😉
link to journals.sagepub.com
Moral Satisficing: Rethinking Moral Behavior as Bounded
Rationality
link to onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Rationality and bounded rationality: you can’t have one without the other
link to tandfonline.com
Bounded Rationality, Behavioral Economics, and the Law
link to tandfonline.com
What have you done for the Scottish people?? You don’t give a shit for the Scottish people?
FOR THE RECORD IT IS INCREASINGLY DIFFICULT TO POST LINKS FROM THE FUTURE!!! Mind you Brexit means Brexit …
windbag
[wind-bag]
1 Informal. an empty, voluble, pretentious talker.
the bag of a bagpipe.
2 Mad Unionist
😉
“Just seen your comment on Anna Burnside, that does surprise me. The personal dislike must run very deep indeed. I thought Cosgrove was an Indy supporter as well?”
Snobs?
Here is a BBC link from a couple of hours ago by
Douglas Fraser:-
link to bbc.co.uk
Hilariously Douglas says, ” … And the man who led a review of the economic case says the Brexit experience means people demand honesty, detail and truth-telling.”
Well he sure as hell isn’t going to get that from either Douglas Fraser or the BBC.
Article from the National 7 Hours ago:-
link to google.com
Mad Unionist
Do you know me in person? Have you been trained to become a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute? Have you read anything I’ve posted, as education is the surest means to emancipation.
Hamish 100. I am a real Scot and do not live in Bath enjoying the sunshine and tiffin. It is fine to move away but you should embrace your local community and not bump yer gums about your former community. Should I stay or should I go! The Clash.
The BBC are propaganda central for Westminster.
The Record home of the hideous Con trick the Vow.
Due to their long term lies and deception people are breaking away
From them and wouldn’t believe the time and date either party would propose.
Congrove I believe is an Indy supporter but maybe giving the Rev’s Twitter a kick
To keep the Unionist on side with him.
You do walk the world’s most dangerous tight rope when you comment on there.
With the dark money behind them monitoring every word anyone would make some
Comments that can be manipulated against them.
Please, please be careful in there Rev as we are so close now
and you play so vital a part in the liberation of Scotland.
Worth reading.
link to weegingerdug.wordpress.com
CameronB.Brodie. You would know if I knew you in person as you would know me. I was just a labourer in the scheme of planning and building. I would not be replying if I had not read anything. I was emancipated the day I was born because I had Unionist parents.
Mad Unionist
I meant the edumicational material I’m linking to, obvs.
@ Dr Jim 9.12 pm
Or she playing the Lorraine Kelly “persona” card?
Mad Unionist is a real Scot everyone.
Hoorah!
Just doesn’t believe in Scottish People governing themselves. Prefers people like Johnston, Rees-Mogg, May, Corbyn and co should tell us if we should go to war or waste billions on nuclear weapons. Foodbanks are a necessity in Mad john bull dogs world.
pssst I’ve never been to Bath
WGD:- ‘The time to decide is coming.’
link to weegingerdug.wordpress.com
OT we seem to be Pontius Piloting over Libya , referring to the initial mess as ‘civil war’ with no mention of Cameron and Sarkozy and their ‘ war win’ and the ‘Libyan loss’.
Gordon Ross back again and still talking rubbish!
He definitely needs a few history lessons. He just doesn’t get the basic facts and is still confused about countries and Kingdoms.
He has, more or less, got the idea but not that the United Kingdom is exactly that – a kingdom and not a country. It says so in the title United Kingdom and there are only two kingdoms in the United Kingdom but four countries and three of them in the Kingdom of England.
He is also confused about overseas assets as factually the Kingdom of England and its colonies and overseas territories that belonged to The Kingdom of England when it signed the treaty belong to England and leave with England when the Union ends because they are parts of the Kingdom of England.
He also is way off mark on the Bank of England it was a private company until 1946 and it was the United Kingdom, not the Kingdom of England, that nationalised it so it is partly the Scottish Kingdom’s and never did belong to England.
Please someone tell him he is way off the mark. There is more than enough confusion without filling YouTube up with even more.
@Hamish 100,
Real Scot?. No he’s a Brit. House servant really. Doggedly determined to think he matters to the Union he supports.
If only he really knew.
@Mad Unionist
“I was just a labourer”
There is the Scottish cringe writ large, you need to get out more Mr Mad as there’s a whole wide world out there and you have been left on the doorstep willing to feed on the scraps thrown your way from the Etonians like Cameron, Johnson and Ress-Mogg.
You’re a fucking loser pal and I feel sorry for you and all those that are like you. You need a boot to lick or a figure to tug a forelock to. You’re a born loser and it is written large in every post you have made here. You’re mad alright.
mad dog has been out in the midday sun too long looking for his tiffin!! lol
The ideologically driven attempt to replace “sex” with “gender-ID”, should be viewed as an attack on moral and legal reason, as well as on the fabric of public health and social cohesion.
Bounded Rationality and Political Science: Leasons from Public Administration and Public Policy
link to pdfs.semanticscholar.org
Policy Concepts in 1000 Words: Bounded Rationality and Incrementalism
link to paulcairney.wordpress.com
Rationality and Reason in Administrative Law – Would a Roll of the Dice be Just as Good?
link to fedcourt.gov.au
HEURISTICS AND PUBLIC POLICY: DECISION MAKING UNDER
BOUNDED RATIONALITY
law.harvard.edu/programs/olin_center/papers/pdf/Sunstein_963.pdf
Thepnr. Did you steal those dungarees from a dead labourer? Do they have a wee pocket on the leg for a fold up three foot rule or is it a EU metre Rule for Scotland.
“I was just a labourer”
And I suffer from a structural learning difficulty and did the second half of my degree shortly after sustaining a serious brain injury. It’s amazing what you can find inside yourself if you can be bothered to look. It’s amazing what you can achieve if you give yourself a chance.
Bdtt 7.56 thanks for the demotion tae Moderator am ah Administrator ya ya h dont want tae faw oot wie u or ah wid caw U names lol abusive names lol
Hi Mad Unionist at 9:23 pm.
You typed,
“Briandoonthetoon. 8.00pm. Has your CameronB Brodie ever made any difference to the lives of the Scottish people?. The man is a windbag who offers nothing to improve the conditions of the poorer in Scottish society and yet he posts links incessantly with crap from the past. Some policies from the blawhard instead of links could be helpful.”
How often btl on here, have you actually offered an opinion that could be construed as something that could improve the situation of Scots?
No, I didn’t think so.
Just watched “Line of Duty” and remembering Martin Compston opening the YES Forward Shop in Dunoon
CameronB Brodie. You are lucky to know what a degree is. I will Google it. When you are grafting for a living sleep is important, petty nationalism is not. Your disabilities are no excuse for forming a new Scottish elite class who will like most elites ignore the untermecht.
I suppose it just boils down to WoS being the wrong sort of Indy commentator, just like the @official’ Yes campaign nonsense, the Bella snark and so it goes on. Elitism and snobbery come into it at every level, language, background and ‘just not one of us’.
It would be funny if the implications for WoS weren’t so serious.
@Mad Unionist
That is a 19th century painting of a shipwright in dungarees.
I served my time as a shipwright before the shipyard I worked in closed it’s doors in 1980 and I was made redundant along with 1000 other workers. That icon represents how I still feel.
So you tell me. What is it you LOVE about the “Union”?
What have they done for the labourers of Scotland or England for that matter? I don’t think your mad at all by the way, I just think you’re another fucking useful idiot that’s been conned by a sense of companionship or other such shite to some religious order that you most likely don’t care about and never have done.
Your a useful fool and the rest of Scotland with their heads screwed on are laughing at the stet of the lot of you. Are you going to the AOUB march on Saturday 5th May?
Should be a big one or might you have a bigger one? LOLOLOL
I’m not expecting folk to consume everything I’m posting and I’d be insulted if everyone automatically understood everything, frankly. I guarantee folk will have a different perspective on life, if all they do is read some abstracts, or brief passages. You might need a dictionary and it might not make much sense, but you will have just created new neural nodes that will connect new paths to new ways of thinking and seeing the world. And my job will have been accomplished. 😉
4th May, Thepnr.
See you at Glasgow Green?
@Mad Unionist
You really aught not to say too much about peoples disability.
CameronB Brodie’s brain injury was caused by being wounded in Iraq after being shot in the head, you know fuck all about the people who post on Wings and yet have no compulsion about coming on here and telling Independence supporters what they aught to think.
See when YOU get your head right maybe, just maybe you’ll get on the side of the good guys and not the fucking auld Etonians.
@Brian Doonthetoon
Yes sorry, Saturday 4th MAY the AUOB march in Glasgow, supporters of Independence will be there in their thousands as usual. The announcement of the next step towards Independence is getting close now and we need to keep up the viability so do your best to make it along.
It will be another happy, joyous and uplifting occasion 🙂
Thepnr. I did not say much about a disability but if it is mentioned then I can respond. I did not mention it initially.
Mad Unionist
Do you think you’re the only one who’s had it tight?
@CBB
I must admit some of it goes way over my head but I am pleasantly surprised how accessible some of the stuff is and I like the way you present it so thanks for that.
We all need to be challenged in our thinking and, for me, the carrot is better than the stick. I don’t respond well to hectoring or bullying.
Also, I need all the new neural nodes I can get!
Thepnr
Oh you are wicked. 🙂 Or perhaps you’ve just picked up the wrong end of the thread, I don’t think I’ve go in to details with anyone indy related. Anyhoo, numb-nuts here fell out of a third floor window, on to concrete. My last recollection to myself was “shit, this is going to hurt”. It did and that’s probably why I’m a little bit cracked. 🙂
Macart @ 22:01,
Petra @ 22:13,
Works for me. Thanks!
Thepnr. Perhaps you should have taken the head shot and saved your overalls.
@Mad Unionist
Don’t worry brother every soul can be saved even yours 🙂
Mad Unionist
If we’re aiming to attract sympathy, have you ever suffered serious neural disorientation, a profound aphasia, complex PTSD and been homeless at the same time. I have and held down casual labour for shite-pins. Suck on that you radge.
John from Fife @ 9.10
Should a second EU ref take place it will indeed impact on a second indyref imho.
The actual impact would depend on how the Brits vote as against how the Scots vote. If Brexit is abandoned then an indyref would not immediately ensue – unless a Brit government, suitably chastened, set out to dismantle Scotland. If that was to happen I think there would be a diplomatic expression of concern from the EU. If that was ignored by the Brits then an indyref at a time of our choosing would be on the cards within the context of EU law.
Unlike other people, perhaps, I am relatively relaxed about that.
Really disappointed at Stuart Cosgrove. I thought he was better than that. I expected nothing less from the “minority Mirror Productions and the Royal Labour party.
Best of Luck Stuart Campbell.
Mad Unionist
“Your disabilities are no excuse for forming a new Scottish elite class who will like most elites ignore the untermecht”
Is that honestly your interpretation of me. Sorry lad, but one minute you’re a labourer the next you’re hitting me with pigeon-Marxism. You’re denying yourself the benefit of Critical Political Philosophy and the Methodology of the Oppressed. You ain’t helping yourself, just the opposite.
Thepnr @10.31pm
I realise the context but if it were taken without, you’re reply isn’t a good look. Your apparent précis is ‘working class labourer = born loser’
We must be more careful about what we post , always with a thought to those who are ‘looking in’.
Some of the posts during the Rev’s court case were toe curling (not you Thepnr).
No point constantly bleating about how the media portrays us then handing them ammunition through ill judged posting (again, not you Thepnr).
There’s a fairly easy article for some lazy Unionist hack based on the daily utterings of some on these pages.
Everybuddy’s 2 in telly gent fur Yoon yawnists oan this site
That must be the problem with WOS, half the contributers have degrees and qualifications in stuff whereas the opposition only qualify in gums (not the midget gem kind)
Me too BTW, get a PHD they’re Grrreat
@Arthur Thomson
I have a different view, a second EU ref would not impact on a 2nd Indyref if we held Indyref2 first!
Well how does that work? Put it this way. any 2nd EU ref is a very long way off if there is even the possibility of it happening.
Firstly this government has to collapse and they are doing a very good job of heading in that direction. Next we will need another General Election and who knows what that result would be but importantly whatever that result then who cares? We go for Indyref2.
This week could prove to be explosive in that something big must happen, it really has to! So I don’t have a clue what that might be but it looks as if May will be going to Brussels to beg for an extension only until 30th June.
That will be refused as it already has been so a longer extension will be demanded by the EU but they need a reason to grant one? All she has is that she hopes to agree a deal with Labour.
I think this will be enough, the EU don’t want the blame for throwing the UK out either but this is the last chance saloon and the extension could be longer than 1 year.
She might REFUSE those terms then the shit does hit the fan, will parliament be able to force May to revoke Article 50 before Friday if this happens? I’ve no idea but I’ve got the popcorn in.
Whatever, we in Scotland should enjoy the show and the lessons in how NOT to undertake diplomatic negotiations. The UK are utterly screwed now and May has to like it or lump it. We’re at the end of the road.
CameranB Brodie. I have disabilities like most people but do not moan unlike yourself and your pals who have to tell the audience. OK I give you my sympathy but you should have ducked!
@Essexexile
I realise the context but if it were taken without, you’re reply isn’t a good look. Your apparent précis is ‘working class labourer = born loser’
What I posted was the complete opposite of what you have implied. So don’t try to read into my words things that aren’t there.
“I was just a labourer” said Mad Unionist
“There is the Scottish cringe writ large” said I.
The emphasis on “just” as there is no such thing in my mind as “just” a labourer. FFS I’m from a long line of labourers but none of us had the cringe so bad as to say we were “just” labourers.
Mad Unionist
That’s just nonsense. I’ve been posting on here since 2013, I think. That’s the first time I’ve laid it on thick and I only skimmed the subject. You’re not the only one to have grown up in relative poverty.
I remember when President Idi Amin of Uganda offered to send aid to Scotland when he found out how badly its citizens were treated and the UK were outraged
I thought it was funny, but still would’ve taken a few quid
Mad Unionist @10:57pm
Don’t try and pull that “hard grafter” shite on me any time soon ya cunt. Fucking hard grafter, really?
There’s nae difference between a Tory grafter and an Indy grafter bar their politics and I use tae dae 14h hour shifts in a quarry wi both – so fuck off, and when ye get there
fuck off again!
A tip for those brave enough to dip their toes into post-modern critical social theory. Try to read things two or three times, if possible, giving yourself a break in-between readings so that the knowledge has a chance to stimulate brain growth. Emancipation through mobilising and coordinating the plasticity of the mind, or learning for short. Nice. 🙂
My apologies to all for my last post, but sometimes,. just sometimes – in the spirit of this OP.- it has to be said.
Iain mhor, I got up at 0300 milked the wife then the Coo and did a hard day’s work for a days pay then went home and milked the wife. Hard being a Scottish man watching the wife over the sink.
I suspect people’s opinions on the Stu v Kezia case and their opinion on independence are in no way related.
Aaaand there he is… Keek
I am so excited. Princess Beatrice,daughter of Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew and 9th in line to the throne of England and also Scotland if the sovereign people thereof approve. They have only been living together for two months but being a multi millionaire property developer he needs not the public expense at the pad at Kensington Palace rent free but suffers the sacrifice. Some of you socialist buggers would see him shag in a Travel Lodge. Not goin to happen.
I blame the SNP.
Would John Beattie not care to add a personal comment? Please?
Iain mhor @ 1227 am. Was that the Quarry Bar in Rutherglen?
@Iain mhor
I thought your 12:27 post was one of your best, anything to wind up our British Nationalist friend is good by me.
Iain mhor
I’ve done my best to develop a base for mutual respect and rational discussion but I’m pretty sure he’s only here for the wind-up. 😉
Naw, it wisny the quarry bar, but here’s where it wiznae- ama first pets name and ma maws maiden name and ma first school.
I could be behind seven proxies here but, in the fines
There are unfortunately 10’s of thousands of Mad Unionists in Scotland who have drank the Kool Aid their entire life and believe in the British state.
It really is not any fault of theirs, seriously as I have a number in my own family that fall into that category. I remember my Uncle Billy’s house in 1984 with the big picture of King Billy above the mantelpiece in Garthamlock.
Then 30 years later and the Independence referendum looming I’m trying on Faceboak to persuade his children, my cousins to vote YES. It worked with some of their kids but not my cousins themselves, No Surrender was the cry.
Will just have to try harder the next time I guess as we all will.
Naw, it wizny the quarry bar, but here’s where it wiznae – my first pet’s name and ma maws maiden name and ma first school.
I could be behind seven proxies here, but life’s too short for that. So I’m easy dug up – There comes a time when you couldny give seven shits.
I was around when the internet was switched on and have seen yer ilk on every board since ‘six degreess’ Yer ca’d on it – deal wi it.
Good fun though eh?
Mad Unionist
“Briandoonthetoon. 8.00pm. Has your CameronB Brodie ever made any difference to the lives of the Scottish people?. The man is a windbag who offers nothing to improve the conditions of the poorer in Scottish society and yet he posts links incessantly with crap from the past. Some policies from the blawhard instead of links could be helpful.”
We are no where near policy debate yet, that isn’t possible until after indy. I can tell you one thing though, living in a constitutional democracy that is supported by an up-to-date written constitution, will automatically make your biological security more secure. Austerity would not be legally in Scotland, if Scots had access to their inalienable “Right to Development”.
SilverDarling
That’s BRILLIANT, just like mums. 🙂
Would Scots not have more rights from the centuries of Scottish common law and far fewer rights with an up to date Scottish written constitution?
Seems to me the Rev and Wings Twitter, and to some the blog itself, are seen as risquee by some of the mediarati, and by tarring it with their brush, turning their noses up at it, and calling it vile, including by some mediarati, its inhabitants of the deeps, these mediarati consider they are elevating themselves to the status they aspire to, and earn kudos credits in the eyes of their would be employers, funders, fellow mediarati and, they think, their target demographic audieence.
Or something like that.
As for the court case judges and sheriffs are generally noted for their understanding of language and semantics, with logic and comprehension thrown in for good measure. They can reduce a whole load of waffle to a few salient points, weigh them up against each other, and make the judgement accordingly.
mr thms
Good question. I’ll need to take the time to look at the draft constitution, so that I can highlight any good bits, which I’m sure it has plenty. I’m no legal expert though and wouldn’t be able to comment on the scope and capacity of Scottish common law, with regard to the protection of human rights. The “Right to Development” is fully integrated with UN policy aimed at sustainable, inclusive development. In fact, it plays quite a pivotal role in the UNs’ policy agenda.
I don’t know if anyone has viewed Gordon Ross indycar video today , he apparently has recd info from someone which he is trying to verify , which relates to documents lodged with I think the Netherlands , that states that in joining the EU both kingdoms Scotland and England had to be identified as forming the UK ,
And that if both kingdoms remain part of the EU all will be well , but if Scotland dissolves the treaty of union and asserts her independence under EU law and regulations , Scotland is entitled to 50% of the combined UK,s holdings , not 8% but 50% , is this another reason that wastemonster is suffering from squeaky bum syndrome and is having second thoughts about leaving the EU
Rev: “We haven’t talked much on Wings about…”
Who’s this ‘we’ you keep referring to, precisely? Anyway, good luck with the verdict and remember to buy Macfarlane a pint for that performance.. 😉
Fundraiser soon?
@ twathater 03:18
The Gordon Ross broadcast with the info about these historical documents would explain a lot about what is happening behind the scenes, and the thinking behind the SNP plan of action. If these documents are corroborated this would be like a bomb going off in Westminster.
@twathater
It’s an interesting one. very unlikely but not impossible. I don’t watch his videos nor podcasts, I prefer to read cos in 3 minutes you can get what’s in 30 minutes of a video, plus page up or do a word scan to re-read something from earlier. But I did watch a couple of his, I may have been unlucky, but they were pretty wacko, frankly. He seems to say what he thinks people will want to hear.
Howsoever, Scotland did extensive trade with the Netherlands before the Union, and there’s the Treaty of Breda which could have some bearing on a dissolution of the UK
link to en.wikipedia.org
and of course there’s the EEZ agreement with the UK and Netherlands having been two of the parties involved seems to be 1965 from this:
link to marineregions.org
the downloads just have agreements, but there could be background material somewhere about any other talks or agreements relating to it. It’s possible the Netherlands might have wanted clarity in the case of the UK dissolving.
There could conceivably be similar re the EU, with the EEC thing being 3 applications I think before the successful one. De Gaulle eh? Wanting the Free French’s contribution to be recognised – as if!
The 50% split thing is probably pure fantasy – it wouldn’t be the business of the Netherlands – except as far as the EEZ and subsequent renegotiations or confirmations and new Treaties. Wherein might actually lie the resettlement of the stolen 6,000 miles, as the Netherlands would want total clarity as to which neighbour it had and where – though that would be more the business of Denmark of course. But the Netherlands would still be an interested party – as would anyone basically.
@ Mad Unionist 10:57pm
” Untermecht” Making up words now you moron? Maybe you should have followed your own advice to Brodie and googled it. I take it you mean Untermensch and it’s still not the word you’re looking for. But it would probably fit you like a glove. Untermensch= Brute.
Anyone who has a sing-in to The National please upvote the first posting on this article:
link to thenational.scot
it’s time we made our voices heard and stopped the rot.
“Holyrood does NOT need permission to hold a referendum”.
Or even a sign-in!
The extremely relevant point Rev Stu is making is really important is that (where possible). People should be equal under the Law. There is a moral compass that pervades all societies. Irrationally? In general, in modernity, people should be as equal as possible under the Law. Universal Suffrage etc. Not denied entirely by property rights. Although property rightscare recognised as human rights under the Law in a capitalist societies, The societies which are recognised as equal and fair with cohesion. Capitalist societies, universal suffrage, with Government intervention to ensure equality and freedom but promoting equality so all sections are cared for and protected. A large ask but totally doable,
The Scandinavian countries. The EU intentions within certain parameters. To increase equality, help the poorer nations and fairer trade. On a balanced society. To stop starvation and war in Europe after the disaster of 11WW. (WW1). Support the ideal of democracy self determination and self governance. In that the EU has been relatively successful. That is why so many countries want to join. Shared trade, Defence costs, a large market, good social Laws. People’s rights and responsibilities respected equally. Highly successful. An international court of nations upholding the Law. Plus rights of self determination in a democratic manner.
The fact that people are gay,straight, transgender or whatever they should be protected, cared for and be equal and accommodated under the Law. A joke is a joke even if it offends other people. It can be recognised that people can sometines be just having a laugh with no malicious malice intended. The amount of police/court time etc being wasted by the establishment with the upper hand is just ridiculous, A total waste of taxpayers money over some mild misdeamour.
Sometimes people wonder who the criminals are. The Police trying to criminalise half the population. Building up a criminal empire. Putting people in cells overnight on false ‘charges’ that can never come to Court. They would be laughed out. There is less evidence needed for civil cases which can be brought. It was once the case that Police would give a warning for mild misdeamour. Unless it was repeat behaviour. This was far more sensible than clogging up the criminal justice system on malicious report. Often more political. Politicians getting away with murder on a massive scale. Brexit.
The fact that Dugdale is gay has nothing to do with giving abuse. Dugdale was breaking the Law with impunity, A Labour politician telling people to vote Tory. That is illegal for so many reasons. Against the Representation of the People’s Act. An oath given as a worthwhile candidate. It is illegal for an elected public official official to tell people to vote for another Party. They should not be standing if they do not believe in the believes, ideals, standards and manifesto of their own Party. A manifesto that is always so easily broken. It is a common occurence. Happening too frequently the minute they are elected. ConDems etc. The Brexit mess shambles and lies. Not held to account.
The Brexit scandal. The sanctioning and starving of people. Totally illegally. The Courts are having to step in to make politicians adhere to the Law. They break the Laws that they make..Politicians now held in such derision they need protection from the people, where did it all go wrong on Westmibster unionist total corruption and the corruption of the media. Without a free and fair Press, there is no democracy. The.UK Gov is supposed to upheld not corrupt,
Thank goodness for the internet. Rev Stu, Nana etc. People who stand up for principles against injustice, especially of the establishment and unequal division of power. Worth their weigh in gold. Thanks for everything. Trying to make the world a better place,
Vote SNPSNP. Vote for Independence. You know it makes sense. Break Westminster unionist power to destroy the world. Make the world a better place.
There have been mixed changing rooms in swimming pools etc for years. It is just to accommodate and make it easier for family, friends groups to change, without giving offence. The confusion of the naked body. Everyone has one. There are no, or pretty non existent cases, of transgender people trying to jump out on or attack other people. An incidence of .0000000001. Please contribute examples.
A problem with toilets might be that men can miss and pee all over the floor. A miss is a miss. That is a question of clean up and hygiene for some poor sod? There are not transgender people trying to climb over cubicles to attack other people? It is a fact mainly men attack others men (a higher incidence) and women, especially violently. In that ‘crime’ is a gender issue. Men externalise and can strike out. Women internalise and become anxious. Suffer anxiety. Nature or nurture. Or changes in the structure of society. It is often explained as a power issue but there are reports it more a case of (male) obbession. Ways should be found, ie a change in direction. For more healthy obsession not destructive.
Can’t we in Scotland do EU Ref and Indy Ref at the same time and on same voting paper?
Sorry long post. It’s a wonder it gets through but there you go. Ie on, and, on, and on.
Tom Chapman reports and complains that teachers in Aberdeen are overstretched and off with stress. Well he should know as he is responsible, Tom Chapman the total hypocrite. The two job Tory who keeps the corrupt, illegal Aberdeen Council in power, The one man gave if unionism. The Ciunvil that over spends like there is no tomorrow. £1.2Billion in debt. Spends £Million on groteque monstrosities no one wanted. £200Million.
A concrete jungle of shop and office now sitting empty. Underoccupied hotels. With shops and offices already sitting empty. £300Million spent on a ECC sitting empty most of the time. The former one used on average once a month with paid off debts of £26Million. An Art Gallery renovation costing £30Million. They have not got the funding. Shut for 5 years to put a tier on which will make hardly no difference in any way shape or firm. More wastage.
There is another grotesque, monstrosity being build totally spoiling the skyline. When people want pedestrianisation and green open spaces. The UTG project went by the wayside with a gift of £80Million and a cost of £20Million. A total bargain. Cheap at the price. Opening up the City. Vital development. Pedestrianisation.
The illegal Tory/Labour council. Kept in place by Chapman. Plus a LibDem councillor who changed to Independent, immediately they were elected, no principles, to join the illegal non existent Unionists and Alliance ‘Party’. No such Party exists. An illegal betrayal of the Representation of the People’s Act and the Electoral rules/Laws.
Aberdeen Council total mismanagement and waste of the local budget. A complete fiscal disgrace. Wasting money like there is no tomorrow on groteque empty monstrosities no one wanted with no mandate. A total abuse of local power. How they get away with it? Despite numerous complaints.
100 teachers short. Overcrowded schools. Essential services totally underfunded. They wanted the homeless jailed. Instead of providing under social care proper ‘one chance?’ total abstinence rehab and counselling. Much more cost effective. They are building totally empty shops and offices under occupied Hotels. Instead of doing what they are supposed to be doing building affordable housing and schools. Supporting essential services.
Tom Chapman is part of the problem. Yet blames the Scottish Gov. Typical lying unionist. Some people never change. Along with the landowning Aberdeenshire councillors embezzling and wasting public money. The reason they joined politics. Personal gain. Some not paying Council tax. Sitting in a £Billion HQ for 60 councillors. Overcrowded schools, Not supporting essential services. Then they complain they have ‘no money’. Total hypocrites.
Alex Salmond/SNP were planning to sell the £Billion HQ and build adequate, accessible community HQ. There would have been monies left for essential schools and affordable houses and support essential services. A good plan. Yet people would not come out to vote because it was raining. Sitting on their hands but always complaining. Some people never change. £Billion HQ for free soup and sandwiches while people are starving being sanctioned and going to foodbanks.
The AWPR, Ferry Crossing, lowering emissions in Scotland. (60%+?). Cutting journey times and expense 2/3. Cutting people’s working day by two hours of travel. Marvellous. The wind turbines in the bay (eyesore) but producing energy, the Golf Development. The investment in renewables. New rail lines. Cutting journey times etc, Hopefully they can be cut some more. To rival flight times although there will always be a need for early flights to destinations.
Direct flights to China, US, Asia etc. Cutting out expense, journey times, connections and overnight stay. More economical. Bring tourists and students in. Aiding the economy and cutting out waste. Anywhere but Heathrow. Over congested hub. Like London.
Thanks to Alex, Nicola and Co. Vast improvements in Scotland. Improvements in the economy. Low unemployment. Lower in Scotland than the rest of the UK. The first time ever. Despite the UK Gov chronic mismanagement of the Oil & Gas sector, farming and fishing industry. An absolute disgrace. Higher Tory taxes when the price had fallen. Ruining the Oil sector, losing £Billions and thousands of jobs in Scotland. £Million of CAP payments taken illegally from poorer Scottish farmers. The fishing industry ruined by mismagement and discards cutting stocks etc. Instead of using bigger nets, improving conditions. Leading to increased quotas
The catastrophe of Brexit. An absolute shambles. A disgrace. Westmibster the laughing stock of the world. The fiddling of the migration figures including fully funded foreign students who go home, An asset to the economy. Now less migrants from the EU. (Negative figures) but more migrants from Asia. What’s the difference? Scotland is half empty because of decades of Westminster mismanagement and fraud. Taking £Billions from Scotland illegally and secretly. Against International Law. Illegal wars, financial fraud and tax evasion. Kept secret under the Official Secrets Act.
The Westminster unionists even took funding from women and children on ‘Mother’s Day’. How low can they go in causing unneccessary poverty. Austerity but they are spending £Billions on Hickkey Point, HS2 and Trident. A total waste of public monies. The Tory/unioist slush fund. Their noses in the trough. There are already empty contaminated hulks at Rosyth theybdo not know what to do with. A complete disgrace. Nukes 40 mins from London removed in 1992. Nuclear dumped in Scotland without authority, in secret, since the 1960’s.
Scotland has more to fear from the Westminster unionist imbeciles than the Russians who saved the West in the 11WW. They believe in self determination and self governance. 150Million people released to democracy and self Gov helped by the EU from the former USSR, since the 1990’s. Putin did not go along with liar Cameron but called him out. The architect of Brexit. Now troughing and illegally wasting public monies at the British – Chinese Consortium. On worthless public projects with no business case. Wasting £billions of taxpayers money.
Giving Goose says:
Two choices on Scottish ballot papers …
1 An independent Scotland remains in Europe
2 Just doing whatever England decides
Seriously, though, even if the ballot simples Leave versus Remain it should also be an explicit test of Remain means Remain for Scotland. It should be made crystal clear that a result of Scotland Remain//UK Leave should allow the Scot Gov / Scot Parl to proceed to Indy.
If the sovereign will is for Scots to remain, and everyone knows that has to be via independence then it should be a done deal.
Giving Goose says:
8 April, 2019 at 7:53 am
Can’t we in Scotland do EU Ref and Indy Ref at the same time and on same voting paper?
Would it matter? I cannot stress how far from a democracy it is that we live in.
link to indyref2.scot
Vote Leave, the official Brexit Leave campaign was accused of financial irregularities which saw Dark money sloshing around all over the place, and a failure to register spending, and breached spending limits to an extent that might never fully come to light. Another Brexit lobby, Leave.EU was fined £70k for similar “irregularities”, and bankrolled by the Aaron Banks who seems to be anomaly to the laws of financial physics himself. Yet NOTHING happens
The BBC is as rotten now as it was in 2014, and as the link above shows, it is already manipulating the narrative already. And why wouldn’t it? It wrecked our referendum in 2014, it even got Scotland to return a UKIP amoeba as an MEP representing Scotland. It won Brexit for Leave, which was really just and extension of its own institutional Europhobic prejudices dating back decades. If the BBC was a Military regiment be in no doubt 2014 and 2016 would be registered as Battle Honours for the BBC. Yet NOTHING happens..
When we gather in groups, wave our flags and shout “IndyRef2”, there’s a troll in the depths of Westminster who smiles to himself and wheels out the Section 30 mortar. That’s our referendum taken care of. The media will make certain of it. It will land wherever the media said it landed.
Our “democracy” is as mythical as our Unicorn. If we want these corrupted and compromised institutions restored to health in a modern Scotland, first we need to “purge” Scotland of hostile UK influence, and reload Scotland from the ground up. We literally do need to switch it off and back on again, and only by exercising our Sovereign ascendancy can our nation be delivered from this Union which has its tendrils infiltrating every level of our society.
I have no faith in any of it. Our Sovereignty is right there in front of us. In Brexit, and our sound Constitutional Remain majority, we have all the mandate we need to exercise our Sovereign prerogative, and in Brexit, we have an a very real existential threat to our economy and welfare to rival the impact of war, and every justification our Nation might ever need to mobilise our independent Sovereignty for the very real defence of the realm.
There was a chance for democracy, but we blew it. An IndyRef2 conducted under the eyes of EU observers, with UK Parliamentary Sovereignty disputed, so that “reserved broadcasting restrictions” could be unrestricted to enable an organic homegrown news media to thrive. We might have saved it. But we didn’t. We didn’t step up to defend our democracy and we let them take it away from us. The cheats kept the winnings without so much as a protest.
The time is here to stand up for our Sovereignty. If we don’t step up, they’ll take that away from us too.
Democracy? Let’s hide it in a disused mine during this time of national emergency, and bring it out with all our other treasures once we know they’re safe.
“Yardley’s statements of obvious and immutable biological facts,”
Learn some fucking biology before spouting this crap.
OT
@Stu Mac and CaneronB Brodie,
I replied to your comments on the old thread.
Apologies for late links, still a wee bit under the weather
Links
On the Full Scottish this week, Ellen Höfer is joined by guests, David Greig, Artistic Director of Edinburgh’s Lyceum Theatre and housing rights advocate, Lisa Peebles.
link to broadcastingscotland.scot
Declaration of Arbroath celebrated in NY but not in Scotland!!
link to twitter.com
link to scotland.org
Economics of an Independent Scotland – talk by Ivan_McKee
link to pscp.tv
link to barrheadboy.com
Landmark medical research into dementia is among £100 million of life-changing work at Scots universities being risked by Brexit, we can reveal today.
link to archive.fo
link to theorkneynews.scot
link to weegingerdug.wordpress.com
link to macalbasite.wordpress.com
Brexit plea over Scotland’s perishable exports
link to archive.fo
Brexit and The Politics of Extending Article 50
link to scer.scot
link to theferret.scot
link to welfareweekly.com
European Health Insurance Cards (EHIC) will no longer be valid if the UK leaves the EU without a deal. You should buy comprehensive travel insurance to cover any healthcare costs while travelling in the EU.
link to twitter.com
Scottish economy ‘moving closer to EU’
link to archive.is
link to irishtimes.com
UK poised to embrace authoritarianism, warns Hansard Society
link to archive.is
May faces intense cabinet pressure over prospect of lengthy Brexit delay
link to archive.fo
link to irishtimes.com
As Kate Watson is in the news again
link to twitter.com
link to inews.co.uk
link to instituteforgovernment.org.uk
link to opendemocracy.net
link to taxresearch.org.uk
While I love this website and what you do, and my opinion does not align with most of the comments here, but you as a white heterosexual male enjoy a privilege by just being a white heterosexual male. Many others don’t enjoy that privilege because they are gay, female, black, disabled etc… that makes it hard for people like yourself to understand the dynamics of flippant remarks made by those with privilege. Something that seems unsequential to you can have major ramifications for those of us who have suffered because of the thing that makes us different. I understand that the comment you made about David Mundell was funny, however, what you failed to understand is that making comments like that actually undermine gay people who are trying to come to terms with the thing that they struggle with, and that can undermine who they are. Kezia Dugdale called you out on it, and while she was a dreadful labour leader, she as a gay person understands the struggle many of us face to be accepted, both within ourselves and by others. You should have realised then that what you said could be construed by some as hurtful. The thing is, do we live in a society that allows unlimited free speech, or is it right to limit free speech in order to limit hatred? I think free speech is a privilege that has some limitations. When you were called out on your statement it should have been left there, but you choose to exercise your privilege as you felt someone had violated you. However, you chose to ignore that you had violated others. I find it sad that you are defending yourself when your own conduct was far from perfect. You had a right to say what you did, but Dugdale had a right to call you out on it. You were not defamed, it was merely pointed out to you that your own comments had the right to offend. You may consider yourself a liberal, but as someone who is gay and a supporter of this site, I personally found what you said about Mundell inappropriate. Gay people can have children too, it is not the preserve of heterosexuals, you were wrong to imply if he had come out earlier he would not have had a child, that was heteronormative of you and unacceptable in this day and age. While I wish you no harm and support this site I am really disappointed in the course of action you are pursuing against a lgbtqi+ person who understands what it means to suffer microaggressions such as the one you perpetrated against David Mundell, and it is worth pointing out to all heterosexuals that small throwaway comments can impact someone to the point they commit suicide, think about that before you comment in future.
Daily Briefing: For UK and EU, decision week on Brexit
link to archive.is
Brexit: confusion and muddle
link to eureferendum.com
Very long read in three parts
link to nytimes.com
Anna Burnside is borrowing the ‘Macpherson’ principle from the Macpherson report of 1999 into institutionalised racism in The Metropolitan Police. Basically it states that a ‘racist incident’ is anything that an alleged victim claims it to be.
So if David Mundell thought that your comment was homophobic then it was.
From an article in today’s Grauniad about Billy Bragg.
I was just about to post a link to that bloodletting article.
(Thought you were having a wee lie-in!)
“The bad news is that the Brexiteers need fall guys for every eventuality because every form of Brexit will be bad for Britain”
link to archive.is
Scotland contains the best educated and most intelligent people in the British isles according to Sky news this morning, because in a survey done by various Universities the more intelligent and better educated voted against Brexit
I don’t think they meant it to come out that way but that’s what it shows, and of course Northern Ireland is number two on that list so why on earth are all us clever folk being forced to listen to the stupid people south of the border who know nothing
brilliant article from wgd today, perhaps his best ever so do yourselves a favour and read it (see nanas links)
i dont disagree with anything he says but as for the snp manifesto in the coming general election, i would wait to finalise it until we see the result of the tory party leadership election first, if and when they elect an erg no deal brexiteer and produce their tory manifesto stating “vote tory for no deal” then we should put indy front and foremost on the snp manifesto.
as for eu elections, im less sure, there is usually a low turnout for such elections and the leavers in scotland are likely to be far more motivated to get out and vote, eg, in the last eu election turnout was 33%, snp got only 29% but ukip who usually only poll 3-5% got out their vote and got 10% of the vote along with coburn mep.
Im unsure what the best snp policy would be for an eu election. I hope that both elections would be on the same day, that would ensure coburn loses his seat and the snp potentially pick up one
I see Iain Macwhirter tweeting that the sovereign people of Scotland cannot hold a legal referendum until it is approved by the people of England. Paraphrasing but that’s what his message effectively is saying. Mr Macwhirter seems to think being sovereign is meaningless, and if what he says is true, then it is.
Great article. It does though seem to me that Dugdale’s motivation for originally attacking your tweet was not one of homophobia (from which you are manifestly free) but one of her vitriolic hatred of the independence movement. Best wishes.
Craig
stu is and has been a target for the unionist media for sometime, bear in mind, the entire msm is against indy, so he has had the privilage of being called out and insulted by them on numerous occasions so i’m pretty sure stu does understand the dynamics of flippant remarks made by underdogs
————
Dugdale, as a gay person understands the struggle many of us face to be accepted, both within ourselves and by others. You should have realised then that what you said could be construed by some as hurtful.
———————
not all gay people agreed it was hurtful
——————————–
You had a right to say what you did, but Dugdale had a right to call you out on it. You were not defamed, it was merely pointed out to you that your own comments had the right to offend. I personally found what you said about Mundell inappropriate.
————————
fine, but what decides what is defamatory isnt you, or dugdale or even wgd, it is the courts who decided.
to that end, i suggest you await the ruling in the next 3 weeks by the sheriff, otherwise, your own comments might be construed as “defamatory” no?
A section 30 order is an agreement to accept the result of a referendum, not whether it’s legal to have one or not
My understanding is Scotland can have as many referendums on whatever it likes whenever it likes, but the acceptance of Scottish Independence is a constitutional referendum requiring agreement from Westminster to implement the result
If for example Scotland had a referendum on Scottish independence and the result was in the affirmative the Scottish government could then if it wished proceed with that result to legal arbitration and judgement by other courts
Ian McWhirter sells newspapers
Dr Jim , your last sentence brought the wonderful Morecambe and Wise to mind .
Visions of Iain McWhirter shouting ‘Evenin Standard’
Nana , hope you feel better and better!
It’s incredibly arrogant of gay people to state that white heterosexual males don’t understand other issues when surely the same thing applies in reverse
You can’t go around claiming equal and more rights in everything then claim aggrieved minority status when others exercise the same equal rights
The majority have as much right to be offended as a minority, or the one
jfngw
i think he is just stating the obvious, while scots are sovereign, without a s30, there is nothing to stop a boycott of indyref2 by no supporters and even of councils to refuse to run indyref2 ballot boxes etc.
this is a fact we cant ignore, holding indyref2 without a s30 would lead to a complete goat rodeo.
their argument would also refer to the sovereign will of the scottish people and since presently, support for the snp is 42-44% and yes 44-47%, the MAJORITY, ie sovereign will of the scottish peopleis to stay in this unfortunate union.
i believe these % are moving in our favour and will continue to do so but, for the moment, we are where we are
I still can’t get my head round the concept that wishing someone had become happier sooner than they did is in any way insulting.
Mary Lou McDonald says the British are fiddling with the law to make NI citizens British instead of at the moment they can be whatever they choose: Sky news to Adam Boulton
She also mentioned Scotland, and if anybody knows what the Brits are capable of it’s the Irish because they seem to have retained their memories better than quite a few in Scotland
Re my previous comment.
It reads as if I agree with Kezia Dugdale, I don’t.
Re my two previous comments,
I don’t agree with the ‘Macpherson principle’ either.
schrodingers cat says:
8 April, 2019 at 10:43 am
jfngw
i think he is just stating the obvious, while scots are sovereign, without a s30, there is nothing to stop a boycott of indyref2 by no supporters and even of councils to refuse to run indyref2 ballot boxes etc.
this is a fact we cant ignore, holding indyref2 without a s30 would lead to a complete goat rodeo.
their argument would also refer to the sovereign will of the scottish people and since presently, support for the snp is 42-44% and yes 44-47%, the MAJORITY, ie sovereign will of the scottish peopleis to stay in this unfortunate union.
i believe these % are moving in our favour and will continue to do so but, for the moment, we are where we are
I am more concerned about the Holyrood Presiding Officer. IMO he may attempt to pull another fast one like what happened with the Continuity Bill.
Of course, if the establishment tries that one, then all hell breaks loose.
I see no problem with a completely chaotic “goat rodeo” referendum. Whatever it takes. The main thing is to maintain momentum, no matter how messy it gets. Play safe and keep it clean and the opportunity may pass us by. I think Nicola and the SG have played a blinder thus far, but I am sure they are aware that some drastic action may be necessary, leading to serious confrontation with Perfidious Albion may be unevioidable sometime down the line.
One thing sis sure, May or whoever replaces her will never agree to another S30. Not now not ever. The SG have a contingency plan, possibly several contingency plans ready in these chaotic, unpredictable times.
Interesting article by Peston with maybe a bit too much imagination.
Is cancelling Brexit the Prime Minister’s new default?
He’s not wrong though in warning that no deal would be a catastrophe “especially for the integrity of UK”. Maybe the penny has finally dropped that Scotland will NOT be dragged out of the EU against her will.
link to archive.fo
In other news Plaid Cymru seem to be doing very well in the polls.
link to partyof.wales
A completely chaotic goat referendum, with British Nationalists boycotting and certain councils effusing to cooperate?
Followed soon after by another referendum, just to sort things out?
Yep, I would take that. Keep the pressure on.
Maintain the momentum. 🙂
I agree, even if there is a GE I doubt Corbyn would win it anyway but even if he did he knows he can’t grant a section 30 order even if he’s stuck with a minority government and even if the SNP could make the difference Corbyn would look to the lib Dems or the Tiggers before the SNP
So a SNP devious plan would be a good guess
dr jim
A section 30 order is an agreement to accept the result of a referendum, not whether it’s legal to have one or not
My understanding is Scotland can have as many referendums on whatever it likes whenever it likes
————-
this is of course 100% absolutely true. no question.
but it is also true that if the unionists want to boycott any referendum they want, they can and will (including councils refusing to organise polling places, counts etc)
result would be a complete cluster bourach and would decide nothing.
thing is, the unionist base their entire argument on exactly the same premise as we do, ie the sovereign will of the people of scotland (they call it the MAJORITY) now, it is very close but for the moment, unfortunately, they have the right of it.
we will win our independence, not by beating the unionists but by the unionists losing. at the moment, the direction of travel is in our direction.
what annoys yes supporters more than anything, isnt the disagreements amongst yessers or the snp etc, it is because we are not there yet. we can see what happens in westminster at the moment when politicians act childishly,(see jrm) not a vote winner
so for the moment, we bide our time and plan for any and all eventualities.
“plan ahead, it wasnt raining when noah built the arc”
The Brexit options:
May’s Deal take 4?
All hell breaks loose.
Red and blue tory stich-up?
All hell breaks loose.
Very long A50 extension, with UK MEPs’ EU election participation?
All hell breaks loose
Hard BREXIT/WTO rules?
All hell breaks loose
Oh Dearie Dearie Me. Nothing seems to avoid mayhem. That’s quite a pickle the BritNats have got themselves into. This cannot possibly end well, I’m afraid. Big trouble ahead. We ain’t seen nothing yet.
And of course the nuclear option:
Revoke A50?
Well, do I have to say it?
@pnr
finally, the worm is turning in wales. ’bout time
Westminster Results:
Labour: 33% (-2)
Conservative: 26% (-3)
Plaid Cymru: 15% (+1)
Change UK: 9% (+9)
Liberal Democrats: 7% (+1)
Brexit Party: 4% (+4)
UKIP: 3% (-3)
Others: 3% (-5)
Labour: 23 seats
Conservatives: 12 seats
Plaid Cymru: 5 seats
Assembly Results:
(Constituency)
Labour: 31% (-1)
Plaid Cymru: 24% (+1)
Conservatives: 23% (-3)
UKIP: 7% (no change)
Liberal Democrats: 6% (-2)
Change UK 4% (+4)
Others: 6% (+1)
(Region)
Labour: 28% (-1)
Plaid Cymru: 22% (-1)
Conservatives: 20% (-4)
Brexit Party: 6% (+6)
Liberal Democrats: 5% (-1)
UKIP: 5% (-1)
Change UK: 5% (+5)
Greens: 3% (-1)
Abolish the Assembly: 3% (-1)
Others: 2% (-2)
(Seats)
Labour: 23 seats (21 constituency, 2 regional)
Plaid Cymru: 16 seats (10 constituency, 6 regional)
Conservatives: 15 seats (8 constituency, 7 regional)
Brexit Party: 4 seats (4 regional)
Liberal Democrats: 1 seat (1 constituency)
UKIP: 1 seats (1 regional)
dr jim
Fortuna est quae fit cum praeparatio in occasionem incidit.
Saying we are going to have a referendum on Scottish independence as opposed to accepting Brexit in whatever shape or form is not devious but democratic.
I have always held the view that those who do not wish to vote has that choice. What cannot be implied is that ALL people who do not vote has decided on the status quo.
If the majority of people of Scotland vote for Independence or vote to remain with the English Brexit so be it.
The English government has no right to veto or ignore it or if they do they will be rightly criticised by all including the Eu.
Burnside let her dislike of you get the better of her making a coherent argument.
Cosgrove and Beattie were the only two with anything intelligent to say on the matter.
Regardless of the specific trial, the post above is on the money.
One thing sis sure, May or whoever replaces her will never agree to another S30. Not now not ever
————
im not so sure, it would depend on the results of a ge, eg, if the tories win a majority, i accept that granting holyrood is unlikely, but we cant really predict the result in england and that is what will decide whether or not there is a majority for anyone.
if it is another hung parliament (unlikely due to fptp system)and if, without 50 snp mps in mw, the tories would have a majority, since the erg/1922 comittee/hard brexiteers etc, actually believe their own propaganda about scots being subsidy junkies, they might be willing to grant a s30 just to get rid of us. This is a long shot, i know, but stranger things etc…….
camerons response to salmond after the snp won in 2011 to a s30 was also, no, never, not happening etc…that turned out well 🙂
@schrodingers cat
There is possibly another legal route that the SNP might explore or indeed may have aready done, and that is challenging the UKs authority (section 30) of acceptance of Scotlands constitutional situation of a treaty that allows the witholding of that right to withdraw from a treaty
If such a challenge were legally won (and I think it would be Brexit being an example) and of course within the charter of the UN, removing that right of denial from the UK would go a long way in the convincing of doubters that Scotland’s intentions were inevitable
Those who are entrenched against Independence will always be and there’ll be no shifting them so I believe different thinking is required, but of course that may already be going on because the tone of the SNP has been as positive as we’ve seen it for the last five years
We’ll just have to be good guessers I guess until the next step is made clear
Hamish100 says:
The English government has no right to veto or ignore it or if they do they will be rightly criticised by all including the Eu.
————
it isnt the english government who will boycott indyref2, it is the scottish unionists
the idea that the eu will get upset and vote to sanction england if wm ignores an 80% victory for yes on a 30% turnout is laughable
if politics is like a game of chess, it would be tanamount to sacrificing your king……… it isnt a winning move, it guarantees failure
Dr Jim says:
8 April, 2019 at 11:37 am
@schrodingers cat
There is possibly another legal route that the SNP might explore or indeed may have aready done, and that is challenging the UKs authority (section 30) of acceptance of Scotlands constitutional situation of a treaty that allows the witholding of that right to withdraw from a treaty
———–
this is a far smarter move, one i believe the snp have already taken a great deal of legal advice
Dr Jim says: at 10:30 am
“Ian McWhirter sells newspapers”
—————
No, I.M. sold his soul to the newspapers… they used it.
Luigi says:
8 April, 2019 at 11:14 am
The Brexit options:
you are correct, there are no senarios which turn out well for the unionists. none
but they could get much worse, eg, i heard a rumour that the scottish tories are planning to break with london.
i remember murdo frasers last attempt to do this during his leadership election against ruth davidson
unfortunately for the tories, the numbers were published
She gained 2,278 first preference votes out of the 5,676 votes cast, after second preference votes were counted, she won by 2,983 votes to second-placed Murdo Fraser’s 2,417.
murdo subsequently complained of interference by london tories in the result. lets be truthful, with so few voters, influencing the result would be a piece of cake. a campaign of entry-ism by ukip defectors would ensure that eg ross thompson would beat ruth and the scot tories would remain part of the london party. ruth could find herself on the wrong side of the powers that be, ie those who decide. aint life a bitch 🙂
schrodingers cat says:
It’s a Catch-22.
– The polls won’t shift until there is widespread campaigning and the independence question becomes ‘the talk of the steamie’ again.
– There isn’t widespread campaigning because there is no specific target date, and declaring that is being prevaricated upon because the polls are stuck.
Ok, there’s more to it than that with Brexit so nebulous and chaotic and no clear timetable or outcome to consider there.
However, IMO campaigning needs to take a big step up. The SNP have been making all the right noises – dragged, sovereignty, will, etc – but we need to break that Catch-22 and campaigning should begin asap.
Would a unionist boycott of a section30less referendum be a ‘bad’ thing.
I for one would be happy to point out that they were refusing to take part because they didn’t have England’s permission.
The Prime-minister has already torn-up the British constitution by ignoring the Moral Law and pressing ahead with A50. Britain is now on the point of becoming a totalitarian state. It is already highly undemocratic and authoritarian in nature. Marvelous.
link to oxfordscholarship.com
Hardcore unionistas might try to boycott a referendum, but many no voters are not of that ilk. So, you see, if a boycott was attempted it might easily backfire for them.
I don’t think it needs worried about. Oh, of course they will scream and shout, but most folk are not hardline unionists, even if they vote NO.
Their is no law against the holding of referendums. I could hold one if I felt like it. QED, Scotland does NOT need ‘permission’. The constitution may be reserved, but the right to hold a referendum is not.
That the mainstream media continue to suggest otherwise is just daft.
Folk might think I’m exaggerating about Brexit turning Britain in to a totalitarian state. Well I’m not. Time for a bit more Political Philosophy?
link to repository.cam.ac.uk
E pluribus unum? The Manifold Meanings of Sovereignty
link to bjutijdschriften.nl
POPULAR SOVERIGNTY IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE, ED.
QUENTIN SKINNER AND RICHARD BOURKE (CAMBRIDGE: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2016) CHAPTER 13 [PP. 320-58]
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY IN AN AGE OF MASS DEMOCRACY: POLITICS, PARLIAMENT, AND PARTIES IN WEBER, KELSEN, SCHMITT, AND BEYOND.
eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/101305/1/Popular_sovereignty_in_an_age_of_mass_democracy.pdf
The Political Theology of Consumer Sovereignty: Towards an Ontology of Consumer Society
link to journals.sagepub.com
– The polls won’t shift until there is widespread campaigning and the independence question becomes ‘the talk of the steamie’ again.
———–
im not a fan of this idea, there is no evidence for this, eg in 2011 snp won 45% of the vote, in 2014 yes won 45% of the vote.
I have more faith in the adage that political movements dont win elections, establishments lose them.
and losing is exactly what they are doing at the moment in westminster.
why would we interupt our enemy when it is making a mistake?
the polls show that in the event of brexit, there is a swing to yes.
so we wait for this fiasco in the wm government to play out before we make a move, jumping the gun risks uniting wm against us
we are talking weeks now. relax. as for campaigning, there is widespread campaigning, just not at the level it would be if a ge or indyref2 was called. you are welcome to join those out campaigning
They’re very clever those Led by Donkeys folk.
Led By Donkeys projection onto the White Cliffs of Dover
link to youtube.com
Robert Louis
interesting point
i would be interesting to see that option in a full scottish poll. ie, would you vote in an indyref2 which didnt have a s30?
Robert Louis says:
There is no law against the holding of referendums.
————
this is of course also 100% correct. then again I am not ruling out an indyref2 without a s30 altogether, just for the moment.
if support for our cause was at 70%, we wouldnt be having this discussion, but for the moment, it isnt, ergo we need to pursue other avenues until it is, eg legal challenges, etc,
calling a ge, isnt within our power, that is the next leader of the tory party, but once it is called and the result known, most likely a no deal tory majority, and even if the snp only poll 45%, there is nothing stopping us calling a holyrood election if the swing is in our favour, remember, in 2016 it was 46.5% snp.
there are numerous points in the next few weeks which will influence the polls
1. when the new leader of the tories is finally chosen, most likely a hard brexiteer, eg bojo or mogg
2. during the ge campaign. (a very damaging campain for ruthie and dick leonard)
3. once the result is known, most likely, tory majority.
I believe support for independence will rise and continue to rise during the unfolding fiasco of a no deal brexit, once above 50% we can call a holyrood election, with independence being the only item on our manifesto.
getting 50%+ in a he under the above senario negates any argument which says we need a referendum
Seeing as how the morality of soveriegnty can be found in the theory of International Relations, here some International Relations Theory.
link to e-ir.info
Hi Cameron.
In that last link, it has,
“But Henry’s break from Rome is also important because, for the first time, sovereignty was linked to a set territory and population in England. Similar trends in the way people were organising themselves were also taking places throughout Europe. In this context, the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, which ended the thirty-year war between European powers, became the basis of the international system that we still have today, which is based on states that have more or less clear borders in compact territories and populations, and which respect each other’s independence (see for example Philpott 2001).”
The article doesn’t mention Scotland at all. Surely sovereignty in Scotland was/is “linked to a set territory and population”?
Maybe I’m misunderstanding the text but if you’re gonna write about sovereignty, the example of Scotland pre-dates Henry VIII so why not mention it? Maybe our sovereignty is below their radar.
@schrodingers cat says: 8 April, 2019 at 11:42 am:
” … The English government has no right to veto or ignore it or if they do they will be rightly criticised by all including the Eu.”
Excuse me for asking but what English government might it be you refer to?
There is no such thing as a legal English Government.
England is run by the Westminster government’s ministries and that is legally the United Kingdom Government. Not a single person has been elected to an English Government since 30 April 1707.
Not until a majority of the people of Scotland understand what the hell they are talking about does Scotland stand a chance of breaking free from Westminster – That’s Westminster that is legally the United Kingdom Parliament. The Westminster parliament that is not legally the country of England devolving English powers that England doesn’t legally have down to three dominion countries in a United Kingdom that is legally composed of only two kingdoms.
By the way, sovereignty, in spite of any man made laws conforms to only one ultimate law of nature – Sovereignty belongs to whoever takes it and is able to keep it – and that ultimately is the people.
Brian Doonthetoon
No, you’re not blind, Scotland is invisible because we’re the oppressed minority. If a nation/individual is invisible, it/they can’t claim legal identity. Without legal identity, it is impossible to claim rights. Brexit shows a complete disrespect for the legal identity and human rights of Scotland and her people.
Contemporary British nationalism views Scots as possession of Westminster, a parliament that abuses English legal doctrine for anti-democratic and expansionist, nationalist, motives. Britain is no more, long live the neo-fascist state of Greater England.
I caught the Radio Scotland interview in the car and was fizzing! I knew it was all wrong and biased and not based on rational thinking, however could not express why I thought that. Having read this article, I wholly agree with what you have said, so well put.
Keep up the good work 🙂
schrodingers cat @ 10:10,
I share your concern about the possible consequences of EU elections because of previous lack of participation, which gave the UKIP zoomers a disproportionate influence. Hopefully now more ordinary people have sufficient understanding of what’s truly at stake to engage far more. But if not, I just hope it doesn’t result in another counterproductive bout of SNP navel-gazing as in 2017.
I’m surprised though you can agree with WGD yet not properly address the Catch-22 situation so clearly put by gala @ 12:10. It is this apparent passivity that is the real source of aggravation in the indy movement that underlies the timing issue.
We are willing to wait for however long it takes, provided only we believe the leadership is truly willing to act. Even allowing for the current WM appetite for self-destruction, this apparent preference to wait for Godot in the form of the mystical “60%” who will materialise out of thin air by beneficial happenstance is truly corrosive to that patience. I don’t want to berate you incessantly over it again, but I just wish you understood that better.
A well argued and cogent case, there, Rev. For a rational approach to dealing with disputes on matters of opinion.
You make powerful points which are apparently over the head of an increasingly intellectually-challenged, vacuous chattering classes who dominate the media.
Robert J. Sutherland
Timing is crucial but I think it almost inevitable Scotland will now choose indy, unless Brexit is canceled. A soft BINO would be ideal but I don’t hold much hope that the Tbot will be able to avoid No deal. I don’t trust her, frankly.
Now is not the time to bring the force of law in to action. 🙂
@robert louis1.17pm
The constitution may be reserved, but the right to hold a referendum is not.
………
Who says the constitution is ‘reserved’?
And what constitution is that exactly ?
Yup, the WM United Kingdom government.
The United Kingdom government which exists to EQUALLY serve the interests of BOTH Signatory Kingdoms which formed the United Kingdom.
So, unless BOTH partner Kingdoms agreed to stuff, legally, then it is more a fanciful notion than fixed in law.
Devolution is, in my opinion, an affront to the Treaty of Union in itself.
The idea that a LEGALLY EQUAL signatory kingdom of the uk is ‘allowed’ powers to be ‘devolved’ from the Parliament of the united kingdom which fails to exist in law WITHOUT Scotland, is a ludicrous concept in itself, as that means we, as an equal partner, are devolving power we ALREADY OWN as part of the United Kingdom, to ourselves.
Devolution has allowed Scotland to regain its long lost voice in the world, as we were able to reconvene the old, prorogued, Scottish Parliament of pre 1707 Treaty of Union.
It can be argued, in my opinion, that the first day of Holyrood, was the day that effectively ended the treaty of union.
Scots have always been Sovereign people, all we were missing was a bus to drive us to our destination and a driver.
Reconvening Scots parly for devolution, provided the bus, the SNP provided the driver, which have picked up the passengers over the years, to make the route to independence, viable, and sustainable.
We are approaching the terminus, and nobody has the right to tell us if we disembark or not. That choice belongs to US the Scots people.
Choice for Sovereign people is never ‘devolved’.
Robert Peffers says:
8 April, 2019 at 3:03 pm
@schrodingers cat says: 8 April, 2019 at 11:42 am:
” … The English government has no right to veto or ignore it or if they do they will be rightly criticised by all including the Eu.”
Excuse me for asking but what English government might it be you refer to?
There is no such thing as a legal English Government.
——————–
read what i actually wrote
schrodingers cat says:
8 April, 2019 at 11:42 am
Hamish100 says:
The English government has no right to veto or ignore it or if they do they will be rightly criticised by all including the Eu.
————
it isnt the english government who will boycott indyref2, it is the scottish unionists
———
i was quoting hamish
rjs says
We are willing to wait for however long it takes, provided only we believe the leadership is truly willing to act. Even allowing for the current WM appetite for self-destruction, this apparent preference to wait for Godot in the form of the mystical “60%” who will materialise out of thin air by beneficial happenstance is truly corrosive to that patience. I don’t want to berate you incessantly over it again, but I just wish you understood that better
———–
i agree that from now on, indy should be at the centre of snp manifestos
you say increase in support is mythical….. it isnt, the polls indicate a swing from no to yes in the event of brexit. so does common sense. the only question is by how much?
the next few events will cause a swing
1. the election of a tory brexiteer pm,
2. an PR eu election dominated by nigel farage and changeuk
3. a ge led by a tory brexiteer pm, nigel could be a tory candidate in such an election
4. the likely event of a tory majority
5. the effects of a no deal brexit
all these will have an effect on support for indy and could very well push support over 50% at which point, it is in our power to call a he in scotland only
if we stand on a single issue of indy and win over 50% of the vote…… what is the point of indyref2?
Good points folk are making.
Yes, I am feeling a real change in the attitudes here in Edinburgh.
If Edinburgh is now believing that Scotland should NOW be Independent then we are well on our road.
The final outcome from Brexit may come suddenly and the SNP have been repeatedly declaring that Scotland WILL NOT be dragged out of the EU against our will.
THAT idea is now normalised and expected.
And I reckon Nicola Sturgeon is ready for whatever way things will go in the next few days.
And we are ready too 🙂
Ooooh people fighting over what I wrote!, fame!
I was being a bit liberal in my use of language over a referendum.
Just as there are english votes for English laws I believe the reality is the UK (English majority) have no right to prevent us having a referendum if we want one. SNP has a mandate already. The Tories know it and so does labour. The Unionists will try and stop us at all costs supported by the British state broadcaster and news media. A referendum can be supported or rejected by London. Either option is an opportunity for us.
Sagacity and sanity. Good luck all the same – not everyone in the higher realms are so enlightened.
schrodingers cat @ 17:47:
Oh dear, no, you are putting words into my mouth here that I never said or intended. I was merely emphasising, as did gala, that there is a circular argument happening here that needs to be broken somehow in order to make tangible progress.
I tend to agree with the rest of what you wrote, in that (as I have mentioned several times in previous threads) thanks to developing events there is now latent support, that is people who were “no” previously but who are now very much open to persuasion.
Which emphasises more than ever that we have to proactively make a case to them now. Despite the media omerta. And that will require some kind of campaign. If that turns out to be EU elections, not ideal perhaps, but so be it.
(And if it’s a EU crash-out instead, I expect that the SG won’t just shrug their collective shoulders and let it pass by unchallenged either.)
O/T
Got a leaflet through the door today – looked for all the world like an election leaflet.
It told me all about Dean Lockhart MSP and had lots of photos of places he’s visited, business he will help, cashpoints he will save,GP’s he’ll find to fill the gaps etc. etc. high streets he will save.
Funny though – it didn’t mention what party he belongs to???? Why would he not want to tell us he is a member of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party OR at least tell us we should vote for (t)Ruthless Davidson’s party.
Comes to a sorry state when you daren’t say what party you belong to – is the name that toxic?
Seems it must be!
O/T Today is the first day of the public inquiry into the Clutha disaster.It is expected to last 6 months and with banks of lawyers lined up, charging hundreds of pounds per hour, it will cost the taxpayer many millions of pounds.
Ten people were killed and thirty one people were injured. Their families need answers,the truth and the facts about the cause of the accident.
A police helicopter ran out of fuel and the pumps transferring the fuel between tanks were switched off, according to the AAIB report, causing the helicopter to fall out of the sky onto and through the roof of The Clutha Bar.There are readers on Wings with more expertise than me about helicopter aviation but the cause of the accident seems reasonably clear.
My thought is that would it not be a better use of public money to pay all the families affected substantial compensation rather than boost the income of the already very wealthy QCs and lawyers.
Every week in Holyrood opposition politicians jump up and demand a public inquiry into many different subjects where there are other more appropriate and efficient ways of investigating these situations.
What do other Wingers think?
Schrodinger at 0140 and onwards,
You give far, far too much importance to section 30. It is NOT permission to hold a referendum. By making the arguments you do, you add weight to the mis conceived notion that section 30 is ‘permission’
I repeat, the Scottish government does NOT need permission or a section 30 to hold a referendum. Holding a referendum in such circumstances is NOT illegal. I can hold a referendum if I feel like it. So what justification would their be for a boycott?
If unionists said they would not vote, the question would be why? If they said because it is illegal, they need asked which law prohibits the holding of referendums? A section 30 is NOT needed.
The notion that a referendum without section 30 is illegal is unionist bullsh*t. It has NO foundation in fact. It really should not be repeated or promoted by indy supporters.
It’s that freaking simple.
OT Is anyone else having problems with access to the online National this am? I managed to read the article which was highlighted in my email but every time I try to see another article, although I am already logged in, I get an unusual black Login page, but it doesnt allow me to log-in, or even to get back to the headlines page. Another 77 attack, or just my laptop playing up?
@Fionan
National site working fine for me, but I use a javascript blocker addon installed into the web browser.
I suggest that you do that and then the popup box will not appear.
link to en.wikipedia.org
😉
Whilst there’s merit in your point the idea behind ‘Believe Women’ is the treatment of those who report sexual offences.
In years past they were treated badly and essentially called liars by those they’d sought help from. This ‘attitude’ is what needed to change, not the law itself. Those reporting offences need to be treated as though they are truthful and THEN see where the evidence takes the chances of prosecution. It was failure to do things like this that led to cases like that in Rotherham. (other factors as well)
But, on “Being Offended” I am a little dumbfounded, not completely, obviously!! The entire POINT of your court case is that Kezia Dugdale ‘called you a name’ and you ‘didn’t like it’ YOU were offended by it. So please, drop this point about being offended, it’s hypocrisy.
Please don’t think I disagree with your case, however. I agree COMPLETELY. Being called a homophobe IS offensive but MUCH worse than that it causes reputational damage. And THAT, for someone who make television and radio appearances and runs perhaps the best known and read Scottish political blog can cause ACTUAL damage to your ‘day job’ and potential to raise funds for the blog and ‘make your living’
I imagine this is one of the major planks of your case against Dugdale. And I agree with you. BUT, at it’s heart is ‘being offended’ so PLEASE don’t shoot down others who have, essentially done EXACTLY the same as you.
The remarks of the radio panel have less to do with the facts of the matter and more to do with their political beliefs. The best thing to do with this is to ignore it, how many people actually LISTENED to this tosh anyway.
Any way, good luck with the case. I appreciate it ISN’T just as straightforward as it may appear. Dugdale doesn’t just have to be proved to have made the remark OR to be wrong, she would have to be knowingly or recklessly wrong AND on top of that you would have to prove that this is the kind of thing that could cause damage to you.
Were anyone else bringing this case I would reckon they had a good chance of succeeding, especially as she had the chance to avoid all of this and specifically chose NOT TO. But, it ISN’T anyone else. You are a blogger for independence and THAT changes EVERYTHING. Your chances of justice go from GOOD to SLIM. I’d LOVE to be proved wrong on this, but I doubt it. Beloved party leader Vs reviled (by the establishment) blogger and pundit.
Your case may be a baromter of how the establishment is choosing to regard those of us who want an independent Scotland.
Good luck Stu! You SHOULD win and I sincerely hope you do!
Groan!
apologies – got bored almost instantly with the predictability. stopped listening.
Problem is that BBC Scotland, having still received no updated instructions from their masters, is still campaigning dutifully for a ‘no’ vote in 2014.
GENDER DOES NOT DEFINE A PERSON.
Exactly as nobody is defined by their height, skin colour, number of limbs, hair colour or BMI.
It’s a crime to discriminate on the basis of many of the above, including gender.
So why is gender a discriminant – as in a way to identify and select people – even considered?