The queen is dead
Winnie Ewing, who has sadly passed away a few weeks short of her 94th birthday, was the second SNP politician I ever heard of.
My dad met her, and would speak of her with Billy Wolfe, the party leader who was also his employer at a forest machinery company in Bathgate (and our family friend), during her second term as an MP in the UK Parliament.
She now joins my dad and Billy as people who worked for the cause of independence but died before it came to fruition, after many wasted years under the leadership of Nicola Sturgeon.
After sitting in Westminster for Hamilton, and later for Moray and Nairn (where she unseated the then Scottish Secretary), she took up a seat at the European Parliament, where she famously became known as “Madame Ecosse” for her tireless advocacy for the nation. Along with Wolfe, she did a huge amount to modernise the party and reshape it into what would become a credible mainstream electoral force.
And with great pride she was also an MSP in the first devolved Scottish Parliament, chairing its first meeting and delivering the unforgettable, moving and powerfully symbolic speech in which she proclaimed “the Scottish Parliament, which adjourned on March 25, 1707, is hereby reconvened”.
If there’s any mercy to be found in her passing it’s that she didn’t live to see the disgrace that the party has now become kicking out her son, Fergus Ewing, for standing up alone against incompetence and stupidity in the Scottish Government in much the same way that Winnie once stood up alone for Scotland in the House Of Commons, viciously abused by Scottish Labour and Tory MPs and the Scottish media.
Winnie Ewing was worth a hundred of all the SNP’s current MPs combined, with perhaps the honourable exceptions of Joanna Cherry and Angus MacNeil. The careerist, devolutionist, nest-feathering gravy sponges parking their expenses-fattened behinds on the SNP benches shame the party that was in large part built on Winnie’s breakthrough by-election victory in Hamilton in 1967 (just six days after I was born), and of which she served as President for nearly 20 years.
Sturgeon, of course, had attempted to hijack her story for the furtherance of her own personal image, with words whose hypocrisy rings louder today than the bells of Big Ben.
Abuse and bullying are now the SNP’s modus operandi against anyone who dares to argue an unfashionable opinion – as Cherry, MacNeil, Joan McAlpine and Fergus Ewing can confirm – and it’s Sturgeon’s “continuity” successor who looks set to eviscerate the “political dynasty” by suspending Fergus Ewing for voting with his conscience, even as Sturgeon is allowed to remain despite being a suspect in a major criminal investigation.
We didn’t know Winnie Ewing, so we’ll refrain from speculating on how she may have felt about the current state of the party whose true female icon she was. But what we’ll say with confidence is that her name, at least, will live in the SNP’s history with honour forever.
Nicely done Rev.
I met Winnie once at an SNP rally in Stirling…….
She was a force of nature and her speech that day in the Albert hall shaped my political views for decades.
Lovely, Lovely woman with a heart of gold and endless patience.
we need a thousand like her……
Condolences to her family and friends.
She was an inspirational woman, the like of which we too rarely see.
Didn’t realise he was her son, never made the connection.
Stripping Fergus Ewing of the whip is utterly despicable, just when you think the SNP cannot sink any lower they prove that they can indeed do so.
I grudge every single pound of membership fees I paid that party from September 19th 2014 until June 2020.
Well said Stuart – Sturgeon is nothing like the patrior and politician Winnie Ewing was. Such a tragedy, Winnie did not live to see Scotland free again.
Great piece Stu just the right tone. Winnie was my reason for getting into the independence movement in the first place. I met her several times during the 70s and 80s. I am genuinely saddened by her passing
I’m sure Winnie would excuse, even welcome, my words of vague anger and negativity, however, it has to be said that regardless of how many of Westminster’s Scots unionist tea-boys and girls attempt to block Scotland’s natural path to being a normal country again, Scotland will, indeed, become a normal and very independent country again.
There’s no way we’re just lying down to these people, after Winnie Ewing worked all her life for her country, whilst a conveyor belt of greedy, pocket-lining slugs attempt to thwart our destiny, no, that treachery will not prevent the inevitable. We’ll get there – the hard way, sure – but we’ll get there.
RIP, Winnie Ewing.
That someone like Fergus Ewing can be dropped by the party for voting against a self serving non SNP member who has tried to bankrupt the country to feather her own nest (I’m utterly convinced she has pecuniary interest in the privatisation of recycling) is approaching peak NuSNP.
It will take a LOT for me to vote for this shower ever again.
She was a real lady, a real fighter, and a true believer in Scotland. I did meet Winnie on several occasions and found her to be a wonderful person to talk with. Her work in Europe for the Scottish cause, followed by Alex Salmond’s role as FM led us to being a hair’s breadth of being Independent. I’m disgusted by the moves afoot to banish Fergus to the back benches, and glad she’s not around to see that happen. The current intake of MSPs of all parties in Holyrood is shameful in their lack of ability to think beyond what is ‘politically correct’ they waste time, money and effort on policies which do NOTHING to enhance our infrastucture, economy, or forward planning for the country. I left the SNP over 3 years ago, you couldn’t pay me enough to rejoin. Winnie’s hard work and dedication to the cause will be remembered long after this clutch of chickens have gone home to roost.
RIP Winnie. A true titan.
I ever meet Sturgeon, I’m gonna kick her right up the arse, for Winnie’s sake.
The brightest of the lights are all going out.
Such sad news – she could have seen independence before she left had it not been for the vile cowards and gravy slurpers that hijacked the party she worked so hard for and helped to build into a formidable political force. Rest in peace Winnie, we will never forget you, a mighty woman whose shoes Sturgeon is not fit to lick!
I will always remember the first time I heard her name. At the time I had a part time job driving a taxi and that particular night I had a couple of Labour activists in the back and one said to the other “who the fuck does she think she is, that’s OUR seat.
Last time I ever voted Labour!
Was only ever in Winnie’s company on one occasion, so too that of Maggie Ewing, at the party conference at Eden Court in 1994. (Also memorable for me in that it was my only speech to conference which was televised).
Winnie was in good form with anecdotes of her time in Brussels. I particularly recall the knives coming out for a certain Leon Britton who to say she didn’t care much for would be an understatement, but she had us all in fits.
It was also my first encounter with the less than impressive Nicola Sturgeon. Some things don’t change, sadly.
RIP Madame Écosse
That second paragraph from Sturgeon is particularly nauseating and tell you everything we should have known about her.
Very sad news. The real QUEEN OF SCOTLAND -mother of all scots.
RIP
I met her on several occasions, and she was one formidable lady. I don’t know, but I think she would have been appalled at the shenanigans of the party today. Such a sad event. Will they do anything to mark her passing or will they just plough ahead and take the whip from her son. These people show little respect for anyone who is not tippy-toe ‘woke’, who is a woman, or who is old enough for his or her synapses to have linked, so I wouldn’t expect too much. I suppose the likes of Keir Hardie must be rotating like a top in his grave at the state of the Labour Party today. All of the parties have betrayed their origins and their raison d’être. All are just a pale shadow of their original selves as the managerial generation came to the fore and starting turning MPs and MSPs into tailor’s dummies and immature brats.
RIP Winnie.
When she got to WM she said a shiver ran through the House of Commons looking for a spine to run up.
Perversely, NuSNP / greens are now sending a shiver through Independence supporters.
“Winnie Ewing was worth a hundred of all the SNP’s current MPs combined,”
Never a truer word written.
With this sad news about Winnie it maybe it will be well awkward for Humza Yo just after he sacked Fergus . The funeral which will be massive and the current First Minister may not attend?
Now there’s a thing. Will he show face or not?What’s the chances?
This will maybe be the final wakeup call to the NuSNP borgs.
A truly sad time for her family, and a truly sad time for Scotland.
What a woman, what a fighter for Scotland’s cause. Rest in Peace Winnie.
My deepest condolences to all in Scotland. She fought for everyone.My 1968 SNP button was inspired by her. I will treasure it always.
Winnie Ewing, Margo MacDonald and Margaret Bain/Ewing:
real and true female icons of Scotland’s Cause.
Lovely tribute Stu. Thank you.
My 15th birthday was 3 November 1967. My mother woke me saying “Many Happy Returns. I have a wee gift for you but your big surprise present comes from Hamilton. Overnight the SNP have overturned a massive Labour majority to win the seat. We will see Scotland free in our lifetime”.
My ma is long dead and to save you the maths, I am now 70 and am unlikely to see it. The hope that burned so brightly then and in 2014 has been killed by Sturgeon and her evil crew. So so sad.
I am fortunate enough to have seen Winnie Ewing give a speech and though this was several decades ago, the memory lingers clearly with me.
She was an awesome figure and an inspirational speaker,this despite our political views,at that time, not yet being in alignment.
Not one of those currently in charge, the grubby inheritors and suborners of the noble cause, has any legitimate case to claim that they have picked up her torch, never mind to jump in with the tackety boots and make it about them.
“Come back.
Even as a shadow,
Even as a dream.”
Euripides.
Many years ago I heard her speak at a convention. She inspired me to stand as a paper candidate for the SNP in the local elections, because she said that every single vote counts. I came second (the winning candidate, Labour, graciously said that if I had campaigned, the result would have been much closer).
How sad that her son has had the whip withdrawn.
It’s not often I cry. I am both sad and angry.
Damn, damn, damn the current SNP to hell.
RIP Madame Ecosse.
Fergus Ewing gets suspended.
Nicola Sturgeon gets a bouquet of flowers.
Surely nothing further requires saying about the remains of what was once the SNP.
A very fine tribute to a very fine woman. A sad day for the Ewings & the wider independence movement.
(Sturgeon isn’t fit to utter Winnie Ewing’s name but no doubt she’ll be sad facing a comment at the first opportunity whilst me, me, me-ing.)
PayPal Paul’s National piece about Fergus is utterly sickening. Typical dross from the shameless little beggar. He really is the most odious grifter imaginable.
Sadly, that is one thing I would not under any circumstances say “with confidence”. After what happened to AS I give it a week before some obese boily-faced purple-haired transloony with a self-diagnosed disability discovers evidence that Winnie was a “transphobe”, and that will be the end of her name.
Very moving, Rev. Campbell.
It’s always a sad day when a great soul departs this dream for another, leaving us who remain a little diminished in the wake of their passing.
I was tempted for a moment there to contrast and compare the magnificent Winnie Ewing with the ‘slightly’ less magnificent…well, you know who.
But on second thoughts I realised there is no possible way to compare the two.
And anyway, I’m disinclined to write that woman’s name next to Winnie Ewing’s at this sad time.
Never met her, but did meet Margo MacDonald. Was living in a student flat in Edinburgh the late 70s. My mates and i were Conservative party activists at the university. We were looking for a rectoral candidate who would appeal across the board and beat any Marxist. So we thought of MM. She came to our flat for supper and over spag bol and bad wine we tried to persuade her to stand. The Tory students had a good relationship with the SNP and often worked together on campaigns. If she had agreed to stand I am sure she would have walked it. Of course in those days being SNP was about independence, not about being left wing socialist greens, so many SNP supporters were conservative re. Economic and social policies. (I wonder how Iain votes now? I cannot believe he could support themodern party.)
MM was delightful. A fun evening. A pity she did not stand. Instead Father Anthony Ross the Catholic Chaplain and a gay activist was elected. We did not know it at the time, but he was friends with some very rum Glasgow priests who were involved in the Paedophile Information Exchange. He also like to wrestle naked with young male students at the chaplaincy.
Winnie, along with Margo McDonald, is the reason my family shifted hard from being soft Unionists to supporters of independence. My mother met her a few times and was in awe of her. What the SNP have become, and how far they’ve moved to being a devolutionist party while pushing an authoritarianism Winniw would be shocked by. Especially in light what Sturgeon’s lackeys are doing with her son.
However what is astonishing, though not surprising, is seeing all these Nu SNP types who only the other day were calling her son a ‘bigot’ and a ‘nepo baby’ pivot hard to Tweet their tributes to Winnie and condolences to her family, one of which they’ve removed the whip from a party his mother helped build to what it used to be before the lunatics and careerists took over.
And we still have Lorna Slater in government. A woman who can’t do her job competently and who’s every solution involves some form of privatisation. I’m astonished by those Indy supporters calling themselves left wing or socialists still supporting a party which is every Winnie was against.
Condolences, sounds like a true political champion.
Sorry to go O/T so early (although it could be argued that in the “big” scheme of things this isn’t really “off topic”), but in NZ they are using an algorithm to discriminate who gets prioritised for surgery based on race, ethnicity and economic status.
This is the world we get when such political giants are replaced by mere ideological operative puppets of darker hidden forces.
From Australia’s “ABC” (and, by the way, this only ‘raised debate’ because the remaining free parts of the internet did a massive “WTF??”):
“An algorithm that takes into account how long patients have been on the waitlist, where they live, their financial circumstances, and their ethnicity to help determine where they should be placed on a surgery waitlist has raised debate in New Zealand this week.
An algorithm to adjust where patients sit on elective surgery waitlists has been used in parts of Auckland since February, however, many were not aware of it until this week.
The algorithm gives Indigenous M?ori and Pacific Island patients a higher priority on the list, pushing down white New Zealanders and other ethnicities with the idea to balance out longstanding inequities in the public system. …”
Very well said Rev,
My first ever vote was for Winnie in Moray, she was an amazing lady, such a shame she’s another who didn’t live to see independence. I hope her family tell the current & former FM to stay away from her funeral, no way should Chief mammy be allowed to use it for a selfie
Rest in Peace Winnie. A true hall of famer in SNP history and a class act.
What an odious smear of shit Sturgeon is in comparison. With every passing day she finds a way to make herself more despicable. A truly vile character.
David W Ferguson @ 14.53
Oh, how very much I wish I could believe you mistaken, David.
Unfortunately, I feel you are, if anything, being charitable to these strange people.
BBC Scotland reported Winnie had passed away aged 92.
Out of sync with the 2 weeks short of her 94th statement.
I don’t know which is correct, but thought I’d mention the discrepancy in case it needs amending here.
Christ only knows how many indy supporters have died waiting on that treacherous b*stard Sturgeon achieving independence, that was the main reason we voted for the SNP under her leadership in the first place.
Sturgeon the Judas and MSPs/MPs bar a couple of them sold us out for financial gain she (Sturgeon) put her and her party’s self interests ahead of an entire nation, we must return the favour by ejecting them from office at every turn the current SNP has made a deal with Westminster to keep us in this asset stealing union.
Scotland is a wealthy country that’s treated as a colony and our very own colonial administration the SNP wants to keep it that way at our expense.
Get the SNP and the Greens out of office.
Vote Alba, Join Alba.
RIP Winnie, you may not have seen your dream materialise in your lifetime!
But You’re dream has not died, For as long as but a hundred of us remain…….
You’re dream continues in us,
We cannot replace have much you achieved as one person, but perhaps together we can become a close second and complete the dream you held dear,
Has Nicola issued a tribute yet
Has any of her useless team
Disgraceful
Fergus Ewen we have a open invitation for you to join us on the un- infiltrated side of Scottish independence.
Stu, A lovely tribute to Winnie Ewen and a better understanding of you’re roots.
@ Shug at 4.07: of course she has – “heartbroken” apparently. Me, me, me…
Shug Sturgeon the Judas has posted several comments on her passing on her Twitter feed.
She really is a vile creature.
Lovely piece Stu. I’m old enough to remember being so excited that night in Hamilton when we thought this was the beginning of something huge. What a bonnie fechter she was. That pic of her sitting on the shoulders of Hugh MacDonald (Uisdean) is such a special one. We will definitely never see the likes of her again.
RIP Madame Ecosse
Rest in peace Madame Ecosse’ Thank you. I’m so so sad to hear you have left us.
You will never be forgotten.
A appropriate name for the one that should be jailed is turncoat.
The Eilidh Douglas tweet re Winnie was disgusting, and she can’t but fail to read the room from the comments from both the indy side and the unionists who have rightly so told the PoS to GTF
The obituary of Father Anthony Ross.
link to independent.co.uk
To counter the slander posted above by London Scott. 3.00pm
“After what happened to AS I give it a week before some obese boily-faced purple-haired transloony with a self-diagnosed disability discovers evidence that Winnie was a “transphobe”, and that will be the end of her name.”
Barely took an hour.
link to twitter.com
Sturgeon on Radio Scotland, live, right now, paying ‘tribute’ to Winnie Ewing.
Nicola on Radio Scotland praising Winnie. It’s stomach turning when you know all the damage Nicola has done to the independence movement.
I saw an odd thing on Monday evening as I was going to start dinner. A couple of women got out of a car in front of the house and the taller woman was taking photos of the one in the red dress next to the post box across the road. As they walked back to the car I thought, “That looks like Monica Lennon.”, then “Nah, what would she be doing around here?”
Jings!What a tweet from a lawyer and so called academic.
The world has fair tilted on its axis , gone completely squint.
I saw an odd thing on Monday evening as I was going to start dinner. A couple of women got out of a car in front of my house and the taller woman was taking photos of the one in the red dress next to the post box across the road. As they walked back to the car I thought, “That looks like Monica Lennon.”, then “Nah, what would she be doing around here?” Anyway, I had a look at her Twitter feed yesterday and it turns out she was attending a beekeeping thing at Johm Ogilvie high school (in the red dress) and so I was not mistaken. Must have been posting something important to her!
It is one less believer in Scots Indy living today. The Wokist Brit Nats in the SNP will be rejoicing. The idea that Sturgeon goes on Dis-reporting Scotland and praises Winnie Ewing an actual Scot Nat also turns my stomach.
Excellent article Stu. I never met Winnie Ewing but my wife met her twice. She was impressed that she spoke to everybody in the room.
Rest in Peace Madame Eccosse’ and thank you for your fight to free our nation from the trai tors of 1707 who sold us out
Unfortunately your beloved party has been taken over by 21st century betrayers who care nothing for Scotland or Scots, they are the modern equivalent of the SCUM parcel of rogues who betrayed our nation without concience
Fergus Ewings electorate should be totally enraged that their representative has lost the whip of the Sick Nonce Party in favour of a grossly incompetent clown who was NOT voted in to governance but was FORCED on to the electorate by a shady backroom deal with a FM who excelled in abject failure herself, it is reprehensible that the electorate are so powerless to address this and other situations that require IMMEDIATE action, when independence comes we MUST ensure POWER returns to the PEOPLE
Malcolm Slessor. Wendy Wood, Billy Wolfe and Winnie how we need them now.
….I swear the BBC correspondent lifted your points almost verbatim on Radio Boak earlier….
At the ripe old age of 8, I went to Hamilton to deliver SNP leaflets with my dad, I didn’t understand the significance of that by election, my lasting memory was the Labour canvassers making fun of me, Winnie obviously had the last laugh.
Regarding her name going down in the SNP history books, there is time yet for the wokeratti to write her out as they did with Alex Salmond.
Scotland, since Sturgeon’s attempt to unionise our country, has failed miserably.
Winnie, we appreciate all you achieved for Scotland. R.I.P.
Twathater,
Before independence comes the people must empower themselves. Or it will never come.
Not one of the current crop of the Snp are worthy of mentioning Winnies name , she was a woman of high moral character & a belief in Scottish Independence unmatched by any one .
REST IN PIECE WINNIE .
Sturgeon and Yousaf look even more insignificant today, even more useless, even more worthless, even more pathetic and even more shallow than they did yesterday.
Ms Ewing was a person who stood by what she believed in and stood proudly before the flag of her party. Sturgeon and Yousaf, meanwhile, act like two pathetic, disloyal, 2-faced cowards who shield themselves behind the flag of another party so they can hide the fact they are both unionists actively fighting against Scotland’s independence.
There are only two possible reasons I can think off for the hopeless Yousaf not chucking Sturgeon out of the party:
1. he wants the membership to pay her legal fees
2. his masters have instructed him to keep such politically lethal liability in the party to make the SNP completely unelectable and implode when the truth comes out. Clearly, to resurrect labour, they need all the help they can get.
Sturgeon, by not having the dignity to resign despite the damage she is inflicting on the reputation and trust of the party, and Yousaf, by being unable to find the balls to chuck the political fraud out of the party despite witnessing first hand the damage that keeping it in is causing, are knowingly helping labour.
Shame on them!
Winnie was clever, funny and kind.
But what I liked most about her was that she cared about Scotland, and the Scots.
You could say the same thing about the current ‘Scottish’ Parliament, but God would strike you down for being a liar.
I’ll be lighting a candle for Winnie tonight, RIP Winnie.
RevSTU,
I hope you don’t mind, but I will quote part of your article here;
QUOTE “Winnie Ewing was worth a hundred of all the SNP’s current MPs combined, with perhaps the honourable exceptions of Joanna Cherry and Angus MacNeil. The careerist, devolutionist, nest-feathering gravy sponges parking their expenses-fattened behinds on the SNP benches shame the party that was in large part built on Winnie’s breakthrough by-election victory in Hamilton in 1967..” [my bolding]
So very true.
Not one of them has the fire in their belly for independence. Not one of them has the guile or wit of past champions of Scottish independence. Too feckin busy living the high life on their grossly overpaid salaries. THAT is what is wrong with the SNP now.
Not one of them has the same desire as Winnie did. Not one of them has any fight in them. Not one of them truly cares about independence.
Then to make things even worse they remove the party whip from Fergus, for merely having a freaking backbone and integrity and voting that, YES, the Canadian nobody Lorna Slater of the
‘green’trans dogma party, is indeed (as everybody knows) a useless idiot (or something similar).Now we have Sturgeon lamenting Winnie. That’s Nicola Sturgeon who has single-handedly virtually destroyed the SNP, and crushed the independence hopes of many. What a charlatan.
Winnie’s win in Hamilton in 1967 was the reason I spent 4th and 5th year at Kirkton High School doodling the SNP logo on my jotter covers.
I was able to vote in the 1970 GE but, unfortunately, there was no SNP candidate in my constituency so, for my sins, I voted Tory, because of the mess Labour had left behind them.
In 1974, I was finally able to vote SNP, which I have done in every GE since. But no more. Hopefully, Alba will put up a candidate against Chris Law in the next GE so I have a pro-indy candidate to vote for.
A guy, Pete, who was a lodger with us when he was doing HNC Hotel & Institutional Management at Duncan Of Jordanstone College of Art in the 80s, went on to become Margo MacDonald’s office manager. I felt quite proud at that.
What happened to the SNP? Once a polly tyto they were the party in Scotland promoting independence. Now? Apart from one or three MPs/MSPs they have totally lost the plot.
(Sorry for the Stanley Unwin reference but I can’t help myself.)
RIP Winnie. Another leaves this Earth after fighting all her life for our freedom. She will live on as a legend and patriot. It really saddens me to see patriots like Winnie and Margo dying without ever living in a free Scotland. We owe them so much. Yet, too many in the SNP do not have the same belief. They are disrespecting her legacy by their lack of ambition to fight for our freedom.
Here’s part of Sturgeon’s televised tribute to Winnie.
Someone pointed out that she’s using a ‘green screen’.
Why?
What’s the point of that?
To show that she’s close to books?
And why is her face so ‘bright’?
Maybe it’s just my imagination but I’m pretty sure that, right at the very end of this clip, she has to remind herself who she’s meant to be talking about.
twitter.com/markthehibby/status/1671952399500541958
“after many wasted years under the leadership of Nicola Sturgeon.”
Shouldn’t that read “after the total betrayal under Nicola Sturgeon.”
Thank you Winnie Ewing for your contribution to the struggle for independence.
duncanio says:
22 June, 2023 at 2:15 pm
Winnie Ewing, Margo MacDonald and Margaret Bain/Ewing:
Add Wendy Wood and Janette Jones to that list.
Heroines every one of them.
The likes of Sturgeon paying tribute to Winnie Ewing is like the apartheid supporting Tories paying tribute to Nelson Mandela.
Politicians are hypocrites to the extreme.
What a difference the SNP was, until Sturgeon hijacked it for her own personal gain.
I met Winnie, at an SNP excursion to the town of Veere, in the Netherlands, a former Scots Free Port. I remember her giving a speech in very Scottish-accented Dutch. (She once said she was staying at a B&B in the Netherlands and the landlady, who didn’t speak much English, came in as she was having breakfast and said “Will u mair tee drinken?” (not necessarily spelled like that) and she thought, how hard can this language be? Though I believe she also had a Dutch boyfriend for a time.)
I sat with her at lunch one day and she was wonderful company, asking me about my father’s Gaelic roots to a depth I hadn’t really thought about before, and telling me some of the history of Arran Gaelic.
She had wonderful dress sense, carrying off a flamboyant style with aplomb. I can’t help feeling she’s been appalled by what has happened over the past eight years. She’s a terrible loss to Scotland.
“Barely took an hour.”
She didn’t though, did she? (only asking, like – please say “no”).
Morag @ 11:43 pm
““Will u mair tee drinken?””
We know that languages develop and transfer through peoples and their movement and interactions. Latin was brought to Scotland by the Romans, Inglis with the Angles, Gaelic with the Gaels, Norse with the Norsemen. Then there comes the influence of many different European languages via expanding Scottish international trade and travel over many centuries. This is then followed by imposition of an English language (and ‘English Studies’) arriving via English domination. Scotland is and was, like many places, a melting pot of peoples, cultures and languages, as well as being subject to frequent invasion by various other ‘imperial’ cultures that sought to dominate us, and still do.
The Scots language, however, is oor ain distinct, unique language, constructed and developed solely by the Scots through, and despite, all these varied invasions and cultural interactions over more than one thousand years. The archaeological record also tells us that there was, during all of this period, an indigenous people here already in the form of the Picts and their descendants.
The Scots language is therefore unique to us Scots because it has been built and formed by us, also aided through external interaction with other peoples, cultures and languages, as with most if not all language formation.
The Scots language isnae English, neither is it Latin, or Gaelic, or Norse, or French or German or Dutch, tho it has some elements of all of these and others in it. Scots is oor ain Scots language, a distinct language made by Scots for Scots. It is oor ain indigenous mither tongue.
And Scots are defined by that Scots language, which is the basis of our national identity today and the fabric of our national culture, which is what gives us our national consciousness and the solidarity of our independence movement. The Scots language tells us wha we are.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
RIP, great woman. Present and involved in so many big events in recent Scottish history.
As for the gravy-slurpers currently in charge, let’s face it, most of that sorry bunch are pretty unemployable in the real world, certainly on their current pay grades. Exponential over-achievers. They would be challenged pushing supermarket trolleys (no disrespect to the hard workers that do that job). Quite a few I suspect couldn’t tell one end of the trolley from the other. I shiver when I think of those absolute incompetents running the show (and ruining our lives and dreams). And some folk still genuinely think that those clowns will bring us closer to independence. Time to wake up folks. Smell the coffee.
She’ll see Scottish Independence from heaven with her wings over Scotland. Rest in peace.
I only met her once, a long time ago, but we had a long and detailed conversation about independence. To show how long ago it was, I said to her that I thought the internet might be important in bypassing the pro-Union biased media and she asked “What’s that?”.
Great woman, great loss but hopefully, also, a great legacy.
Ian Brotherhood @10:39pm
Another torrent of references to herself – quel surprise. There must be a special chapter being added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, in preparation for the 6th Edition.
Lots of correct, emotive and moving posts paying tribute to a true supporter of Independence-Winnie Ewing. RIP.
Then along comes Baird. Not a word of respect regarding her passing. Instead yet another attempt at trying to show how clever he is compared to the rest of us. On the plus side not a word about Colonialism in his post. Must be a first?
There is now a quite distinct Make Nicola Great Again movement (or MiNGA), and the MiNGAs seem to represent the mainstream of the SNP. Your parliamentary group are sending flowers to people for getting arrested and your leader seems to have made it clear that protecting Sturgeon is the first priority.
Outstanding stuff from Robin McAlpine, link to robinmcalpine.org
A bit of light relief, from Rikki Fulton’s autobiography.
twitter.com/ianbhood/status/1672142799901163521
Horsebox Mike Russell on the Britnat colonial radio station Radio “Scotland” earlier today promoting the SNP shibboleth gathering tomorrow.
Russell was spouting the usual shite that we’ve come to recognise not just from him but from the current SNP in general.
Well said; Winnie was a Stateswoman in every sense.
“When will we see her likes again?”
My condolences to her family, RIP.
Alf , you appear to have acquired an ignorant stalker but since you are bigger and better I’m sure you can give the nit picker a bypass.
It looks like it will be wet tomorrow so for all you patriots marching for Scottish independence with the spirit of Winnie Ewing before you, take brollies and waterproofs and have a superb day.
Winnie was an unmatched inspirational figure in the independence movement. She fought Scotland’s corner for so long in three different parliaments and truly deserved the honored title of Madame Ecosse.
Sturgeon should just have kept quiet. Winnie was everything Sturgeon isn’t. A true patriot, a proper lawyer, a real person.
Thank you Stuart for that tribute, very moving.
Nicely said rev.
We could really to with Winnie now.
Red lines. Aye. We’re way past the limits of credulity.
SNP having taken the decision, they’re unable to provide any mechanism to deliver independence, instead choose to to encourage more voters to vote for the same dud, non-strategy.
So what happens when SNP inevitably crash, come election time? SNP slide while numbers grow for independence, the party cannot possibly claim credit for that rise.
Another red line crossed, too late to use that election to end the Union.
SNP ‘implosion’ is unavoidable, why delay that end, any further? A genuine U-turn of party policy, beyond any reasonable expectation, betrayed by their actions to date. The party will soon descend into chaos, every man, woman and other for themselves!
Hopefully, that demise comes before the next election. Out of the chaos, individuals must rally! Salmond’s vision of a United front, is now the only hope for the people of Scotland. SNP, having overstepped the mark, has sealed it’s own fate.
Dorothy Devine says:
23 June, 2023 at 9:07 am
It looks like it will be wet tomorrow so for all you patriots marching for Scottish independence with the spirit of Winnie Ewing before you, take brollies and waterproofs and have a superb day.
Thanks Dorothy. Met Office is saying light rain overnight, then cloudy changing to sunny intervals by early afternoon, with pleasant gusts of 28mph breeze to keep the Saltires fluttering…
But I’ll go prepared, and just take whatever comes anyway. ‘‘Tis Scotland after all. 🙂
( ‘Tis the Met Office forecast too… Ha! Ha! Ha! What can possibly go wrong?)
Beauvais says:
Sturgeon should just have kept quiet. Winnie was everything Sturgeon isn’t. A true patriot, a proper lawyer, a real person.
Margo and Winnie were chalk and cheese, but they were both true Scottish originals. They spoke honestly, in proper grown up paragraphs and everything. You could have a debate with them without being accused of being sexistracisttransphobia.
Labour were always (or at least, in Scotland in the 90’s) the party of glib bullshit, unwarranted self righteousness and idiot voters. Scottish nationalists tended to be the thinkers, the people with something to say, the nonconformists and the troublemakers.
Current Year SNP is just Labour 2.0. Wanky careerist losers with nothing to offer, constantly talking shite as they try to cling on to their pensions and expenses at all costs. Identity politics is one of Hell’s greatest inventions, because it successfully distracts a huge chunk of the pop while their futures are sold off to Blackrock and Capita by the people we trusted to govern on our behalf.
It’s gone very quiet on the subject of Fergus Ewing’s proposed suspension.
“Stop the world, Scotland wants to get on.” Winnie Ewing, 1967. RIP. A real Scottish Patriot.
Breeks,
Lerwick may turn up to support you you all ;-:
I’m sure Mrs Ewings funeral will be a most dignified affair, but I dare say she might have given a metaphorical two fingers to the incumbent regime,if she was borne from the Kirk to Melanie, singing”Look what they’ve done to my song, Ma”
Dorothy Devine @ 9:07 am
“an ignorant stalker”
Aye Dorothy, tho it was remiss of me, but unlike him/her at least I can remember 1967 and Winnie’s great success, and that same year Scotland beating the world champions at Wembelay, and Celtic winning the European Cup. All of these events and more are important demonstrations of our peoples national consciousness that I refer to, as are the flag waving marches we embark on to secure national liberation.
That finest international accolade as ‘Madame Ecosse’ was more than a subtle indication of the international community recognising that Scotland does indeed exist, if not yet in the dominating behaviour of our oppressor or the ingrained colonial mindset of some of our own people.
As Frantz Fanon wrote: “Far from keeping aloof from other nations…it is national liberation which leads the nation to play its part on the stage of history. It is at the heart of national consciousness that international consciousness lives and grows. And this two-fold emerging is ultimately the source of all culture.”
I could be corrected on this,
Did Winnie Ewen once say that the, “Snp had been infiltrated”?
Andrew F,
Besides being of OT rather quickly, it is interesting to note that the Country we are pretending not to fight, but where precious amounts of NHS finances is being funnelled into the front door and out the back without tracking or receipts
That Country has prioritised operations that are needed by passing into law,
That caught pedophiles will automatically be Chemically Castrated.
Now if we had a law like that in Scotland instead of a open invitation to child molesters and abusers, that the Greens and Snp passed,
We could be rest assured that there would not be the wrong kind of newbee Scots moving here,
The Scottish government (SNP) has the chutzpah to produce a report that tells us that Brexit is a disaster for Scots, and the Scottish economy and Scotland as a whole.
Yet the Judas Sturgeon who promised that Scotland would not be dragged out of the Single Market (EU) did f*ck all to stop it.
Why would anyone listen to never mind believe anything this current SNP/Scottish government has to say. The SNP government has caused significant damage to Scotland we MUST vote them out before they do even more.
Vote Alba, Join Alba.
Just some of the drawbacks of Brexit.
“An expected loss of £3 billion every year in public revenues for Scotland
Food price inflation at a 45-year high with Brexit responsible for an estimated one third of it
Damaged trade with 44% of businesses in Scotland naming Brexit as the main cause of difficulties trading overseas
Additional estimated costs of up to £600 per consignment for some shellfish exporters as a result of trade barriers
Staff shortages reported by 4% of tourism businesses in the Highland and Islands as a result of the loss of freedom of movement
More costly and difficult travel arrangements with long transit delays, more obstacles for touring artists and roaming charges reintroduced by most operators.”
This MUST be in place for every single GE and Holyrood election no ifs, no but, no excuses.
link to dochub.com
Jesus, Scotland really could be at the centre of the renewable energy boom, if only we were independent. However it looks like we’ll be robbed of the financial benefits of this, as we were with our oil and gas by Westminster.
Vote Alba, Join Alba to stop this great energy steal.
“SCOTLAND is leading the world in tidal stream renewable energy with more installed capacity than the rest of the planet combined, a new report from the London School of Economics has found.
Scotland also has more capacity under development than anywhere else in the world, despite huge projects underway in France, Canada, and the US.
The five expert authors of today’s LSE report looked at how tidal stream energy – which uses the ocean’s currents, ebbs, and flows to generate power – can support “sustainable growth opportunities”.”
Never to see independence, regretfully, Winnie did witness the rise and fall of SNP. At least, she outlived the party.
SNP having taken the decision, it’s unable to provide any mechanism to deliver independence, instead choose to encourage more voters to vote for the same dud, non-strategy.
So what happens when SNP inevitably crash, come election time? SNP slide while numbers grow for independence, the party cannot possibly claim credit for that rise.
Another red line crossed, too late to use that election to end the Union.
SNP ‘implosion’ is unavoidable, why delay that end, any further? A genuine U-turn of party policy, beyond any reasonable expectation, betrayed by their actions to date. The party will soon descend into chaos, every man, woman and other for themselves!
Hopefully, that demise comes before the next election. Out of the chaos, individuals must rally! Salmond’s vision of a United front, is now the only hope for the people of Scotland. SNP, having perversely failed it’s purpose to deliver, has sealed it’s own fate.
Here’s some good advice for all of us, but maybe especially apposite for members of the SNP:
After joining the French Resistance in London and toiling tirelessly for the cause, Weil came down with tuberculosis.
In a gesture of solidarity, despite the doctor’s orders to eat heartily, she ate only what was rationed to to the people of France under the German Occupation.
Albert Camus, the French-Algerian philosopher, author, and the recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize for literature, said this of Simone Weil: “the only great spirit of our times.”
I think Simone Weil and Winnie Ewing would have been great pals if they’d known each other.
@RoS
If you download the Denton Files the EU stamp is on them. The EU was on board with the queering of our nurseries and primary schools at a time when we need more indigenous Scots children born, not less. They were on board with the queering of all European children at a time when people who traditionally have large families are being literally shipped into our nations. I know that it is a hard pill to swallow but the EU is as compromised as the SNP.
Re Winnie and Fergus Ewing, from 1984.
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
Alf Baird @11:43am
I wouldn’t worry about it, Alf.
Your post was appropriate in the context of remembering Winnie Ewing’s passionate belief that Scotland should be independent and free from colonial rule.
Fake emotional support, fake outrage, fake condolences – the fake preamble to a crude ad hominem attack against you.
And a rookie mistake to boot; never mention the thing you don’t want people to talk about – in this case, colonialism.
When we See the happiness and spirit in the photograph that STU provided above for us, and we remember that same happiness and spirit of 2014,
This enthusiasm needs a constant, no matter where the turncoats have taken us today, it is their failure, not the peoples,
And it is the people that push and change the politics through the peoples confidence in themselves,
The power and empowerment of the people to say, this is the wrong politics for Scotland, and we the Sovereign people say NO or out you go to politicians.
At the march remember that spirit and happiness, the memory of Winnie Ewen’s fight against all the odds, and what she achieved for Scotland and with determination and how far she traveled as Madam Eccosse, the voice of Scotland.
The people of Scotland must have more confidence in their own abilities toBack Not Just Winnie Ewen’s dream,
For do we not all dream the same dream.
North Code
Alf Baird,
Hear hear.
Anton Decadent.
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified.”
Hear hear,
That includes the treaty of union.
Republicofscotland says:
23 June, 2023 at 12:11 pm
The Scottish government (SNP) has the chutzpah to produce a report that tells us that Brexit is a disaster for Scots, and the Scottish economy and Scotland as a whole.
Brexit was obviously the right move, since the entire fake political establishment is still throwing a raging, snottery temper tantrum over the plebs rejecting their golden retirement plans.
Anything that makes these people angry is a good idea.
Not a single day goes by without the media trying to gaslight you into thinking our country’s problems are down to not outsourcing our government to Ursula von Pantsuit and the rest of the incompetents, perverts, liars and thieves who run European politics.
It’s long overdue for Scottish nationalists to update the complacent early 90’s meme of EU = good. The EU itself is merely the American government’s gimp, as evidenced by their disastrous and self-harming involvement in a proxy war on European soil, insane decision to deindustrialise Germany, and ruinous obsession with forcing unwanted illegal migrants on unwilling citizens in Poland and Hungary.
The British government is also wholly owned by creepy Uncle Sam. Did you see Rishi lick Biden’s ring in exchange for insults and snubs? That’s what the UK is now – a third class sidekick of a failing foreign empire, that can’t even persuade the senile Hegemon to pronounce our unelected Prime Minister’s name correctly. We’re surrounded by useless politicians who are desperate to take orders from anybody except their own constituents.
British and German independence is in serious doubt, as is their medium term viability in the face of demographic replacement. In this context, achieving any kind of independence for Scotland worth the name and hassle is a real challenge, but the alternative is no more Scotland.
So we must win.
Hope your day is going well x
Check out this interactive map compiled by Everydoctor.
It shows where all private services are available and even more interestingly who all the politicians with financial interest in private health provision are.
There are about 60 politicians with their thumbs in the privatisation pie in England but only 1 in Scotland.
No prizes for guessing the Scottish one but I’ll leave you to find out yourself.
link to everydoctor.org.uk
@chic.mcgregor 2:11pm
Actually there’s two in Scotland (hint- zoom out)
@ chic – there’s 2. Guess the other one – the clue is its an offshore constituency…with a lying MP [I realise that is less of a clue..].
Red
You’re right about people needing to update their mental image of the EU. The Commission is a many-headed hydra – not all of them bad but unless you’ve been asleep for the past 2 years you can’t have failed to notice the power grab – over sanctioning people who don’t follow the narrative including EU members, central procurement of energy, weapons, etc. What are Scots going to do when they want to close Faslane and Coulport and the EU says “over your dead bodies”.
The EU stopped being a force for cooperation when it turned it’s back on the Schuman Declaration on which it was built and decided to pour arms into the current conflict, when the possibility of an agreement existed, no matter how remote.
The EU, or at least a large part of the Commission, is heading in a direction nobody is going to like.
I am heartsick today. It isn’t just the passing of Winnie Ewing, an inspiring politician, since she had a long and successful life but that her demise marks the passing into oblivion of a potential independent Scotland.
It crystallised things for me that had been reluctantly forming and refusing to materialise. However, the death of Winnie Ewing seems to emphasise how far we have come from comprehensible and coherent ideas of an independent Scotland into a time of political dystopia. I keep thinking I’ve woken up in a parallel universe where what is happening now has a complete disconnect from what I remember of the past. Nothing makes any sense. How did we get here?
I don’t believe in an independent Scotland any more, at least until those shape-shifting politicians parasitizing the independence cause are thrown out. Seriously, Stuart Campbell is right; any Scotland that could possibly emerge from those charlatans who comprise the present SNP would be a misbegotten, undemocratic monstrosity, a tyranny of lies. What a travesty of the decent independent democracy we dreamed Scotland might become.
(Excellent comment, by the way, Anton Decadent @ 1.01pm. This grotesque monster of trans ideology owed a lot to the hatching of the Denton’s playbook and the Jogyakarta principles. Both owe their origins to common parentage, shadowy progenitors within the EU and the UN.
They seemed to be looking to produce a movement that would have nothing to do with traditional politics – because that’s what they wanted to destroy – but would bring about social upheaval with religious, authoritarian overtones while jettisoning all the old troubling ideas of class, nationalism and the economy and especially, of majority rule. It had the novel idea of using minorities banded together against the majority using a doctrine of irrational waffle. I have to say, that so far, it has worked brilliantly.
Increasing poverty and hardship, welfare services for children as well as health services and education underfunded and struggling and what are we arguing about? Genocide by pronouns and recognition that mental health issues are best served by pretending that someone can metamorphose into something they imagine.
I want to go back to the universe I was in 10 years ago when politics and reality made some sense – even though the freakish present was already gestating, without our knowing. Will the Great Oz ever come out from behind his curtain?)
Just been reading this; ‘On Lies, Secrets, and Silence – selected prose’ (1966-1978).
And this excerpt:
reminded me of someone still extant…and still lying.
Does anyone here expect that Mz Sturgeon will speak at Dundee or Stirling tomorrow?
Is she a spent force, like one of those North American salmon? (Pardon the pun)
Having to think about this prospective conversation I am about to put forward in a way that does not offend anyone on the independence side, but hopefully creates the possibility for some thought,
There are two contrary possibilities for the status of the present devolved government to Scotland,
Is the devolved government still Westminsters baby?
Or did the Scottish parliament reconvene within the devolved government as Winnie Ewen suggested?
If it actually reconvened, who is in charge of the devolved government?
“Brexit was obviously the right move, since the entire fake political establishment is still throwing a raging, snottery temper tantrum over the plebs rejecting their golden retirement plans.”
Red.
What a load of bollocks, try telling that to the multitude of businesses not just in Scotland but in England and Wales that have gone bust due to Brexit, not only that thousands of EU citizens that did the jobs that the rest of us didn’t want to do have gone home leaving many sectors crying out for staff because Brexit said to them we don’t want you.
Then you have free movement of goods and people gone, Scotland has lost access to many EU bodies including the Erasmus programme which our student and young enjoyed.
Scotland, England and Wales the last country received the highest grants from the EU, now receive nothing due to Brexit, those MP b*stards at Westminster know it was huge mistake many of them have applied for and now have an Irish passport.
Scotland as part of this f*cked up union, finds itself like the rest of the UK to have self inflicted harm on its economy by being tied to this rancid union, and many Brexit loving idiots still believe it was the right thing to to do.
Once Scotland dumps this ball and chain union for good, EFTA will be our way back into the Single Market.
Sturgeon the Judas sold Scots out in 2016 with regards to Brexit.
Good night Winnie. Go be with your husband and Margaret. You were my hero in my teens. We all go the same way. Most of us don’t make a mark. You did. Thanks.
Anton Decadent.
So is the Scottish government and the English government, most of them are up to their necks in pushing the gender ideology, does that mean that we should allow our (Scotland’s) economy and its businesses to be cut-off from the 500 million or so folk in the EU (Single Market) or make it harder for our companies to trade with such a big market at our expense, the answer is f*ckin no, its not rocket science for Christ sake.
We know Brussels is corrupt just as Westminster and Holyrood are, but Scotland has lost much from Brexit, and that lying sack of shit Sturgeon swore blind that she wouldn’t allow Scotland to be dragged out of the EU, and the damage from being dragged out continues to mount.
Brexit is bad news, an unmitigated disaster, the UK via Westminster has actively damaged the economies of Scotland and Wales by implementing Brexit, and the sooner Scotland kicks this fetid union into touch the sooner we can mend the damage, and move along a different path from our foreign neighour England.
James Che said;
“If it actually reconvened, who is in charge of the devolved government?”
We, the sovereign Scots, are in charge of it. This is because that parliament is the sole parliament on the entire planet whose members are elected exclusively by the sovereign Scots who those members and that parliament are supposed to represent, and no-one else.
As their sovereigns we are fully entitled to decide for ourselves what powers our parliament in our own country may exercise on our behalf, and the Scottish government must always be answerable to its electors, particularly so when those electors own the sovereignty of Scotland. Westminster’s authority is of lower rank so when it comes to holding Holyrood to account it will have to wait in line behind us.
We are the parents of the ‘baby’, Westminster was only the midwife that managed the delivery.
@Red 1:57
Good post.
But you have to be aware of what you are dealing with here.
Many of these posters learned to parrot the saying “Independence In Europe” at a formative age.
They lacked the intellectual ability to recognise the oxymoron at the time. The decades that have passed since then have served only to turn their thought processes even more sclerotic.
Regarding RoS. Alert readers will recall his posts thunderously declaring he was finished with the EU in March 2022, because the EU had the temerity to stand against the murderous imperialism on its doorstep.
But now he has returned with relief back into his familiar comfort zone. I guess the effort of thinking things through logically was just too much to sustain in the long term.
@Xaracen 7:23
“sole parliament on the entire planet whose members are elected exclusively”
Dammit Xaracen. You owe me £50 for a new BS detector. My current one fused at your post.
“Dammit Xaracen. You owe me £50 for a new BS detector. My current one fused at your post.”
Oh, really? Name me any other parliament whose members are elected exclusively by the Scots electorate, you ignorant tit!
You should stop forking out for BS detectors and start saving for a decent education.
The requirement for foreign workers to pick berries…
When I was primary school age, we went to “the berries”.
We picked punnets or buckets, depending on the weather and got paid by the pound (weight). Then, in the early 70s, the UK government at the time declared that “berry money” had to be declared as income, which killed the home-grown berry picking industry.
The berry farmers had to depend on “official” foreign berry pickers. Where does ‘logic’ work in this scenario?
Anybody else see what went wrong?
A system worked; a system that was destroyed by bureaucracy.
@ BDtt
Punnets? Pah! Sounds like you’re using the colonist’s lingo.
Luggies, surely?
link to stooryduster.co.uk
I’m now giving strawberries away as cannae keep up munching what’s coming off my 40 plants…
Xaracen 8:53
So it’s “Scots electorate” now?
It was “Sovereign Scots” at 7:23. Maybes you don’t see the difference.
Not risking my Tit Detector on your posts, just in case.
Now, about my £50 …
Condolences to her family & friends.
She’d be horrified the SNP is regressing back into a fringe, unelectable party having morphed into the Greens under the stewardship of two Brit nats who threw every chance that was ripe for the taking for indy in favour of thier own power & greed. If you lay with dogs you really do end up with fleas it seems & the unholy alliance with the Greens will be the end of the SNP.
Winnie, have a word with the big yin for us & ask him to lift the curse that has plagued Scotland returning to being indy! RIP x
If Fergus is kicked out on the whim of a fraudulent FM, on the tantrums of a plastic political party, could it have a Domino effect on the stalwarts & could we see a vote of no confidence?
They need to man up FFS or go down with the ship.
I’m not even going to soil a comment by putting that skank’s name on the same page as Madame Ecosse’. It isn’t even fit to lick Winnie’s boots.
And utter shame on that skank’s current puppet for penalising Winnie’s son for exercising democracy. Proof, if proof were needed, that the current SNP is a far cry from the pre-skank era. And Kelly Given talks of “uniting”? Hypocrites indeed!
John Main said;
“So it’s “Scots electorate” now?
It was “Sovereign Scots” at 7:23. Maybes you don’t see the difference.
Not risking my Tit Detector on your posts, just in case.
Now, about my £50 …”
😀
I’m aware of the difference, but until its been properly defined in electoral terms the difference is irrelevant, especially as the sovereign ones will be the great majority, anyway. So ‘the Scots electorate is sovereign’ is an excellent first approximation.
Your Tit Detector is safe, but needs recalibrating!