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The recycling plant

Posted on October 18, 2018 by

The BBC’s Scottish politics website today prominently carries this story:

Our famously alert readers may recall as far back as five-and-a-half months ago, which was the last time the Scottish media tried to whip up demented scare stories about baby boxes, which have been given to every new mother in Finland for approximately 70 years and caused absolutely no documented problems.

So what’s fresh about the story to justify this significant new coverage? Let’s see.

MAY 2018:

The person “raising doubts” is Peter Blair, who wants the boxes only to be used for babies to sleep in temporarily in emergencies.

OCTOBER 2018:

The person “raising doubts” is Peter Blair, who wants the boxes only to be used for babies to sleep in temporarily in emergencies.

MAY 2018:

He’s worried that parents can’t see into a cardboard box about 18 inches high.

OCTOBER 2018:

He’s worried that parents can’t see into a cardboard box about 18 inches high.

MAY 2018:

And he’s worried that the boxes – designed only to be used until the child is three months old – may not be suitable for children more than three months old, or durable if they get wet or dirty (although he’s seemingly conducted no sort of research on the subject that suggests they might not be – they’re designed to be wipe-clean).

OCTOBER 2018:

And he’s worried that the boxes – designed only to be used until the child is three months old – may not be suitable for children more than three months old, or durable if they get wet or dirty (although he’s seemingly conducted no sort of research on the subject that suggests they might not be – they’re designed to be wipe-clean).

So it’s literally exactly the same story as before. Plainly, “man repeats thing he’s been saying for years, which is disproven by decades of real practical experience across the world and rejected by the Royal College Of Midwives and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health” is a pretty good definition of the exact opposite of “news” – in journalistic-scoop terms it’s up there with “BREAKING: Pope still Catholic”.

But baby boxes are the textbook example of things that are Only Bad In Scotland, and as such the Scottish media will dust the scare stories off and give them another airing as regularly as it thinks it needs to, until some people start believing them.

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351 to “The recycling plant”

  1. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    “energencies”? Really? Twice?

  2. Dan Huil
    Ignored
    says:

    Don’t give your money to the bbc. The bbc will use your money to extent its anti-Scottish propaganda.

  3. handclapping
    Ignored
    says:

    But when you are paying top “artistes” £1,750,000 you can’t afford journalists so what else can you do but rinse and repeat?

  4. Luigi
    Ignored
    says:

    Sigh.

    More barrel scrapping, anti-Scottish guff from the Baby Box Bashing Corporation. 🙂

  5. starlaw
    Ignored
    says:

    Im worried about the mental health of Prof. Blair with all the worries he carries, I think a couple of aspirins and a wee lie doon for an hour every time he feels minor panic attack coming on would do him the world of good and gie the rest oh us some peace.

  6. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    breaking news:-

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjiWVmy9UnU

  7. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    Apparently they claim there is no evidence they are safe to sleep in. I would have thought that there was at least 70 years of evidence in Finland, or does that not count as it’s a foreign country.

    Others involved include the Lullaby Trust, who conveniently are ‘proudly sponsored’ by a company that makes bassinets, no conflict there then.

  8. Robert Kerr
    Ignored
    says:

    @starlaw

    Prof Blair is too big to fit in a baby box. He’ll need to lie somewhere else. BBC?

  9. scunner
    Ignored
    says:

    I guess they have stats which chart the memory retention of the politically unaware.

    That must be telling them it’s time to recycle this one – is there a more important story somewhere that they need to run distractions against? (Look a Squirrel!)

  10. mumsyhugs
    Ignored
    says:

    Switched on the radio – heard about half a sentence of this crap – switched off.

  11. jimnarlene
    Ignored
    says:

    The BBC and repeats…

  12. frogesque
    Ignored
    says:

    Never mind, mad cow disease will ride to the rescue as the next SNP moo story.

  13. Clydebuilt
    Ignored
    says:

    They’re desperately looking about to come up with any negative stories to balance up the damage bring done to their precious Union by Brexit.

  14. raineach
    Ignored
    says:

    Baby Boxes can be dangerous, especially if swallowed by small children

  15. Ronnie
    Ignored
    says:

    And are they still flammable if you set fire to them?

  16. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    bbc Bristol (England) not on website so how important to place on web page as news in Scotland? How about 1 rogue Doctor doesn’t like baby boxes.

    The health journalist should surely have consulted with the bbc scotland journalist. Maybe not.

  17. Valerie
    Ignored
    says:

    Not again!

    Anyway, Owen Jones has performed a valuable service for a change. He has outed the Torygraph Defence Editor as an MI6 asset. Con Coughlin has deleted his Twitter account as a result.

    John Wight, has written a fearless piece here, shredding the British Establishment journalists with Intelligence services connections,,all looking to score a point with the Empire.

    http://archive.is/Q65xO

  18. David Ross
    Ignored
    says:

    I’d love to know the number of boxes actually used as a cot. I’ll bet it’s a very low number and often just an occasional thing… with the amount of reporting done on them you’d think the Scottish Government had made it obligatory that all new born babies sleep in them.

  19. Cubby
    Ignored
    says:

    The BBC = the British Nationalists own propaganda broadcaster.

  20. Clootie
    Ignored
    says:

    …the BBC will keep repeating it until the Goebbels maxim kicks in.
    Keep repeating the lie is what we pay the BBC to do!
    Propaganda paid for by the target.

  21. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Baby Boxes only work for foreign babies, in Scotland babies are not foreign unless they came from another place which is not Scotland where standards are more correct for foreign babies, the BBC can reveal that Scotland has not been told what standards to apply by the big London government that are different from anything the SNP has come up with in their separatist agenda boxes that may contain foreign germs that Scottish babies could die from in the same way as Red Squirrels caught Canadian Grey Squirrel *POX*……….. an expert said

    Parents shouldn’t be overly concerned at first but should immediately contact all the very late in arriving medical services who probably won’t be able to cure their disease ridden children because of SNP cutbacks but the BBC will be able to report more on the matter every day until you vote Labour or Tory or well anybody but the awfully Baad SNP

  22. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    You mean they can’t be used when your grandaughter is 16. Oh dear. Better tell my daughter.
    It’s laughable really. We talk on Glasgow forums about sleeping 5 to a bed as children and being shoved in drawers as babies because of lack of room. Any new parent will tell you they constantly check their precious infant. It’s natural.

    What is happening to these halfwits today?

    There is no evidence whatsoever that baby boxes harm any infant whatsoever. I think we are dealing here with the damaged ego of an expert who was ridiculed and cannot let it go.

    How on earth can you claim that there is the potential for damage but in the next paragraph state there is no evidence to back upthis claim.

    They are beginning to sound very very dodgy indeed.

  23. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Am I a bad parent cause ah canny ‘hover’?

    🙁

  24. Q.
    Ignored
    says:

    Ad nauseum. Cui bono.

  25. Giving Goose
    Ignored
    says:

    What, no rent-a-quote from W Rennie?

    I’m guessing that there must be another story out there, embarrassing to the London Government, (you know the one – it runs Scotland and wants to keep running Scotland and the BBC want that to continue) that the BBC would rather we didn’t focus on – like er…Brexit!

  26. Iain
    Ignored
    says:

    And they wonder why their media is dying!

  27. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    I would only worry if my Mum and Dad were Tom Thumb and Thumbelina.

    Two day climb to check the wean.

  28. Glamaig
    Ignored
    says:

    Valerie says:

    http://archive.is/Q65xO

    wow thanks! having read that, everything just falls into place. it totally makes sense and explains the headlines we see every day.

    I’m going to make a wild guess that although not a journalist, a certain Ms Davidson is part of this set-up too.

  29. Gary45%
    Ignored
    says:

    Bon Dias, Looks like we are getting near to Halloween “the witching hour” when all the gullible inbreds howl at the moon.
    When will the Yoons realise that regurgitating shite is still shite.
    Mes Bo de fer.

  30. Andy-B
    Ignored
    says:

    Another veiled attack on the Scottish governments policies carried by the unionist media.

    We are at war for the future of our country, we must win.

  31. harry mcaye
    Ignored
    says:

    I expected this to be on the BBC Scottish Breakfast News this morning but nothing at all. Maybe they are starting to see how embarrassing this all is. The BBC Scotland website is another thing entirely. It’s a completely bizarre place, full of errors and strange prioritising. I picture it’s compiler as a cross between Frank Spencer, Mr Bean and Ross Thomson.

  32. Macart
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh ye gods. That’s dire nonsense from the meeja.

  33. annie
    Ignored
    says:

    I got the impression he was trying to drum up funding to do a scientific study.

  34. Doug_Bryce
    Ignored
    says:

    Lets be honest…. Independence scares them way more than Baby Boxes or Queensferry crossing closures. Slur the Scottish government at all cost.

    Can you smell their fear ?

  35. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    Was going to post a link to the John Beattie show but unfortunately it is “not currently available”.

    They were discussing “Outlaw King” and the lead actor, who is Californian, had listened to a rugby player to get the right Scottish accent. They had an expert in the studio, who is English, to tell them all about Scottish accents.

    So they asked listeners to tell them who had the best Scottish accent. Someone texted in “Mhairi Black” but the woman presenter, Anne Marie?, quickly interrupted and talked over that suggestion. Soon, another text came in suggesting Muriel Grey. “Lovely woman”, said Anne Marie.

    I imagine that the green ink brigade monitor these things to ensure “balance”, by which they mean that only British views prevail. How pathetic.

    BTW the Scots dialect is really Inglis from Northumbria, said the expert. I wondered if Mr Peffers was listening.

  36. cynicalHighlander
    Ignored
    says:

    The recycled BBC news tombola called “SNP BAD”

  37. Gary45%
    Ignored
    says:

    Doug Bryce@4.21
    Sitting in the Mediterranean I can smell their fear from here.
    Election on the very near horizon.

  38. Shug
    Ignored
    says:

    Who has been feeding the cows pizza from zizi
    Is this chance or an attack on scottish farmers

  39. Valerie
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Glamaig

    Pretty fascinating stuff, eh? What pisses me off is there IS a conspiracy, and so many are in on it.

    As you say, explains a lot.

  40. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC has surely reached the point of diminishing returns with this regurgitated keech.

  41. Morgatron
    Ignored
    says:

    Read it this morning ‘ cried into my coffee and cursed the bastards. Whats next on the BBC website “Man Walks on Moon” they are a shower of shite.

  42. Clydebuilt
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC Radio 2 Jeremy Vine ran with this today. So its across the network.

  43. Clydebuilt
    Ignored
    says:

    They are obviously under pressure to keep up a non stop diatribe of negativity.

  44. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    I happened to be listening to Radio 2 in the car about 11.45 half-listening to Ken Bruce discussing the approaching Jeremy Vine programme with him.

    I immediately noticed the reference to the baby box “being given away” in Scotland (note pejorative implications of expression) and mention of safety concerns associated with it because it’s made of cardboard and parents “can’t see through it”. I Carmichael you not.

    Frankly, I didn’t know whether to laugh or say sweary words at this so I gave a rueful shake of the head instead and switched off.

    We’re used to this crap now in Scotland but I found it very surprising they feel they have to repeat the same hoary old stuff on “national” radio.

    The Union never sleeps, apparently, but its desperation is getting more and more desperate.

  45. Luigi
    Ignored
    says:

    When the British establishment goes so low and starts attacking harmless little baby boxes as a way of “managing” Scotland and the independence movement, you just know that they are absolutely crapping themselves. They have seriously over-egged it this time. It’s time. Let’s rip into these panicking Britnats and MI6 plants, aka BBC management:

    YES Mums should start a new group:

    Baby Boxes for Independence. 🙂

  46. Valerie
    Ignored
    says:

    Here is the Canary article giving more details of Owen’s tweets, and I have to say fair play to him. It’s very brave to take on someone with links to MI6!

    https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2018/10/14/owen-jones-leaves-a-telegraph-editor-with-so-little-credibility-the-guy-deletes-his-twitter-account/

  47. Gary45%
    Ignored
    says:

    Mogatron@4.33
    In reality, the headline should be “Man walks on occupied Palestinian desert” which is one of the many reasons the USA kiss the Zionist arse.
    Rule at any cost,lie at any cost make money at any cost.

  48. Luigi
    Ignored
    says:

    The Scottish government should send a baby box to Harry and Meghan. 🙂

  49. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Morgatron

    “Man Walks on Moon” they are a shower of shite.”– I watched the First Man– he had a wee in built nappy.
    Please don’t exaggerate!!

  50. wull
    Ignored
    says:

    Hugh MacDiarmid had no qualms about using Scots’ words and phrases from all over Scotland, joining them together at random? He had a special name for this, which I can’t quite remember off-hand, though I think he might have called it ‘Synthetic Scots’. That gave him a much bigger vocabulary to call on, with more synonyms and near-synonyms and a huge diversity of sounds at his disposal. In other words, he gave himself a huge amount of resource material with which to use his poetic talents, simply by being inclusive and far-ranging.

    He lamented the fact that English poets nevr did the same with the vast variety of words and phrases and sounds that would be available to them, if they would only open their ears and be attentive to the way English people in different parts of England actually speak. Instead they stick with their plonky standardised RP (received pronunciation) English which just about no one speaks as his or her natural tongue.

    This diminishes enormously the poetic potentialities of poetry in english English. And it’s quite daft – cutting the vast reservoir and the many streams of language which ought to be at a poet’s disposal. It seems to me part and parcel of a centralising tendency which sets out to suppress diversity and ridicule the local in order to create an establishment which controls even language – and therefore life – rather than celebrating it. And poets have to conform, if they want to be published …

    Such is the politics of English English literature. …

    And such is English politics in general …

    Centralise, establish, control, suppress … etc. etc.

    Give me MacDiarmid, and Scots (in all its varieties), any day. And by the way, Mr. Daft Professor, Northumbria was at one time part of Scotland. So maybe its ‘Inglis’ ought to be redefined as part of Scots? Scots – in its great diversity – certainly cannot be reduced to its (Northumbria’s) Inglis!

  51. heraldnomore
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye, Capella, she’s being doing that for yonks, spitting out what she clearly dislikes. ‘Twas the same wifie that described the Dundee march as a ‘Protest March’, when doing the traffic.

  52. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    It didn’t have the desired effect last time, so the paid liars at the BBC are running the ‘baby boxes are evil, but only in Scotland’ story again. Even worse, from the nonsense propaganda anti SNP article on the lying BBC, it says the following;

    “The experts also argue that there is no evidence the boxes have helped Finland achieve some of the lowest rates of cot death (sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS) in the world, as has sometimes been claimed.
    SIDS rates are equally low in neighbouring countries, such as Sweden and Denmark, where boxes are not provided, they say.”

    This is the worst misleading piece of chicanery I have seen.

    You see, whilst technically correct that SIDS rates are equally low in say, Sweden, where their are no boxes, it was not always so. Anybody who knows the slightest bit of modern Finland history knows that they used to have among the worst infant mortality rates. That was for many reasons, as Finland would tell you itself. However, the last time I was in Finland their was an exhibition in the museum up near the concert hall, where all of the background to the baby boxes was shown. Their were many reasons.

    The point is and was, it focussed efforts, it gave people hope that maybe, just maybe THEIR baby was not going to be part of the statistics. Of course a box by itself doesn’t prevent SIDS. NOBODY, NOT EVEN FINLAND has ever said that.

    I utterly despise the BBC. I truly despise them and all they stand for. NOTHING in Scotland is any good according to them. NOTHING. They are an absolute stain on Scotland, running our country down at the drop of a hat – and worse, when their negativity doesn’t have the desired negative effect on Scots, they just keep re-running it over and over agin.

    My goodness, it must be utterly awful to work for the lying BBC in Scotland. Day after day of negativity about Scotland, and ALL just dot do one thing, make Scots feel inferior so they will never think Scotland could be a viable country by itself.

    The BBC and all the paid liars who work for it can go to hell, for all I care. The sooner, the better.

  53. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    Meanwhile, some bloke called Harry, continues his taxpayer funded first class Holiday touring all over Australia, with his wife. What an absolute waste of space.

  54. Foonurt
    Ignored
    says:

    Jist lik Bertie ‘Bawbag’ Armstrong – “Yurr peiynt iuz, callurr”, oan Radio Scoattlin, thurr ithurr day.

    Ah wummin fae Argyll – ” SNP – eleven years – Rest And Be Thankful.

    Basturts, ivrrae wan.

  55. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Just heard STV report *Mad cow disease has returned to Scotland* then they get the top vet lady on who says yeah one cow out of twenty thousand tested so we’re alright folks, thing is STV knew that before they exploded a big stupid headline of sillyness

  56. orri
    Ignored
    says:

    They’re actually fairly hard to set alight deliberately as the video on the sun (?) site showed.

    First you need to ignore the instructions and don’t have the lid on the bottom.

    Then you need to find the slots in the bottom where the cardboard holds the sides into the base.

    Then you have to hold your flame under it for so long that you need to check that your targeting the right spot.

    Then you wait whilst the flame slowly burns up the corrugation.

    You might think about stuffing it with combustible material and possible tearing open the folded card at the top above the aforementioned slots to increase the air flow or you’ll risk simply smoldering but if you do either you need to put a lid on the top so as not to make it obvious to the viewers that there’s might be trickery involved.

  57. Confused
    Ignored
    says:

    I feel the REV is holding back – today’s stories offer ample opportunity for dark-hearted mirth

    Mad COW disease detected …

    Jackie Bird is menopausal …

    – we are missing open goals, people. It almost writes itself.

    Then there’s that “SAUDI Press Regulator” – thing. Like IPSO with an open contract with Blackwater. (MBS stunt with the princes in the hotel not so long ago – that was a redistributive wealth sharing program that any trotskyist would die for, or rather, kill other people for.)

    And their chief chopper was a GLASGOW graduate – come on the old school!

    Tasteless, perhaps … but it’s said the dead journo was a big pumper of WAHHABISM so … you don’t need to wear out your empathy batteries – it’s just Saudi Family “Game Of Thrones for Real”.

    The thing about doing it in the embassy is a head-scratcher – has no one told them about panel vans, thugs and deep holes?

    Maybe its a power play – we can do ANYTHING we like cuz … we’re buying $500B of US and UK arms … wot u gonna do?

    The BBC Scotland could have done something with this – SAUDI journalist hacked to pieces in SNP BABY BOX – boxes offer NO PROTECTION to thugs with power tools. Nicola must resign.

    Donalda – can I have the job now?

  58. orri
    Ignored
    says:

    And on the subject of 3 months. That’s about the length of time you can use one of those overpriced moses baskets. Which if you’re unlucky enough to have a SIDS might mean you’re saddled with payments and a reminder of what’s happened. Also if you’re fortunate enough to have another child there’s a possibility that some disease vector is contaminating said basket. At least the Baby Box allows a fresh start each time.

  59. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    How the feck did we ever manage to bring up weans withoot these lying barsteward bbc ars**ipes haudin oor haunds , my grannys and grandas did it , my maw and da did it , we have over 5 million people in jockistan they must aw be they furrin people
    Wur awe DOOMED DOOMED a tell ye

    bbc away and investigate some tax avoiding tory grandees

    Muriel Gray nice wumman , OMG they’re ripping the pish

  60. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Jings! Again. Is there to be no peace from this.

    The SG can’t get this baby to bed due to their interfering Aunties North and South of the wall because of their malicious spite.

  61. Q.
    Ignored
    says:

    “..hover directly overhead”. Oh my days. The number of lazy b******s not able to levitate under the SNPbad is rising. Shameful.

  62. Returnofthemac
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC have reported that it is dangerous to put the SNP baby box on top of the queensferry crossing in high winds. It also recommends that you do not use it in your local swimming pool as a float. With November the 5th looming the BBC have stated that it would be dangerous to place the baby box on bonfires as it will ignite……Well they might.

  63. stewartb
    Ignored
    says:

    Luigi @ 4:46 pm

    You wrote: “The Scottish government should send a baby box to Harry and Meghan.”

    The happy couple may then get more than one! See this published by the BBC in 2013: “Royal baby: William and Catherine get Finnish baby box” (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-23138306 )

    The article tells us: “Kela (Finland’s social security service) wanted to congratulate the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge,” says spokeswoman Heidi Liesivesi. “The maternity package gained such a positive response from all around the world. The timing was perfect that the royal couple are having a baby.”

    ‘Kensington Palace has confirmed that the parents-to-be received the box last week. “We were delighted to receive the very kind gift of the maternity package from the Finnish government. It was a very thoughtful gesture and we’re very grateful for it, ..”

  64. Gary45%
    Ignored
    says:

    Twathater@5.12
    “Rippin the pish”
    Try explaining that to Spaniards using sign language.
    Cheers.
    Mes Bo de fer.

  65. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Ach, the Beeb Northern Colonial Outpost will only finally shut up about baby boxes when England also gets round to adopting them.

    The Graun, for example, was very positive about them before it became a “Scottish issue” (and therefore bad by definition).

  66. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    In all fairness perhaps Alex Therrien, like many, doesn’t trust the BBC news, so he never saw the original reporting and thinks this is all brand new.

  67. Street Andrew
    Ignored
    says:

    Just don’t pay the licence fee.

    Get rid of the telly and Stu will keep you up to date.

    There are other, online, sources of news and the standard of much of TV entertainment output is ….well words fail me.

    Panel programmes where people are paid so we can watch them having a ‘witty’ conversation…? That’s entertainment.? Perleeze.

    Carefully scripted and cast ‘reality television’..? Perleeze……

    ……Get a life and stop paying to watch people on telly pretending to have one.

  68. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    o/t,

    Someone has suggested that if you look up You Tube The Catherine Tate Show – Funny interpreter, you might get a fairly accurate depiction of TM’s latest meet in Brussels.

  69. Elmac
    Ignored
    says:

    My blood is boiling. I read this post and the unadulterated nonsense perpetrated by the propaganda arm of a disgusting government. That was bad enough, I then read the lastest on line news on Jamal Kashoggi. What can I say? We have every right to be extremely upset by the lies and manipulation of the BBC but this pales into insignificance against what is alleged to have happened to this poor man. I fervently hope that the Turkish government waive diplomatic immunity and take all Saudi officials in Istanbul into custody for investigation and possible trial. If found guilty I sincerely hope that Turkey has retained the death penalty. Ideally the executions should be conducted in public as the Saudis seem to enjoy that. My own preference would be for the manner of their death to mirror what they did to Kashoggi but that would reduce us to the same level as these alleged scum.

    As far as those who flew the coop are concerned, and any others implicated but not necessarily present at the time, Turkey should state that they will make every effort to bring them back to Turkish justice. The extradition process should be used to its fullest extent to achieve this. If the hierarchy of the Saudi regime are involved then so be it. Some things transcend trade considerations and it is time Trump wised up and assisted in bringing ALL involved to book. If the Saudi hierarchy were involved, as seems more than likely, they should be put on notice that they will be seized and deported to Turkey if they set foot outside their own borders. All civilised countries should suspend all trade with the Saudis until this is achieved. Even if Russia or China try to take advantage it will reflect very badly on them and the days of this medieval Saudi regime will be numbered in any case.

    Apologies for the rant and for going off topic.

  70. Luigi
    Ignored
    says:

    stewartb says:

    18 October, 2018 at 5:25 pm

    See this published by the BBC in 2013: “Royal baby: William and Catherine get Finnish baby box” (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-23138306 )

    The article tells us: “Kela (Finland’s social security service) wanted to congratulate the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge,” says spokeswoman Heidi Liesivesi. “The maternity package gained such a positive response from all around the world. The timing was perfect that the royal couple are having a baby.”

    ‘Kensington Palace has confirmed that the parents-to-be received the box last week. “We were delighted to receive the very kind gift of the maternity package from the Finnish government. It was a very thoughtful gesture and we’re very grateful for it, ..”

    I hope it was less than 18 inches high. 🙂

    Perhaps the BBC can kindly tell us why Scottish
    baby boxes are so dangerous?

    Oh what a tangled Baby Box Web we weave……. 🙂

  71. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    This has only appeared today again because of the letter from Prof. Blair and 11 others published in the BMJ yesterday.

    Of the others the Lullaby Trust is a signatory as are academics from the US, New Zealand and Israel. Why they would write to the BMJ about this now I guess can only be because the Royal College of Midwives are now recommending it be rolled out across the UK and they are against the idea for some reason.

    The safety concerns outlined in the letter are even more ludicrous when reading them there than in the BBC report. This is the paragraph:

    The cardboard baby box has other potential problems. Some of the boxes come with lids, are potentially flammable (especially if not laminated), and if placed on a floor are susceptible to low level draughts, domestic pets, and young siblings. If placed at a height the box may fall and may be a tempting sleeping space for pets. No data exist on the durability of the box (especially if it becomes wet or dirty).

    https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k4243

    For scientists and academics, to make that statement really is ridiculous, by all means push for a British Standard, have them approved but the imagined potential pitfalls, deary me.

  72. stu mac
    Ignored
    says:

    @Capella says:
    18 October, 2018 at 4:24 pm

    BTW the Scots dialect is really Inglis from Northumbria, said the expert. I wondered if Mr Peffers

    ==============

    The Scots dialect grew out of Old Northumbrian, a dialect of Old English and spoken all over SE Scotland from before there was a Scotland (that’s why Edinburgh is “Edinburg” and not Dun Edin). For various reasons it became the widespread speech of the Scottish lowlands but of course over time it developed to become a distinctive dialect of its own, and with its own sub-dialects. You could say that modern English is the same language that King Alfred spoke but though Mdn E. has a lot of the core of OE it’s vastly different. Mind you Mdn Scots has similarities with NE dialects but there are also big differences.

  73. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Rock (28th October 2014 – “And still there were none”):

    “Scotland’s enemy number 2 is the Labour party, enemy number 1 being the BBC.”

  74. Socrates MacSporran
    Ignored
    says:

    Just watched the BBC Shortbread news story on the closure of the Winter Gardens and the People’s Palace.

    How long before they can spin this into an SNP Bad story? Even though the type of damage they showed up doesn’t happen overnight, and it was spotted on the SNP-led Council’s watch.

    Just watch British Labour in Scotland trying to pin the blame for their lack of care when in-cahrge of Glasgow, on the SNP.

  75. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    British Labour in Scotland would try to pin the tail of a donkey on anyone, even if it was one of their own. They’d miss.

  76. Terençe callachan
    Ignored
    says:

    Safety helmets can be dangerous especially if you throw them at people.
    There is no evidence that ambulances are safe if driven at 120MPH
    There is no evidence that wearing clothing is a safe way to stay warm if you set it on fire.
    Sleeping in a bed , a typical bed available in bed shops across the UK could be life threatening if you perch it on the roof of your house.
    For all these safety concerns I blame the Westminster government

  77. thomas
    Ignored
    says:

    @ stu mac

    Thats no true pal about Edinburgh , thats another english myth.

    The northumbrians burned dinas eidyn to the ground around 638ad , after their great victory at catraeth decades earlier left the kingdom of the local brythonic celts the goddodin in ruins .Y goddodin is one of the oldest pieces of literature in the welsh language describing these events.

    There is no evidence of the angles settling Edinburgh at this time , though they gradually settled south east scotland around the lammermuir hills and eventually got as far as abercorn before being driven back.

    The myth the angles of northumbria named Edinburgh comes from an 11th/early 12th century english monk who wrote king edwin of northumbria took dinas edyn and renamed it edwinesburgh.Edwin died years before the angles burned dinas edyn to the ground so is untrue.

    The scots took control of south east scotland and dinas edyn around the ninth and tenth centuries , and was finally recognised as part of scotland after the great battle of carham in 1018.

    So the name according to the likes of william watson , went from dinas edyn , p celtic , dunedin , q celtic , then under king david it became a burgh , the burgh of edin.

    The local midlothian folk were still thought to have been speaking gaidhlig in the area as late as the 15th century during the reign of james the fourth .

    When the king moved down from his old citadel to build holyrood palace , the local edinburgh folk called the plot of land where he stayed “croft an righ”.

    Another example of gaidhlig being spoken in scotland at this time was the words of the spanish ambassador don pedro de ayala to the court of king james the fourth , who famously said

    “the language of the scots is the same as the irish ,(gaidhlig) but some of the scots speak english extremely well as a result of the interaction they have with each other along the border through war and commerce”

    Gaidhlig was spoken all over south east scotland and as far as the tyne and cumbria too in england , there is very little evidence to suggest “scots” descends from anglian settlers in scotland , more it spread slowly through the burghs ,by cultural osmosis ,and trade from the 12th century onwards.

  78. Andy-B
    Ignored
    says:

    One cow had BSE and the unionist news channels are prediciting armageddon for the Scottish beef industry, possibly in an attempt to weaken the economy.

    Throw in the howls of despair as the People’s Palace requires around £7 million quids worth of work. Then you have the strike coming up for equal pay.

    Labour let the palace rot, they also robbed the women of their fair pay. Yet the women and they’re devious unions, look set to finger the SNP led council in Glasgow as the bad guys.

  79. Iain
    Ignored
    says:

    The high heid ones at the bbc must be dreading the day the population of Scotland wakes up to their lies.
    They are calculating that they will probably be all right in the kingdom of England.
    They are probably right!
    God help those who are left working for the propaganda agency of a foreign country in newly independent Scotland.
    Then again; you reap what you sow.

  80. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    I blame the manufacturer. There should be clear warning notices on a can of beans “Do not smack you head with this tin of beans”.

    Oh wait, that’s what the nanny state would want to happen.

  81. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ stu mac @ thomas – I too have read that the language of Edinbugh and south west Scotland and Cumbria was what we now call Welsh but would have been p Celtic, similar to Pictish.

    But I also accept that Northumbrian English is very similar to the Scots of the NE known as Doric. Sea travel would have been the common means of trade and commerce for many generations.

    It is a rich and fascinating history. If we had our own broadcasting service we would surely have many programmes portraying this rich heritage.

  82. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @thomas
    Sounds about right to me, I did read quite a bit about the movement of the celtic language(s) decades ago, forget most of it. Things like the spread of English were incidental to that of course.

  83. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Capella
    Huw Edwards would have it that the Welsh were a great maritime people. Look what happened – and why – and who.

  84. ronnie anderson
    Ignored
    says:

    Ffs in cases of emergencies ma Mammy just shut the drawer , ah wunner if the doctor hiz any views oan ma cot ? wiz ah abused childer lol.

  85. thomas
    Ignored
    says:

    @ capella

    I am no expert on doric , but from various stuff i have read , dont know how true it is , doric is supposed to be a blending of the local pictish/gaidhlig , where we see aberdonians today still pronounce w as an f as in “fit yer daein” which is supposed to be a pictish trait , and flemish from the large amount of folk from flanders who settled in aberdeen during the medieval period.

    The thing is , a lot is made of scotland having many languages but people forget this was the norm in ancient times. Most countries were the same.

    The general rule of thumb over the last three thousand years , the majority of folk living in what is now scotland have spoke proto celtic , then p celtic similar to welsh , then q celtic gaidhlig then modern english with various regional dialects and other minority languages.

    Since the reformation though , there has been a concentrated effort in the celtic countries of these islands to force the english language on everyone.

    …and here we are today.

  86. ronnie anderson
    Ignored
    says:

    The SNP dodged a bullet chist think if the hud done ah twins baby cot , double the dangers an thats before the bairns start punching lumps oota wan n ither ere the dummy .

  87. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    The Independence movement is like a highly strung champion racehorse, stuck in the stalls while the starter blethers to the officials about the weather. I understand and accept the reasons but if this goes on any longer I’m going to need another nose-bag.

    Come on Red Rum!

  88. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Breach of the Peace is a very far ranging offence in Scotland.

    To prove a breach of the peace, the most important things to prove are that someone was alarmed, annoyed or disturbed by the incident.

    How many parents have been left alarmed, annoyed or disturbed by this anti social behaviour?

  89. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    rock is an enema.

    If only he had been put in a baby box as a wain.

  90. Valerie
    Ignored
    says:

    Good to see the relevant Holyrood Committee has announced Muriel Gray is to be questioned about the Art School fire.

    Lots of allegations about “systematic management failure” to address fire safety issues.

    Really makes me sick the utter waste and endangerment these people have to answer.

  91. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Brexit. The media is obsessing over a potential transition extension.

    Surely the real story is that talks have stalled unti May honours the Backstop which was agreed in December? Unless she agrees to this there will be no Withdrawal Agreement and no transition of any kind!

    My understanding the the Backstop is non negotiable now. The EU insist there is a legally binding commitment that NI stays in customs union and much of the single market if all else fails. It will not be time limited but will be temporary where temporary might mean decades!

  92. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @stu mac says: 18 October, 2018 at 6:17 pm

    ” … The Scots dialect grew out of Old Northumbrian, a dialect of Old English and spoken all over SE Scotland from before there was a Scotland”

    Well no it didn’t because it wasn’t Scotland but was actually Strathclyde and part of The Kingdom of Northumberland thus it was the language of Northumberland not of Scotland. Strathclyde encompassed a very large part of what became the West of Scotland.

    Matter of fact the West of Scotland dialect is significantly different from other areas of Scotland but is factually a dialect of Standard Scottish English but with many old Scottish words and phrases thrown in for good measure.

    In Weegie the speaker will sae, “Ah went doon the fitpath and crossed the road”. The Lowland Scots speaker will say, “Ah stravaiged doon the causy and gaed ower the gait”.

    The first is a dialect of English the second a dialect of lowland Scots.

    In Scots a gait is a street or road and a gate is a yett.

    Mind you there are many West of Scotland speakers who will switch from Lowland Scots to Scottish Standard English without even being aware they are doing so. It just depends what language the other person has used.

    Not only that but they will adopt their, “Telephone”, voice when speaking to anyone they perceive to be in authority and their telephone voice is standard English.

    ” … but of course over time it developed to become a distinctive dialect of its own, and with its own sub-dialects.”

    Nope! you don’t get dialects of dialects you get dialects of languages.

    Lets get this clear. With the advent of the printing press to England there came a big problem with the English language. Even people in nearby villages could hardly understand each other but printing made text available over wider areas. This is where the English language began to become Standard English and the standard was none other than the English National Bard William Shakespeare.

    However, as the Scots language, along with Scots national dress and music was being actively suppressed by England Scots became only a spoken language with little widespread standardisation.

    This is where the MacDiarmid comes in. Chris Grieve stands accused of inventing a synthetic Scots , “dialect”, but he and his contemporary authors did nothing of the sort.
    They only standardised Lowland Scots much as Shakespeare did with the English Language.

    Now I know this because as a boy I lived on a farm and we had no electricity so I had not heard actual English Language until I went to the village school.

    Yet I had been taught at an early age to read by my grand mother and could pick up a book by such as Robert Louis Stevenson, struggle to understand the English but had no problem with the Lowland Scots as it was the everyday language we spoke.

    The MacDiarmid did not invent a synthetic Scots he standardises it as the, “Lallanns”, which, BTW: translates as, “Lowlands”, but, as have all standard languages, Lallans has its very own regional dialects such as, “The Dorric”.

    However, Weegie is not one of them for Weegie is a dialect of Standard Scottish English with many unique Scots phrases and words thrown in for good measure.

  93. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dan Huil says: 18 October, 2018 at 3:09 pm:

    ” … Don’t give your money to the bbc. The bbc will use your money to extent its anti-Scottish propaganda.”

    No one can give their licence fee to the BBC for the BBC only collects it for the Westminster Treasury. It then hands it over to the Treasury and it is added to, “The Consolidated Fund”, a.k.a. General Taxation.

    Then the Westminster Government makes an agreed annual Government Grant to the BBC from that Consolidated Tax fund. So even if you do not buy a TV licence, (it is a permission to view live Broadcasts by the Government NOT a donation to the BBC), then everyone who pays tax, (and we all pay indirect taxation), so we all, even if we do not buy permission from the Government, fund the BBC.

    But, “They don’t want you to know that”, and thus their greatest propaganda is that the license fee funds BBC programmes. It simply does not.

  94. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @handclapping says: 18 October, 2018 at 3:10 pm:

    ” … But when you are paying top “artistes” £1,750,000 you can’t afford journalists so what else can you do but rinse and repeat?”

    And, handclapping you are wrong there too. The BBC works a tax fiddle whereby the, (cough!), journalists are not directly employed by the BBC. Instead they are set-up as independent companies who sell their work to the BBC. The proven liar Nick Robinson is a prime example of this tax fraud scam.

    He is his own registered company but almost exclusively sells his work to the BBC. But, “They don’t want you to know that”, so you will never see it mentioned in the Westminster controlled MSM.

  95. sandy
    Ignored
    says:

    Is this part of the original weegie?
    Went instead of gone.
    Done instead of did.
    Was instead of were.
    Proper instead of properly. (Adverb)
    And so on.
    Before anyone asks, I have taken into account the various tenses.
    Or is it just bad habit or ignorance?

    Comment, please.

  96. Clootie
    Ignored
    says:

    …yes I am a cynic….but I suspect a certain professor may be getting some “encouragement” from manufacturers of certain baby products. The big companies try to influence every other part of the market…why should this be different.

  97. hackalumpoff
    Ignored
    says:

    Things are accelerating. This is being retweeted by Nicola, from Robert Peston.

    Hello from Brussels and the EU Council that promised a Brexit breakthrough and delivered nothing.

    So on the basis of conversations with well placed sources, this is how I think the Brexit talks are placed (WARNING: if you are fearful of a no-deal Brexit, or are of a nervous disposition, stop reading now).

    1) Forget about having any clue when we leave about the nature and structure of the UK’s future trading relationship with the EU. The government heads of the EU27 have rejected Chequers. Wholesale. And they regard it as far too late to put in place the building blocks of that future relationship before we leave on 29 March 2019. So any Political Declaration on the future relationship will be waffly, vague and general. It will be what so many MPs detest: a blind Brexit. The PM may say that won’t happen. No one here (except perhaps her own Downing St team) believes her.

    2) The earliest date for a deal on Brexit terms – that vacuous Political Declaration and the Withdrawal Agreement – is now the Council in mid December. But even that date may prove too challenging.

    3) The gulf between the EU27 and May, as you know, is over how to keep open the Northern Ireland border. There is no chance of the EU abandoning its insistence that there should be a backstop – with no expiry date – of Northern Ireland, but not Great Britain, remaining in the Customs Union and the single market. That would involve the introduction of the commercial border in the Irish Sea that May says must never be drawn.

    4) All efforts therefore from the UK are aimed at putting in place other arrangements to make it impossible for that backstop to be introduced.

    5) Her ruse for doing this is the creation of another backstop that would involve the whole of the UK staying in something that looks like the customs union.

    6) But she feels cannot commit to keeping the UK in the customs union forever, because her Brexiter MPs won’t let her. So it does not work as a backstop. And anyway the Article 50 rules say that the Withdrawal Agreement must not contain provisions for a permanent trading relationship between the whole of the UK and the EU. Which is a hideous Catch 22.

    7) There is a solution. She could ignore her Brexiter critics and announce the UK wanted written into the Political Declaration – as opposed to the Withdrawal Agreement – that we would be staying permanently in the customs union. This is one bit of specificity the rest of the EU would allow into the Political Declaration. And it could be nodded at in the Withdrawal Agreement.

    8) But if she announces we are staying in the Customs Union she would be crossing her reddest of red lines because she would have to abandon her ambition of negotiating free trade deals with non-EU countries. Liam Fox would be made redundant.

    9) She knows, because her Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins has told her, that her best chance – probably her only chance of securing a Brexit deal – is to sign up for the customs union.

    10) In its absence, no-deal Brexit is massively in play.

    11) But a customs-union Brexit deal would see her Brexiter MPs become incandescent with fury.

    12)Labour of course would be on the spot, since its one practical Brexit policy is to stay in the Customs Union.

    13) This therefore is May’s Robert Peel moment. She could agree a Customs Union Brexit and get it through Parliament with Labour support – while simultaneously cleaving her own party in two.

    14) It is a Customs Union Brexit, or leave the EU without a deal.

    15) Which will May choose? Ultimately this is her choice, and hers alone. It is her moment in history.

  98. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    Thomas at 716pm

    I noticed your comment regarding croft an righ. Down at the back of the palace are signs for croft an righ, to this day. It seems the place has a lot of history attached to it.

    http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_edin/1_edinburgh_history_-_recollections_edinburgh_old_town_croft-an-righ.htm

  99. Meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy – B and Dr Jim.

    re BSE in Cows.

    As you pointed out, are we surprised that it is headline news?

    I posted about it on the previous thread but there is a very telling sentence in the comment from the NFU chap quoted in a BBC article.

    Andrew McCornick, president of NFU Scotland, said: “It is disappointing to learn of this BSE case within the Aberdeenshire area.”
    He added: “Whilst we lose our negligible risk status, it is not unexpected to see a new case and demonstrates the efficacy of the surveillance measures in place. This simply brings us back in line with the rest of Great Britain, reverting back to where we were 18 months ago.

    Do you remember the furore a few weeks ago about Scotland exporting live calves in horrendous circumstances to Spain, except they turned out to be from Hungary and someone was publicly left with egg on their face.

    Well guess what, Scotland was only able to export live calves owing to her negligible risk status regarding being free from BSE for some time.My understanding is that currently England is not able to export live calves because their BSE status was lower than ours. With this confirmed case, this has all changed and as the NFU chap says, ‘we are now in line with the rest of Great Britain’.
    Funny that it should happen SO soon after that lying documentary

    It will be 6 years before we regain this ‘negligible status’ again and so we have lost our premium product for some time.

    Don’t know if it affects our export of live calves ( is it ok if they are killed before 14 months)
    Maybe someone can clarify this for me and others. Thankyou.

  100. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Guardian:

    EU leaders ready to help May sell Brexit deal to parliament

    PM will be backed in building ‘coalition of the reasonable’ in desperate bid to avoid no deal

    https://archive.is/ENUIF

  101. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @thomas says: 18 October, 2018 at 7:16 pm:

    @ stu mac: ” … Thats no true pal about Edinburgh , thats another english myth.”

    Great comment, Thomas, and so well researched. Truth being that very few Scots actually know their true history and that is the deliberate suppression of the Truth by the Westminster Establishment.

    A reading through the Wings comments exposes the fact and so many of the comments, no doubt from committed indy supporters, bears that out as fact. So many Wingers continue to use the Westminster propaganda even although it is regularly explained to them that it is lies designed to hold Scots in thrall to Westminster.

    For example the truth that the United Kingdom, by definition, is a united kingdom and the Treaty of Union united, two only, kingdoms and not four countries and is therefore a united kingdom and never has been a united country.

    You simply cannot have a country composed of four distinct extant countries. In any case it is not being run as a union of countries it is being run as the Country of England devolving English powers to all other UK countries.

  102. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Well it’s over to Jacob Rees Mogg and his plan to let Northern Ireland go and do what they want for his Canada +++++deal whatever that is so his blessed England Britain can be saved then us lot up here in the civilised world of Scotland can leave as well and let them loose the dogs of war and cry havoc in England and Wales on each other and we don’t have to be a part of the whole mental debacle

    Aaagh the relief

  103. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    @Hackalumpoff,

    If that is true then I can see the Tories falling to UKIP and a coalition of Johnson et Al at the next election.

    This Union is most definitely over. I imagine we are just going through the death throes.

  104. stu mac
    Ignored
    says:

    @thomas says:
    18 October, 2018 at 7:16 pm
    @ stu mac
    Thats no true pal about Edinburgh , thats another english myth.

    I just made a very condensed history into one short paragraph to make a few simple points. I never stated that the Angles founded it, only that the current name comes from the Angles influence – both names refer to Edin (spelling variable in olden times). No doubt when the SE was taken over by the Scots a good number of Gaelic speakers came in but it remained an area where English was quite widely spoken and this would have helped its spread later when burghs and so on were introduced (with their many incomers from England). My only point was to show that you could say that there is a line from Northumbrian to Scots, no more. I could have put a multi page post on the history of Scots but I was only making a small point. I didn’t need your little lecture.

  105. Glamaig
    Ignored
    says:

    thomas says:
    18 October, 2018 at 7:59 pm

    doric is supposed to be a blending of the local pictish/gaidhlig , where we see aberdonians today still pronounce w as an f as in “fit yer daein” which is supposed to be a pictish trait , and flemish from the large amount of folk from flanders who settled in aberdeen during the medieval period.

    Im no expert either but I think the ‘fit’ instead of ‘whit’ is more likely to be a throwback to the Germanic/Anglian/Flemish where the w is pronounced like v as in German.

    Pictish as I understand it is thought to have been a P-Celtic language. Gaelic was a Q-Celtic language, meaning that Pictish had many words beginning in P which is a rarity in Gaelic where there are more words beginning in the hard C sound.

  106. Glamaig
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T there was an interesting article today in the National by Gordon Macintyre Kemp about the implications of Brexit for the Treaty of Union

    http://www.thenational.scot/news/16989865.this-is-why-westminsters-choice-is-between-brexit-and-the-union/

  107. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @sandy says: 18 October, 2018 at 8:57 pm:

    ” … Or is it just bad habit or ignorance?
    Comment, please.”

    It is, neither, as already explained, it is a very distinct dialect of Scottish Standard English and thus a dialect of English.

    It is not a dialect of lowland Scots. Not only does Lowland Scots have distinctive words and phrases but has its very own distinctive grammar and constructions. Weegie does, though sprinkle Scots words and phrases throughout the dialect

    For example the Scots Canon Gait translates as, “The Street of the canon”, It does not translate as the gate of the canon or even the cannon.

    Gait in Lowland Scots is a street or road and a gate translates as a Yett.

  108. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    There has apparently been 16 cases of BSE since 2011, this would be around 2/year, it must have slipped my notice when these were made major stories by the BBC. It’s always strange that a single case, as far as we are aware, is plastered all over the BBC. Just a daily reminder to BBC watching Scots I presume.

    On another subject, never in the history of the English language can anyone surpass Theresa May for meaningless waffle. No matter what speech, what question, it is a stream of meaningless tosh. I would hate to be involved in any negotiation with her, she is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, to quote Churchill.

    Also watched the FM speech at the RSA on Monday. Noted that BBC Nick tried to catch out the FM with what would have been a ‘SNP admit that they may cause no deal Brexit’ question, the FM did not bite. He didn’t give up but tried to then put words in her mouth, Nick Robinson would have been proud.

  109. potter
    Ignored
    says:

    Story gone from BBC online, BBC reads Wings and gets minter.

  110. Glamaig
    Ignored
    says:

    Was the story on Scotland Politics page? Its on the UK Health page.

  111. Iain mhor
    Ignored
    says:

    Pfff almost everything everyone wears is made of ‘plastic’ including a vast amount of weans clothing. Never mind general household furniture.
    Get any of it near a naked flame and learn what Napalm does.
    A baby box is probably the least flammable thing in any household.
    ‘Ooh it’s lovely and fluffy and soft and warm’ Is it indeed? Angora, Merino, Wool, Cotton, Linen? No… A wee bit on the expensive side that, so a Polyester base maybe?
    Yes? Welcome to horror.

  112. doug_bryce
    Ignored
    says:

    Peston on point as ever.
    Get your popcorn out.
    https://www.facebook.com/pestonitv/posts/2189927274665339?__tn__=K-R

    ————————————————–

    Hello from Brussels and the EU Council that promised a Brexit breakthrough and delivered nothing.

    So on the basis of conversations with well placed sources, this is how I think the Brexit talks are placed (WARNING: if you are fearful of a no-deal Brexit, or are of a nervous disposition, stop reading now).

    1) Forget about having any clue when we leave about the nature and structure of the UK’s future trading relationship with the EU. The government heads of the EU27 have rejected Chequers. Wholesale. And they regard it as far too late to put in place the building blocks of that future relationship before we leave on 29 March 2019. So any Political Declaration on the future relationship will be waffly, vague and general. It will be what so many MPs detest: a blind Brexit. The PM may say that won’t happen. No one here (except perhaps her own Downing St team) believes her.

    2) The earliest date for a deal on Brexit terms – that vacuous Political Declaration and the Withdrawal Agreement – is now the Council in mid December. But even that date may prove too challenging.

    3) The gulf between the EU27 and May, as you know, is over how to keep open the Northern Ireland border. There is no chance of the EU abandoning its insistence that there should be a backstop – with no expiry date – of Northern Ireland, but not Great Britain, remaining in the Customs Union and the single market. That would involve the introduction of the commercial border in the Irish Sea that May says must never be drawn.

    4) All efforts therefore from the UK are aimed at putting in place other arrangements to make it impossible for that backstop to be introduced.

    5) Her ruse for doing this is the creation of another backstop that would involve the whole of the UK staying in something that looks like the customs union.

    6) But she feels cannot commit to keeping the UK in the customs union forever, because her Brexiter MPs won’t let her. So it does not work as a backstop. And anyway the Article 50 rules say that the Withdrawal Agreement must not contain provisions for a permanent trading relationship between the whole of the UK and the EU. Which is a hideous Catch 22.

    7) There is a solution. She could ignore her Brexiter critics and announce the UK wanted written into the Political Declaration – as opposed to the Withdrawal Agreement – that we would be staying permanently in the customs union. This is one bit of specificity the rest of the EU would allow into the Political Declaration. And it could be nodded at in the Withdrawal Agreement.

    Cool But if she announces we are staying in the Customs Union she would be crossing her reddest of red lines because she would have to abandon her ambition of negotiating free trade deals with non-EU countries. Liam Fox would be made redundant.

    9) She knows, because her Brexit negotiator Olly Robbins has told her, that her best chance – probably her only chance of securing a Brexit deal – is to sign up for the customs union.

    10) In its absence, no-deal Brexit is massively in play.

    11) But a customs-union Brexit deal would see her Brexiter MPs become incandescent with fury.

    12)Labour of course would be on the spot, since its one practical Brexit policy is to stay in the Customs Union.

    13) This therefore is May’s Robert Peel moment. She could agree a Customs Union Brexit and get it through Parliament with Labour support – while simultaneously cleaving her own party in two.

    14) It is a Customs Union Brexit, or leave the EU without a deal.

    15) Which will May choose? Ultimately this is her choice, and hers alone. It is her moment in history.

  113. frogesque
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Robert Louis :9.09

    There is also a Croft an Righ on the eastern outskirts of Kinghorn in Fife.

    Not sure if there is any royal connection but Alexander III lost his life in Kinghorn 19th March 1286. Legend is he fell from his horse whist going to meet his lady love and wife, Yolande de Dreux.

  114. Roughian
    Ignored
    says:

    I wish people would state what’s in the box not just talk about the container.
    Clothes, ear thermometer, bath thermometer, bath towel, changing mat, mattress & protector, nappies, sling. How many parents with low income or low ability would think about these items. Sleeping in the box is a biproduct of the contents.

    I listened to Jeremy Vine today and he didn’t like it when folk pointed out how useful they found the box. One person when asked why Sweden and Norway have good SID figures without the box replied. Very high percentage of breast feeding, excellent health care and maternity schemes and socially equal attitudes. Jeremy didn’t like that.

  115. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Gfaetheblock says: 18 October, 2018 at 9:21 pm

    ” … Except it has all over the MSM for years”

    Whoa! There! Gfaetheblock, I did not say that it, “is”, a tax fraud, I said it, “was”, a tax fraud.

    They got caught out and the intended fraud was exposed. However, the MSM then played that fact down and the realisation of what the BBC was trying to do never really registered with the general public. Most folks don’t even know that the BBC uses these self employed one person companies. To all intents and purposes, for the general public, the Likes of Nick Robinson is a BBC employee. Which, of course, in another capacity he is.

  116. Meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    see my post at 9.11

    It would ow seem that the Scottish luxury woollen trade is about to come under suspicion and could lose millions because , according to The Times today, an undercover video shows horrendous ‘barbaric’ cruelty to the animals, including animals wandering around with huge wounds.

    Apparently we really treat our animals appallingly up here and people’s conscience will not be at rest unless they stop buying Scottish wool products.

    Well, MI5/MI6 is working overtime it would seem. First live calves, now beef and wool. What next?

    By the end of the year, we will have no industry, no agriculture, no fishing and probably no oil either.

    Well they can’t stop wind, wave and hydro power so we’ll manage ok.

  117. Meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh!!! According to the Herald

    a Scottish trained doctor is involved with alleged Khashoggi killing.

    You couldnae make any of this up! The constant attack on Scotland is unprecedented.

  118. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    @frogesque:

    Remember too:

    A Scottish Royal mint was located in Kinghorn Alexander III

  119. Gfaetheblock
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert, you got data on how you know that most folk don’t know this and where the media played this down, or is that just unfounded assertion?

    This story from last week shows it is still in the news, and that the bbc is the tax man’s biggest win in this area.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tax/self-employed/bbc-presenter-tax-case-win-hmrc-decade/

  120. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Meg merrilees says: 18 October, 2018 at 10:23 pm

    ” … You couldnae make any of this up! The constant attack on Scotland is unprecedented.”

    Well Meg, really it isn’t unprecedented, it is just that the general public in Scotland have become more aware of it. Personally I became aware of it way back in the 1960s.

    Our history is full of English suppression of our history, out culture and our languages. How much more can you be anti-Scottish than that?

    Westminster has been suppressing Scotland for centuries.

  121. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    sandy at 8.57

    All languages change all the time and take in words from other languages. The Glasgow glossary s very colourful and lots of Glasgow words (manky, shagging etc) have become general across the UK.

    I lived in N Nigeria for nearly 15 years. It is a “country” with over 300 languages which is why at independence in 1960 English was adopted as lingua franca. However, Hausa,the langauge of Northern Nigeria and huge areas across West Africa (spoken by about 100 million people)started off over 1000 years ago as Arabic as did Swahili in East Africa. These languages share words but have developed completely different construction.

    What is happening in Nigeria now is that pidgin English is doing exactly the same and developing all its own rules,glossary and construction. Right across Nigeria everybody of whatever tribe can speak in it and unless Nigeria breaks up (hugely likely) it will become “Nigerian”.

  122. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Robert Peffers.

    Canongait, “street of the Canon ” I’m struggling to get a meaning for ‘canon ‘. Help.

  123. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Gfaetheblock says:18 October, 2018 at 10:35 pm

    ” … This story from last week shows it is still in the news, and that the bbc is the tax man’s biggest win in this area.”

    Oh! Yes and it is all over the BBC, independent TV channels and the MSM – NOT.

    What are the Telegraph’s readership in Scotland? Is the article published wit big banner headlines has every other publication and broadcaster copied and published the story as top billing?

    Take your anti-Scottish claptrap and shove it.

  124. sandy
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Peffers.
    I get your point regarding dialects & grammatical phraseology as you previously posted but surely basic education would have pointed out past tense, perfect tense, subjunctive tense, etc. Eg,” I would have gone” instead of “I would have went”, “the boy done (did) well”
    When I was undergoing my edukashun I were always learned to do it proper.

    Anyway, ta for the interesting points made this evening.

  125. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Golfnut says: 18 October, 2018 at 10:48 pm:

    ” … Canongait, “street of the Canon ” I’m struggling to get a meaning for ‘canon ‘. Help.”

    Canon of the church. Probably from the fact the RC canon was traditionally based at St Patrick’s Church in, “The Canongate”, at the foot of the Royal Mile.

  126. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    The Macintyre-Kemp article in todays National is a game changer – IF the Scot Gov implement it.

    The circumvention, is the whole of UK stays within the SM/CU.

    Since that means automatic,unequivocal ECJ Tax Haven Legislation… it makes No Deal look absolute.

    But what if, they can negotiate a deal with one single entity, which allows a back door for the tax havens? Once achieved – SM/CU, power grab for Holyrood, peoples vote… all on the table once more.

    Exactly what is the detail on the Tax Haven that is Gibraltar folks? If the ECJ has jurisdiction, the tax haven law are implied. If not… Hard Brexit.

    But recent press releases indicate happy outcomes – against all odds – and next to no publicity and zero detail. This does not add up.

    Look to Gibraltar. Something is going on.

  127. Phronesis
    Ignored
    says:

    Good for the NHS says a paediatrician from the RCPCH- baby boxes & the standardisation of care;

    ‘Russell Viner, of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said that there was little hard evidence that the boxes were responsible for the fall in mortality rates in Finland but added: “There is a logic why it might make a difference. It may stop the baby moving to sleep on its front, which is a risk for sudden infant death syndrome.
    “I suspect it’s more likely to be something about standardisation of care. All mothers are given the same health education and so it’s not ‘the poor get nothing and the rich get a Moses basket’.”
    He added: “Good on the NHS for trying something that’s relatively inexpensive and is welcomed by mothers’

    http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cardboard-baby-box-to-tackle-infant-mortality-l5n7qs930

    And from the experts in parenting and child health;

    ‘NHS Lothian chief midwife Frances McGuire said that the baby box has been a great opportunity for midwives and health visitors to chat to expectant parents about its contents and how they can help improve a child’s health and wellbeing’

    http://www.rcm.org.uk/news-views-and-analysis/news/scotland%E2%80%99s-baby-boxes-%E2%80%93-a-year-on

    Tackling child poverty and inequality applies to many policy areas beyond health;

    ‘On the basis of strong research evidence, poverty-related social determinants of health have a deleterious effect on children’s health. On the basis of some research evidence as well as consensus, pediatricians are encouraged to screen for poverty and poverty-related social determinants of health. On the basis of strong research evidence, several effective interventions have been established that pediatricians may adopt in their practices to address poverty and poverty-related social determinants of health. On the basis of consensus due to lack of relevant clinical studies, pediatricians are encouraged to advocate for government policies and programs aimed at eliminating poverty and poverty-related social determinants of health on children and families’

    Berman, R. S., Patel, M. R., Belamarich, P. F., and Gross, R. S. Screening for Poverty and Poverty-Related Social Determinants of Health. Pediatr.Rev 39(5), 235-246. 2018

    Scotland is choosing wise and ethical policies- be like Scotland;

    https://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/building-a-more-equal-scotland-designing-scotlands-poverty-and-inequality-commi-620264

  128. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Phronesis says: 18 October, 2018 at 11:04 pm:
    ” … Good for the NHS says a paediatrician from the RCPCH- baby boxes & the standardisation of care;”

    Spot on, phronesis: Thank You.

  129. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh!!! According to the Herald
    a Scottish trained doctor is involved with alleged Khashoggi killing.

    Yeh while Labour was in power in Holyrood.

  130. Gfaetheblock
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert peffers

    So you are you claiming that the bbc, guardian, FT and the telegraph are not the MSM?

  131. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Scottish trained, what’s that supposed to mean, it’s a ridiculous statement that has no meaning other than to implicate a country’s somehow responsible for an individuals crime

    I trained in Scotland Canada Japan my Mum was English my Dad was from Edinburgh I was born in Lennoxtown Scotland
    It’s like pick a crime from any of these places and the place is responsible for the crime of the person

    There’s something gone far and away wrong with the media and they need stopping

  132. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    My take on the Brussels summit that just ended is that the Withdrawal agreement has basically been agreed with the EU and all that remains is for May to use the remaining time between now and the December summit to try and get the numbers that will win her a vote on the agreement in parliament.

    Of course she has to agree to the NI backstop without a time limit and she has already agreed to that in a private meeting with Leo Varadkar as was reported last night was to be believed. I think this is probably true so she will lose the support of the DUP when this becomes public knowledge and it could be that she just wants to get the budget through with DUP support before tackling this and losing their support.

    Next she will have to persuade enough of the ERG Brexiteers not to rebel and/or offset those that do with Labour MP’s if she is to win the “meaningful vote”. The odds don’t look good but everyone who matters in the EU I think realises that the main stumbling block now in getting a deal is not in Brussels but in Westminster.

    The future framework agreement will be a total fudge and vague as hell but that won’t matter much as it’s not a legal document and can be easily changed though it does mean we are heading for a totally blind Brexit with probably a commitment to remaining in the Customs Union not just during the transition period but also until such time as the trade deal is complete. That second part could be in the future framework agreement with weasel words about a new customs arrangement.

    Some of the report posted earlier by Call Me Dave is enlightening in this regard and well worth a read.

    In a recent meeting with Jeremy Corbyn, Barnier told the Labour leader that nothing signed today on the future trade deal would tie his hands should there be a general election during a transition period.

    Varadkar, said: “We are all politicians and we do understand that prime minister May has to get a deal that she can get through Westminster.”

    Juncker is understood have responded to May’s “nervous” 15-minute appeal on Wednesday evening by urging the leaders to “help” the prime minister, after she had spelled out the seriousness of her position at home.

    https://archive.is/ENUIF

  133. potter
    Ignored
    says:

    Infants hurt by Baby Boxes 0,Prof Blair produces 0 examples, 13000 people in UK hurt falling from chairs last year, “Chair safety doubts raised by experts”

  134. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    The EU are being complicit with May in kicking the can down the road and hoping to avoid a General election for now that will screw up their EU elections scheduled for next year.

    They also want to avoid a leadership election that could mean the likes of Johnson or Davies being left in charge, a General Election now wouldn’t help them as Article 50 would have to be extended so they are taking the easy route for them too and giving May all the help they can without crossing any of their red lines and threatening the integrity of the Single Market.

    They’ll all be hoping that if the transition period is long enough then a trade deal that will effectively keep the UK in both the Customs Union and Single Market can be achieved. A hybrid between the Norway and Swedish models.

    Where Scotland fits I haven’t a clue but all their plans turn to dust if May fails to get this through parliament and I don’t see how she can.

  135. Cubby
    Ignored
    says:

    DUP MP says he is mad as as a hatter.

    May be a sign of growing self awareness but hardly breaking news.

    U.K. Being driven down a rabbit hole by the nutters in N. Ireland.

    Vote for independence to get us away from all these nutters.

  136. Meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    potter

    13,000 people fall off chairs trying to look into baby boxes to check their bairns are ok…

  137. pete
    Ignored
    says:

    I hope mayhem has primed idy 2 but I hope the person on the trigger has the latest info. tried typing snafu into bbc brexit but no lik!

  138. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    Ah just read the main headline in the Guardian Thpnr and from what I’m gleaning I think May and the EU27 are now going to work hand in glove to ‘fudge’ it, as you state. But here’s the thing, that simply means an extended ‘transition period’, Barnier has also been speaking with Corbyn on these matters and if I may speculate I rather think that is why Nicola had a brief meeting with May too (strong feeling that Nicola has back channels to many in the EU27 too) in recent days?

    If it’s a ‘coalition of the reasonable’ to prevent the ‘no deal’ (which is how it is being punted in that Guard article) scenario that keeps us in the cu and sm till at least Dec ’20, they need to garner the votes from Labour and the SNP to ensure they outnumber DUP and hard Brexiters?

    They all are now in the process of ‘helping’ May get it through the Westminster, so definitely ‘deals’ are being made to ensure we don’t leave the sm and cu? Apparently May called them yesterday and was ‘desperate’ for help because of the predicament of her warring factions in her own party and now the EU27 are on board to aid her. Why wouldn’t the SNP be included in this…they would need their votes surely to get this ‘transition’ period passed by Westminster?

    So it really does become a serious question wrt to our position now? Does this in essence kick indyref2 into the long grass? Nicola was at pains to state she would support and compromise with the ‘second best option’ of sm and cu so that our economy was not devastated by no/blind/hard deal?

    What say our movement about this turn of events? There is already ‘chewing’ at the bit’ re indyref2 trigger. I can’t see how Nicola fires the gun when she’s stated ‘at length’ her position wrt to cu and sm. If they chuck it into the long grass by extending the transition and keeping us in the EU to all intents and purposes, what price can she extract for that compromise?

    Just some ma thoughts on it all at the mo.

  139. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    The definition of insanity is interviewing the same ‘expert’ twice on a subject and expecting to get a different answer which could be considered news.

    w.d Stu

  140. Chick McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    A somewhat less agendised view from our neighbours to the southwest.

    https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/why-babies-in-finland-sleep-in-cardboard-boxes-1.2792433

  141. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @K1

    We have already agreed on a transition period until Dec 2020 which means we remain exactly as we are now, basically members of the EU and in the SM and CU but after March 2019 we no longer have MEP’s in Brussels so no votes in the EU. Extending the transition to whenever keeps the status quo, everything including free movement etc for as long as that lasts.

    Critically though the length of the transition period must be included in the withdrawal agreement and this will be a legally binding document that cannot be amended later during the trade negotiations.

    How I see it is that Westminster are going to be asked to vote on the “package” both the Withdrawal Agreement and the Future Framework for a trade agreement. It is the second of those that we should be most concerned with in my opinion.

    It is there where will find if there are plans to remain or leave the Customs Union and Single Market as the basis for a future trade agreement different from what we have now. The problem is I suspect that the wording of this document will be so vague as to mean anything.

    This is the so called “Blind Brexit” and will undoubtedly talk of the desire to achieve “friction less trade” and other such waffle.

    Basically it will all boil down to this, we will “leave” the EU on the 29th March but won’t really have left in terms of any significant impact until the end of the transition period which could now be at least two and maybe even three years from then.

    No matter what the “future framework” says a new government elected during the transition period would not be bound by any of it, even the Tories and EU now will not be bound by anything it says as it is not a legal document.

    So when it comes to a vote in Westminster on this nobody will really know what they are voting for as the truth is at the end of the negotiations of the trade deal we could either be in OR or out of the Single Market and Customs Union.

    The SNP will NOT vote for this, they have already stated they will only support an agreement that keeps the UK both in the SM and CU and the future framework agreement will definitely not say that.

  142. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s all about Scotland and Northern Ireland now, the Brexit point they started on is all but forgotten now that they’ve realised the mess they’ve gotten themselves into

    Theresa May needs to keep the Union together at all costs while Jacob Rees Mogg and his chums couldn’t really care less about NI and Irish reunification and are willing to throw the dice on keeping Scotland the money pot after some can kicking and time wasting they figure they’ll just refuse Scotland a referendum and think they’ll get away with it

    I guess they’ll ramp up the sectarian thing in Scotland as much as they can to get a high level of hatred going in the hope of entrenching the no surrender vote which they’ll blame the SNP for to make life in Scotland more difficult for the SNP to get people to listen to reason

    Same original strategy they used on Ireland all over again
    When you get politicians like Mundell using words like *I’ll fight to my last breath to keep our precious Union together* you know we’ve all heard that style of language many times

    The difference with Scotland though is the Independence movement isn’t Catholic it’s all faiths and none, all colours and all backgrounds

  143. K1
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks for that Thpnr, few nuanced points I wasn’t completely up on so what you’ve said clarifies this for me.

    If we’re in schrodinger’s territory wrt to ‘in or/and out’ are we also in schrodinger’s land wrt to indyref2 trigger in light of all of this, do you think?

  144. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m sure it was Nicola Sturgeon who first used the term “Blind Brexit” but can’t remember when and that’s exactly what will be the “deal” that Westminster vote on.

    I can’t see that getting through Westminster unless enough Labour MP’s capitulate so chaos will be the result. Hang on to your hat LOL.

  145. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @K1

    There are too many variables, if the vote doesn’t get through parliament then we might have a General Election and who would form the next government?

    If Labour were the biggest party and needed SNP support would they demand a 2nd referendum?

    If they only needed Lib Dem support would they demand a “peoples vote”?

    If the Tories won with Johnson as leader would they just pull us out with no deal?

    Nobody can possibly guess at any of those scenarios but every one is possible. What is it that Nicola Sturgeon has consistently said? She would wait for “the fog of Brexit to clear” and that has to be the most sensible thing to do in these circumstances.

    I wouldn’t despair for now if you’re champing at the bit to get on with it, the fog will clear and the landscape within the UK will look bleaker than ever to most Scots. That can only improve our chances.

    That’s when we make our move and Scotland will be well on her way to becoming an Independent country. Keep the faith we’re nearly there 🙂

  146. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Thepnr / @K1
    I’ve got to admit I’ve stopped working it all out now, take it as it comes. What you say sounds reasonable though. Something tells me it’s all happening at the zoo, I do believe it, I do believe it’s true. SNP stand for honesty, Tories are insincere, and the Labour lot are wild, see, but they’re dumb. Lib Democrats are skeptical of changes in their wages, and the zookeeper is very fond of rum.

  147. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Damn! Who cares about the LibDems? Make it DUP.

    Something tells me it’s all happening at the zoo, I do believe it, I do believe it’s true. SNP stand for honesty, Tories are insincere, and the Labour lot are wild, see, but they’re dumb. The DUP are skeptical of changes in their wages, and the zookeeper is very fond of rum.

  148. Meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    Is T May thinking to struggle through; possibly call another election and this time ensure a majority hence no longer beholden to the DUP and can go for a backstop where N. Ireland is in the CU.

    According to Gordon McIntyre Kemp in the National on thursday, Article 4 of the Act of Union says – all citizens of the UK and GB will have uninterrupted trade between all ports or places – hence Davidson’s objection to any deal that will mean different regulation for N. Ireland, and Treeza’s repeated statement that she cannot have any different system in N. Ireland.

    If T May agrees to different regs then she breaks the Union.

    If there is no hard border there is No Brexit; if there is a hard border she breaks the Union.
    So much for Rees-Mogg favouring a hard border!

    I think this latest attempt at imposing a sort of Direct Rule on N. Ireland through a bill next week is a very worrying development. This way, WM will be able to legislate exactly how they want for N. Ireland and she is refusing to speak with Sinn Fein, the greens or any other parties over there.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-45895362

    We all need nerves of steel to get through this. Nicola has been in contact with the EU and she has been very visible this last week or so. I guess there is a lot going on in the background.

    Don’t envy T May the job she has to do just now – but she chose it!

  149. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Where you can buy The National – full list:

    http://www.thenational.scot/resources/files/93118

    How to complain if it’s sold out:

    http://www.thenational.scot/community_resources/_sold-out/

  150. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    Here’s a cracker.

    THE UK Government will today mount a last-ditch challenge to an emphatic judgement by Scotland’s highest court about giving MPs the power to block Brexit.

    The Advocate General for Scotland’s office will ask the Court of Session for leave to appeal a decision handed down by Scotland’s most senior judge and two others last month.

    https://archive.fo/T4UwD

  151. Kangaroo
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr @3:15am

    A cracker all right. They’re having a laugh. Just a delaying tactic to prevent the ECJ case happening in time to enable the MPs to have a vote in the knowledge they can still revoke A50.

    If they succeed then so what, Brexit has already killed any remaining trust in the UK Union we’re just tidying up the loose ends at the moment.

    If they lose and subsequently we end up staying in the EU then the english tories will be cleaved in two.

    Win either way.

  152. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    https://randompublicjournal.com/2018/10/17/why-cant-we-all-just-get-along/

    Teresa May attempted to go over the head of Michel Barnier by trying to negotiate at the Brussels meeting of the EU27.
    https://www.facebook.com/indycargordonross/videos/2234320546781339/?t=2

    Disappointing to have a confirmed case of BSE in Aberdeenshire. Scotland’s Chief Veterinary Officer is leading co-ordination of activity with her animal health & welfare team & other agencies & is liaising closely with other CVOs across the UK-Defra are also being kept appraised
    https://twitter.com/FergusEwingMSP/status/1052876322198839296

    http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2018/10/18/the-uk-is-heading-towards-a-frightening-constitutional-crisis-over-brexit/

  153. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    Varadkar shows EU27 dinner guests border bomb horror picture – Brexit deadlock over Ireland backstop
    http://archive.is/ECdMS

    “I’ve been expelled because I haven’t toed the line on Brexit” – Former Conservative MEP @juliegirling describes the “astonishing… civil war” going on in the Conservative Party.
    video
    https://twitter.com/SkyNewsPolitics/status/1052864913872433152

    Brexit: how long will the UK stay under the EU’s rules?
    http://archive.is/XC3M8

    Brexit: a conflict situation
    http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87028

  154. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    http://blogs.surrey.ac.uk/politics/2018/10/18/the-pros-and-cons-of-a-longer-transition/

    I Didn’t Hate the English — Until Now
    In which an Irish woman discovers how little the people who shaped her country’s fate know or care.
    http://archive.is/ZF76s

    Saudi Arabia has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds paying for British MPs to visit the country.
    http://archive.is/rZWBH

    Some thoughts on a law (https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2017-2019/0275/18275.pdf …) being rushed through Parliament to let NI civil servants act as quasi-ministers. If you live in NI, this is about how you’re governed. If you’re in GB, you should care about it because it involves spending billions of your taxes…
    https://twitter.com/SJAMcBride/status/1052920626963501056

  155. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @
    Capella says:
    18 October, 2018 at 4:24 pm
    Was going to post a link to the John Beattie show but unfortunately it is “not currently available”.
    They were discussing “Outlaw King” and the lead actor, who is Californian, had listened to a rugby player to get the right Scottish accent. They had an expert in the studio, who is English, to tell them all about Scottish accents.
    So they asked listeners to tell them who had the best Scottish accent. Someone texted in “Mhairi Black” but the woman presenter, Anne Marie?, quickly interrupted and talked over that suggestion. Soon, another text came in suggesting Muriel Grey. “Lovely woman”, said Anne Marie.
    I imagine that the green ink brigade monitor these things to ensure “balance”, by which they mean that only British views prevail. How pathetic.
    BTW the Scots dialect is really Inglis from Northumbria, said the expert. I wondered if Mr Peffers was listening.

  156. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Well yaboosucks Mr Blair. You are misguided at best.

    But hey! CONGRATULATIONS to Scottish lass from Inverness, JENNY GRAHAM who has just circumnavigated the World on bicycle all on her todd!

    AND she has broken that record for women by 20 days!

    She cycled 18,000 miles over 120 days (4 months!), an average of 180 miles a day and rode across 15 countries. How awesome is that?!

    Totally unsupported and carrying her own kit.

    I cannot begin to imagine how hard that must have been.

    And her arrival back at her starting point in Berlin was met with the bonny sight of many Saltires 🙂

    Well done Jenny 🙂

  157. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    For anyone who missed this yesterday
    https://www.rt.com/shows/alex-salmond-show/441590-ireland-brexit-pm-content/

    https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2018/10/19/news/brexit-stormont-s-pro-remain-parties-slam-theresa-may-for-meeting-snub–1462823/

    Extraordinary timing – Brexit backstop significance: we filmed at the port in Larne last week where cattle exported from GB to NI/ ROI are already checked, and these are the type of checks and reason for the checks that EU want to continue & expand in backstop, rejected by DUP
    https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1052869823854768128

    Brexit: Recovery of Sovereignty or Loss or Rights?

    Was Brexit argued on accurate information fairly presented? With the reality of Brexit looming, a sober look at what we actually gain or lose is needed.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5mV3qrUwdo&feature=youtu.be

  158. Collie
    Ignored
    says:

    The English and their government just can’t get their head round the fact that the EU are not giving them an inch.

    They still think the EU should be changing all their rules and laws to suit the smug English bastards.

    The English deserve every disaster that is coming down the line to meet them.

  159. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr @ 3.15 am

    A cracker alright!

    The UK Government are properly shitting themselves.

    ( pardon my French, Auld Alliance and all that 🙂 )

  160. Ghillie
    Ignored
    says:

    Btw.

    Nobody anywhere on the planet deserves any disaster of any sort.

  161. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Robert Peffers
    Thanks Robert

  162. Sinky
    Ignored
    says:

    Like the baby box nonsense,the dying Scotsman newspaper gives front page headlines to a Web site attacking Scottish education called Dear Madame President which is meant to be taken seriously.

    Meanwhile few papers are pointing out that there have been 16 cases of BSE in England and none generated banner headlines or BBC national news coverage.

  163. McBoxheid
    Ignored
    says:

    Breaking news:

    Professor Blair’s argument is too old to be used again against baby boxes….
    It is more than 3 months old.

    I’ll get ma coat

  164. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Capella says: 18 October, 2018 at 4:24 pm:

    ” … BTW the Scots dialect is really Inglis from Northumbria, said the expert. I wondered if Mr Peffers was listening.”

    No he was not, Capella. However, the claim is arrant nonsense.

    South Britain was composed of many kingdoms and Northumbria was one of them but they were not England.

    The Roman Empire ruled South Britain it did not rule England for the title, “England”, is a corruption of, “Angle Land” that only came about after the romans left and the Angles, Jutes Saxons and a few others of the Germanic tribes were invited into south Britain and took over from the south Britons.

    However, that didn’y happen overnight but spread from the original settlement areas of the Germanic tribes such as Sussex and Wessex. It was a gradual take over.

    Factually England was only a unified country after the Norman conquest – when the governance was centralised and the Doomsday Book compiled. That was in the late 11th century.

    There are, though, claims that England became a unified Kingdom in about 927, under King Athelstan I’m inclined to go with the Norman Conquest but remember that the Normans were also the same Germanic Tribes that came to south Britain after the Romans left. The name Normans is a corruption of Norsemen who were invited into what became Normandy for the very same reason as the South Britons invited them to south Britain.

    Incidentally that invite was not to have the Germanic tribes protect the South Britons from the North Britons but, laughably, from the Germanic tribes. The Norsemen, Vikings. etc. were raiding the continental countries and the entire British Isles.

    They were invited to settle in what became Normandy & South Britain so as to stop their raiding. They were promised rich fertile land to settle in if they stopped raiding and pillaging.

    So there you go the South Britons have been re-writing history for a lot longer than most Scots realise. By the way they also do so, even today with their history of the Roman occupation by claiming the Romans occupied Britain. They didn’t for what was to become Scotland, (named Pictland by the Romans), proved to be the final frontier of the Roman Empire. See:-

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUhY8A1FnHY

    English history of the British Isles is pure fantasy. Even the claims that the Scots came from Ireland is disproved. Recent digs on remote and difficult to access sea stacks and islands with sheer clifts off the Scottish mainland revealed early Scots artefacts that predate those found in Ireland.

    Looks very much like the movement was either in the other direction, or much more likely at a time when the superhighways were the sea and inland waterways and the Great Britain mainland was covered by respectively the Great Caledonian Forest and the English Wild Wood, the Scots were dwellers all around the what became the Irish Sea.

    Much taught history is complete and utter bunk and does not stand up to even cursory examination.

    Here is another anomaly that shows how historians and archaeologists differ and Archaeologists have physical evidence.

    Around such as Hadrian’s Wall there are many Roman Cemeteries and there was a fairly high death rate of Roman troops. However, there are few signs of Roman Graveyards at the Gask Ridge and Gask Road nor at the Antonine wall. This suggests the Roman troops were not permanently billeted there but were regularly changed and marched in.

  165. skintybroko
    Ignored
    says:

    Collie, you are way off base, it is not the English per-se it is the Political setup of the UK. It is the democratic deficit of Westminster that is the issue – we have many Scottish Unionist supporters that believe in it and will run roughshod over their own countrymen in a race to the bottom.

  166. Luigi
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert,

    The “normans” possibly only represented a third of the invasion force in 1066. As far as I am aware, Franks and Bretons (mercenaries) probably made up the other two thirds. All promised land and gold. Some of these would have been celtic, so there’s an irony. 🙂

  167. Nana
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye, sure he will
    http://archive.is/RE7HC

    HMRC data shows Scotch whisky exports continue to grow
    http://archive.is/rFxhI

    Tories are revolting
    http://archive.is/nGTYL

    UK ports are ‘not ready’ for no-deal
    http://archive.is/45e20

  168. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:


    Nana says:
    19 October, 2018 at 8:23 am

    UK ports are ‘not ready’ for no-deal
    http://archive.is/45e20

    If they’ve got a padlock for the gates, they are.

  169. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    The main carers and the infants love it. Nice and cosy, More stable and safe than a Moses basket or a buggy/pram top. Or exhausted main carers falling asleep with an infant in bed.

    What a wonderful welcoming gift for a new arrival. A welcoming gift of appreciation all around. At a busy, exciting but stressful time. Many of the critics appear to be men who might not appreciate the duties of main carers. They do not have the responsibility. They should not muck it up for others. Out of touch.

    People can refused it if they do not want or need it.

    More BSE double standard. Unbelievable. Mad cow came from Alabama.

    The farmers could organise students or P/Timers. They use the migrant Labour because it is easier and cheap. Slave labour. People once went from the UK to France to pick grapes. Now people go and settle in other EU places. Even temporary. The fruits markets has expanded because of better weather. Climate changing.

  170. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @stu mac says: 18 October, 2018 at 6:17 pm:

    ” … The Scots dialect grew out of Old Northumbrian, a dialect of Old English and spoken all over SE Scotland from before there was a Scotland (that’s why Edinburgh is “Edinburg” and not Dun Edin).”

    Err! No! Not quite for what was Northumbrian goes very much further back than that.

    Right back to the Brythonic language in fact:-

    From the dictonary:-

    “Brythonic – adjective

    denoting or relating to the southern group of Celtic languages, consisting of Welsh, Cornish, and Breton. They were spoken in Britain before and during the Roman occupation, surviving as Welsh and Cornish after the Anglo-Saxon invasions, and being taken to Brittany by emigrants.”

    That Brythonic language ran all the way up the west of Britain and into the Strathclyde area and beyond.

    Just as a wee diversion:- note that the Welsh lay claims to King Arthur but Arthur’s seat is in Edinburgh and the place name Camelon bears a striking resemblance to the Arthurian Camelot and no one knows where Camelot was situated with some claims setting it near Carlyle.

    Anyhow, there is little doubt that the remaining Brythonic language in Britain is Welsh. Another anomaly is that the two Brythonic terms for table and house are very, very similar and the buildings of the time if Scotland that Arthur is supposed to have existed were roundhouses. There is speculation that King Arthurs reputed Round Table, (which with the technology of that time could not have been constructed large enough to seat all of Arthur’s nights. So was Arthur a legend or a historic fact?

    What is not in dispute is that the Brythonic language was spoken right up through Britain at least as far as north Strathclyde.

    So in fact both Northumbrian and Scots come from Brythonic and the claim that Scots is Northumbrian is fake history. The south Britons have been talking down Scotland a lot longer that most Scots realise.

    Now I wonder why they would want to do that?

  171. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Collie you are an idiot.

    Many off us have English family, friends, colleagues.
    My local constituency has many English members. You are a troll with bile.
    Never wish harm on anyone.

    This does not mean you stil don’t wish independence. Still you don’t care about such things.

  172. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Robert Peffers – brilliant! I knew you would have an interesting view on the Scots language issue.

    Sadly, the Thursday episode of the John Beattie show is still “not currently available”. Wednesday’s episode is available. I suppose it was less controversial. What a hard time BBC editors must be having these days, being constantly alert to intercept any rogue bits of Scottish actuality from slipping through the net.

  173. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr says:

    I’m sure it was Nicola Sturgeon who first used the term “Blind Brexit”

    I believe it was Peter Mandelson who coined the phase.

    https://tinyurl.com/y6wlec8u

    However, it’s been inevitable all along because the future trade framework statement which accompanies Withdrawal Agreement was never going to be binding.

    At every stage the Tories wanted to ‘can kick’. Almost certainly having as little clarity as possible over future trade suits them. Allows them to put a sticking plaster over internal divisions so they can achieve Brexit without having to make too many firm decisions.

    As much as anything, not knowing what the final arrangement is, reduces the excuses for IndyRef2. Their plan for Scotland is to try to reach Holyrood2021 and win by every dirty trick they can muster.

  174. Petra
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks for the links Nana. I’ll delve into them later when I have more time.

    ………………………………….

    The ***Game-changer*** right enough! Worth posting in full, imo. Well worth a read.

    ………………………….

    Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp: ‘This is why Westminster’s choice is between Brexit and the Union.’

    ”It’s easy to become overwhelmed by all the Brexit confusion but just occasionally Brexit still throws up something so bizarre it requires closer examination.

    A case in point is Ruth Davidson and David Mundell threatening to resign if Northern Ireland gets a deal to stay in the single market. At first I thought “good for them, standing up for Scotland and demanding that if Ireland gets special treatment after Brexit, Scotland should as well” – but not a bit of it.

    What they were actually saying was that they would resign if Northern Ireland were offered a deal because they don’t want to give Scotland’s government the right to demand the same.

    Essentially Scotland’s two leading Conservatives are trying to stop Remain-voting Scotland getting a deal that protects it from the worst extremes of Brexit and will threaten to resign to ensure that Scotland gets as bad a deal as possible from Brexit.

    Why? It’s not as though they want a no-deal Brexit or were even remotely doubtful about the EU prior to the Leave vote.

    Davidson famously campaigned for a 2014 No vote predicting disaster as Scotland would be out of the EU. During the EU referendum she was a vocal Remainer and more recently stated that she wants to “Make sure that we’ve got a comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU” … and to “trade within the single market”.

    Mundell waxed lyrical on the benefits of staying in the EU: “We will be stronger, safer and better off by remaining in a reformed European Union”. That our first priority must be the single market and “we are better off – because British businesses will have full access to the single market, bringing jobs, investment and lower prices”.

    So why is special treatment for Northern Ireland such a big deal that resigning becomes an option? Well negotiations with the EU and the growing possibility of a no-deal scenario hinge on the Irish border issue. The Good Friday Agreement insists on no borders, largely to stop smuggling-funded terrorist activity. The EU says there is no need for a border on the island of Ireland; just have it between Northern Ireland and the UK.

    The DUP and Scotland’s extreme British nationalist Tories say “over my dead body” because it would undermine the integrity of the UK. The UK Government has been unable to come up with a solution. Largely because there isn’t one.

    So what’s the big deal? A few customs checks on the ferry as it arrives in Stranraer, some extra paper work at Liverpool docks for containers from Northern Ireland. We can all manage that can’t we? Well no, because if that is the cost of leaving the European Union there is a much older union that expressly forbids it.

    Article IV of the Act of Union 1707 states “That all the Subjects of the United Kingdom of Great Britain shall from and after the Union have full Freedom and Intercourse of Trade and Navigation to and from any port or place within the said United Kingdom.”

    There was an amendment in 1800 which put subjects of Great Britain and Ireland on the same footing (Article Sixth).

    It restates the necessity of freedom of trade but it also goes a little further stating “that in all treaties made by his Majesty, his heirs, and successors, with any foreign power, his Majesty’s subjects of Ireland shall have the same privileges, and be on the same footing as his Majesty’s subjects of Great Britain.”

    Ok, so if there was any border and restriction on trade between Northern Ireland and other parts of the UK, Scotland and other parts of the UK would in effect null and void the Act of Union, thus technically dissolving the nation of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland into its constituent parts.

    That would mean a new Act of Union and a new Good Friday Agreement were needed and fast – no big deal, nothing to see here, move along.

    A bunch of Lords have been cobbling together a suggested new Act of Union but there is nothing in their disjointed ramblings to solve the trading problems of Brexit, borders or the democratic imbalances in the UK. So that explains the DUP/Mundell/Davidson panic stations.

    Thus, if there were to be a new Act of Union then the old Union would cease to exist and some mechanism would have to be found to allow sovereign Scotland to sign up to the new Act for it would not be a union if forced upon us.

    Ironically, then, saving the Good Friday Agreement would lead to a Brexit transition period, and a new technically independent Scottish Government would then retain its recourse to European Court of Justice and ask it to rule on whether the rUK can annex Scotland against its will.

    It’s rather amusing therefore to think that this also raises the prospect of a referendum to ratify a new Act of Union or remain an independent nation.

    How would Unionists sell that? Do you Scotland want to join a nation that will be run by a distant, dysfunctional and disinterested government that you didn’t vote for? Have your wealth invested outside your country but be burdened with debt that your nation didn’t create, and have those that did create it call you scroungers and subsidy junkies?

    And have your ability to trade, travel and work abroad severely restricted because the new Union will operate outside the EU, even though you voted remain?

    Do you want Westminster to roll back devolution, so Scotland’s parliament can’t protect you from the free trade deals we want to strike with nations like the US who will want their healthcare companies to be able privatise the Scottish NHS?

    Thinking about it, that wouldn’t really be different to the offer they will have to make during an independence referendum – bring it (or at least one of them) on.

    http://www.thenational.scot/news/16989865.this-is-why-westminsters-choice-is-between-brexit-and-the-union/?ref=mr&lp=2

  175. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Gfaetheblock says: 18 October, 2018 at 11:27 pm:

    ” … So you are you claiming that the bbc, guardian, FT and the telegraph are not the MSM?”

    Why don’t you learn to comprehend the English Language, Gfaetheblock?

    I said nothing of the sort – only that they are not the entire MSM and only a rather insignificant part of it in Scotlad.

    That means not only are they not the entire MSM but a particularly small part of it in Scotland. For goodness sake Wings has a larger daily readership than and of these anti-Scottish rags. Which is, of course, why anti-Scottish people like you are here talking down Scots and Scotland. You are wasting your time we know who you all are.

  176. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    The Bayeux Tapestry calls the combatants French and English,

    HIC CECIDERUNT SIMUL ANGLI ET FRANCI IN PROELIO

    Here English and French fell at the same time in battle,

    HIC FRANCI PUGNANT ET CECIDERUNT QUI ERANT CUM HAROLDO

    Here the French are fighting and have killed those who were with Harold,

    basically a small group of French folk conquered England.

  177. Gfaetheblock
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert peffers

    I am really not talking scotland, Scots etc down, I can’t see where you are getting that from. I am also pretty au fait with English. I am just confused by your posts.

    You say something is ignored by the MSM (BBC employees setting themselves up as companies for tax efficiency)
    I shared some links to show this is not the case
    You then seem to say ( I will paraphrase) well that doesn’t count as some articles are old, some are new, it is not all of the MSM all the time, folks don’t read that MSM, the MSM hates Scotland and more folk read wings than the MSM anyway.

    So, could you define what ‘being covered by the MSM media means’, as it appears that state broadcaster, financial press and left and right leaning national papers doesn’t cover your definition?

  178. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Thepnr says: 19 October, 2018 at 3:15 am:

    ” … Here’s a cracker.
    THE UK Government will today mount a last-ditch challenge to an emphatic judgement by Scotland’s highest court about giving MPs the power to block Brexit.
    The Advocate General for Scotland’s office will ask the Court of Session for leave to appeal a decision handed down by Scotland’s most senior judge and two others last month.
    https://archive.fo/T4UwD

    Well spotted, Thepnr,

    I had intended to comment upon that yesterday but had a particularly bad day health wise and didn’t get round to it.

    This could be a real game changer but has been rather played down by the Scottish Government and by the MSM but the repercussions could be far reaching.

  179. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert Peffers

    Yes Robert, because it would establish the Supremacy of Scots Law over English, . They are actually having to seek permission from the Court of Session to have the case heard at The Supreme Court where they believe they have the opportunity to have it struck down.

    It would be perilous indeed to supercede the Court of Session without reference to them in the first instance.

    Perhaps Rock will now realise that not all legal eagles are subservient and compliant all the time.

  180. Arabs for Independence
    Ignored
    says:

    I too listened to the rather pathetic discussion on the John Beattie programme yesterday (around 12:45). Putting aside the issues of where various languages originated mainly because I’m totally ignorant re such matters, the whole discussion was just plain stupid. Beattie starts by asking what Robert the Bruce sounded like? Then says with great authority ” I guess we’ll never know” – so now we know – no YouTube in the 14th century and of course BBC never covered the Battle of Bannockburn as they don’t show Scottish home games. More bizarre was getting the ever dull Gavin Hastings to hazard a guess which rugby player influenced the Robert the Bruce’s actors voice – Gavin (vote No) said he had heard a clip of the movie and he was stirred to go into battle – he never said for what side.

  181. Luigi
    Ignored
    says:

    Nana says:

    19 October, 2018 at 8:23 am

    Tories are revolting

    They certainly are. 🙂

  182. vlad (not that one)
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Peffers says:
    18 October, 2018 at 10:55 pm

    @Golfnut says: 18 October, 2018 at 10:48 pm:

    ” … Canongait, “street of the Canon ” I’m struggling to get a meaning for ‘canon ‘. Help.”

    Canon of the church. Probably from the fact the RC canon was traditionally based at St Patrick’s Church in, “The Canongate”, at the foot of the Royal Mile.

    Yes, likewise Canonmills.

  183. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    Nana 8.23

    Not surprised to find Kate Hoey willing to support tories who want to prevent a ban on people owning great big feck-off guns.

    http://archive.is/2zQa3

    Maybe she’s planning on stocking up.

    http://archive.is/PjyUv

  184. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    Logically, there are only two outcomes to the EU negotiations.

    We are either in or out. However the mechanisms affecting that final decision totally play into the hands of those supporting independence.

    May won’t survive and will be replaced by a strong Brexiteer.

    Given an increase in polls of the number of Scots wishing to remain in the EU this is no bad thing.

    Should May survive and by some mechanism forge a deal with backstop limits ,then the English public will turn on the Tories and UKIP will re-emerge. Anything the SNP can do to delay or disrupt the process will eventually have English public opinion sway against us. I know, dirty politics.

    Doesn’t sound much, but it is a clear signal to Scotland that in fact the reality is we need the EU, as politicians are having to risk their political career to remain even by subterfuge. That is the reality we would have to take on board.

    Either way promotes indy.

  185. Famous15
    Ignored
    says:

    STOP the TROLLS.

    Some trolls like Collie cannot be ignored as their anti English comments are clearly disigned to justify a headline that this site is just racist and anti English.

    Compare and contrast the critical analysis of the rather grumpy Robert Peffers where our sothern neighbours are criticised for their actions or inaction but not because of who they are but because of what the do.

  186. Vestas
    Ignored
    says:

    There’s a “contact” link on this page for anyone wanting to report repeated trolling/abuse.

    That’s the correct way to deal with trolls on here – not with capitalised posts demanding action….

  187. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    The Head of brainwashing in Scotland is Donalda MacKinnon. She is invisible and silent and still largely unknown in Scotland, otherwise she would have no life. Her job is to assassinate Scotland’s independence. To use the letters BBC is to give her the cover she desperately needs for her treachery against Scotland.

    In other news:-

    https://beergbrexit.blog/2018/10/15/uk-deadlocked-itself-on-brexit/

    This is Brexit clear. For muddied Brexit just watch TV or read the papers.

  188. Glamaig
    Ignored
    says:

    re the Gordon Macintyre Kemp article – doesnt Article 50 say withdrawal from the EU must be in accordance with the leaving state’s constitution?

    So if border checks between NI and rUK are unconstitutional, and border checks between NI and RoI breach the GFA, something has to give.

    Staying in the SM/CU surely is the only constitutional way forward, and the alternative is No Deal and rip up the GFA international treaty.

  189. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    The Canongate was appointed a burgh of Regality by David I & granted to the canons of the Augustinian order who built the abbey of Holyrood, hence the name.

    The auld Tory buffer who failed to understand my excellent MP was either at the madam or drunk!

    @ Arabs for Indy, good point on the washed-oot Gavin Hastings, whit side indeed!

  190. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    @Mike Cassidy,

    Kate Hoeys resistance to Remaining in the EU is in fact down to the fact that she is a Loyalist rather than Unionist. She has very strong links to the Orange Order in N Ireland, and annually returns at the marching season to show solidarity.

  191. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Famous15 says:

    STOP the TROLLS

    I tend to think they turn up, or are deployed perhaps, when the discussion line represents a stronger threat than usual to their Union. When skeletons are dragged out of cupboards, or true intentions of BritNat policians are exposed, or evidence produced which runs contrary to the prevailing MSM line. Then the trolling kicks off.

    Disrupting the thread or attacking individuals is the usual approach.

    However, we need to be particularly mindful of ‘false flag’ where comments which are sectarian, xenophobic, or ethnically motivated are posted. These might be used elsewhere as evidence of how nasty we all are.

  192. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Kate Hoey is being deselected because of her Tory support. Self harming. Bad look. The gun laws can be revisited.

    The EU matters/conflict finally took Thatcher down. People in the UK want to stay in the EU. They were lied to.

    May and the Tories will not survive. It is just a question of when not if. Labour unionists could have brought May and the Tories down EVEL vote Sept 2016. Hoey voted with the Tories. A masonic bastard? Instead of all this stress and idiocy. It is just a matter of time. Quite soon before Westminster Gov collapses

  193. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Nana, thanks for Tarff’s insight into the Tory PM whose solution to the NI Backstop was “Why don’t we just let the Mick’s shoot one another!”

  194. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    Collie says: 19 October, 2018 at 7:26 am:

    ” … The English deserve every disaster that is coming down the line to meet them.”

    Take your offensive racism elsewhere. It is not acceptable on Wings. And no I do not speak for all wings commenters but I sure as hell speak for most of them.

  195. Doug_Bryce
    Ignored
    says:

    Here is an easy story for Stu.

    Mundell seems to have done a u-turn on the common fishing policy since 2014. Obviously fishing for pro brexit votes now….

    “David Mundell, the Scotland Office minister, said Salmond had made a significant legal and diplomatic error by threatening to block access to Norwegian waters. He said an independent Scotland would be legally obliged to allow safe passage to foreign ships with Norwegian fishing rights.
    He said Scottish fleets fished heavily in other EU waters, including in North Sea areas owned by the rest of the UK.”
    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/28/alex-salmond-fisheries-eu-scotland

    “David Mundell has raised concerns with the prime minister over the timing of the UK’s departure from the Common Fisheries Policy.”
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-45913511

  196. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:


    Glamaig says:
    19 October, 2018 at 10:52 am
    re the Gordon Macintyre Kemp article – doesnt Article 50 say withdrawal from the EU must be in accordance with the leaving state’s constitution?

    So if border checks between NI and rUK are unconstitutional, and border checks between NI and RoI breach the GFA, something has to give….

    Yes Mr Macintyre Kemp. …..AND?

    So restricted Port access is unconstitutional. Big Deal.
    Overruling the will of the sovereign people is unconstitutional.
    Subjugating Scotland to the will of England is unconstitutional.
    Preventing Scotland from negotiating its fate with Europe is unconstitutional.
    Introducing draconian Henry VIII English legislation is unconstitutional.
    EVEL is unconstitutional.
    The very existence of the UK Supreme Court is unconstitutional.

    Scotland requires just ONE breach of the Treaties of Union to declare the Treaty broken. It is just a contract. Once declared that a contract is breached, there is no contract. It ceases to exist – instantly. There is NO remedial agreement or renegotiation to reinstate the terms of the contract, nor are there any remnants of the “unbreached” terms of contract still enforceable. It is void. A breached Contract is dead, and can only be replaced, never reinstated, with a completely new contract.

    That the Union still exists at all, is increasingly by Scotland’s own reluctance and unwillingness to end it.

    If this news comes to some as a “game changing” shock revelation, then they have not been paying attention. Why do you think Scotland’s Remain majority is such a vital and important phenomenon???

  197. Colin Alexander
    Ignored
    says:

    So much time wasted discussing and defending the SNP and Scottish branch office of Westminster Govt.

    Party politics suits the unionists fine. It has us talking about the wee things, the transient things.

    YES to independence should not be about the SNP or any party or any person.

    It’s about sovereignty and democracy for our nation.

    Another day spent arguing party politics and defending or attacking the record of the SNP as administrators of Westminster devolution is another day wasted in fighting for our democratic freedom.

  198. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    Stating that the Treaty of Union has been broken many times is actually true. However,you would have to qualify that by remembering that the Scottish politicians who have represented us throughout history have had distinctive Unionist leanings up until now,and therefore allowed it to happen on their watch.

    This does not negate the Terms of the Treaty as it stands.

  199. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Glamaig – so England and Wales can either leave the EU and dissolve the Treaty of Union, or preserve the Treaty of Union and stay in the EU.

    I wonder which option they will choose?

  200. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    Ditto Robert Peffers @ 11:08am.

  201. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Hunt says this morning (from Guardian) ….

    “The substantive area of disagreement is whether we would agree to a backstop which would allow for customs barriers down the Irish Sea – the effective break-up of the United Kingdom – or whether we agree to a backstop which would allow the UK as a whole to stay in the customs union indefinitely.

    Neither of those are acceptable. Those are two very important matters of principle for the United Kingdom.”

    At least it’s an admission of their conundrum! He doesn’t quite see it as self imposed, though.

    Consider, “matters of principle for the United Kingdom” … Nope! Concerns for the Tory Government, not the UK. Most MPs in WM and most folks across the UK don’t want a Brexit any harder that staying customs union. Most want something even softer!

    Also, note how he dismissed customs union as nothing more than an ‘alternative backstop’, only considered to solve the NI border issue!

    If they continue with this stupidity, it will be no deal.

  202. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    @Capella
    @Glamaig

    Re choice … leave EU or dissolve UK

    Truth is, I think that has been the reality since the vote. I also think the Tories are well aware of it.

    IMO Union is primary, Brexit is secondary. However I also believe they think they can achieve both. Magical thinking has become a real speciality for them.

    ‘Can kicking’ seems to be the tactic.

  203. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    Breaking news – Deal Done on Gibraltar.

    Have a look over onto kirstyhughes twitter account folks. An article on politico.eu there.

    Looks as if the British Establishment have found some kindred spirits in Spain re tax dodging.

    Gibraltar is a tax haven.

    Any deal (and they are keeping the details to themselves) which involves the continued use of ECJ, means the area is subjected to the Tax Haven Laws coming in.

    If they have managed a deal which excludes use of the ECJ, then they have created a back door for the tax havens to take refuge in.

    The British Establishment can then put SM/CU back on the menu, cue a GE and a Peoples Vote very soon.

    The exit négociations made no sense other than extreme brinkmanship over the tax havens. Looks like the EU has blinked first.

  204. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    THERE CAN BE NO GOING BACK

    We now need a word or phrase by which to call life in the UK before the EU Referendum. As with Climate Change, we now live in a major unfolding of political and economic change in the UK, which may well see its dismantling and which is probably non-reversible.

    Should the widely anticipated global economic-financial crash take place anytime soon, then we are heading straight into a ‘perfect storm’. The consequences of such an eventuality are very difficult to imagine.

    In any serious storm, all boats head for the nearest port if they are far from home. The UK will have no such option after Brexit. Cataclysmic, tectonic, apocalyptic, take your pick. There are no charts now, no road maps, no guidelines to give safe passage. David Cameron, the Tory Party and the British Establishment have wrapped the remainder of the British Empire in an explosive belt in the manner of a suicide bomber, and pressed the timer.

    All we can do now is wait.

  205. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Colin Alexander says:19 October, 2018 at 11:32 am:

    ” … So much time wasted discussing and defending the SNP and Scottish branch office of Westminster Govt.”

    Oh! Give it a rest and stop talking pish, Colin.

    There is only one way for Scotland to take back her legal sovereignty and that way is for a majority of the people of Scotland who, at elections, delegate their legal sovereignty to their elected Members of any parliament or even local councils they elect a member to serve in.

    Note that Scottish Members of the Westminster Parliament, and only Scottish Members, are not required to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen of Scots. They can choose, and now mostly do, aver their allegiance.

    This is because when the legally sovereign people of Scotland choose a representative they collectively delegate their legal sovereignty to that elected member.

    In the three country Kingdom of England the people are not legally sovereign as the Queen of England is a sovereign monarch of her kingdom of England. So the English Kingdom voters choose who the Queen of England delegates her sovereignty to.

    Thus the only way for the legally sovereign people of Scotland to regain independence is to give a mandate to their legally elected representatives to end the Treaty of Union.

    In theory that could be any political party but there is only one Scottish political party that is now large enough to ever attain a majority of the people and to also have a mandate of the majority of Scottish voters to be able to legally enforce the end of the Union.

    No airy-fairy extreme left wing group of numpties will ever gather enough support in order to do so. Nor will any Westminster Unionist party. Our only hope to gain independence legally and without people dying in bloodshed is via the SNP.

    The most encouraging move towards that happening is the rise of AUOB that encompasses all and any of the People of Scotland to support independence no matter their political beliefs, or lack of political belief.

    Even the dogs in the street know it and you will see many dogs really enjoying themselves while marching for Scotland. No political party other than the SNP with a majority of the Scottish voters will ever gain Scottish Independence for the people of Scotland.

  206. Petra
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Breeks at 11:25am …. “Why do you think Scotland’s Remain majority is such a vital and important phenomenon?”

    Well we’ve all been down that road before, over and over again. Even although 62% of Scots voted to Remain in the EU less than 50% support Independence. It’s the latter figure that counts, imo. It also highlights that a fairly large percentage (at least 12%) of the Remainers priority (sovereign Scots) is to remain in the Union not the EU, at this time.

    You say, “Overruling the will of the Scottish people is unconstitutional.” I take it that you are referring to 62% of Scots voting to remain in the EU? So how do you deal with that, in a practical fashion? Nicola Sturgeon takes the case forward to the UN and or the EU to find that a majority of Scots, at the end of the day, would rather remain in a Brexited UK, as the figures currently show.

    If Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp is correct Westminster’s choices are even more limited than we thought, that is that if they plump for a sea border the Union would be over and out (null and void the Act of Union) and would lead to us holding a referendum on voting for a new Act (treaty?). Would more than 50% of Sovereign Scots sign up to that? On the other hand if they, Westminster, want to hold the Union together they’ll have to remain in the CU / SM. That of course could stymie our chances of getting our independence altogether. It could also see England / the Tory Party implode. That leaves them with a no deal Brexit which would favour us, but lead to the EU having to deal with the Irish land border.

    All of the “unconstitutional” issues that you’ve highlighted could take years to resolve and at the end of the day could come to nought. What Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp is pointing out, Act of Union becoming null and void, would kick in right away hence Davidson and Mundell running scared. Strange too that, over the last year or two, you’ve never included his point on your list. Why’s that?

  207. BigBill
    Ignored
    says:

    Has the learned Prof. read this-
    https://www.thebabybox.com/baby-box-history/

  208. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Petra says: 19 October, 2018 at 12:48 pm:

    ” … Strange too that, over the last year or two, you’ve never included his point on your list. Why’s that?”

    Very perceptive, Petra, I long ago detected the flaws in the Breeks debating points.

  209. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    “Knock, knock.”

    “No to a 2nd independence referendum.”

  210. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    Breaking News 2 hours ago:-

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASZ7DQNEj0g

  211. Socrates MacSporran
    Ignored
    says:

    Arabs for Independence

    Can I refer you to the views of more than one former team mate of th bold Gavin Hastings, including one or two who played alongside him in the 1990 Grand Slam Game.

    This is: “Big Gav – wonderful rugby player, as thick as they come.”

  212. Cubby
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Peffers @11.08

    Risky business, I know, correcting Mr Peffers but I would suggest you should have said the vast majority rather than ” most”.

    COLLIE time for you to stop this English racism or you will be judged as just another false flag sneaky Britnat trying to cause trouble on Wings. I for one will report you for trolling if I see any more of the racist comments. If you are for Scottish independence then get a grip.

    As others have suggested try substituting Westminster for English. Failing that just go away.

    Mr Peffers Thank you for all your invaluable comments over many years on Wings. You may be a bit brusque at times but Wings was never meant to be for the faint hearted.

  213. Stravaiger
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks to whoever posted the link to the National last night, it clarifies things.

    It seems to me that May has three options-

    1. Remain in SM & CU. Doing so means no tax havens and no point in Brexit.

    2. Border in the Irish Sea. To do so breaks the Treaty of Union.

    3. Hard border on the island of Ireland. To do so breaks the Good Friday Agreement. No deal Brexit, no transition period.

    Which do you think she’ll go for? My money was and still is on option 3.

  214. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    I feel that many of the leavers are now beginning to see what the results of this folly could produce and are moving over to remain leading to Scottish Independence
    When you can be part of something as huge as the 27 countries of the EU and the 60 other countries around the world with which they have deals AND Scotland gets if as a member 1 equal vote the same as every other country which in the United Kingdom we do NOT get it’s all pretty much a no brainer

    Folk who talk about Scotland having no say in the EU are just not seeing the big picture, look at Ireland a tiny country but because of its membership of the EU it’s able to weild all the power that institution has and the entire EU is backing it up, compare with how Scotland is treated in the UK, we don’t get a vote, we don’t get a say, our elected politicians are excluded and the media in our own country continuously run the country down as they’re instructed to do by their bosses in London

    While a little country like the Republic of Ireland right now is driving the bus in Europe Scotland doesn’t even qualify for a seat at the back

    And whose fault’s that

  215. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Support for Remain now up to 83% in Scotland

    Support for Independence 50% – +?

    The Pollster manipulate the result. They use the Polls to manipulate the vote. They are paid by black money and illegal hacking to totally manipulate the vote. The electorate system is totally corrupt by unionists politicians. To manipulate the vote so criminal politicians and their associates can use Polling methods to make vast amounts of illegal money at the public expense.

    The Tory unionists are up to their necks in it. May is involved and sanctioning it. She is a criminal. Most of the Westminster unionist politicans and their associates would be in jail, if there was any justice. They will be out on their ear shortly. They could not make a bigger mess. What a total shambles. They are sanctions and starving people causing havoc in the world. A complete and utter disgrace.

  216. Glamaig
    Ignored
    says:

    Its interesting that in the context of a customs border between NI and rUK, Mundell, Davidson, Foster, May etc go on about ‘the integrity of the UK’ and ‘our precious precious Union’ without ever once saying why a few border checks are such a big deal to them, or ever referring to or even mentioning the actual Treaty of Union.

  217. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Stravaiger says:

    Which do you think she’ll go for?

    Yes. Right now 3 seems most likely.

    She has one other choice. It may not be choice, it may be forced on her. A general election and lose. Labour wins and either has ‘people’s vote’ (then it gets cancelled) or they go for a softish Brexit.

    The sensible is 1. So we can discount that.

  218. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Gibraltar should be part of Spain. Spanish territory. Relies on Spain for goods and services. It should have been handed back long ago. A throw back to colonialism. It continues as a tax haven. Ruining the world economy.

  219. Collie
    Ignored
    says:

    Hamish 100

    Otherwise known as the Nancy boy gate keeper of Wings is the only one to take offence at ne calling out our Colonial Masters.

    England lover Hamish calls anyone who doesn’t pass the Hamish Wings test is a Troll.

    As far as I can see Hamish, you never post anything other than calling people Trolls.

    You come across as being as bright as a 3 watt bulb.

  220. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    Nice try, Collie. Not going to work. But 2 out of 10 for effort.

  221. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    What do wingers make of this:-

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7G4z5uEQnE

  222. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    Breaking news from 15 minutes ago:-

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWFcN8qKmZ4

  223. gus1940
    Ignored
    says:

    Yet again in the month when next year’s pension and benefit increases are set the Rate of Inflation falls.

    How convenient for the government.

  224. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Robert Peffers – I thought the Glasgow MP, David Linden, was very good natured about this when he was interviewed yesterday. He cut the “antipodean” MP, Sir Paul Beresford from New Zealand, a bit of slack for not understanding a Glasgow accent. Fair enough I would say.

    Contrast Jacob Rees Mogg’s impeccable pronunciation of Angus B MacNeil’s constituency, Na h-Eileanan an Iar. JRM probably has elocution lessons to perfect pronunciation of constituency names.

  225. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert Peffers

    Perhaps the Tory gentleman instead of asking the SNP member to speak more slowly might listen faster

    I suppose to be fair I don’t know what the sound quality is in the chamber and what we hear may not be what they hear and accents can be difficult for the listener if they’re not used to them or indeed if they don’t care in the first place

    The Tory member may only be attuned to RP in which case that makes him entirely what he is, a Tory gentleman who doesn’t care and isn’t interested anyway until he hears the sound he believes he respects

    Accents generally reflect on background which gives rise to snobbery in the less informed, it’s old fashioned now but unfortunately will probably exist for a long time yet, especially with those who think RP should be how we all speak, which strangely enough is an invention in itself

    Many foreign folk who speak perfect English find difficulty in understanding RP which isn’t as universally spoken as the users of it might think it is

    Everywhere English is spoken is generally accompanied by a local accent it’s really up to the listener to try harder to engage more than to just rudely exclaim the need for repetition of every word, in short the bloody man must have understood some of it so he only needed to ask for clarification, but I kinda feel that’s not what he was up to, but I could be wrong

  226. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    If you haven’t had time to read all of the links and very few do then I would recommend these two as well worth a read if you’re even remotely interested in the Brexit idiocy.

    If you want to understand why we are where we are today then this does a very good job in pointing you in the right direction.

    manandboy says:
    In other news:-

    https://beergbrexit.blog/2018/10/15/uk-deadlocked-itself-on-brexit/

    This is Brexit clear. For muddied Brexit just watch TV or read the papers.

    If you want a very good idea of where we might be headed next then this summary is probably as good as you’ll get.

    Nana says:
    Backstops, UK Politics and Getting to a Brexit Deal

    https://www.scer.scot/database/ident-8897

  227. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Accents, an old joke …

    A farmer sees someone drinking from his burn …

    “Dinnae hae ony o’ that. It’s fu’ o’ pish’ frae ma cay!”

    A reply comes from the thirst gent …

    “Hello. I’ve just bought a holiday home over the hill there. I’m from London. Sorry but you’ll need to speak a little more slowly for me.”

    Farmer…

    “If yoouu usse bothhh hannnds, youuu’ll gettt morrrre wattter”

  228. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Nick Clegg that evil, lying bastard is off to work for Facebook. The biggest tax evaders and criminal in the world. Zuckerman the criminal now wants him doing his dirty work for him. To cover up for him. Clegg ruined the UK/EU economy now wants to ruin the world. What a low life. Anything for money. Filthy liar. ConDem trash.

  229. Iain mhor
    Ignored
    says:

    @Daisy Walker12:17pm
    Thanks for the heads-up.
    I would have bet the farm on Spain getting the airport in any deal. Apparently not. Since that was probably the biggest chip as a sweetener, it begs the question what was bigger?
    Spain was bought with something.
    Fishing rights? Money? a-la tax dodging, curiouser and curioser…

  230. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dr Jim says:19 October, 2018 at 2:37 pm:

    ” … in short the bloody man must have understood some of it so he only needed to ask for clarification, but I kinda feel that’s not what he was up to, but I could be wrong.”

    That, Dr Jim, was my own first though but then I though the Scottish MP missed a great chance, perhaps not being quick enough of thinking on his feet. In such circumstance I believe I would have lapsed into standard English and replied, “The Honourable Member has just provided yet another good reason for Scottish independence.”

  231. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    There was never any problem with Scots Labour MP accents.

    Oh but then, they never did, not even once, speak up for Scotland. Just sat on their hands, zipped their gubs, did as their London masters told them and happily trousered a massive salary and a small fortune in expenses.

    Just wait until Mhairi gets started on him…..

  232. Luigi
    Ignored
    says:

    Iain mhor says:

    19 October, 2018 at 2:55 pm

    @Daisy Walker12:17pm
    Thanks for the heads-up.
    I would have bet the farm on Spain getting the airport in any deal. Apparently not. Since that was probably the biggest chip as a sweetener, it begs the question what was bigger?
    Spain was bought with something.
    Fishing rights? Money? a-la tax dodging, curiouser and curioser…

    I may have the wrong info, but Spain may have secured a veto on the final Gibraltar deal. If this is the case, then the Spanish will be happy for now to bide their time. May of course just desperate to kick all cans down the road. The road ends in a cliff edge (everyone knows it), but she doesn’t care, as long as the Brexit bus doesn’t go over during her watch.

  233. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Capella says: 19 October, 2018 at 2:33 pm:

    ” … He cut the New Zealand, MP a bit of slack for not understanding a Glasgow accent. Fair enough I would say.”

    Well I’m with Dr Jim on this – the New Zealander was up to a quite different game. Now as a dedicated caravanner and motor-homer, and from a family who were the same, I have from boyhood visited every remote corner of the British Isles with a few of the more remote and hard to get to smaller Islands excepted.

    I sometimes had a little difficulty with some rural English accents but never enough to not understand the speakers. There are, of course, some local words, not accents of words, that outsiders could only guess at but context usually was enough to get what was being said.

    I fear the New Zealander was intent upon quite a different ploy – to put down the Scots as uneducated morons. BTW: Of all the former colonies, with perhaps the exception of Canada, New Zealand has more than its fair share of people of Scots descent.

  234. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    I don’t recall Tory MP’s failing to understand the accent of Michael Martin when he was the Speaker, they were too busy keeping a civil tongue up his arse looking for favours!

  235. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Alyn Smith, weekly update on Brexit …

    https://tinyurl.com/y9hypz5g

  236. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    “Watching a Country Make a Fool of Itself

    No country in the world has cultivated arrogance the way Britain has. But the sad truth is: The former global power can’t even find its way to the door without tripping over its feet.”

    I hope that does apply to the whole of ‘Britain’ and that Scotland has the sense to distance itself from the foolishness … and soon!

    http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/brexit-talks-watching-a-country-make-a-fool-of-itself-a-1234143.html

  237. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    does -> doesn’t

  238. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    “As Vernon Bogdanor, one of the country’s leading constitutional scholars, put it in an article in the Financial Times on 9 December 2016: “Our exit from the EU depends upon the continuing consent of the people. The notion of finality is quite alien to the spirit of democratic politics. For it must always remain open for a sovereign people to reassess its verdict”. (My emphasis) From: https://tinyurl.com/y9fem4xr

    Scots are a sovereign people. Scots Tories ‘No 2nd Referendum’ take note.

  239. Iain mhor
    Ignored
    says:

    Hmm I’m not entirely of the opinion the EU is Scotlands friend. Possibly, maybe after an independence event.
    During Brexit I’m beginning to believe more that Scotland and her assets are the bargaining chips.
    EU have the UK over a barrel just now and it’s easier in this situation to take what the UK may be in a position to give, rather than negotiate hard for Scottish assets in any Euro-Indy-Scottish accession bid.
    That Spain holds a dirty derringer around the EU table I have no doubt (Witness Catalunya and deafening silence) So if Spain is to be kept onside with the 27, so it doesn’t rock the united front of the EU in Brexit negotiations; then it follows the Scottish Indy question and any of her assets Spain covets, will be sacrificed.
    If you follow my reasoning.
    The Gibralter deal had me cogitating on that scenario.
    It was a very quiet and quick ‘apparent’ resolution.
    If Spain says “we want the fishing rights and lets hear no nonsense from rest of EU about supporting Scotlands claim to Independence or we’ll agitate on Brexit” then I could see that being acceded to.
    Though it is a weird one, as the same could be achieved by cutting Scotland a CU deal like NI even up to the customs border in Scotland (as previously discussed here) Perhaps that’s a little to close to more autonomy for Scotland for their liking. I don’t know.
    Anyway, just a thought.

  240. Jock McDonnell
    Ignored
    says:

    @galamcennalath

    Been hoping for a bit more from him.
    Not expecting much, just hoping.

  241. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    There are folk still complaining about American Chris Pine being the lead actor in the new Bruce movie and I really wish they’d get over themselves on this

    A movie is a product that costs a lot of money to make so the makers would like to make a profit or at least get their money back on it and they’d never sell the movie or make a penny casting Jimmy McFadyen fae Dunoon as the leading man now would they and don’t even start wae the Gerard Butler stuff, actors do all sorts and Gerry boy has played American parts so the argument is daft, and a wee bit racist

    God now somebody’s gonnae say it shoulda been a wummin in the role, ye cannae win eh! Roberta the Bruce

    It’s only a film, Aarghh!

  242. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    The request to write to make it clearer. Write a letter to the New Zealand colonist. New Zealand got Independence and never look back. A place often compared to Scotland. Scotland has more resources. Taken by Westminster unionists like the New Zealander, to fund their idiocy and illegal wars, bankers crash and any other rubbish. The unionist low lives in Westminster showing their ignorance at every opportunity. What a shower.

  243. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    RE: Brexit deal done on Gibraltar.

    “It states that Gibraltar will be covered by the Withdrawal Agreement, and essentially respects the status quo.
    The diplomat also said that the document contains specific clauses on citizens’ rights (particularly non-British citizens living in Spain and working in Gibraltar) and makes reference to a series of Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) on a number of issues.

    These MoUs are being negotiated separately between London and Madrid and will not form part of the Brexit agreement.

    They cover the environment, tobacco smuggling, security cooperation, citizens’ rights and taxes, which are long-term grievances of Madrid’s.

    Another controversial question — the joint use of Gibraltar airport — has been dropped from the negotiation, Sánchez said Thursday, meaning the British overseas territory will continue operating the facility singlehandedly.

    Borrell on Wednesday said four of those MoUs — all but the one on Gibraltar’s tax regime — are almost done.

    A British official confirmed that view but added that there are still some details pending on the issue of tobacco.

    https://www.politico.eu/article/gibraltar-brexit-deal-done-says-spain-prime-minister-pedro-sanchez/

  244. Foonurt
    Ignored
    says:

    Wean, fur fuck’s sake.

  245. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    Problem solved, IDS says it will be easy to resolve Irish border. Mind you this is the person that dreamed up Universal Credit then did a runner once it was clear it was going to be the shambles that numerous people predicted. His word is his …., shit where has he disappeared to now!

  246. Iain mhor
    Ignored
    says:

    @Daisy Walker
    My post crossed yours, but yes they definitely have whip hand within the EU and securing a potential veto is probable, it’s just a question of to what ends? Surely a veto card is in all the 27’s hands anyway. They were sweetened with something so they don’t use it.
    Of course, I could be completely wrong, the rEU could possibly have a whip hand over Spain; in that they slapped them and said “any whiff of you using your veto and the ECHJ come down on you hard over over Catalunya… give up on Gibralter in the interrim or you’re getting it!”

  247. Iain mhor
    Ignored
    says:

    * Translation
    “Getting it!” ‘a serious doing, a kicking”
    Not ‘you’re getting Gibralter’ Is what I mean Lol 😀

  248. John Morrison
    Ignored
    says:

    I have stopped listening to BBC Radio Scotland on a regular basis. Good Morning Scotland and Call Kaye seemed to me, at one time, well balanced current affairs programmes. The constant deluge of anti-independence news/views has become increasingly obvious and bias is also presented in more subtle ways.

    Am I the only one to notice that most ‘experts’ interviewed are from south of the border. I have nothing against them personally and do not doubt their expertise but are there no Scottish experts that can contribute. On some occasions the Scottish accent is a minority.

  249. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Michael Martin didn’t mind what they called him. They all had their hands full of illegal expenses kept off the books by Martin the fraudster. Getting away with murder. The ‘family’ housing scandal financed with £1/2Million of public monies The poverty that existed in Glasgow. The Labour Mafia. Fifty years of lying Labour. The Labour Mafia with their hands in the till. Trying to start up trouble again. The trade union Mafia leaders. The unholy Alliance. The godfathers of criminality ripping off the workers.

    The GSA governor, not mentioned in the Press, wasting £Millions of public money. Under Labour/unionist patronage. Swanning about GSA graduations like lady muck. They muck up everything. They can’t count or read a balance sheet. Fools fooling folk once. Then trying to fool them once again. Once is enough for these fools and imbeciles.

  250. Luigi
    Ignored
    says:

    Iain mhor says:

    19 October, 2018 at 4:06 pm

    Hmm I’m not entirely of the opinion the EU is Scotlands friend.

    I concur. I would not be surprised if May is willing to bend over backwards for the EU if they promise to support Scotland remaining in her precious union.

    We cannot take anything for granted.

  251. Luigi
    Ignored
    says:

    Fred says:

    19 October, 2018 at 3:19 pm

    I don’t recall Tory MP’s failing to understand the accent of Michael Martin when he was the Speaker, they were too busy keeping a civil tongue up his arse looking for favours!

    They did snigger behind his back and called him “Gorbals Mick”. 🙂

  252. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Luigi, they did indeed, although the baron Springburn wasn’t from the Gorbals or even Springburn. Duplicitous bastards or whit? time we were out of that Panto for good!

  253. sandy
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks 11.25am.
    The “Treaty” has been breached MANY times. Up until now, nothing has been done.
    Is it not time to make use of the ECJ. After all, we are still, to date, part of the EU, albeit a Country within a state, not, apparently, as the situation is with Catalonia.

  254. PictAtRandom
    Ignored
    says:

    Ken500 says:
    19 October, 2018 at 2:49 pm

    Nick Clegg that evil, lying bastard is off to work for Facebook. The biggest tax evaders and criminal in the world. Zuckerman the criminal now wants him doing his dirty work for him. To cover up for him. Clegg ruined the UK/EU economy now wants to ruin the world. What a low life. Anything for money. Filthy liar. ConDem trash.

    Ah dinnae ey unnerstaun ye, ken? But what a perfect illustration of how Fleecebook is the natural home for Unionists (proto-globalists). And what if some anglos-by-choice will tell us that social media will be our salvation? The real answer is to develop our nationalism. All the better to fight the bogus U.S.A. and U.S.E.

  255. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Just raging. How low can they go.

    Put student fees up £9000. That liar. Liar, liar. There was abolutely no need for that. Burdening young folk with debt for years. Most of it will never be paid back. They cut NHS and Welfare totally unnecessary. They should have been putting them up. Instead gave the wealthiest tax breaks. Imbeciles.

    Clegg now off to feather his nest with the worst tax evader in the world. Fecking Facebook. Defrauding elections and lying to investigations. People starving thecwirld over because of those crooks. Enough is never enough.

  256. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ken500

    Well said, I couldn’t agree more 🙂

  257. Valerie
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Dr Jim

    Not seen any complaints about Chris Pine, but if I do, I’ll tell them to piss off.

    Pine is an excellent actor, crowd puller, and money spinner. Gerard Butler is not fit to lick Pine’s shoes.

  258. mike cassidy
    Ignored
    says:

    The tentacles of Brexit spread far and wide.

    From back in August.

    “.. the Foreign Office insists that Britain’s overseas territories will not be any worse off after Brexit than Britain will be. But for Anguillans, that is hardly reassuring

    http://archive.is/IoFe5

    I wonder if someone at the Foreign Office forgot to tell the Falkland Islanders.

    http://archive.is/fiRgc

  259. Andy-B
    Ignored
    says:

    Is it just me, or are the Scottish news channels doing their best to destroy the Scottish beef industry?

  260. starlaw
    Ignored
    says:

    I get the distinct impression that they are trying to destroy the Scottish Beef Industry. Whit a hullabaloo aboot a deid coo.

  261. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    “…are the Scottish news channels doing their best to destroy the Scottish beef industry?” you ask @Andy-B.

    Given Mundells “Defend the Union to his last breath”

    The BritNats defending their Reich to the last man/woman.

    This springs to mind.

    “The UVF also claimed MI5 planned to supply a spoon of ‘Anthras’ (sic), ‘Foort and Mouth Disease’ (sic), ‘Fowl Pest, Swine Fever, and Jaagsikpi’ to anyone who would release them in Ireland.”

    “The loyalists said the plot was to destroy the ‘Eire economy’.”

    http://archive.is/zqZ0x

    “UK press riddled with spooks, conduits for intelligence agencies keen to score one for the Empire”

    http://archive.is/6zxG0

    So not the Scottish news channels, more likely the BritNat Security Services.

  262. call me dave
    Ignored
    says:

    Entrepreneur raises stakes in Johnston Press battle

    https://archive.is/NDodN

  263. Smallaxe
    Ignored
    says:

    Facebook’s pledge to always be free under threat after hiring Nick Clegg;
    http://newsthump.com/2018/10/19/facebooks-pledge-to-always-be-free-under-threat-after-hiring-nick-clegg/
    😉

  264. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    Slipped in to the news on Reporting Scotland with pictures

    “20 men of Pakistani origin groomed and raped girls in Huddersfield”

    And they didn’t report it in a loud voice so’s the people of Huddersfield could hear them because the people of Huddersfield must not have a news service to report bad thngs that happen in their town in England which is another country far far away from what is supposed to be the news where we are

    Unless of course the BBC in Scotland think there are folk in Scotland who might think Huddersfield is maybe just outside Paisley or somewhere else local to Scotland, or maybe the BBC thought they hadn’t reported enough bad stuff already about Scotland so they’d get some from somewhere else

    Maybe the mad cow thing just isn’t doing it

  265. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Dr Jim at 4.28

    Oi! I know Jimmy McFadyen in Dunoon. He is a ballet dancer and knits shawls.Only Kidding. There is a big family of McFadyens in Dunoon.

  266. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    Brexit has totally destroyed the community of the UK. I have watched several political shows where the participants at the beginning all state that we need to work together like responsible adults to find a solution.

    Inevitably by the end of the broadcast they are all fighting and talking over each other. It is the same everywhere. I think the damage done to the cohesion of the society in the UK is irrevocable. People are choosing sides and refusing to deviate.

    Northern Ireland has many such ,and indeed the Loyalists are accepting the inevitable reunification in numbers.

    Scotland public opinion also indicates more willingness to remind in the EU.

    A house divided can never stand.

  267. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Strange thing,the Mod. Lots of Tories sauntering proudly about in the kilts their party banned talking the language their party tried to wipe out.
    Lots of good guys as well however.

  268. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    @Valerie

    There are a bunch of them on the FMs Twitter trolling away about Chris Pine, just the usual anti Indy and anti Nicola lot

    Nothing’s ever good enough, and even if it is it’s still rubbish, this Internet needs Ray guns so we can Zaap folk who are just nasty

  269. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dave McEwan Hill

    You pick a nondescript name of someone you don’t think might exist and whaddaya know….there’s a guy with that name

    Kinda like Chad Hogan remember him from Kevin Bridges

  270. pipinghot
    Ignored
    says:

    JWT, first thing that sprang to my mind…..

  271. schrodingers cat
    Ignored
    says:

    interesting discussion about language, but in the last 2 years, a great deal of historical revision, due in part to archeological finds but also due to genetic research, is causing a complete rethink about our past.
    it is sometimes refered to as the celts from the west theory.
    a summary.

    1. the neolithic stone circle builders were replaced almost completely by incoming indo-europeans from the steps of russia about 2500bce. This included britain and ireland.

    2. the language and culture of britain and ireland developed in isolation into an early form of Q celtic

    3. the discovery of large quantities of tin in cornwall and the subsequent european trade down the atlantic coast and up the river routes across Gaul, carried the Q celtic language and culture from britain and ireland to the continent. not the otherway round.

    4.the arrival of iron in about 700bce, upset the bronze age status quo, greater interaction with the iron age greeks in the east possibly responsable for the Q to P change in western Europe

    5. From 500bce onwards P celtic speaking Gauls and from the north, germanic speaking Belgs began settling, invading britain and ireland

    6. Their progress in ireland was stopped by forces from pictland, the cruithne, and the indiginous irish

    7. In britain however, the p celtic speaking gauls succeeded in settling the west coast of britain and the germanic speaking belgs the east coast.

    8. The Gauls did not however manage to conquer the north of britain (pictland)

    this is the origin of the brythonic and cumbric languages of britain, (prydain)which while being P celtic in nature, are in fact far closer to gaelic they are to gaulish. Indeed, this p-q classification is misleading and a more accurate methode it to view gaulish as continental celtic and britain and ireland as insular celtic.

    the germanic speaking belgians were responsible for introducing this language into eastern britain, indeed, the area to the south, called Selgovea by ptolemy, dunfries, the river Ae etc, may be a typo for Belgovae. In isolation, these germanic speaking people would have been heavily influenced by the culture and language of the Prydain and Cruithne but it survived in its own right. Indeed, the first people to be defeated by herst and horst anglo saxon invasion in 410 ce, were these belgians living on the saxon shore in southern england, However, it was the language, saxo brit which the decendents of herst and horst ended up speaking and not the saxon of their homeland.

    the language we know today also has its roots in this early ironage invasion, either directly or by subsequent influence from the south

  272. schrodingers cat
    Ignored
    says:

    should read
    the language we know today ……..as scots

  273. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    I didn’t think May would cave in and release information that she would drop the time limited part of the deal on the NI border this quickly.

    LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Theresa May is ready to agree to a fallback arrangement for the border between the United Kingdom and Ireland which does not have a time limit, to speed Brexit talks, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources.

    http://archive.fo/j51O4

    So the question now is can the Tories get their budget passed without DUP support on 29th October?

  274. schrodingers cat
    Ignored
    says:

    So the question now is can the Tories get their budget passed without DUP support on 29th October?
    ————————
    or will treeza may survive the leadership challenge which the tory brexiteers will surely mount in the coming days?

  275. Gary
    Ignored
    says:

    To be fair to the BBC they ARE always late, even with major stories. You’ll read it on a blog one day and a week later the BBC will pick it up. And in the case of Scotland (as we saw in the Referendum) they will pick the story up six months later but without bothering their arses to check whether the story is complete BS, or not.

    Yes, BBC journalists ARE that stupid, they ARE that lazy. I don’t think the English journalists are biased, I think they genuinely don’t care about Scotland OR about proper journalism either…

  276. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr @ 20:19,

    I have always reckoned she would cave, since (despite all the bluff) no-deal was always going to endanger the stability of the Union far more than any alternative.

    As to surviving the vote in the HoC, she can probably manage it. Labour will (mostly) support, SNP likewise since it has been their position all along, and enough of the Tories – the many non-zealots who are desperate to hang on plus the schemers who prefer to keep their powder dry for another day. And the DUP needn’t worry since their nest is well-feathered and there is no border down the Irish Sea.

    The losers: all the ordinary Leave voters who were sold a pup over freedom of movement, fishing rights, etc., plus Scotland as a whole because the SNP loses its immediate mandate for IR2, never having drawn a red line (even a faint non-bloody one) over full EU membership.

    The biggest losers: Yes-Leavers, who get the full double whammy, trapped in the vassal state’s vassal state.

  277. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Bob Mack says:
    19 October, 2018 at 10:00 am

    “Perhaps Rock will now realise that not all legal eagles are subservient and compliant all the time.”

    The Scottish justice system is rotten to the core and the vast majority of lawyers, especially judges, are the lowest of the low.

    A Scottish court will NEVER make a judgement which would put the union really at risk.

    Empty words like “Scots are sovereign” are utterly useless. Westminster doesn’t give a damn about the Scots and the 56 impotent SNP MPs achieved ZERO for Scotland – Not a single amendment to the Scotland Act.

    Do get back to me when you have something “sovereign” to report from the Scottish justice system.

  278. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    The Guardian Editor displays a purely Colonial mindset

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/19/the-guardian-view-on-theresa-mays-brexit-march-to-stop-the-madness

    “The deal will also shape whether the United Kingdom – another union in which, as with the EU, our peoples have been better off together than apart – holds together or breaks into less consequential parts.”

  279. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Peffers says:
    19 October, 2018 at 11:08 am

    “Collie says: 19 October, 2018 at 7:26 am:

    ” … The English deserve every disaster that is coming down the line to meet them.”

    Take your offensive racism elsewhere. It is not acceptable on Wings. And no I do not speak for all wings commenters but I sure as hell speak for most of them.”

    Robert Peffers (18th February 2017 – “Here comes a surprise”):

    “The fact is that a little common sense will show that the immigrants mainly come to find work. Elderly English cadgers excepted, these who sell up expensive city homes for cheaper, or better, Scottish accommodation, free bus passes and the benefits of such as free prescriptions, care at home and cheaper Council Tax. These are often the ones most prone to call scots subsidy junkies.”

    Rock (18th February 2017 – “Here comes a surprise”):

    “That is a very racist anti English comment in my view.

    I only call for such people not to be given a vote in a referendum on Scottish independence from England.

    Apart from that, as far as I am concerned, there is no difference between these elderly No voters and our own British Nationalist elderly No voters.”

  280. Fred
    Ignored
    says:

    Mrs MacFadyen wisnae a bad yin!

  281. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ RJS – I’m certain I heard Nicola say, perhaps in her RSA speech, that membership of the CU and the SM is a red line, the very least required by any responsible government, already a compromise from full membership etc.

    But she also said she would wait till the fog of BREXIT clears. It hasn’t cleared yet. In fact, it appears to be thickening into a London pea souper.

  282. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    @Rock,

    Are you a reincarnation of Alf Garnett by any chance?

  283. Lenny Hartley
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert J Sutherland, UK membership of the customs union still allows to call indy ref2.
    The Scots Govt has said all being taken out of EU

  284. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert J. Sutherland

    She hasen’t yet caved to the extent that Brexit has been called off and we will remain in the EU happily ever after, at least not yet.

    No all she’s done is throw her DUP support under the bus before it careers over the cliff and there will be a border in the N. Sea for an indefinite period, well at least until the trade deal might be finalised, if ever.

    The SNP and Labour will vote against the budget no matter what it contains, will the DUP do the same? Guess we will find out for sure a week on Monday.

    I did mention before that I never knew politics could be this entertaining didn’t I LOL

  285. galamcennalath
    Ignored
    says:

    Turkey is in customs union with the EU, and it’s a long way short of single market membership.

    For the UK, reverting to customs union would still be a hard Brexit.

  286. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Iain Mhor,

    re Gibraltar deal – if a deal has been struck which solves the issue of it being a Tax Haven, then it has taken more than Spain to broker it – though they seem to have been willing hosts.

    All the EU countries have their own versions of British Elite, and all of them have good knowledge and use of Tax Havens – Switzerland, Lichtenstein. They practically invented the concept.

    What is relatively new is the industrialisation of tax dodging, the ‘double irish’ bookkeeping, which is now threatening first world economies, and the recent poorly written EU tax haven legislation, which missed out on the Crown Dependency Tax Havens and allowed them to ‘steal custom’ from the banks in Switzerland, etc.

    It means that the 27 countries in the EU have their own internal power brokers, pushing for some form of back door for tax havens.

    If they can achieve this, as soon as they can achieve this, then the Brexit Charade can stop. Labour and Tories can work together (each in their respective Westminster corners) to put SM and CU back on the menu and bring about a People’s Vote.

    I doubt there will be a full cancelation of Brexit, because look what they’ve managed to achieve so far, destruction of devolution, workers rights, human rights, control over Scotland agriculture and NHS (potentially).

    Big T has played her part magnificently and will be amply rewarded.

    For anyone not convinced that Brexit is all about the Tax Havens, and avoiding the tax haven legislation means avoiding any type of EU cooperation which involves the European Court of Justice having jurisdiction, a few thoughts.

    Why is Terrible May, a PM in trouble, not pictured full Centre at the first bit of good publicity about Brexit – namely the Gibraltar deal.

    Why are full details of the Gibraltar deal not being made public. Savers, businesses, other areas of the UK need to know this stuff, it is entirely in the public interest for it to be made known. Its almost as if they don’t want anyone to look at the Gibraltar deal in any detail.

    Why are multi millionaires Hesseltine, Clarke, and the new labour Blairites, only uniting now, with all their know how, contacts, experience and money. Only now are they getting their shit together to publicly demand a Peoples Vote. Could that be, because its only now that a ‘possible’ back door has been created for tax dodged wealth, that it is now safe to campaign for SM and CU membership.

    Look at the calibre of some of the videos for the Peoples Vote – these are slick, well produced, talented videos, by different actors and scripts. That takes time, money, professional know how.

    2 years ago, I could not get my head around the shear incompetence about Brexit and the way it boosted the argument for Scottish Indy.

    Now I’m kind of taking my hat off re their shear brinkmanship and tactics. If they have achieved their tax dodge back door, whether it is a GE or Peoples Vote, some form of EU membership will continue, and it will severely water down the need (for No voters) for Scottish Indy. And this time, there will be a grass roots movement in England, with all the energy and noise that brings, so voters in Scotland will get caught up and distracted with that.

    I do hope the SNP have a plan. Anyway, no-one said it would be easy.

  287. jfngw
    Ignored
    says:

    @Capella

    My understanding of what Nicola Sturgeon said at the RSA was that SM & CU was the red line for SNP MP’s at Westminster voting for a deal. It did not rule out a subsequent indyref, in my opinion, as it still falls short of what Scotland voted for. Although it would be a harder sell as many may want to wait and see what happens. But as always with speeches other will interpret it differently.

  288. Dr Jim
    Ignored
    says:

    This Brexit fog’s a real pea souper and doesn’t look like thinning for a long long long time or for-ev-er, and I think they’re doing it deliberately now so maybe Scotland could just take them to court on the grounds of irreconsilable differences and abusive incompetence, I mean it’s getting positively criminal behaviour now when you think there’s about 65 million people wae they’re eybrows screwed up saying *whit ur these people daein*

    And it’s all to satisfy a handful of greedy Tories while whole populations of people get poorer by the day and have zero security as to their future

    In some other countries there would be riots in the streets
    but not in Blighty by jove *Let’s give the Prime minister time and space* say the media, I mean really really, this is bad man as we used to say in our rock n roll days

  289. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ jfngw – yes I think Nicola is quite firm on that point, the CU and SM are the bottom line for the SNP. Which means Indyref2 is still on the table ready to be triggered at any time.

    However, “crunch” deadlines in BREXIT seem to come and go on a weekly basis. The only firm date is the 29th March 2019. The various court cases pending (I’m not sure how many) will be interesting signposts on the way.

  290. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    I reckon Scotland has every right to cancel the Acts of Union, due to the piss poor government from Westminster. That may well upset a lot of folk but tough. Political Realism insist the Scottish government defends Scottish sovereignty, i.e. the Scottish public.

    #DisolveTheUnion

  291. Petra
    Ignored
    says:

    Scotland’s Place in Europe. Worth reading if you haven’t done so already.

    http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0051/00512073.pdf

  292. Petra
    Ignored
    says:

    And:

    Scotland’s Place in Europe: Our Way Forward.

    http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0054/00541974.pdf

  293. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    The clock is ticking. 29/3/19

    As soon as some form of back door for tax havens is agreed, the clock can tick all it wants to, and SM CU membership can be back on the menu with no threat to all the ill gotten gains hidden away.

    As soon as SM CU membership is back on the menu, the SNP have no red lines to argue about.

    Westminster will have achieved a power grab, removed workers rights, human rights, control of agriculture, fracking, fishing, procurement for things like our NHS.

    Westminster will have – very cleverly – taken a lot of the wind out of our sails.

  294. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    In the context of Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria surely we actually have a very strong and just case to invade Saudi Arabia, remove and execute its royal family and all those who work for it and free its people.

  295. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Capella

    There is one other date that is “firm” as it is written into the Withdrawal Bill.

    Parliament will have a vote in a ‘no deal’ scenario, but no formal power to direct the Government

    This week the Government caved in to pressure from Conservative rebels to allow a parliamentary vote in a ‘no deal’ scenario. A ‘no deal’ scenario for the purposes of the legislation is carefully defined. There are three ways it could kick in:

    If Parliament has decided not to pass the Government’s motion to approve the withdrawal agreement and future framework

    If, before 21 January 2019, the Government tells Parliament that no agreement can be reached

    If after 21 January 2019, no agreement has been reached.

    In any of these three instances, the Government would have to make a statement to Parliament setting out what it intended to do next.

    Parliament would then have an opportunity to vote on those plans, but only on a motion expressed “in neutral terms”. The motion could be “that this House has considered the Government’s plans to leave the European Union without a withdrawal agreement”, for example. That would generally be considered “neutral”, as it does not express an opinion about those plans, one way or another.

    There has been some debate about whether such a motion would be unamendable. This is because the Standing Orders of the House of Commons say that where, in the opinion of the Speaker, a motion is expressed “in neutral terms”, no amendments to it may be tabled.

    As the Government reminded MPs yesterday, the judgement on whether a motion is in fact in neutral terms, and so whether it is amendable, falls to the chair and cannot be prejudged. But if, as far as the Speaker is concerned, the phrase “neutral terms” in the Standing Orders has the same meaning as the phrase “neutral terms” in the EU Withdrawal Bill, and the Standing Orders do not change, then the Government’s motion could not both comply with the requirements of the Act, and be amendable.

    It is therefore unlikely, though not technically impossible, that MPs would be able to amend a motion moved by the Government to comply with the EU Withdrawal Act in a ‘no deal’ scenario.

    https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/what-has-changed-parliaments-meaningful-vote

    I don’t see us getting to that stage though before events take over.

  296. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh! For God’s sake. It’s getting that there are more Wingers claiming SNP BAAAAAAAD! Than the Unionist Parties, The Trade Unions, The MSM and the state controlled broadcasters all put together.

  297. Phil
    Ignored
    says:

    Daisy Walker says: 19 October, 2018 at 10:45 pm

    “The clock is ticking. 29/3/19

    As soon as some form of back door for tax havens is agreed, the clock can tick all it wants to, and SM CU membership can be back on the menu with no threat to all the ill gotten gains hidden away.

    As soon as SM CU membership is back on the menu, the SNP have no red lines to argue about. …

    Westminster will have – very cleverly – taken a lot of the wind out of our sails.”

    Exactly so! Nicely, and concisely said.

    Can YES find impetus with all that burying Holyrood under a mountain of brexhit?

  298. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Capella @ 21:26,
    Lenny Hartley 21:43,
    Thepnr @ 21:49,

    My understanding (which is based on shifting sand, I have to admit =laugh=) is that the UK will end up in the SM/CU for a time (definite or indefinite) to give sufficient opportunity for the issue to come off the boil and for everyone to become resigned to the fact of an actual exit. “What’s done is done and there’s no way back.”

    The SNP would (have to) vote for SM/CU because they have been pressing publicly for it for a long time, even though it’s still official policy to Remain.

    You’re quite right, Lenny, exiting the EU is sufficient grounds, I had overlooked that. But would the party feel sufficiently confident about pursuing the difference into an IR2 after having got – for some time at least – what they have frequently said they want? We’ve had some siren voices on here – how representative I have no idea – urging exactly that and no more.

    If the UK remains in the SM/CU as a whole, the DUP can’t object on the grounds of a intra-UK differential, because there won’t be one. But if they hold out for total Leave despite the choice of the people of NI – as is their undoubted inclination – May will be able to face them down, because she will likely have enough votes anyway.

    Labour will quibble, because they want “a” SM/CU (whetever that is supposed to mean), but the real deal will be the only one on the table. Does Jeremy the Equivocator have the faintest inclination to insist on full-Remain or the nerve to plunge us into full-Leave?

    As for the budget, I have no idea what would happen if the vote goes against the Tories thanks to the DUP. The Fixed Parliaments Act is supposed to insulate the UKGov from the former consequences, though. But the DUP could kiss their Big Bung goodbye.

    It’s a Mexican standoff all right. Unless Theresa has been garnering private assurances….(?)

  299. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Daisy Walker – surely staying in th SM CU means that the four freedoms remain and we are under the jurisdiction of the ECJ. So you are saying that they will choose to stay in the EU?

    If so, how can the EU allow tax havens in Gibraltar to evade regulation? (Switzerland isn’t in the EU so can carry on laundering).

    The Irish “backstop” will also have to be permanent so staying in the SM CU will have to be permanent. I can’t see the right wing Brexiteers of either Westminster party agreeing to that.

    Even so, the power grab is also a material change of circumstances as far as Nicola and the SNP Government is concerned.

    Indyref2 still on the table.

  300. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Daisy Walker & Phil –

    The idea that WM has ‘cleverly’ done anything in relation to Brexit is nonsense – the notion that it has done anything *at all* with Scotland in mind is a misleading and potentially damaging conceit.

  301. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @RJS

    The SNP would (have to) vote for SM/CU because they have been pressing publicly for it for a long time, even though it’s still official policy to Remain.

    I don’t get what you’re meaning, there will be no vote on whether to remain in the SM & CU permanently so I’m guessing you’re talking of the transition period where we will remain in the SM & CU.

    The transition period is a given and always has been, it’s just the period that is yet to be settled. The SNP will be basing their “meaningful vote” on the future of the UK after the transition period and that will NOT include any option to remain in the SM & CU.

  302. CameronB Brodie
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood
    Perhaps Westminster did have Scotland in mind, in relation to Brexit. It provides the perfect opportunity to re-introduce direct rule. I think Westminster would rather keep hold of Scotland than their financial status – oil, electricity and water.

  303. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Petra – thx for links to the docs. I will read in the morning when I hope to have fresh brain cells. This BREXIT is daein ma heid in (Northumbrian mixed with Brythonic).

    @ Thepnr – AFAIK there won’t be an option to vote for anything other than to accept or reject the “deal”. If it’s reject then UK crashes out. But it will be for the Tories to present the “deal” to Parliament whenever it suits them (what about 28th March 2019?).

    The reason I put “deal” in quotation marks is because I detest the City of London mindset that permeates this entire process. The Tories sound like barrow boys in some Dickensian living tableaux.

  304. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Robert Peffers

    re SNP Bad. I do hope you are not pointing that accusation at me.

    @ Ian Brotherhood

    ‘The idea that WM has ‘cleverly’ done anything in relation to Brexit is nonsense – the notion that it has done anything *at all* with Scotland in mind is a misleading and potentially damaging conceit.’

    There is an extreme amount of power and wealth at stake with the Tax Haven legislation being imposed and the damage that Brexit will do to the UK’s (and Ireland’s) economies.

    As a general rule, people, groups of people, people in positions of power (and that is not necessarily elected reps) do not work outwith their interests.

    Nothing about the publicly presented Brexit makes sense. In terms of motive, in terms of timelines and actions taken, it all starts to make sense if seen through the lense of protecting the ill gotten gains in the Tax Havens. And all of that hinges on ECJ jurisdiction.

    If we do not anticipate this, we cannot counter it, if we do not understand this, it can blindside us and That would demoralise. Thinking about this, attempting to understand this, attempting to get others to understand this, is not conceipt, it is called being conscientious.

    Assuming that your enemy is being stupid, even if publicly it appears so, is not a wise thing.

    Re Switzerland, I can’t remember the exact details of its membership of the EU – it might be CU only, I’d have to check. It does have an extremely long set of opt outs, including things like immigration. Its an extremely cumbersome set up, one the EU is unlikely to repeat. Switzerland has civil servants in constant transit back and forth to keep their legislation up to date with the EU’s.

  305. Petra
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Robert at 10:56pm ….. “More Wingers claiming SNP BAAAAAD than “……

    Ha, ha, ha. Spot on Robert. Thinly disguised Unionists who must think that we’re all bl**dy well daft.

    …………………

    I heard recently that Professor Mark McNaught’s work on a written Constitution for Scotland (one of a number) had been finalised, however I can’t find it. The following is a prototype.

    http://blog.independencelive.net/prototype-written-constitution-for-a-scottish-secular-republic/

  306. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Capella

    See my earlier post about the date 21st January for a vote.

  307. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Capella

    SM/CU continued membership ‘If so, how can the EU allow tax havens in Gibraltar to evade regulation?’

    Publicly they can’t.

    Which is why it is Really interesting that none of the details, and in particular, whether ECJ jurisdiction, apply to the Gibraltar deal.

    When the British Government repeatedly demands the EU compromise, the only compromise (that makes any sense) is one regarding Tax Haven legislation.

    If you think back to the Brexit campaign, and then once the vote was achieved, all the main players were spouting about SM membership, CU membership, no problems, and when drumming up xenophobia, banging on about ECHR – it wasn’t until the penny dropped/or that they conflated ECHR with ECJ enough to confuse the public, that SM/CU membership had to be taken off the menu.

    It all hinges on Tax Haven legislation and that is enforced by ECJ.

  308. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Thepnr – I read that as meaning IF nothing is agreed by 21st January, or IF the government tells Parliament after 21st January…but it is still up to the government to choose when to put a vote.

    They are also very careful to insist that the vote will simply be to accept or reject, not to put forward any alternative suggestions.

    But I could be wrong!

  309. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Daisy Walker – yes I agree, I’ve always thought that this whole BREXIT farrago was to get the City of London out of a regulatory regime re tax havens and money laundering.
    What I’m not convinced about is that the EU will let London off the hook. Why should they? What’s in it for all the other financial centres of Europe?

  310. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    @Capella

    I think you’re right. Just in the past couple of days we have heard that the vote (supposedly end of November as mentioned on Monday by T. May in her statement to parliament) will be a “take it or leave it” vote and rightly there are complaints.

    Amendments on Brexit deal should be restricted – government

    http://archive.fo/iPXS8

    The vote will not be at the end of Nov as there will be no “deal” by then to vote on. One thing is clear and there will have to be a vote by the 21st Jan whether a deal has been agreed or not.

    The UK parliament must vote their approval of the deal before it can go to the parliaments of the EU27 because if the UK don’t approve it then what is the point of asking 27 others governments to do so?

    There would be no point so that is how it is planned to happen.

    1. Deal agreed between the negotiators.

    2. UK parliament approves or rejects deal.

    3. Only if approved by UK will EU27 parliaments vote on it.

    Since the date of leaving is the 29th March the 21st of Jan makes sense for a final final final decision by the UK.

  311. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Daisy Walker –

    The idea that we (Scottish citizens and/or govt) can possibly ‘influence’ anything Brexit-related is fanciful.

    With CamB’s 11.22 post in mind – WM wants us to remain ‘catch’d’ for: Oil, Gas, Fish, Water and ‘that bit of breathing room that every country needs’ (i.e. the huntin/shootin/fishin set)

    Sorry to sound so negative D, but right now? ‘We’ are nothing more than a bargaining chip.

  312. Meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    Petra

    This is how I think the Tories see things:

    Maybe she will go for a border in the north sea. Drop the DUP and guess what next….
    even if that breaches Article 4 of the 1707 Act of Union

    abra cadabra…

    There is new Act of Union ready to fill the gap. They’ve already drafted it. If we go past March 29th, their Withdrawal Bill gives them the right – or so they believe- to legislate for Scotland, which voted to stay in the Union in 2014.
    They have already told us our Legislative Consent Motion is no longer needed, Scotland is now just a part of the UK and owing to that poorly worded Sewell convention they can pull the ‘WM would not normally legislate for Scotland but ” scenario.

    They will try to retain the various non-reserved matters; Wales is being led by a rock-solid Tory so they will do as told and the WM Parliament is to debate – next week- a bill which will allow them to legislate in N.Ireland.

    I think they think they have it almost all neatly stitched up and if they can make Gibraltar a tax heaven then they are home and dry.

    Our two court cases to the ECJ threaten everything hence the last minute panic trying to get an appeal on the Article 50 case going before the Supreme court to stop it going to the ECJ.
    If they a manage to pull that off then we may not have many options left.

    I hope i’m wrong.

  313. bob
    Ignored
    says:

    Not long until we are free ladies and gentlemen.

  314. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Thepnr @ 23:16,

    Yes, that’s what I meant. But if it comes down to merely a question about the length of the transition period, who will feel confident about going full-out over that fine detail? (As most people other than Tory zealots will see it.)

    The Tory rebels may well decide to sit it out, knowing (as the right-wing always seem to understand, unlike their opponents) that it’s bare power facts that matter, and crossing the Rubicon at the end of March is the only important thing. Once that bridge is burnt, there’s no going back, and everyone will know it.

    Conversely, would the SG/SNP go for IR2 simply on the length of a transition period? So long as that remains uncertain – as May would prefer if not (so far) the EU27 – can the SNP claim the mandate is invoked?

    It seems to me that everything may well remain (deliberately) uncertain for some time to come, UK governments in the meantime might come and go, whereas we already know full well that it will be a bust, whenever the crunch comes. By which time, if we wait, it will be too late. We will be the “boiled frogs”.

    Do we really not know enough already to say it’s high time to escape this vile neo-colonial imposition in direct contradiction to our wishes? And if so, what’s the point in waiting any longer, to the advantage only of our opponents?

  315. stewartb
    Ignored
    says:

    Re-Brexit, I’ve always thought that the use of ‘transition’ to refer to the shift from one KNOWN state to an UNKNOWN future state is stretching the definition of the term!

    I thought a ‘transition’ was this: ‘To transition from one state or activity to another means to move gradually from one to the other’

    The concept of moving GRADUALLY from one KNOWN state to another, UNKNOWN state gets into too deep and philosophical issues for me!!!

  316. Valerie
    Ignored
    says:

    Good piece in Guardian by Fintan O’Toole.

    Really rips a strip off May over Norn Irn. A British problem that the British won’t take responsibility for.

    http://archive.is/nhzxa

  317. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    Well let’s not hold our breath! Who knows what goes on in the crinkles of the Tory master race mind. Probably the tinkling sound of a cash register.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0kcet4aPpQ

  318. Meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    If Treeza opts to stay in the SM and CU would that not make Independence easier?

    There would be no threat of a hard border between Scotland and England.

    Nicola could argue that she wants Scotland to have a voice in Europe by being a full member and being still in the SM and CU would possibly make it easier to stay in/rejoin.

    WM has recognised the Claim of Right and I’m sure the EU would want our renewal energy etc just as much as WM wants it all.

    One worry I have is that WM may have done a deal with Spain over Gibraltar and tax havens using Spain’s veto and Scotland’s independence as a bargaining chip.

    Funny how no one is talking about Gibraltar or the Channel Islands/isle of Man but it all seems to be about Cyprus now. Hmmm! Don’t trust a Tory

  319. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Meg merrilees @ 00:00,

    You’re right, Meg, in the sense that the UKGov seem very concerned about dodging/thwarting current court challenges if they possibly can.

    But so long as constitutional challenges remain live, according to Art.50, Brexit cannot proceed. That couldn’t be clearer – it’s there in the Lisbon Treaty in black and white – however the UKGov may hope to dodge it by sneaky WM voting schedules.

  320. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Capella

    ‘What I’m not convinced about is that the EU will let London off the hook. Why should they? What’s in it for all the other financial centres of Europe’

    Your guess is as good as mine as to whether the EU lets London off the hook. All I can do is look at the tea leaves, the players and the actions and motives and try and decipher what is going on.

    With regards what’s in it for all the other financial centres of Europe… the business in dealing with the stolen wealth of continents for one thing. But each of the 27 EU countries have their own tax dodging aristo’s, none of whom will be enjoying or looking forward to the new tax laws. They will be working hard behind the scenes.

    The leverage from the UK’s point of view is this. If we don’t get our tax haven stashes protected,
    we will wreck our economy (and make a private buck in the process),
    cost the EU billions in infrastructure costs,
    Lose the EU its trade with the UK
    make the UK a tax free zone on your doorstep
    and we can afford to do so, because we have all Scotland’s oil and gas to keep us afloat to do so.

    The EU, has the pressure of its own elite’s also looking for safe tax havens, and must balance out the cost of this,
    against the gain of all the businesses re-allocating to mainland Europe.
    There is nothing to stop it allowing the UK to go off the cliff edge, and alter the tax haven legislation at a later date.

    Kind regards to all. That’s me for the night.

  321. Valerie
    Ignored
    says:

    See all this talk abiut Gibraltar? Don’t firget their tax regimes are already very murky. The firm at the centre of the Panama papers was based in Gibraltar, Fonsecca.

    They closed their offices. Gibraltar advertise special financial services off shore.

    They are pretty much a tax haven, although they claim to have cleaned up, but that’s clean like London.

    I bet Scotgov are working to get the details of the settlement, or I don’t know how cute Alyn Smith is.

  322. stewartb
    Ignored
    says:

    Meg merrilees @12:00 am

    Re your reference to the “new Act of Union”. Could this be preparation of a more ‘ambitious’ (and more insidious) version of the ‘Vow’ offer in 2014 in anticipation of Indyref2 – the Unionist backstop of seductive federalism in an Indyref2 campaign?

  323. Capella
    Ignored
    says:

    Gee thanks Daisy. Sweet dreams! I’m off to rest the weary brain too. Have a restful weekend.

  324. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    me @ at 12:03,
    Thepnr @ 23:47,

    Does then “crunch time” and a move to IR2 finally come with that vote being passed by the HoC at (say) end-Jan?

    No matter what the result, if it’s any flavour of Brexit (peanut brittle, marshmallow, candyfloss, fudge…?)

  325. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ian Brotherhood says:
    20 October, 2018 at 12:00 am
    @Daisy Walker –

    ‘The idea that we (Scottish citizens and/or govt) can possibly ‘influence’ anything Brexit-related is fanciful.

    With CamB’s 11.22 post in mind – WM wants us to remain ‘catch’d’ for: Oil, Gas, Fish, Water and ‘that bit of breathing room that every country needs’ (i.e. the huntin/shootin/fishin set)

    Sorry to sound so negative D, but right now? ‘We’ are nothing more than a bargaining chip.’

    Yes Ian, but we are an extremely important Barganing chip with 60% of the EU’s oil reserves in our territorial waters, with renewable energy potential 4 times that of our oil and gas, and with water. Who would you rather deal with in future re that, mad brexiteers, or sensible, trustworthy, pragmatic, inventive, European Scots (old and new).

    If we can identify what is really being negotiated and why, we can be prepared and campaign accordingly.

    I really am off to bed now. Cheerie to all. Keep on keeping on folks.

  326. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Daisy W –

    I hear ye, I hear ye loud and clear.

    🙂

  327. Robert J. Sutherland
    Ignored
    says:

    Meg merrilees @ 00:10:

    If Treeza opts to stay in the SM and CU would that not make Independence easier?

    There would be no threat of a hard border between Scotland and England.

    Yes. I believe that is the precise motivation for the SG working so tirelessly to support an all-UK SM/CU. (Plus a genuine belief, I think, that if there has to be a UKexit, or rUKexit, this version would be in the best interest of all concerned.)

    However, if the UK remains “half-in” the EU as the proverbial “vassal state”, it also makes it hard to assert the mandate for IR2 even though technically it would still be triggered. More people might be content to just leave it at that. (Essentially the same argument as devo-max versus full-indy in a UK context.)

    Some believe that SM/CU would provide some kind of “please-all” compromise from which to move forward, but to others like me it would simply “take the steam out” of the full-indy case and thus undermine it.

    (Ironically, the people such an outcome would offend most would be those Leavers for whom free movement of people is anathema. =grin=)

    The net effect is hard to predict, but my guess is that the negative influence would be greater, being the more immediate. (Rather like the former currency question, in fact.)

  328. Iain mhor
    Ignored
    says:

    @Daisy Walker 10:16pm
    Nice insight thanks. I knocked out my post waiting on a flight, so a bit late replying. I also noticed I conflated ECHR & ECJ acronyms in my post (either works)
    But anyway, yes the bargaining chips are only assets & money.
    For money read tax dodging.

    Sometimes I used to think Scotland’s best chance was as an oil suppirted tax-free country. There is a fine distinction between tax-free and tax dodging. Tax free is yer wages.
    They”d all rip their right testicles off to get head of the queue dealing and investing in Scotland then.
    Yet having worked in all the other ‘oil funded “tax free” nations… Well, there becomes more than a whiff of Mammon and Gomorrah about them after a decade.

  329. Thepnr
    Ignored
    says:

    The Daily fail reports:

    She agreed to consider extending our transition out of the EU by ‘a matter of months’ if it helps clinch a deal. And she dropped her demand for a fixed end date on a controversial ‘backstop’ plan that could keep the whole UK in a ‘temporary’ customs union after Brexit.

    I find this amazing that the Daily Mail could so casually drop this in here as that supposedly was the reason that a “deal” could not be agreed last weekend when Raab met Barnier.

    http://archive.fo/eJzB5

  330. Kangaroo
    Ignored
    says:

    For those of you who haven’t read it yet, and there are more than a few wingers who obviously missed it this is a MUST read.

    You don’t need to guess anymore, its straight forward.

    In their rush to escape the new EU Tax changes they missed the details.

    It’s Brexit OR the Union they cannot have both. They are caught in a legal snare.

    This is why there is such a delay in getting a Withdrawal Agreement organised, and why there is a NEW Act of Union going through the House of Lords. They intend to get us to recind our Sovereignty or at least delegate it to Westminster.

    http://www.thenational.scot/news/16989865.this-is-why-westminsters-choice-is-between-brexit-and-the-union/?ref=mr&lp=2

    Check out the comments too.

    Especially for you Mr Peffers.

  331. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:


    http://www.thenational.scot/news/16989865.this-is-why-westminsters-choice-is-between-brexit-and-the-union/?ref=mr&lp=2

    Check out the comments too.

    Especially for you Mr Peffers.

    You too Petra. Go and tell Maria Carnero that she doesn’t really support independence either.

  332. Cactus
    Ignored
    says:

    SO some of the people in England are going for a walk in London today. One wonders if anybuddy has gotta Yes saltire on flagpole doon there, who could join the march and raise a few eyebrows, that would confuse em!

    Ahm gonna make a guesstimate of 10K.

    “Isn’t it time, baby”:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MC4QCidHrs

    Any takers?

    Scotland!

  333. mr thms
    Ignored
    says:

    Maria Carnero’s post are often brilliant, but the Treaty of Union of 1707 between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Kingdom of England created the Kingdom of Great Britain. Not, the United Kingdom of Great Britain. It would have been the treaty between Great Britain and Ireland that brought about the Acts of Union of 1800 that created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. I think, should Northern Ireland officially remain a part of the Kingdom of England, the correct name for this state would need to be the United Kingdom of England and Northern Ireland.

    When the UK leaves its treaties with the EU, and the EU’s treaties with other countries at the end of March 2019, it will also leave the EU VAT regime. It was the support of the Scottish Conservative MP’s that helped the UK Government win by a handful of votes.

    When the Smith Commission was set up, the Scottish Conservatives wanted to devolve VAT but EU rules did not allow this.

    This is a clear instance of a link between the two referendums.

    The Scottish referendum 2014 brought about the Scotland Act 2016 which anticipated the result of the EU referendum 2016 which brought about a solution to the problem of devolving VAT to Scotland.

  334. mr thms
    Ignored
    says:

    It was odd thing for David Cameron to announce there would be English votes for English laws on the same day as the result was of the Scottish referendum.

    It did make me wonder if there was an underlying result?

    I would not like to make any assumption but the devolution of more powers to Scotland in 2016 did give the country the powers it would need to have in place before it became independent.

    Similarly with the return of devolved powers the EU has responsibility for when the UK leaves the EU at the end of March 2019.

    By remaining in the EU under ‘transitional arrangements’ the EU and the UK are facilitating the transition of Scotland becoming an independent, and inside the EU, country.

    But it all hangs on the decision of the Supreme Court with regard to the Scottish Government’s UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Legal Continuity) (Scotland) Act getting Royal Assent.

  335. Robert Louis
    Ignored
    says:

    mr thms at 0722

    Their is /was NO treaty between the Uk and Ireland. Their were acts of parliament (westminster), but NO treaty whatsoever. I am sure others will explain this in more detail.

    Their is only one treaty of union, the one enabled by acts of the Scots and English parliaments in 1707 and 1706 respectively. Everything else was just ACTS of parliament (westminster).

    Where’s RP when you need him….

  336. mr thms
    Ignored
    says:

    Thank you for your reply Robert.

    I made the assumption that the agreement was a treaty.

    https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/periods/hanoverians/union-ireland-1800

    “After negotiations and parliamentary proceedings at Westminster and in Dublin, where considerable bribery and corruption were deployed, a legislative union was agreed.”

  337. orri
    Ignored
    says:

    The 1800 union was a legislative union along the lines of what would happen if the Isle of Man was absorbed into England and its parliament abdorbed by Westminster.

    The earlier Act of Union was, in Scotland at least, a creation of a permanent joint session of The Scots and English Parliaments. A point made by the scots parliament not standing down. In addition the Scottish Grand Committee is the pre union Scots Parliament in all but name. It was until devolution at least at which point things for complicated. However a second motivation for not standing for re-election may have been a fear that a new party, a proto SNP, would have given the people a chance at revoking the union.

    As to the proposed new Act of Union, it doesn’t make Westminster sovereign but it’d introduce the concept into Scots law. It might currently allow Scotland to reject it but I wouldn’t rely on that being the case if it ever goes to a referendum. If such a vote ever takes place and Scotland is overruled then that would be a dramatic change of circumstances more than simply being taken out of the EU ever was.

  338. Q.
    Ignored
    says:

    I see even the Scottish unionist-centric media are too embarrassed to mention the Glasgow women’s equal pay strike which Labour are responsible for. The unions had years to organise strikes while Labour were in power. The hypocrisy is staggering.

  339. Bibbit Blair
    Ignored
    says:

    A couple of days ago the BBC UK ran a story on England’s dire police figures running at record highs e.g many 999 calls are not responded to at all, or days later.

    I remarked to others at the time, that the backroom-boys at Pacific Quay, BBC’s Reporting Scotland, will have jumped into into overdrive, on hearing that bad English police news, to find a bad story on Scotland’s police.

    The reason being that BBC Reporting Scotland cannot allow people in Scotland to get the notion that we are more competent at running our country than England.

    Sure enough, as I suspected, Reporting Scotland that night ran a new story on one officer’s email about alleged sexism against armed women police officers.

    It’s getting that you can predict Scottish (BBC) news very accurately

  340. Rev. Stuart Campbell
    Ignored
    says:

    “rock is an enema.

    If only he had been put in a baby box as a wain.”

    Personal abuse is not tolerated in these comments. Watch it.

  341. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    rev stu– considering the venom ROCK has placed on this site over the past months your delayed response to mine is surprising.(hint of humour not allowed?) Did you receive a complaint from the poor soul? A bit like Dugdale I suppose.

    Is a rock a person? Hamish is.

    Still Wos can take all sorts. Each to their own.

  342. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Collie says:
    19 October, 2018 at 1:48 pm
    Hamish 100
    Otherwise known as the Nancy boy gate keeper of Wings is the only one to take offence at ne calling out our Colonial Masters.
    England lover Hamish calls anyone who doesn’t pass the Hamish Wings test is a Troll.
    As far as I can see Hamish, you never post anything other than calling people Trolls.
    You come across as being as bright as a 3 watt bulb.

    I am at least a 30 WATT – ENERGY. Explain your “Nancy Boy” terminology. Sounds homophobic to me? Non?

  343. orri
    Ignored
    says:

    Not saying it’s true but part of the sexism was that he wanted to spread the female officers out not only due to the obvious searching members of the opposite sex aspect but also temperament issues. More specifically that they’re a moderating influence. Says more about male officers really.

  344. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Hamish100 says:
    20 October, 2018 at 2:54 pm

    “Did you receive a complaint from the poor soul?”

    For the record, I never complain.

    I am well able to make my points and to counter points made by others.

    The likes of you cannot counter my points and therefore have to resort to nonsense to quickly change the subject:

    Hamish100 says:
    18 October, 2018 at 8:18 pm

    “rock is an enema.

    If only he had been put in a baby box as a wain.”

    Bob Mack says:
    19 October, 2018 at 9:30 pm

    “@Rock,

    Are you a reincarnation of Alf Garnett by any chance?”

    Also for the record, unlike the likes of you, I don’t have a God given right to post here.

    I post here by the grace of the owner of this site.

  345. Hamish100
    Ignored
    says:

    Rock – its a bit creepy that you copy and paste all the various posts. Who can be bothered?



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