The same old songs again
Posted on
March 27, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
As the Prime Minister prepares to meet the First Minister and doggedly give her “now is not the time” mantra another few dozen run-throughs for the cameras, we thought that you might enjoy a little trip down Memory Lane.
Ah, the old days.
Get on with the day job, now is not the time, you don’t have a majority, you don’t have a mandate, nobody wants it, take it off the table. All the crowd-pleasing greatest hits.
Still, SOME things DO change, we suppose.
I love you Rev.
I was sure this one had been said before.
Now is the time.
Political history keeps repeating itself.
It would be good to see the FM close the door on the PM when she arrives for her talk/lecture at Bute House saying, ‘Now is not the time’.
General Mayhem been strutting the corridors of Downing Street with Private Mundell beside her yelling “Don’t panic, don’t panic”?
I guess they must recon if they play the same game they can expect the same result. I dearly hope so, because they’re going to get an awfy big fright if they do! ?
Or, to put it another way, there is no better time for the Kingdom to be UNTIED.
Can’t help thinking the MSM could have reported Nicola’s dates after the brexit negotiations and May’s “now is not the time” + “we need to complete the negotiations” as a truly remarkable level of agreement.
If not now then never.
I don’t think there’s any choice. We simply must win our self-determination this time or we will lose the chance for decades.
Permanent tory rule from London is what we face if we don’t succeed.
As Mayhem will repeat ad nauseam the latest mantra of the tory party … now is not the time … the question should be asked will Nicola Sturgeon go with the line “now is not the time to offering Scotland TEMPORARY powers?”
I think everyone and their dog knows full well why Mayhem is going to offer “temporary” powers to Scotland. She is desperate to keep hold of our waters and fishermen so that she can sell them all down the Swanee when she does a deal with the E.U. over Brexit.
Sadly for Mayhem the E.U. has the measure of her.
Scotland could be allowed to remain in Europe pending a vote on independence, a report to MEPs claims.
link to archive.is
Great to highlight the same old same old rhetoric from the same old faces from the Unionist sides.
Best ignored as I will be doing so today vis-a-vis the TV news and MSM until tomorrow when we await the real “breaking news” from Holyrood and of course WOS.
Thanks for this timely reminder.
I think it is the right time – not right now but when folk see the full magnitude of the Brexit disaster laid out before them next year.
I have been giving a bit of thought to the response of the EU and whether they could propose to keep Scotland and NI in the EU until we have a vote on it. I see there is a report doing the rounds on this through the MEPs to the EU parliament.
If they do that they effectively they have spiked May delaying tactics as in many ways the longer the Brexit disaster runs, the worse it will get and the Indy vote will keep on increasing.
Ironically, the first power that Theresa May is giving up when she hits that A50 trigger is the right to block NI and Scotland voting to stay in the EU. From then on the UK will have no say when and if we and NI join the EU – it will be up to the people of NI and Scotland and the EU27 only.
Exciting week ahead – Indy vote in Holyrood, A50 letter in Brussels and the United EU27 response at the end of the week.
🙂
Interesting times…
I like the caption under Tavish Scott’s photie.
“Read Brian Taylor’s Blog”.
That’s at least something that has changed. No one but no one reads that now.
Proof, if any were ever required, that it’s NEVER going to be a good time for unionist politicians.
I have conjured up in my mind a scenario for today’s meeting at Bute House which although wonderful is unlikely to happen.
As the talks proceed TM starts to lay down the law and talk down to Nicola as if she is some little ignorant native colonial subject.
Nicola shoves back her chair, stands up and tells TM to Get Out, marches her down the stairs, out the door then shoves her down the steps on to the pavement with a fuck off gesture with a large crowd cheering ecstatically.
Get you hankies out or if you prefer a sick bucket!
Addressing DFID staff in East Kilbride, Prime Minister Theresa May will say:
link to gov.uk
gus1940@11.57
Metaphorically at least that’s pretty much what will happen!
Presenting the Nawbags Greatest Hits Collection!
Classics such as…
Now is Not the Time
No Means No
The Vow (Part 2)
Neverendum
No Mandate, No Majority
Get on with the Day Job
Too Little, too Weak
United as One (Country Version)
You’ve Had Your Chance
Strong Bonds (May’s Love Theme)
I’m just a Nationalist Unionist
Tories in Red Coats (Extended Version)
And many many more!
Order your copy now for just £17.07!
“Memories are made of this”——- lies, deceit, insincerity, dubiety, falsehoods.
We remember the vow and the Smith Commission only too well.
England is going to a lot of trouble to keep us in the UK, and you can bet your bottom dollar it is not out of love and concern for our welfare. If nothing else it should prove to everyone that they need us desperately.
Someone famous once said “Now’s the time ,and Now’s the hour”. Prophetic.
As an unfortunate newspaper addict(generally to see what our opponents are saying about us)I buy (or freely read in supermarkets)tabloids from time to time and usually go to the letters page.
This is informative or excruciating or both but we shouldn’t just operate in our own bubble. What is most interesting is the number of unionist bigyins supplying banal letters to these on the basis they are talking to eejits. There are very often downright lies in them
I believe newspapers operate their letters pages on the assumption that the readers will believe the contents of the letters are the responsibility of the writers of them.
This is not the case. The probity of the contents of the letters page is the responsibility of the newspaper and any lie should be objected to furiously and a correction demanded. If this is not forthcoming a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission is entirely appropriate.
Groundhog day again, It is good to look back and see these, just for the reminder that nothing changes in the Yoonionist view of Scotland. We are their possession and in their view that cannot change. Well they can GTF.
We will do what we want to do,end of.
In my above offering I should have said “legal responsibility” as is actually the case
Apparently Mayhem arrived at Govan Police station about an hour ago. Here’s hoping she was charged with impersonating an intelligent respectful caring human being.
But but, we promise it’ll be different this time, we love you but if you don’t love us back we’ll destroy you
I just can’t make up my mind, Hee Hee!
Now is not time when we have the biggest oil find possibly ever in the North Sea?
Surely it’s better to wait when Westminster have secured and spent the oil windfall on trident and south east England?
Alternatively, we could have a vote in 18 to 24 months’ time and when independent spend the oil money across Scotland on public services such as the NHS, invest in education, reduce inequality and over in our infrastructure?
aye, Theresa May, Coming to Scotland? is that right, more jam tomorrow , arriving the day after the papers reported that Scotland and Northern Ireland can stay In the EU until they get independence, but it’s purely coincidental that she’s coming here to offer shiny Baubles, and what about Northern Ireland ? the D.U.P. failed to turn up to talks with Sinn Féin yesterday and now the Irish Assembly is at risk, i’d have thought it was more important to get over there to sort out Northern Ireland … obviously not ….
@Mik Johnstone – its pure coincidence of course that NI has absolutely no oil.
I love the notion that the Liberals aren’t against a referendum in principle.
Lying gits! The Liberals would sooner stick pins in their children’s’ eyes than agree another referendum.
Such dishonesty is outrageous but apparently normal.
Just put this in the wrong thread like a noob….lol
Breeks says:
27 March, 2017 at 12:21 pm
May is stuck between a rock and a hard place. She cannot negotiate Brexit without knowing what the “Bre” in Brexit actually stands for; the UK as a single entity, or two component countries of the UK in open dispute. Negotiations can’t progress beyond introductory preambles without knowing the competency of the parties, and May lacks competence to speak for the whole UK.
Perhaps, indeed it must be probable, that it has now occurred to May how cack-handed and arrogant her dealings with Scotland have been up to now, and the same is probably true for Europe. She now has the problem of silencing Scottish dissent, or capitulating to acknowledge Scotland has the right to speak for itself in negotiations between the EU, and the Bipartite Union of two sovereign countries which is the UK.
She must surely know by now that the will of Westminster to exit Europe is emphatically trumped in Scotland by the expressed will to stay in Europe delivered by the voice of the sovereign people of Scotland.
The massive irony is, that after all the Unionist shite and lies of the YES referendum in 2014, the UK Prime Minister is coming to Scotland and has to lay before us, the sovereign people of Scotland, the positive, persuasive, progressive arguments for Scotland remaining in the UK. And that is something no Unionist has been able to articulate at any stage in the white hot constitutional debate about Scotland’s future up to this point.
The irony on top of that massive irony, is that Theresa May still isn’t here to talk about Scotland, she is motivated to come here to talk about Westminster’s authority regarding Europe. Get out of the way Scotland! Nice eh? Feel the respect.
Unless Theresa May is willing to recognise the distinction between Scottish Sovereignty and Westminster Sovereignty, I rather suspect Ms May might save herself the price of her ticket.
And if, or when, the UK Prime Minister has to recognise Scotland’s sovereign capacity to make its own separate peace with Europe, that puts Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon in joint negotiations with Europe as “equal” heads of State, and then a serious question arises about whether the Act of Union still formally exists at all.
This is a time of meaty constitutional politics in the UK, and so far it augers well for Scotland.
For goodness sake “Now is not the time”
link to twitter.com
Lets not forget that it’s not just the Tories who will do whatever they can to prevent another referendum taking place.
They are able to rely on partners Labour to help them.
I have a local government Labour election leaflet, on the back of it down at the right hand side.
It has a small section headed we will fight to protect the union
‘The SNP are dragging us into another referendum when the constitution question has already been settled’.
The two Labour candidates are committed to making sure Scotland remains part of the UK.
On the very odd occasion, there is (t)Ruth…
link to imgur.com
@Nana 12:01pm
It was a sick bucket for me. Everything but the war/blitz spirit. She’ll probably mention those when/after she meets Nicola Sturgeon.
Time is against the so-called united kingdom. The future is an independent Scotland. May is clueless. Scotland’s friends are in Europe. Scotland has no friends in britnat Westminster. Vote Yes.
[…] Wings Over Scotland The same old songs again As the Prime Minister prepares to meet the First Minister and doggedly give her […]
In another blow to those wishing for an independent Scotland, it has been announced that there has been a massive oil discovery west of shetland. Scotland will need the deep pockets of Westminster to fill with all the taxes that will be generated as they are too wee and too stupid to manage on their own and Westminster can ensure they are too poor.
When are the meedja going to wake up and smell the coffee FFS.
@Nana
Total respect agenda going well then. 🙂
The Price of Inequality
You know that Formal contract of Inequality that allows us to rip the pish out of you forever,that allows any big decisions involving you,to be made by us,do you remember it from about 300 years ago,remember ?.
And you know that we’ve given it some minor tweaks over the years but is still fundamentally the same,well I’ve got some good news,I’ve had a quick chat with the elites and they’ve instructed me to make you an offer.
The contract is still fundimundilly the same,but how does £300 per day for life sound Lady Nicola,I know I know,it gives you a conflict of interest,but that doesn’t bother Lady Ruth,Lady Kez or Sir William what do you say ?.
The reply that launched two million lifeboats.
Today is Déjà Vow day. Again!
This wummin obviously thinks oor heids button up the back!
@Nana says: 27 March, 2017 at 12:01 pm:
“Theresa May will say:”
link to gov.uk
Great links Nana, and wonderful research by yourself.
I had a wry smile upon reading the Ms May paper as the daft bat says she wants to create a plan for, “Britain”.
A task she just May, find a little bit hard to achieve as the parliament she claims she leads is the de facto Parliament of the country of England that officially is titled, “Her Majesty’s Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland”.
Which rather effectively gives the lie to Ms May’s oft repeated claim it is her, (Ms May’s), government.
It also gives the lie to the bit that Ms May claims she is attempting to make plans for Britain.
One wonders if anyone has told the people of the three, non-Westminster, Crown Protectorates and the non-UK Republic of Ireland that Ms May has great plans for their futures? – Whether, it seems, they agree with her plans or not?
Govan Police station? That’s Nicola’s constituency. Is Nicola there? why is May visiting Police Scotland anyway. surely that’s Nicola’s responsibility.
They should demand she cancels the VAT payments and refunds the total VAT paid so far.
OT. TODAY:
Largest undeveloped oil find.
“An oil exploration firm has made what it has described as the “largest undeveloped discovery” of oil in UK waters.
Hurricane Energy said one billion barrels of oil could be contained within the Greater Lancaster Area, 60 miles (97km) west of Shetland.
The company hopes to begin production in 2019.
Dr Robert Trice, Hurricane’s chief executive officer, described the find as “exciting times”……….”
BBC:
link to archive.is
Noticeably everyone’s favourite TV channel is doing everything possible to avoid covering mayhem with Mayhem today. In fact they are doing everything possible to ensure that we all know that there is a wee fight thingy going on in Mosul. Apparently nothing is happening in the U.K. today … I guess that makes a wee change then. 😀
Scotland responds tae May’s intervening in Scotland’s decision to have Scotref:
link to youtube.com
So just so we are all perfectly clear about how caring this numpty o numpties is with regards to being caring blah de blah de blah.
link to twitter.com
Capella @ 1.08
I wondered that too then remembered that Govan Police Station is where they hold terrorists. So perhaps something to do with that but she shouldn’t be having ‘talks’ with them as they are devolved. That’ll be her attempting to put Nicola in her place.
With all her tootling around U.K. it appears there are some folks Mayhem has forgotten to talk to. 😀
This was in the Holyrood magazine last year.
link to holyrood.com
Does anyone have a list of all operative oil and gas fields around Scotland?
I know that over the last two years there have been major discoveries I. E. Lancaster and now Hurricane which are both estimated to be huge.
How can we cope ?
When we have to rely on the Union we’re leaving for information about the Union we’re in, now is definitely the time for Scotref.
I hope Govan Police remember to bill her for use of the facilities and manpower (plus VAT of course).
OT but interesting.
If you receive election material from Yoon parties, please read the small print and see where it was printed.
SLAB are very good at protecting Jobs in England.
Oh, Stu, thanks for the wunnerful memories! I had quite forgotten. Oh, how times and faces have changed in such a short time.
All, that is, except the same old pathetic anti-democratic bleats of the Unionists.
The Labour leaflet I have got hold of is printed by a printing company in Buckhaven.
‘Now is not the time’
They scream the mantra, beat the drum,
Scotland can’t have a ‘referendumb’.
The people they don’t need a say
Just leave it all to Theresa May.
Kezia, Ruthie and Willie to,
They don’t think it’s up to you.
Let them know with a strong voice,
It’s not for you, it’s Scotland’s choice.
So just to make sure we are all singing from the same song sheet. Remember, whenever you are in a room and Her Greatness herself enters the room you are all required to applaud, no seriously you will all applaud!
Apparently the employees at DFID were instructed to applaud when Her Greatness entered the room to talk to them before being arrested and taken to Govan Police station. 😀
I’m more than convinced that the purpose of putting out press releases of the script of an intended speech is to road test them. The Sadiq Khan episode where he was forced to add in disclaimers springs to mind. As does the apparent change of “4 nations” to “Britons etc”.
It allows a certain amount of distancing from a contentious issue. Khan claims not to have said SNP and nationalists in Scotland aren’t racists but…
The problem is that if these speeches are the result of any focus groups or internal testing then the tweaks certainly aren’t. Neither of May’s version of at heart the same people is without flaws but the second one is by it’s very nature meaningless in supporting the union. All it does is stake a claim that the Westminster parliament is the parliament of “Britons” which obviously doesn’t include Khan, Sawar or any non-white non-christian minority in the UK. Scotland is not entitled to a vote on independence because we’re indistinguishable from the majority in England.
Or perhaps because there’s are Britons amongst us and they are more important than an national identity forged from the self same clanishness that forms an essential part of our collective subconscious. Many extended families who together form one nation. More than enough room for clans who originated outside Scotland.
Regardless of which if the original version of these speeches are the result of at least some kind of research and thought the changes lack the same rigour. Not that it really matters as the focus group approach either doesn’t work or the subtle innuendo is followed far too easily by those they’re trying to slag off.
May seems particularly incapable of going off script. Hence the repetition of a carefully constructed phrase with no actual ability to explain or elaborate upon it. That’s the danger in over rehearsing an argument.
In East Kilbride today, at the Overseas Development building, Theresa May, in utterly hypocritical mode, will say:-
She will also argue that Britain’s aid spending shows “we are a big country that will never let down those in need” and that the UK will continue to play a global role as it leaves the EU.
Oh to be a fly on the wall at Bute house today.
Oil? Nah, it’s all gone, no oil here, shhhhhhhhhh! 😉 Seriously though, some will literally kill for oil. England establishment should have shared out the proceeds of our oil at least, but am I deluded, they don’t do sharing do they.
Though Labour in Scotland did help out the UKtreasury by sending back more than a billion £s from Scotland’s budget, just before the ‘recession’. Labour ‘couldn’t think of anything to spend it on’ in Scotland. Not houses, not social care, not education, not the SNHS. Nope, they sent it back to UK treasury! Criminals.
Now is a crucial time for a Scotref to be in the pipeline, before brexit is done n dusted.
I’m certain that Nicola won’t use the same fawning awe which the ebc and sky interviewers adopt in St Theresa’s presence.
Why do none of them ever ask “why not answer the fucking question?”
Disaster for Scotland, the curse of the largest undeveloped oil find has once again struck at the heart of the independence viability. How many more burdens can an independent Scotland take.
TM now is not the time,today on news she is now saying now is not the time to be talking about a referendum.
Part of Question&Answer Gerald Lyons.
SS: So, with the Article 50 looming, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is planning a counter-move – saying a second independence referendum is inevitable. Can the government in London stop the independence movement like it did last time?
GL: I don’t think this is the case of stopping the independence movement. What’s being made clear is that the timing of the referendum if there’s to be a second referendum will be set by Westminster. So the likelihood is that the second referendum will not come – if it happens – before the end of the Article 50 negotiations being completed. It’s by no means clear cut if Scotland has a second referendum that people in Scotland will vote to leave the UK. In the first referendum they voted to stay, Scotland gets a very good deal, shall we say, from the rest of the UK, and it’s likely that when they look at the pros and cons, the pros of being in the UK, outside of the EU, but position itself globally – that will outweigh. But of course, like all these issues, it’s not just about economics, there are emotional and other factors that come to play. But coming back to your question, yes, the PM can influence the timing of that referendum if there’s to be a second referendum.
SS: But just like Scotland, Northern Ireland voted ‘Remain’ in the Brexit referendum. Now it wants the Brexit treaty to spell out its right to join the EU immediately if it ever decides to unite with The Republic of Ireland. Should Belfast be getting these special conditions?
GL: In the UK referendum debate, and it was a 4-months debate, and we had a huge turnout of people – one of the key controversial areas was what would happen to the relationship between the South – the 26 counties and the North – the 6 counties of Ireland, and where would the border be. At the moment, we have peace in Northern Ireland, and everyone expects that to continue, and we have an open border between the North and the South. So, it is a complex area. I’ve spoken in Ireland last year, ahead of referendum results, I’ve debated with Ken Clarke who’s a leading politician here, and one of the points that was made by the politicians on the Irish side is that they would seek a “special relationship” with the EU, if the UK votes to leave. So, it is a complex area, but when it comes to Belfast, Northern Ireland, like Scotland, receives high spending. Northern Ireland, per person, receives 21% more spending than the average person in the UK; Scotland, per person, receives 16% more spending than the average person in the UK. That is government spending. So, there’s a lot of fiscal policy spent in Northern Ireland and in Scotland, rightly so, but that relationship between Northern Ireland and the South of Ireland is a complex one, and that’s seen by many people as a controversial area, but I think, common sense will prevail there as well.
We are paupers without Westminster.
Though used in an entirely different set of circumstances I find the two words I once thought offensive now apply. I am of course referring to the late Rev. Ian Paisleys two word mantra repeated endlessly, “NO SURRENDER”.
Auld Rock
O/T
Re the black stuff, a bonus for London but such a burden for Scotland
link to thegwpf.com
link to indyref2.scot
Remember this
link to newsnet.scot
Never forget Wood said there was hardly any left.
Wood Group extends contract with Premier Oil in £40m deal
link to archive.is
woosie,
Maybe the BBC can draft-in Glenn Campbell to do the honours in an interview with Mayhem, then. In that recent charade of a TV debate he has shown that he has the necessary fawning touch to a tee, as evidenced by his kid-glove deferential treatment of Prof. Two-Jobs, in stark contrast to his shouty attitude in the same programme to Fiona Hyslop.
Thank god we have you wings to filter the lies and bullshit for us
Here it is, the Maybot speaks. I believe the audience were told to clap for her and she refused questions.
link to youtube.com
Oh no not more of that black worthless stuff i guess we now have a £30 billion deficit.
Funny how today the news gets released in what can only be described as an attempted PR recovery for mayhem.
What reason does she have for coming all the way to Scotland just to tell us the same now is not the time temporary power shiny beads rubbish except for to cover up the massive elephant in the room of Scottish oil wealth.
Lets see if this news is conveniently shoved aside in favour of the great new temporary Scottish powers now is not the time garbage by the howler monkey yoon scribblers.
Graun’s taking a far more aggresive smack down style of UKOKness. Or just another day of tory UK life really.
Politics
Politics live with Andrew Sparrow
May says she will never allow UK to become ‘looser and weaker’ – Politics live”
As they boost Lab and UKIP who are essentially a small and then tiny minority in Scotland as we know.
5m ago
14:58
Labour’s six Brexit tests – Analysis
Labour and Ukip have both produced six tests today that they will use to judge the outcome of Brexit.
‘Now is not the time’, because I’m trying to get the bestest deal possible for the whole of the UK including Scotland. (Mhm, are ye?)
‘Now is not the time’, because Scotland had a referendum in 2014 and chose to remain part of the UK. (No shit!)
‘Now is not the time’, because we completely fucked up the economy, the constitutional settlement and our societal bonds.
‘Now is not the time’, because if you decide to dissolve the political union, you’ll expose to the world the democratic deficit which drove you to make this decision. You’ll weaken to the point of shattering, an already catastrophically weak economy. You’ll be forcing the rest of the UK (what’s left) to pay for the mistakes they were willing to force on unwilling partners. You’ll expose our rank dishonesty and our sense of arrogant, authoritarian entitlement to the world and make us look like fools.
Or words to that effect… etc.
And that would be a shame, now wouldn’t it?
Re the black stuff,
The oil rig West Phoenix lay at anchor in the Cromarty Firth for the past few months and was recently towed out by two tugs, at the time I thought nothing of it but curiosity got the better of me so I googled it and it is now lying off the north east of Shetland and is still there.
Oh goodie! Mayhem is to offer her North Briton subjects shiny beads of ‘temporary powers’. Whoopee-effing-doo! You know why they are only ‘temporary’, right.
Because of the longer term Tory plan…
link to imgur.com
It was appalling NS didn’t turn up at Glasgow Airfield to meet TM when she came off the plane.
Isn’t that how respect is shown to foreign heads of state visitors?
Maybe next time…
Oops, it is lying north west of Shetland.
So that’s nearly a whole live long day of Graun in Scotland coverage and not a mention of any SNP rep anywhere.
Old Severn’s an odd lad at the best of times but you’d think he’d still some professionalism left in his Great British journalist soul, to at least pretend to not be a ferocious yoon propagandist. Even old fraud like Carbuncle gets his two cents worth, about Lab but even so.
Christ imagine an alternate reality where UKOK hackdown is actually even mentioning YES Scots.
2h ago
13:37
Severin Carrell Severin Carrell
Theresa May said leaving the EU would be a “great national moment”, as she reinforced her claims that a unified UK is a more powerful force on the world stage in her speech to aid and development officials in East Kilbride
Mayhem is asking us to all pull together for the Union. then refuses to let us see the rope.
She also talks of the four nations, would that be the two countries one principality and one province.
The time is never right according to opponents. They should answer this question, When will the time be right? I’ll answer it for them. The time will never be right.
Graun just mentioned FM Sturgeon! “Peace in our time,” Scotland belongs to us, forever and ever, Brexit style moment next up, Rule Britannia and Empire 2.0, rejoice.
8m ago
15:06
Theresa May has arrived for her meeting with Nicola Sturgeon. This is from ITV’s Peter Smith.
The Time is NOW…
link to youtube.com
Macart @ 15:06:
Unfortunately for the Mayhem Gang, that exposure is coming anyway. EU Chief Negotiator Michael Barnier recently, on the imminent Brexit wrangling:
Which sounds both like a promise and a subtle threat.
is anyone out there clever enough to calculate how many billion barrells 1.1 kilometre deep times 30 miles times 5 miles actually is?
At least it’s nice to see Mayhem has more bottle to come up to Scotland to defend her precious Union. She cannot now say do a Cameron and absolve herself of her responsibility to be the lead debater in the BT2/PF2 campaign. Will she have the bottle to debate our First Minister when the time comes? Nae chance!
You can also bet your bottom dollar that if oil has been found W of Shetland then it probably stretches down the length of the W Coast, and will include gas.fields.
Lots of lovely lolly.?
@starlaw
My Slab leaflet is printed in Scotland.
However, I have emailed the candidate to express my disgust at exhorting everyone to use postal votes, because
“Postal votes are now open to everyone and you don’t need a special reason to apply”
He then says get in touch. The only contact details are the number 1 and 2 candidates.
I would have complained to Electoral commission but they don’t have anything to do with election material.
There are several underhanded issues at play here not least harvesting of e-mail details which I believe there are rules about how you do that.
Robin @3.30
Yes, I’ve done the calculation. It’s hunners.
Theresa must have something to offer, or threaten, but I don’t see it doing any good. Perhaps it’s a reply to the SNP’s proposals so far ignored by Westminster. It all seems a bit impromptu, since without the incident at Westminster, the ScotRef would already be happening.
May hasn’t toned down her rhetoric, so I’m predicting frowny faces after the meeting…
Patrick Harvey interviewed on BBC news 24 channel about half an hour ago, very good interview, clear, concise, and took no shite from a passive aggressive clown news anchor.
“So you are just going to ignore the vote last year then…”?
“You mean the vote which resulted in a clear desire for Scotland to remain in the EU, yet sees Scotland taken out against our will”?
And – Now IS the Time
link to youtube.com
@Robert J. Sutherland
Yes. Yes it does.
yeah i have also just done the oil calculation.
This field could be huge: up to 300 billion barrels.
That could buy lots of guns and finance no end of wars for empire 2.0
O/T
A few links re Brexit
link to commonspace.scot
Brexit: EU’s chief negotiator tells Theresa May she won’t get a new trade deal if she slashes taxes and rights
link to archive.is
link to bloomberg.com
If one looks at the official coverage of the station about just about everything that is related to the EU, one might sometimes get the impression that the BBC has mutated into the Brexit Broadcasting Corporation.
Use your translate function for the rest of the article
link to sueddeutsche.de
Robin,
I have done a quick calculation of barrels of oil in a well the size of 1.1km x 30 miles x 5miles. A well volume of 3.7 trillion cube. A barrel of oil is 158 ltrs so there are about 6 barrels per cube, so that means 22.2 trillion barrels! Assuming the well is to the beak with nothing but oil.
Shell and bp will be delighted, especially since the UK doesn’t collect any tax from these greedy bandits.
Have you seen Jill Stephenson’s rant of a letter to today’s Hootsmon, regarding the SNP’s mandate to hold a referendum? She’s turned selective quoting into a comedy masterpiece…
STV News on-line.
“The UK will be “more united” as a result of leaving the European Union, the Prime Minister has said.” !
Unbelievable. 🙁
Arbroath1320 says:
27 March, 2017 at 12:11 pm
Apparently Mayhem arrived at Govan Police station about an hour ago. Here’s hoping she was charged with impersonating an intelligent respectful caring human being.
Sorry, the Police said there was insufficient evidence.
Ah wee tune for Briandoonthetoon
link to youtube.com
Dafty left his anorak on my couch wie his house key’s & van keys in the pocket, so’s another trip to Cumbernauld for me today to meet up wie him.
I play a game called Eve Online. Its full of some of the brightest and/or most disturbed people you’re ever likely to come across. Anyway one of the guys I knew in the game (he quit) was a “No” voting Scot who was Phd qualified in the oil game.
He educated me somewhat on the levels of recovery you could expect based on depth/oil price. Oh and by “educated” I mean linked me to technical articles rather than political stuff 😉
The tl;dr of what he linked to is at the depths reported its likely it’d only be profitable to take 50%. Beyond that you start running into various technical issues which get worse in a non-linear way depending on local conditions.
I appreciate that might not seem like much of a tl;dr but trust me it is 🙂
@ oaskisushie The official residence of the FM is Bute House & thats not in glasgow May should have been told to make another appointment.
I appreciate that might not seem like much of a tl;dr but trust me it is
In the 80’s, yoon culture raged at Scots that their oil would be gone by the year 2000.
There is a massive house building boom in Aberdeen, and I mean it is just colossal, but why would so much big money be pumped into mass market chicken coop housing for a dying oil industry?
Never trust a tory. Unless they’ve discovered another kind of not Scots resource to loot out there. Prices still way high too.
Exclusive footage from East Kilbride as Defence Secretary Michael Fallon and Colonial Governor David Mundell serenade the Prime Minister on her arrival:
link to youtube.com
T Rox
Good calculation of the volume of the oilfield, unfortunately most of the volume is rock
The oil is dispersed in grains of sand or cracks in the rock matrix and the pressure of the overlying 20,000 feet of rock will drive it to the surface once the impermeable cap rock is pierced.
There are no huge pools of oil as some people think, and they will never get all the oil out. It used to be thought good to get 40% of the oil in place but this has improved with new drilling methods.
However, the new Hurricane Energy field is still a remarkable addition to Scotland’s offshore wealth and there are probably billions of recoverable barrels.
May went to the ODA in East Kilbride, the caring face of Britain she said: the Britain that refused entry to 3500 war displaced/perhaps orphaned children because of one person with fake documents; the Britain that stopped matching £ for £ with major third world helping charities because that was bad for our image and the money could be better directed to the war on terror. And then on to Police Scotland the biggest force in Britain and the only one with a VAT. Bill on all purchases of equipment or premises.
I had a go at calculating the Cubic Miles of Oil within SCOTLAND’S
Latest Oil Field.
I make it to be equal to 102.54 Cubic Miles of Oil.
This equates to:
$2 Trillion,688 Billion,298 Million, 864 Thousand and 222 Barrels!
With Brent Crude trading today at $50.24 per barrel, you are looking at a sum way over 1.3441494 to the power of 14
The sum is way over $100 Trillion, roughly $1.3 Trillion plus tips.
As we know, figures must be rounded down when the name Scotland appears, so we can be safe in the knowledge that it will be more
This will take 40 years to get out and the price will rise as other sources run out, but I think Scotland should take out a
£15 Billion loan from the IMF pay Westminster their made up number and tel them to keep the tips.
We can pay it off in 5 years time, become the 2nd richest nation on the planet, regarding GDP, and we can bare our kilted Ar**s to the parasites over the border with no oil, no trading agreements, no employment rights, no old age pension, no NHS, an NO they CANNOT get a special deal from Scotland.
The UKOKers don’t give a shit about those that live in Scotland and call it home.
It’s what Scotland’s land and seas provide as they are now: miles upon miles of empty, environmental waste lands caused by an over-population of deer – not people – which can then be shot for fun as ‘sport’ ; and seas rich in fish and rich in oil under their seabeds to be used to keep their well-dodgy economic ‘strategy’ on track.
The people who call Scotland home, 5.2m of them, could all die and turn to dust tomorrow and the UKOKers wouldn’t? care, not one bit. The pesky natives would be gone and all the land and sea would be theirs for the taking – Happy days! and Rule Britannia!
Tell that to the ProudScotButs, though….
@heedtracker 4:30 pm
“I appreciate that might not seem like much of a tl;dr but trust me it is
In the 80’s, yoon culture raged at Scots that their oil would be gone by the year 2000.
..snip…
Never trust a tory.”
I didn’t. I trusted the technical articles he linked – many of which had to do with the gulf of mexico in terms of depth and weren’t written by anyone interested in unionism or any other sort of “ism” 🙂
You do go off half-cocked a lot of the time 🙂
It’s not about looking for ‘compromise?s’, ‘agreements’ or ‘settlements’ – that’s just bullshit Unionist waffle-speak.
Scotland is the engine that keeps their clown-car economy wobbling along as it is now.
Take that away, ie Scotland goes independent and uses *its* resources for *its* economy, and the whole rUK (UK) clown-car falls apart and exposes who the real driver of the UK economy was until then.
O/T but not by much
UK Government revoked the jurisdiction of International Court of Justice over Trident related matters.
link to basicint.org
Seems to be a move, in part, to prevent claims by the residents of the Marshall Islands suing UK etc because of nuclear testing in that area in the past
Effigy
Sorry but there are no large pools of oil in an oilfield. It is 99% rock. See my previous comment at 4.32
Just watched economic analyst on BBC new channel, stating that the new oil find in Scottish waters is indeed significant, around a billion barrels. He compared it to the previous largest field, Fortes, which was around 5 billion barrels.
Of course, as we all know up here in Scotland, such good news will be a burden to Scotland. Scotland cannot possibly cope with such a large oil reserve, and our best course of action will be to keep on handing it over to England free of charge, just as we have done for forty years.
Now IS the time……….
To tell westminster and mayhem to **** ***
Borg Queen: Hey Ginger! We need to talk aboot this Tartan Gene oh yours infecting the harmony O ma happy collec… eh eh Union.
Ginger Rebel: Now is no the time.
Borg Queen: Whit? splutter choke Whit the fuck?
Ginger Rebel: Come back when Riverside is finished.
O/T I want to mention disruption to threads and why it’s bad.
There are certain posters who post on this site who do not have an Independent Scotland in mind when making their posts. The exact opposite is in fact true.
They want to keep Scotland shackled to the Union, that simply is their job. Paid or not makes no difference they are disruptive and seek to spread dissent, create arguments and basically cause as much mischief as possible.
They really are not worth bothering with folks, responding to anyone with that agenda gives them a victory of sorts so please don’t do it.
There must have been thousands of people visiting Wings for the first time and saw these “discussions” going on and immediately fled never to be back.
Let’s never lose site of the fact that the main job of Wings and her contributors btl is to educate, get the truth out and inform our fellow Scots. Wings is an extremely valuable resource to the Yes movement and of course the UK government is paying it attention.
Do not engage is my advise, never. Feel free to write a contrary view to that of the troll but don’t direct that at the troll but at all Wings readers.
Always remember who your potential audience is, it is the whole of Scotland’s electorate and not just “Wingers” or anyone else.
We on here need to up our game as well, I’m trying to up mine as to be honest I think I needed to.
So with the goal in mind always, I’m sure you can too. Ignore them.
@ Effigy I wish people would stop propagating the mith that Scotland owes any monies to Westminster they have stolen enough of our resources for centuries & continues to do so with their partners in crime
Thepnr
How do we recognise these efforts of disruption to the cause of Scottish Indy?
In addition to Thepnr – If your instinct suspects a troll, it is probably right. At least–my instinct has always been right in identifying such individuals.
5bn barrels sounds on the low side to me – a long way on the low side.
On the technical stuff – yes we can extract a lot more than we used to be able to. The more extracted from a “field” the higher the risk of collapse/leak.
However when (not if) there’s another leak* but it happens at serious depth then we’re into another Deepwater Horizon situation.
That turns a petrochemical economy into a petrochemical ecology very fast & we don’t want that.
So dial back the “loads of money” stuff – yes its more money but we’re not selling licences yet are we?
*they happen frequently in the North Sea (google it)
Britnat May is arrogant and ignorant in her dealings with Scotland. Scotland has to break free from such people.
The new oilfield discovery is great news but what about the Clyde not miles away in deep water but right beside us do they think we have forgotten about that it will be easier to bring ashore both oil and men no helicopters needed etc., it is like they never want to talk about tide power because they can’t fault it or use the excuse the tide never came in today like they do about wind power they want all our oil energy etc., to appear so hard to get and make it appear so expensive so they can charge the moon for it when in reality if common sense were applied it would be easier and much cheaper I mean if wanted to pick mushrooms I would look in the nearest wood to me I would not start looking in a wood miles away
@Mike 5.15pm
Don’t worry Mike. Wingers know who these disruptive folk are?
Thepnr at 506pm.
Very well said. I am sick and tired of the people on this site who see it as a ‘game’ to play along with the trolls. It isn’t, it just puts other ‘new’ people off coming here.
When you respond over and over again to trolls, you don’t look clever, you don’t look smart, you just look stupid. The job of a troll is to distract the discussion, and when you reply to them you ENABLE them. You, by replying to trolls make the job of a troll that much easier.
PLEEEEEASE stop these endless, pointless ‘arguments’ with trolls. Ignore them and, as everybody else on the internet already has learned, they go away. They cannot survive, unless idiots start replying.
@ Thepnr – agree – total ignoral is the best policy IMO.
@ ronnie anderson – how did the PQ demo go? I haven’t seen any reports in the media. Hope you had a good day.
Still nothing yet from Nicola and mayhem?
Breaking news : First Minister meets unelected dictator of a one-party state to push the ideals of democracy and electoral mandates.
Thepnr
“Let’s never lose site of the fact that the main job of Wings and her contributors btl is to educate, get the truth out and inform our fellow Scots. Wings is an extremely valuable resource to the Yes movement and of course the UK government is paying it attention.”
Another equally valuable and effective source is “BBC Scotlandshire”
It employs Satire Irony humour and projection in an effective and devastating form of direct attack on the State bias of the BBC.
And in doing so it “educates” and “gets the truth out and informs our fellow Scots.”
Of course you have to be able to recognise the difference between the real BBC and the fact that it is a Parody site.
Not something I fear somebody who is unable to distinguish between pro Indy posters from pro union disruptors is going to be able to do.
Flower of Scotland
I know WOS does but it seems some contributors cant tell the difference.
Oh so “precious precious”. Britnats make me boak.
DON’T take the bait folks. Let it go hungry and search for food elsewhere.
@Proud Cybernat
Damn good advice. Wish Id taken it before I responded to an “Off Topic” poster.
STV News reports Theresa May announcing a major counter-terrorism exercise in Scotland involving Police Scotland. She announced it at Govan police station. Policing is devolved, so it’s spectacularly undiplomatic to do this. This is how she means to go on?
1.375 × 10 power 14 imperial gallons
Thats the most that can be in there assuming the measurements are correct, the area is a clean cuboid and that area is 100% full of oil.
Im guessing its not as simple as that because that is a trully bonkers anount!!!
If you google about the oil find you will see it is mentioned pre 2014 as not true in some papers. But there we go we were lied too.
With this oil field find and more to come we are obviously poorer than we were last week. Why can’t we be like the Saudi’s with all their resources like sand – just think how wealthy we could be.
We should demand an oil fund pre independence.
I am gobsmacked, crivvens , jings, help ma boab ,instead of FFS I listened to the 1 o’clock bamstick news and heard them announce the NEW massive oil field find , something that we wingers were informed about months ago by intelligent contributors and Stu
I was shocked that Scotchlands lying media would give the Scots any good news ,they announced a field of possibly 1 billion barrels of oil , I was taken all over funny , but then back to normal they canny help themselves , they followed it up with , a but it’s no as big as previous bigger finds that urnae there any mair , so that’s awright then the burd hisnae been substituted by a clone
@Blair Paterson 5:20 pm :
“The new oilfield discovery is great news but what about the Clyde….snip….”
Umm no. The Clyde has enough problems without oil. If it was the only oil available then absolutely.
Remember its not “if”, its “when” a leak will occur. I know that sounds like doom-mongering but I’m an engineer.
Everything fails sooner or later. You need to analyse the failure modes and the likely damage.
In the case of the Clyde any oil leak is likely to be contained entirely within the estuary due to prevailing winds. This is going to take a couple of decades to recover from.
So Clyde 0 – 1 Way up North on the inevitable leaks if we go your way.
tl;dr oil is going to leak when you pump it out. It always does.
Regarding the oil West of Shetland it is potentially massive. Schehallion and Foinavon both BP operated were the first two and are still going strong having produced already 100’s of millions of barrels.
So much so that BP have recently put a brand new FPSO in the Schehallion field, plenty more from there in the next 20 years.
BP Clair phase 2 also recently installed is a massive gas field and Phase 3 is on the drawing boards. Solan by Premier Oil and Totals Laggan Tormore another huge Gas field just opened.
What has stopped these fields in the past in this area is that it is extremely hostile with regard to the massive waves and there was no pipeline infrastructure in place, now there is the infrastructure and we can design platforms to cope with the extreme enviroment.
The N. Atlantic West of Shetland has the potential to as lucrative as the N. Sea has been. Possibilities are huge.
Keep the faith.
Vestas
If we take that attitude would you fly, catch a train , use a scooter ?
Isn’t new engineering controls of 2017 better than 1970’s . Either way unless we get our independence it won’t be our decision .
Short statement from Nicola on TV.
Sounds like May offered nothing, said nothing new.
Fair enough, we can get on and be ready for ScotRef in 18-24 months time when the terms are known and almost ctainly fall short of being acceptable to the Scottish Government/Parliament.
Roboscot 17:45,
Yes! It is definitely how she means to go on. Mayhem is a control freak with a special interest in state-organised snooping, as was already apparent from her time as UK Home Secretary.
She just can’t help herself. It will become an unfolding tragedy of truly Shakespearean proportions. With us as unwilling participants, unless we can turn ourselves PDQ into spectators instead.
When did the News channels start calling Scottish waters UK waters?
Nicola on the meeting with you know who
link to twitter.com
T May is not your touchy feely make of politician. Her visit to Glasgow and East Kilbride seems a waste of taxpayers money. It proves one thing, Nicola has a better tan. 🙂
So Nicola Sturgeon didn’t meet May as May had lined up a propaganda slot for the Disreporting Scotland mafia. Nicola obviously decided that “this is not the time” for such umm meetings.
Now on more serious matters what are the Yes Friendly pubs in Aberdeen since it is a beautiful evening here and I am still in a good mood after Scotland’s late winner last night. Making my way slowly home to Moray having finally dried out after that brutal and wet friendly against Canada on Wednesday.
@Marcia
Aye you are right, Nicola looks healthy and tanned, May looks like she needs a blood transfusion
link to archive.is
@Hamish100 6:09 pm :
“Vestas
If we take that attitude would you fly, catch a train , use a scooter ?
Isn’t new engineering controls of 2017 better than 1970’s . Either way unless we get our independence it won’t be our decision .”
Of course I would & do.
In fact if you’ve ever flown on an Airbus (any version/type over the last 25 years) then you’ve partially put your fate in the hands of my wife as she’s written/reviewed/fixed a lot of engine management code for both RR and GE.
See engineers make things work and we understand that things inevitably fail. You plan for that failure otherwise you’re no sort of engineer. EVERYTHING FAILS – its called entropy 😉
Did BBC UK national news even mention the massive oil find?
The problem can be put very simply – May and her Tory chums believe they have a mandate and the exclusive right to make decisions for the whole UK. However, the whole UK doesn’t agree.
The BBC News 24 channel has run the story all day, but not many watch that…
Notice how STV News ran the story with a previously not mentioned punchline…”finding it is one thing…getting it out the ground is another…”
Despite the fact that those who found the reserves,have STATED that “ALMOST ALL of it should be recoverable”.
Pure spewing so they are…
Here is my pro unionist 5th column disruptive opinion on what I believe happened today between the PM and FM.
I believe the PM came up to Scotland to propose an under the table deal with a condition that it is not revealed to the media or general public.
I don’t believe she simply came up just to repeat “Now is not the time” or to talk curtains and carpets for Bute House.
Now whether or not this under the table deal is acceptable to both parties will remain unknown but what we may see in the near or not too distance future is a subtle coming together of postures over Brexit and an INEVITABLE Indyref.
No matter what the rhetoric no matter what the media noise is the fact that another Indyref is going to happen I believe Teresa May has already made that much of a concession to Nicola Sturgeon.
It may be that they also agreed on a probable timetable which would fit with the PMs rhetoric of “NOT NOW”.
But it will have to come about in a manner in which the UK Governments face is saved and it cant and wont look like a climb down because another inevitable fact exists.
The Scottish Governments timetable is only negotiable within very strict and defined boundaries which enables Scotland to remain in the EU while the rUK exits.
The FM cannot concede on that issue anymore than the PM can concede on the issue of border control.
The significance of today will be in what isn’t being reported by the media.
“The PM decides to come To Scotland for a “quiet chat” with the FM and we have an announcement of a new massive Oil find West of Shetland.”
Deflection anybody?
A response to Dave McEwan Hill at 12.05
I’ve noticed your letters appearing in the DR from time to time. There was a good one other day regarding GERS which the DR chose to ‘balance’ with one praising the Kevin Vague column. So it goes.
I notice today (the day that Nicola has her own page) that there is a particularly vindictive letter from plain old Jill Stephenson of Edinburgh slagging off the SNP along with an unflattering picture of Phillipa Whittford. I agree with you that we Yessers should make our presence felt in the anti-Yes press. And I respect that there are those on Wings who boycott all-things-yoon which is understandable, but I agree that we have to venture beyond the Yes bubble to get our message across.
One thing I’ve noticed is that those who love to decry the SNP never seem to offer up any alternative, never seem to declare who they would prefer to fill Nicola’s shoes, just SNPBaaaad and no suggested alternative. Call them out is what I say.
Call them out …
@Vestas
I hear you, makes sense too. Why risk pollution of that scale in that area? There’s enough pollution in that area to be dealt with.
It’s about risk assessment surely, and as you say, plenty other options.
Vestas @ 6.28
Entropy…..But Whisky can fix it AYE ?????
AH FFS NO MARE BLOODY OIL!
Re Hurricane Energy’s latest RNS.
The figure given by them is that the wells in Lancaster and Halifax have an oil column in excess of 1,000m with no sign of the water/oil contact encountered. Forties has an estimated, average thickness of oil bearing strata of 350m.
So basically they are sitting on 5 exploration wells, two of which (they think) are part of a 30km long prospect between Lancaster and Halifax prospects. Huge is not the word !
@Iain More 6:19pm
Try The Howff and McGinty’s both on Union Street.
There are NO under the table deals
The SNP don’t and won’t do that, they’re not stupid and they’re NOT the Tories
Scotland’s been sold before, it will never happen under the SNP we’ve got long memories about Tories of all colours
An intersting statement in the BBC artucele on the oil find.
“However, it is still a fifth of the size of the Forties field, which contains about five billion barrels – of which approximately two billion have been recovered.”
So that leaves ‘just’ 3 billion. Not sure if all that is recoverable but its a good point that the biggest ever field is still more than half full.
Do we really want all the future benefit from this to go to London and never come back?
Wheres our oil fund Theresa?
What was said when they first looked at how Oil could be recovered from the North Sea.
“If you pay smart people enough money,” , “they’ll figure out all sorts of ways to get the oil you need out”.
Has anyone got any ideas, info about what was said? I am getting the distinct feeling that a hige, nasty threat of some kind was made and that Scotref might not be announced. Will the vote for it go ahead tomorrow? Just a thought, I could be very wrong.
@ Cappella Video = photo’s are on F/B Scot2,scot & on the BBC protest page . I spoke to Kevin (livestream ) about their video , that will be posted once he’s edited the footage.
Many Thanks to the Many Wingers who turned out for the event.
The oilfield story released today. I covered this on 17 January this year. Wonder why the delay
link to caltonjock.com
the forties field is 90 km2
30 miles by 5 miles = 388 km2
1.1km deep
now we know why Cameron went on his secret mission
I started offshore in the same decade as the Forties. The target then was 30percent recovery and due to the basic drilling techniques and non existent subsea technology four expensive platforms were required.
A new field will be looking for 60percent plus recovery using directional drilling and subsea tie-backs.
This is a major find and will operated at a fraction of the costs of the first generation set ups.
Will we be conned again regarding the burden of such a curse and allow Breiteers to “manage it ” for us.
Vestas
Extraction of oil is called profit.
FYI
Largets Norwegian oil field is small compared to Forties:
“Ekofisk, the oldest oil field in the Norwegian North Sea, contained approximately 129 million cubic metres of remaining recoverable reserves as of December 2012 making it the biggest oil field in Norway.”
Compare to the 670 million cubic meters of Forties.
BP sold the field in 2003, their reservoir engineers estimated the STOIIP was 4.2 billion barrels (670 million cubic metres)
and is now then at about 3 billion.
These are the kind of very basic stats, on the doorstep, we need in indyref2.
Carwyn Jones says Theresa May has a tin ear The Norn Irish are in full non co-operation mode Scotland’s on the edge of leaving
Yeah Treeza we’re all pulling together
Are some of her people no telling her stuff?
Well after the disaster of finding even more fucking oil I have something to cheer you up.
Labour have came out with six TESTS for them to support brexit.
The beauty is the sixth one, anyone requiring the toilet please do so now :
Sixth TEST – Ensuring the same benefits currently enjoyed within the single market.
And no, there are no surprise gifts for getting the correct answer.
There can be no clear Brexit deal until the constitutional status of Scotland is settled by indyref2.
How can May and Co use Scottish fishing, farming, oil and energy as negotiation beads for London’s benefit if Scotland’s constitutional future is not settled?
Why would any EU negotiator accept any such guarantees from May until that happens?
I don’t know about anybody else here, but right now I’m angrier than ever at Westminster and the moronic clown they have as their English Prime Minister. She thinks that somehow coming up to Scotland, and generally P*ssing everybody off, wasting the First Minister’s time and then leaving, Scots will somehow say ‘you know Theresa’s right, we’d best not have a referendum’.
Scotland is NOT leaving the EU, and if you want a fight, then that may just happen.
Today’s patronising and insulting behaviour by the English Prime Minister, just makes me even more determined to make independence a reality for Scotland. Insult our First Minister and you insult all of us.
What an insulting and patronsing bunch of barstewards they really are in London. They really, really do not get Scotland, and think they can just treat us with contempt over and over again. THIS is EXACTLY how they behaved towards Ireland, and which led to Ireland declaring independence, regardless of what Westminster thought of it. I really am sick and fed up with them. It is time Nicola Sturgeon stopped being so nice and accomodating to them.
Meanwhile the media is in full propaganda mode (as usual).
Tomorrow, when our Parliament votes for the referendum, Nicola should demand a section 30, then if refused, she should immediately state the referendum will be held, WITHOUT consulting Westminster at any stage. It will be Scotland’s referendum, made in Scotland, for Scotland. Westminster can go swivel.
I really am so sick of Westminster. They really are a bunch of Scotland hating, pig ignorant c****.
The Dog Philosopher at 6.48
Cheers. I replied to the one about tuition fees today. We’ll see if it gets in
link to twitter.com
@Artyhetty 7.18
I very much suspect T. Rex wanted a cosy joint statement but our own Nippy Sweetie gave her the proverbial Provan kiss.
so a simple calculation given the size of the new field on size and depth directly comparing it to the Forties field whose production and reserves are well documented gives this new discovery likely to hold a minimum of 65 billion barrels which is worth $3250 billion at $50 a barrel
but we are too poor and stupid, what a shame, we need to give it to Theresa to give to her city chums
@Thepnr says: 27 March, 2017 at 5:06 pm:
“O/T I want to mention disruption to threads and why it’s bad.
There are certain posters who post on this site who do not have an Independent Scotland in mind when making their posts. The exact opposite is in fact true.”
Oh! For the Heaven’s sake stop being so bloody stupid. First of all you are not the person who decides what the purpose of the Rev Stu’s blog is. That’s the Rev Stu’s choice to make. Secondly you probably wouldn’t recognise a real Troll if it was chewing on your ear.
In the third place replying to the real troll can in fact not only send the Troll back under their bridge but more significantly can inform those who might be sucked in by the Troll of the real truth.
Here’s a very recent troll like subject that seems to be emanating from the media, Unionists, Trolls and even actual genuine yessers. While Troll like it seems that many genuine Yessers have swallowed the lies as truths.
I refer to the misinformation, from all and sundry, that Westminster has the legal powers to prevent the Scottish Government from holding a referendum upon any subject that the SG chooses to call a referendum on to ascertain what the people of Scotland think on a particular subject.
The question beggared is thus, “What exactly is a Section 30 Order anyway? It sure as hell is NOT a Westminster power to stop Holyrood holding a referendum on anything whenever Holyrood pleases to do so.
It may explain for such as you why I have chosen to reply to the Troll, Yessers and the Media alike on the matter and why doing so will not drive away lurkers on Wings.
Just what is a, “Section 30 Order”, and what is it a section of anyway?
A “Section 30 order”, refers to Section 30 of, “The Scotland Act 1998.”
Now that I have given a cite to the source of the truth – can doubters please go and verify for themselves what I have posted about on this particular subject?
The Scotland ACT 1998 empowered the Crown, (that in practice is not the Queen but means the UK Government), to make an Order in Council amending the list of matters that are reserved to the UK Parliament and it appear in Schedule 5 of the Act.
Section 30 Orders, though, can only be made if a draft is first placed before the Scottish Parliament, House of Commons and House of Lords, and is approved by all three. These legal constraints essentially give each institution a veto over the terms of any such order from any of te institutions.
Have you got it now? Each of the institutions has the legal right to veto whatever the other institution might attempt to do. All fine but how does that work in practice?
It boils down to this – The Scotland Act 1998 lays down, precisely, exactly what powers the Westminster Government has granted to the devolved parliament of Scotland. The fact is that there is nothing in the act about power to run a referendum. So legally no powers have been granted by Westminster for Holyrood to run a referendum.
However, no powers have been refuse to Holyrood to hold a referendum either, and if Westminster attempts to now impose such a condition upon Holyrood to prevent them holding a referendum the ACT gives Holyrood a legal veto to prevent that change being legally implemented.
If that is not clear then please feel free to ask some actual legally qualified person to explain it for you.
Perhaps now you see how replying to what you imagine to be Trolls can be used to great advantage to inform those lurkers, and misinformed Wingers who like you claim, (without offering evidence they are right), that lurkers are being driven away by replying to either Trolls or uninformed wingers?
If I believed for a moment I was only posting comments to already committed Indy supporters I would be posting and commenting elsewhere. No benefit can be made in preaching the same sermons over and over again to the already converted.
@ Robert Louis
Like you im pissed off with the political niceties . Nicola Sturgeon should start playing hardball dont respond to Mays summons PISS OFF unless they’re is a material change in your attitude Teresa & Im going to blow a big hole in your £15 deficit shite.
Kuensberg is tweeting:
‘No 10 disputes claim May accepted Scot gov timetable for Brexit clarity – ‘for the birds’ to think all done in 18 months, source says’
Nicola just tweeted in response tae that:
‘PM v clear to me in meeting that she intended terms of Brexit – exit & future deal – to be clear before UK leaves & in time for ratification’
The propaganda offensive has began within hours, is Theresa May calling Nicola Sturgeon a liar?
STV News are now almost as bad as BBC Scotland. No mention of the huge oil story in their headlines (four items) and the story well down their running order. Notice they also used a pic of an unsmiling FM next to May, even BBC Scotland managed to show a good pic of Nic.
Reporting Scotland at lunchtime made the oil their second story and had an outside broadcast form Kevin Keane in Aberdeen. Tonight it was fourth and skirted over in 30 seconds. Disgusting.
Obviously the Henry the 8th manner of altering existing laws isn’t the right one due to Parliament either at Westminster, Holyrood or elsewhere having a fair chance at reversing any damage done.
The real example of a working precedent that actually involved the imposition of “Westminster” rule on Scotland would be Cromwell. I wonder if May thinks of herself as being in the same mold, especially in his later dictatorship. A Lady Protectress as it were. She certainly takes the piss.
Ive just had a pro Union 5th column disruptive epiphany.
Regarding the timing of an Indyref relative to a Brexit deal closure and ratification process.
Suppose an Indyref is held at a time when the deal has been reached and ratification is in process.
Wont a successful Yes vote make any agreement null and void as it would have been based on a FULL UK exit?
At that point the Scottish Government will be arguing to remain and not leave so any agreement at the point between the UK and the EU will have to be modified not ratified.
Just a thought.
“Chick McGregor says:
27 March, 2017 at 7:25 pm
There can be no clear Brexit deal until the constitutional status of Scotland is settled by indyref2”
Ah yes I think I just made that point as well before I read this.
@Robert Peffers
I totally support Thepnr and his posting.
Chick McGregor says:
I agree. I can’t see how Matt al can negioate on behalf of Scotland when neither side knows if Scotland is going to end up on their side!
We could be within Brexit UK, or within the EU!
Which side speaks for us? At the moment it would appear to be the UK, but if we ‘flip’ then anything agreed is invalid. The deal needs to have provision for our final decision. Same true of NI.
@ronnie anderson says: 27 March, 2017 at 7:41 pm:
“Like you im pissed off with the political niceties . Nicola Sturgeon should start playing hardball dont respond to Mays summons PISS OFF unless they’re is a material change in your attitude Teresa & Im going to blow a big hole in your £15 deficit shite.”
It doesn’t work like that, Ronnie. Nicola has to stay within those political niceties – that’s her job that we elected her to do and I’m sure it bugs her a damned site more than it bugs you and I.
I don’t know if you noticed that Alex Salmond when FM also had to recognise the political correctness but instantly became a little more aggressive when then becoming a Westminster MP where the constraints are less.
The job of telling the likes of the old bat May and her Yoons the feelings of Scottish Indy supporters in plain language, or even flowery language, is our job and most Wingers do indeed do just that.
Ye dae a grand job in yon respect yersel, Ronnie. Hooivvir, dinna get ony o yer hairy string ower near ony Yoon thrapples – they pit ye awa fir yon.
My neighbour tells me Alex Salmond is on a special Question Time edition tonight all about Brexit. Should be good. On at 8.30 apparently.
@Robert Peffers
You know something Robert you post a lot of stuff that people may like. You also tend to attack anyone who doesn’t have exactly the same view as you. Why?
Give it a rest Robert, sure give us your opinion but tell me once more that “Oh! For the Heaven’s sake stop being so bloody stupid.”
Then you will also be ignored. You should STOP being disrespectful to other posters. Give me your opinion by all means but stop telling me that mine is shite. OK.
Robert Peffers I think you better speak to the Scots Government legal dept, you obviously no more than they do.
@ Robert Peffers
No discussion forum needs Trolls, this site is to important to put up with Trolls disrupting threads , by your responses your encouraging them to the point that you yourself are subjected to the abuse & Wingers jump in in support of a respected Winger as is Thepnr & your comment on him.
Your doing the work of the Troll Robert by being the cause of friction between Wingers. I hope you will be man enough to offer a apology to Thepnr. And before you say it ,NO im not the moderator of Wings I am however a Moderator on a F/B site & I would have taken you to task as Im doing now ,but the outcome would have been much different.
I BLOCK TROLLS not engage with them.
What happens if all of Scotland’s assets are bartered in May’s Brexit deal, I wonder. I would hope the FM makes it clear they are not Mays to barter.
Alex Salmond on Question NOW
Robert Peffers I also think Thepnr’s post was spot on regarding the disruption on the main thread lately.
While aye it is indeed the Revs place to say …..He’s no here all the time is he???
He canny be everywhere at once and as I am sure you will agree mostly has better things to be doing.
Soooo!!!
Alex on the telly.
Birmingham.
Melanie Philips again.
Speaking about Brexit,
Alex will sock it to them. Get stuck in.
Dafty Davis.
they would have been dancing in the streets of East Kilbridge tonight but treeza said, “no the now”
@yesindyref2 says: 27 March, 2017 at 7:54 pm:
“I totally support Thepnr and his posting.”
Please yourself. That’s your right but, like Thepnr it is not your right to tell anyone on the Rev Stu’s blog who they can or cannot reply to.
Nether does the fact you agree with Thepnr make either of you right or indeed make you wrong. It just confirms you agree with each other.
Just to say I wholly agree with Thepnr and Ronnie Anderson regarding trolls.
We may think we are helping others ‘see the truth’ by addressing them with arguments, but we are merely making their job easier.
As Thepnr pointed out, the way to deal with them, is
1. Never address them directly or by name, even if they address you directly.
2. If you do wish to clarify a lie by a troll, then do so, but again, do not address it to them directly. This chokes trolls. Many will try to engage you in such situations by addressing your clarification comment directly and by name, but again, do not reply to them talk OVER them, and around them
3. Again, Never, ever address them directly or by name.
And, as proof of the pudding, it is EXACTLY what I have done on this site for several years now. I talk over trolls, as you might an annoying child. Even when they try to engage me by saying things like ‘ Robert L, it is obvious your comment is about me’, I still do not engage. I merely re-state my original clarification point, using different wording.
I do understand their may be a kind of intellectual jousting to some of this, but it is counterproductive. They will NEVER be convinced by your arguments, no matter how clear or well referenced. Their job is to disrupt, and if that means arguing black is white, then that is exactly what they will do.
Let’s use our resources and talents in making the case for independence, not pointlessly arguing with thread disruptors.
If you reply to trolls then you play into their hands. They win.
Your a fucking idiot in other words. Ignore the trolls.
The EU have no intention of having any trade deal with the UK completed within the two year time limit. It will mean rUK will be set adrift. This will trigger the WTO Tariff rules.
rUK will still be negotiating with the EU for many years to come.
Which makes Spring 2019 a likely date for IndyRef2.
There is also the possibility that rUK spit the dummie out and leave the talks early. That would put the cat amongst the pigeons.
yesindyref2, Thepnr,
I also totally support the both of you re trolls.
It’s Stu and Wingers who should be setting the agenda, not posters whose sole purpose is to divert and distract.
Well what to make of today.
I could be talking sh1te here but…
The oil story feels too convoluted, like a rUK punt to get the English populace onside, as justification for either shutting down Holyrood or triggering an ultra hard Brexit.
Woudn’t be surprised if the A50 letter ends the EU union as of Wednesday with no negotiations, no deals. Brexit means Brexit.
Where would Scotland be if this happened?
Could be why May was talking privately with Police Scotland, in case there’s trouble from the natives.
Where would this leave the scotref?
18-24 months would be out the window.
UDI would be the only option, enough likely to justify closing down Holyrood.
If the Scottish parliament votes by a majority to seek Westminster’s permission to hold a referendum, to me there is no doubt that Westminster will refuse.
Will the Scottish government dare to go ahead and hold a referendum WHEN IT WANTS TO?
“Nicola Sturgeon’s proposed timeframe for a new vote is between 19 months and 25 months.?”
If it does, it would be nothing less than the start of UDI.
If it is forced to accept Saint Theresa’s timetable, it will be nothing less than accepting that the Scottish people are not “sovereign”.
Judgement day is near, unless there is another terrorist attack in London.
I agree wholeheartedly with thepnr and yesindyref2. Just ignore the fckers
Bob Mack says:
27 March, 2017 at 8:07 pm
My neighbour tells me Alex Salmond is on a special Question Time edition tonight all about Brexit. Should be good. On at 8.30 apparently.
Its not great. Lots of rhetoric about good deals and that’s it really. The UKIP lady with the weird mouth is quite funny though and the audience like her too.
A rousing “We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when…” would bring the house down. Ah the English.
Debate on TV,
Dimbleby: Yes, you sir, you with the union jack tie, what’s your point.
Dearie me.
Thepnr
Wings has changed since the last time I used it.
It is infiltrated with establishment trolls. They are planted on here to upset the flow of positive information that you would normally find on Wings.
The same person will have many different names on here.
I have a fair idea who is behind a lot of these names.
If you watch to see who is replying and encouraging the conversation to continue, then that will give you an idea of who I am talking about.
As you say Thepnr, the best policy should be to COMPLETELY ignore their posts.
Here is a prediction in my capacity as a pro unionist 5th column disruptive influence.
Alex Salmond is going to get ambushed when question time turns to Scottish Indy and the Indyref because he’s on his own within a panel of 6 plus Dimbleby and a hostile audience.
And he will get ambushed on his arguments he made regarding trading under WTO rules as they will state an Indy Scotland will have to do the same with an rUK.
Watch and see.
What a broken record… for those of us who remember vinyls getting stuck on a groove and repeating the same thing over and over again. CDs, of course, if they got stuck, just went dn-dn-dn-dn-tsik-tsik-tsik. MP3s more like d-d-d [crash].
In a way, I’m tempted to think Westminster repeats these things because nothing’s changed in the 40 years since the McCrone report. Scotland and its oil subsidises the rest of the UK then and now. It’s not even about yearly revenue from oil – it varies because, as we’ve heard all too many times, oil prices are volatile – but it’s an undeniable natural resource that underpins the economy and a state’s credibility and confidence in the state in the international financial markets.
No wonder the UK don’t want to lose Scotland’s assets (oil but also huge renewable energy potential and other things like food and drink, gaming and biotech research and innovations, tourism, “country brand” etc. etc.) because it leaves them very exposed.
All they’ve got is the London City casino banking and innovative jams. Depending how Brexit shapes up, some of the more prudent banking might move to Frankfurt, Dublin, even Edinburgh if Scotland is independent. London will be left with the toxic kind of banking (and the English and Welsh taxpayers left to foot the bill when it all goes wrong again – and it will.)
Scotland really needs to get out from the über-capitalist rUK to preserve some national values like the idea of common weal. You know, you can be a capitalist, an entrepreneur, and still believe in the common weal. Many, many companies, big and small, in my country gladly (or even gridgingly) pay their corporate tax because they know it means better infrastructure and better educated future workers. They’re playing the long game, not quartal-driven casino capitalism. Not greedy for immediate profit and killing the goose that lays the golden egg.
I’m all for regulated capitalism, the problem is that über-capitalists think anything less than their laissez-faire is “wrong” or “socialist” or whatever. They wouldn’t know a true socialist from a moderate righ-winger, all “socialists” for them.
With Brexit, UK workers will lose the protection of EU regulation, so terms and conditions of work will get even worse than they are now. Rich get richer, poor get poorer, and the people in the middle also slide down.
Immigrants (instead of the Tory party) have been blamed for the worsening conditions for ordinary workers. Immigrants are, of course, always blamed by Trump, Farage, the present WM government. Is that a fascist full house?
I think all the ordinary workers who thought getting rid of the EU and “the foreigners” would improve their life will be sorely dissapointed. Deindustrialisation and labour flight to emerging countries is such a complex thing it doesn’t make good soundbites.
Considering the way the global world is going, rUK should be looking outward with their innovative jams. Scotland should look outward with their better jams, democracy, whisky, oil, renewable energy, bejaesus beautiful scenery, sexy men in kilts, right to roam… Scotland’s generally positive national brand internationally. “The Brits who aren’t dicks like the English,” is an accurate international description.
About a century ago, my country didn’t have such a strong “national brand”, we were just a poor backwater in the northeastern edge of Europe. No oil, no any apparent wealth besides hard-working and increasingly well-educated people. The most western and industrialised part of the Russian Empire, though, with our own parliament (fully representative and franchised since 1906, 11 years before our independence – a distant relative of mine was one of the batch of first female MPs in the world) and our own currency (since 1860s) but still tied to the Russian Empire and the Czar. Then we decided WE wanted to be in charge of OUR country. Lenin (probably too busy with the Russian revolution) signed our independence declaration on 6 December 1917 = acknowledged Finnish independence, which made it easy for other countries to acknowledge our independence.
We then had a bad civil war in 1918. The Reds (=lefty) against the Whites (=righty). The Whites “won” but our fledgling democracy was very divided and volatile until 1939. When Soviet Russia tried to invade our country everybody, red, white, doesn’t matter, fought for our independence. Our Finnish “sisu” and the mothers’ and sisters’ woolen socks and mittens helped to defeat the Soviet army, unprepared for a really cold winter. The Finns even skiied better because the Soviets dispatched southerners to the northern front. Finns who met Soviet POWs, like my grandmother, remarked that they were wearing cotton. Later on,during the “Continuation War”, Russian POWs worked at my grandparents’ farm (while my grandad was at the front.) My gran gave the poor POW’s proper woolen undergarments and proper wool socks and mittens. She hated the “Russkies” but these were just poor, freezing humans who helped to plogh and plant fields while her husband was away at war. She naturally provided good, strong food to the people working the fields, as she ever did.
My grandparents rarely talked about the war, grandpa’s experiences at the front, curiously missing, just a glimpse or two. I’ve learned more from grandma’s “homefront” experiences.
All the others might be OK, like “employing” Soviet POWs to bring in the harvest… Seeing “the enemies” as just ordinary people like yourselves. That’s what they’ve taught their sons and all their grandchildren. We’re all people.
Thepnr,
“@Robert Peffers
You know something Robert you post a lot of stuff that people may like. You also tend to attack anyone who doesn’t have exactly the same view as you. Why?
Give it a rest Robert, sure give us your opinion but tell me once more that “Oh! For the Heaven’s sake stop being so bloody stupid.”
Then you will also be ignored. You should STOP being disrespectful to other posters. Give me your opinion by all means but stop telling me that mine is shite. OK.”
You (and others) finally realising what I have been pointing out for a long time?
Trolls you say?
Well I guess there are a couple of suspicious dwellers from below the bridge that I scroll past automatically these days.
Unfortunately that means I also scroll past some of the replies to the bridge dwellers, but my logic tells me that as I had no interest in the troll, then why should I care about the reply to the troll.
Channel 4 News was another disgrace tonight.
They should play Land of Hope and Glory as their theme tune
It seems to them that May has put our First Minister in her place???
They went on to interview a Labour Minister and UKIP spokesperson, but wouldn’t let them get a sentence out as they obviously weren’t True Blue Tories.
Pathetic but very scary to see the complete blanket of UK Media exists only to provide propaganda to the masses.
Re Dimblebum debate.
Why no representation from Wales and Northern Ireland?
Is it because Brexit is an “English thing”.
@Thepnr says: 27 March, 2017 at 8:15 pm:
“You know something Robert you post a lot of stuff that people may like. You also tend to attack anyone who doesn’t have exactly the same view as you. Why?”
Strange accusation and a strange conclusion, Thepnr.
The strange accusation is that I, attack people who do not agree with me. Seems you think that if I find that someone differs in their opinions from my opinions that I’m attacking them if I continue to hold to my views.
That, Thepnr is what is called debate and, on a mainly political forum is a healthy way to conduct debate.
If you refer to the accusation the you were being foolish by overstepping the mark by attempting to tell people who they could or could not reply to on someone else’s blog I stand by my accusation it was a foolish thing to do.
Far as I know, and the Revs statements to the effect that only he will moderate his blog bears out my belief that you do not have his permission to attempt telling others who they may respond to.
“Give it a rest Robert, sure give us your opinion but tell me once more that “Oh! For the Heaven’s sake stop being so bloody stupid.”
Then you will also be ignored. You should STOP being disrespectful to other posters.”
To ignore me IS your right – feel free to do just that.
“Give me your opinion by all means but stop telling me that mine is shite. OK.”
I didn’t say your opinion was, “Shite”, I said telling others who they they should respond to on another person’s blog was foolish. Are you claiming either you have that right or claiming it was not foolish?
Thepnr, I have been making the point for quite some time that neither, Westminster, May or anyone else can prevent the SG from holding a referendum on any subject and at any time the SG chooses.
I do not just do that but have explained why not. After your post about not replying to trolls, I though, rightly or wrongly, you may have been taking a swipe at me among others. This because I chose to make the point to what I also considered to be a Troll and deliberately was using that reply to make the point, yet again, that Westminster does not have the powers to prevent a Scottish referendum.
I then went and did some more research to get a cite to the proof that my response to the suspected troll, (but a response aimed at any readers of wings), was verifiable and was contained in the Scotland Act 1998 and used that information to show there were sometimes good reason to reply to suspected trolls.
So, please, if you think I’m making unwarranted attack upon you for no other reason that your views differ from mine, then scroll on past my posts but please do not attempt to dictate to others who they may respond to. Far as I know there are no moderators appointed to police Wings.
Looks like the British broadcast media have now had their orders, get behind Brexit and ensure the Scots are kept in their place. There is next to no dissenting voices in this media, who now refer to May in almost reverential terms.
Noticed the BBC now refer to meetings as between ‘the Prime Minister and Ms Sturgeon’, the Scots First Minister no longer deserves her title.
Anybody else notice how often Scotland’s First Minister isn’t given her proper title on Radio Scotland but is referred to on the vast majority of occasions as plain ‘Nicola Sturgeon’, while Theresa May is almost always referred to as ‘The Prime Minister’?
@ronnie anderson says: 27 March, 2017 at 8:19 pm:
“No discussion forum needs Trolls, this site is to important to put up with Trolls disrupting threads , by your responses your encouraging them to the point that you yourself are subjected to the abuse & Wingers jump in in support of a respected Winger as is Thepnr & your comment on him.”
I’m not going to make a further reply to that, Ronnie, for I may say something I might regret.
At the moment I’m inclined to just leave Wings and let those who wish to moderate my posts get on with it. If you imagine that preaching to each other is going to gain any converts to independence you are flogging a dead horse.
Far as I’m aware the only one who moderates Wings id The Rev Stu and seems to me he has no plans to stifle open debate.
caz-m says:
27 March, 2017 at 9:28 pm
Re Dimblebum debate.
Why no representation from Wales and Northern Ireland?
Is it because Brexit is an “English thing”.
Or why is a UKIPer in there on the show, with zero MP’s?
So we’re heading for a hardline brexit and to hell with all those component nations who voted to stay. The “Access” to the single market depends on one thing. The EU GIVING it. Scotland demanded that it’s position remain within the EU single market which wasn’t a leave and then try to rejoin.
To make it clear to these Tory muppets. The EU won’t negotiate with you, they have taken the view that you left .. you chose to now F**k O** and let us get on with it.
When Wednesday comes round and the process starts … you’ll soon learn that. If you convey that way to the people that “Oh there being bad to us .. look at the Evil EU” you’ll find yourself as a very small fish in a huge pond. The game is up.
Just to add to that. I wish that SNP party members would tell the BBC to do one every time they come calling. Let them get on with it.
They (England and Wales) are going to be the one on the stairs at the party with no mates at this rate .. We need to leave to join the fun in the kitchen!!
Cheesed off with all the stage management and undermining of our democratically elected parliament and total disrespect shown to Nicola.
I am totally dumfounded that they are getting off with it and no external bodies are getting involved and bringing them to heel.
Hard neck complaining about media control in Russia, China etc. When they are no better.
Down the line the train came puffing:-
Salmond,Clegg & Starmer TEN – Davis,Evans & Philips NOTHING.
Just watching Melanie Philips talking a load of crap about Indy and Indyref2 when the camera cut to Eck with the expression on is face of a tiger just waiting to pounce.
He has now pounced – job done.
I enjoyed Lumilumi’s post at 9.16pm, very informative.
In particular her tale of her gran employing Soviet POWs in her fields struck a chord.
In a past life I worked on a local opencast coal site, where one of the other workers was a German POW who stayed on in Ayrshire.
Hienrich had some great stories – of having a motor bike and a petrol allowance, so he could get from Butlins at Ayr (a war-time pow camp) to the hill farm where he worked. Of the “friendliness” of the farmer’s daughters towards a poor German guy, a long way from home!!!
He told us of how, at the end of the war, he was repatriated to his home in Berlin, only, his house wasn’t there.
“Heinrich goat back oan train, back tae Ayrshire – at least, there he had roof ower his heid”, he said in his Ayrshire/German accent.
Heinrich’s grand-children are still here, living in my village, aye, Scotland has been welcoming European immigrants for a while, and in many different ways.
@Robert Peffers –
Robert, can you honestly not see why Thepnr and Ronnie are hacked off with your comments?
I made exactly the same point as Ronnie, late last night, and you responded it to it as though it was directed at you personally. It wasn’t. It was an honest, albeit brief report on what I heard being discussed by fellow Yessers in Glasgow yesterday.
We all acknowledge your experience and expertise on a broad range of subjects, but please, please understand that many of us here are no spring-chickens either, we are totally committed to this cause, and don’t deserve to have our wrists slapped in a public forum as if we’re toddlers playing with matches.
@ Mr Petters
Please don’t leave.
It is surprising how many troll deniers become trolls themselves.
Rev Stu monitor the site and deletes and bans, as is his right. He is a very busy person, so gets around to it when he can.
BBC is still such tripe. Wait until A50 goes in they are going to get such a shock. Wsit for the howls of surprise.
Good to see Alex putting them right. How does he have the patience to put up with it?
The latest Unionist claim, ‘Brexit is nothing to do with migration’. A load of tripe. It had everything to do with the Tories fighting like rats in a sack to be PM. The poison chalice. Melanie Philips could be called out on Twitter. Treading very carefully.
Anybody else notice how often Scotland’s First Minister isn’t given her proper title on Radio Scotland but is referred to on the vast majority of occasions as plain ‘Nicola Sturgeon’, while Theresa May is almost always referred to as ‘The Prime Minister’?
RB
It could be because we all know who Nicola is but they have to remind people who May is.
Totally O/T.
I will be coming to Scotland this coming summer!! Success (!!!) at talking to the boat owner to sail in Scotland… Yasss!!!
It’s a total success of nagging my rich brother for years. He’s got a 38 foot sailboat and always wants crew. I’ve been telling him I’ll come and crew if he ever gets his boat arse to Scotland.
OK, last summer started with the boat wintering in Kirknes (the most easterly place in nortern Norway) and I crewed when we were going “over the top” in Norway. 71’11” north, on the Barents Sea was an occassion for a drink. The cute fat little puffins trying to fly from our boat, poor buggers. Aaah, I love puffins flap flip flaapy-flaaap…
During the referendum campaign at those times when it seemed the SNP had no answer to the opposition claims and accusations, there were many who would proclaim that Alex had something up his sleeve and there was some grand SNP plan etc etc. I am seeing some of the same comments now and to be honest it wasn’t really true then and I am thinking at this current juncture the SNP are getting their arse handed to them on a plate. Maybe I am wrong but that’s how it seems to me and I don’t like it one little bit.
Anybody else catch the new narritive—They want to keep us— laments David Davis.
Wonder if that’s to explain their negotiation difficulties or to dilute us claiming it about Scotland!
You know somebody in another place yesterday raised a simple question, just why are we leaving the EU? All the things that voters were promised have turned out to be a pack of lies. So, why proceed? Their does not appear to be anything to gain.
It is an important question, why are we leaving the EU?
It makes no sense, and I find it hard to believe just how much people in England have been taken for complete suckers. Longer term, once Scotland is independent within the EU and England is outside the EU, I think it likely the massed people of England will one day rise up against both Labour and Tory MP’s for leading them into a Brexit economic disaster.
Of course by then, the likes of Boris the clown ,Theresa May and Michael Gove (all millionaires) will have left the country, just like their inspiration, Nigel Farage who now works in the USA. They can all escape, it is the ordinary working folk who will be left with the mess.
David anderson, relax, it’s all under control.
David anderson at 10.26
Utter rubbish. That’s why our recent poll rating was 54%?
Theresa May and her PR team at No. 10 attempted a stunt today, the object of which was to humiliate Nicola. The net effect however, was to reveal Theresa May as foolish, lacking any class and not having a clue.
Mrs May seems to think that the voters can’t work out what she is up to, but it is really rather obvious. I am tempted to think that Theresa May was selected for this job as a short term PM stand-in until after the Brexit Mess.
David anderson @ 10:27:
You think, Davie? I’m not sure why.
But just wait a day or so until the Brexit negotiations start, then you’ll see a real serving of cul de conne, courtesy of M. Barnier & Cie.
Keep waiting for the Tweet or newsflash to tell me what the Theresa May’s visit was all about. Was it just a cunning plan to get Nicola out the office so James Bond could plant a bug behind the mirror in Bute House?
Going to visit East Kilbridge and forcing people to clap her speech unless they want sent to work in a salt mine for the rest of their miserable lives, and we’ll have none of your Scottish Government facilities by the way, oh no. We know what you’re like with your wee blue flag ambushes, tartan shoes and bear traps under the carpets and stuff. A neutral Travelodge will do just fine…as long as it’s got a back exit….
All very bizarre… It’s almost as if Theresa May is running around frantically doing “things” to mask the simple truth that she is hopelessly out of her depth and doesn’t know what to do.
I feel a quote from MGM’s Battle of Britain coming on… “It’s unforgivable. I lost my temper. And the maddening thing is that he’s (she) is right. We’re on our own. We’ve been playing for time. And it’s running out!…
David Anderson at 1027pm,
I share your frustration. I do think today was the last straw, and the First Minister should no longer take such a diplomatic approach to Westminster. They have shown zero respect for her today, so she should do likewise. All theresa May did was waste the First Minister’s time today, and showed zero respect.
Of course let’s not forget, the vote in Parliament tomorrow, means that things move forward. If as expected, a section 30 is refused, then the SNP should merely proceed as planned with a referendum.
It really is time to stop playing ball with Westminster, even to the point of removing our MP’s, and ending the union and calling an election. It really is now getting to that point.
Beeb gimps put so much work into telling us how unpopular Merkel is, all because of her terrible refugee decisions and taking in a million Syrians, real world.
link to thelocal.de
No doubt all to be discussed on BBC vote tory Ligger Neil show tomorrow.
I love it when neo fascists make the the world a better place, trying to cause as much harm as possible, like bringing the EU closer together.
To see David Davis, on QT, chortling with Dimbleby about his ‘Yes Minister’ anecdote tells us all we need to know about the attitude of these Tory bastards.
The only sure thing about ‘Brexit’, so far as they’re concerned, is that they’ll emerge more powerful – no other ‘detail’ is important.
@dave mcEwan I don’t mean in terms of support if that is what you think, I am referring to the management of the political maneuvering, combating a pro union media, in fact everything since Nicola said we were going for another referendum, that day I punched the air, since then I just feel the upper hand has been with the Tories in both England and Scotland. I hope I am wrong. However, there was no grand plan last time regardless of how well we done and how hard we tried. Not absolute rubbish, just another opinion in the mix.
@robert I wait and hope for the tide as I perceive it to turn. But as the EU won’t start to consider things until April it’ll be more than a 12hour thumb twiddle. Hopefully events will go in our favour, in that more will be convinced a new referendum is needed and pressure will build for an agreement to be made.
OT…but not sorry !
Robert Peffers….
Not my business and you needn’t answer (of course you needn’t)
But as my Constutional go to guy, I do care,so!!!
Are you keeping ok Robert?
While you have always been tenacious,you were never usally short with anyone….Even to those who would try your patience,and you shamelessly used to get your point across you normally were polite towards.
I have disagreed with you a few times and have always found you very civil to me so please don’t think I am having a go.
It’s just you seemed a bit more nippy this last wee while and it’s so not like you…..It has made me wonder?
So I hope you don’t mind my asking….X
Robert Peffers says:
27 March, 2017 at 7:40 pm
@Thepnr says: 27 March, 2017 at 5:06 pm:
“O/T I want to mention disruption to threads and why it’s bad.
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peffers
Oh! For the Heaven’s sake stop being so bloody stupid.Secondly you probably wouldn’t recognise a real Troll if it was chewing on your ear.
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innovative and quality, well thought out comments bob
btw I like trolls, they generate debate, thats why i prefer btl sections on national newspapers. cut and thrust etc, without them, wos degenerates in to an echo chamber and ends up sounding like the fucking waltons.
Ian brotherhood.
As I mentioned above, Wings has been infiltrated by Establishment plants.
They are quite easy to identify. just follow the troll replies.
You will probably find that the Troll, with his many names, is replying to himself.
After seeing a wide shot of the room that May & Sturgeon met in. It’s clear, May was just doing a recce for an ‘arena’ that is more apt for next years Tory party conference. She has been assured, by her broadcasting corp, with the right camera angles it will look like a full Hydro.
Theresa May’s speech, to civil servants in East Kilbride, came ahead of a meeting with Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon.
Relations between the two women are such that only a stills camera was allowed inside and there was no joint news conference to follow. (Ch4)
Nice one, Nicola. Ater her shenanigans, she deserves a slap on the kisser.
Our clever girl:
For those folk who might be thinking or indeed hoping that Theresa May and her little band of Tory rascals has somehow got the upper hand
Just wait until she goes to the EU to start negotiations and opens her mouth to utter the word Scotland in any deal then we’ll see who gets the Daily Mail slapped down treatment
2014 was a long time ago and a whole lot has changed in Europe and the biggest of those changes in relation to Brexit will be that Theresa May doesn’t speak for Scotland and she’ll be told that very thing because the EU knows well that the next referendum can’t be set aside by Theresa May therefore she has no say on the position of any Scottish part of any deal with the EU which could be reversed by Scottish Independence
I’ll be polite in suggesting the little Brexit rascals are going to be a tad upset and no doubt will convey their wee hurt emotions to the National British Tory press who will blame Nicola Sturgeon almost as much as they blamed the legal profession for daring to uphold the law
I’m fully expecting the full range of adjectives insults and ("Tractor" - Ed)ous death threats from the Mail the Express and the Telegraph with full colour cartoons and retouched photos in voluminous quantities to rile up the English, Whoops! I mean British, or whatever is the most patriotic sounding Klaxon of hate employed
It may be us who have to put up border controls to guard against angry faced BrexiKips with pitchforks and firebrands for us Scottish Frankenstein Monster folks
Burn the witch, I can see it all now!
@caz-m –
Aye, noted.
Because you took some time out from here, you can probably detect changes that the rest of us goldfish in the bowl can’t see. In any event, it’s heartbreaking to see fellow travellers squaring-up when it’s all utterly avoidable, and nothing to do with the real mischief-makers.
Aye, a lot of us are getting tetchy, and after seeing how T May behaved today, few could blame us. The real ‘trolls’ are the WM Tories – they’re goading, traducing, ignoring us with MSM support, and hoping for a reaction. Instead, they get properly diplomatic responses from a SG which is showing them up for the principle-free charlatans they are.
Yes We Can
Back in 2013 I went looking for inspiration, mostly for, or to make up witty songs… (at least I think they’re witty). Because its in such ways the Scots have always managed to get paukie wee political messages out, cutting through the ‘establishment’ media.
So, I read up (a bit… on the internet… cause I was busy) about Ghandi. And he said some stuff, which worked hand in hand with what my family were coaching… that every Yesser is an Ambassador for Independence. And it went like this.
You don’t walk through my head with dirty feet.
No-one can hurt me, without my say.
I think,
I love,
I am.
I’ve returned to this time and again, not with the uninformed, or even those who passionately believe in the Union. But those who ‘play’, and denigrate a fundamental human right – that of democracy.
And do you know what? They really can’t hurt me, ‘without my say’… especially now we have so many of the facts to hand.
So there! And on a lighter note O/T I see that someone on the Rev’s Twitter has issues getting fake £1 coins to work in vending machines.
What to do is run them under water and while still wet, sort of ping or flick them into the machine. This method works for me.
And even more out there… as an insurance policy in case of a No vote in 2014… I bought shares in Hurricane, Fantastic:) Us blood and soil Nats eh? Never doing our homework;) What are we like.
And one last thing about todays big meetings. TM met with Police Scotland about ‘terrorism’. The Scottish Gvt needs to produce bonifide information to all the Scottish Police regarding Sovereignty in Scotland in case of trouble – given that crime is a devolved issue and always has been. It cannot be left to the cops on the ground and their managers to ‘discuss’ it on the day of a riot, since the current 50/50 divide is just as likely within Police Scotland as in any other group. That was the one meeting of the day that worried me.
Best wishes to all, even the Trolls… you must be sooo scared just now.
And as always, one bit of decency at a time.
The Daily Telegraph’s take on today’s meeting between the First Minister and Prime Minister
link to archive.is
At some point May et al are going to have to accept that they can’t have Brexit and retain their Union. The sooner that happens, the sooner we all get on with making the future we choose.
Seems obvious and inevitable, so why all this fuss between now and that point of acceptance?
@ manandboy – I’m sure you’re right. I believe TM will go down in history as the PM who broke the UK, bodged up brexit and got booted out. Is DC holding his cards close to his chest, do you think?
Daisy Walker says:
27 March, 2017 at 11:43 pm
Yes We Can
It can be tough though, this Brexit shit, I got the hots for a stunning Pole and just the idea that she might get booted out of Scotland, is way beyond anything being British was ever meant to be. This is what our forefathers fought WW2 for, for feck sake.
And finally, neo fascism looks like taking another boot in the chugs, no matter what massed ranks of tory beeb gimps in Pacific Quay try on,
link to washingtonpost.com
Like many, I have been reading Wings daily for years. I love it. But I am not precious about it. It is a strong environment that can easily cope with the attentions of those who are comfortable with traumatising, maiming and killing bairns in the middle east – and anywhere else that an unscrupulous profit can be made.
From day one I have had my own thoughts on who are trolls. Ultimately I concluded that they are a complete irrelevance. I scroll past the obvious and totally boring ones when I see their names. The subtle ones get a wee bit of attention while they are interesting and then ignored.
To me the point above about The Waltons is spot on. Let’s just have more people contribute in whatever way they choose. We have good people on here who call out sexism, racism and all other crap as soon as it is printed and that is great but we don’t need to waste our time stamping out all trolling.
Not 100% convinced trade isn’t meant to be included in the negotiations triggered by the A50 notification. Obviously any agreement might be impossible to finalise whilst indyref2 is lurking in the background. The fact that some on the EU side are going to be transparent about any discussion should make it harder for Scotland to be sold up the river. It’d also make it near impossible for May to guarantee Scotland wouldn’t be in a position to walk away from the UK and void any arrangement between the UK and the EU without explaining which measures would be used to ensure that.
Headtracker at 12:07 am
Yes, it is and it can and it will be… bloody tough. But we’re Scottish, we don’t do easy, ever.
I thought Mrs May looked very tense today, all that grooming and so little raw talent. Cameron, for all I disagree with his ideology, was at least a pro, (one who lost the last bet admittedly).
I suspect the knives are being sharpened up for Mrs May by her own, behind the scenes, backers. My guess is they will pull a vote of no confidence/general election on her and oust her that way.
They could just about afford to loose access to the single market, but they really cannot afford to loose Scotland’s assets at the same time- we bankroll the whole ship, and they know it.
Night night to all.
It is impossible for the Scottish Government to call the shots in the s…storm that is the UK today. All it can do is be as smart as it can be and it is being pretty successful at that. The FM is playing a binder – watched by the other nations of Europe. She won’t be rushing onto the sucker punch, she will continue to work for a points victory.
I have no idea what May’s objectives were today but I reckon the most likely effect of her actions was to be the final straw in convincing just a few more Scots that self-government is the proper way forward.
Who amongst us would have believed a few short years ago that at least half of Scotland would now be determined to achieve independence?
We are winning.
I agree Theresa May looked dreadful today, White as a sheet. Stress is telling on her.
Lumilumi
Another good post. I am a big Finnophile. Always amazed at the depth of understanding the Finns have of how things really are. Almost every one you engage in serious conversation there has that depth.
Scots are well informed too, compared to the rUK anyway, but with Finns it seems to be more or less universal.
Of course, I may be seeing a biased sample from my son’s circle of friends.
Another triumph of the Finnish education system or their history?
Anyway, off to Helsinki and Turku again next week.
Socrates
Here is another POW story of guy who came back.Apparently some local lassies found out he had never seen moving pictures so they smuggled him out of the camp using their brothers school uniform and took him to Comrie.
He asked that the money be used for the old folk
Former German PoW leaves £384,000 to Scottish village in will
Heinrich Steinmeyer wanted to thank village of Comrie for its kindness ‘when he was at the lowest point of his life’
I spent many weekends in that same camp Cultybraggan when I was in the cadets I guarantee there were no changes from the 1940s to the 1960s
Precious Scotland ‘now is not the time to be talking about a second independence referendum’.
Quite. Now is exactly the time to be organising a second independence referendum- the time for talking about it passed some time ago.
Agree with Thepnr re trolls although I did make a rare reference to one, albeit in third party mode, myself but only to point out a blatant error in its logical cohesion.
Daisy Walker @ 12.25
Agree. But if we have GE then SNP conference in October has to pass a motion that a majority of SNP MPs from Scotland constitutes a mandate for Scottish Independence.
Nobody in my branch, or at the conference, has come up with that, so far.
I reckon SNP members have to bring it up at Branch meetings and have it referred to Conference for a debate and a vote.
I will be doing this at my next branch meeting which is in May.
It was always the case in the 70s that a majority of SNP MPs constituted a mandate for independence, which was only changed at conference c2002.
Time to change the rules.
By now many of you will have seen the frankly ridiculous BBC video of May being rushed to safety last week. You might also remember the BBC reassuring us that she was safe. Something I found I couldn’t give a fuck about.
Perhaps polling since then has shown a remarkable dip in her popularity. She cut and run risking the lives of those with her due to the shear stupidity of doing so when it was far from certain that the attack already in place wasn’t a decoy to lure the security around Westminster out of position. Nor did she appear on TV to reassure her people. All we got was members of the public and a police officer are dead but May has escaped unscathed having abandoned her post. Rejoice in that knowledge.
This troll shit is tedious, pnr. The folks who think that someone with a different opinion than them is a troll, are pathetic. And Peffers, you ARE rude, but you’re also extremely interesting.
Anyone who mentions the ‘trolls’ again fucking name who you’re referring to. I’ve seen this exact same behavior on another blog I posted btl on years ago – which although wasn’t primarily concerned with religion or race – was obsessed with the growing anti-semitism in the UK; and the place was teeming with Hasbara assets who would call anyone who questioned Israel’s actions in Gaza a troll. IT WAS HILARIOUS. Then it was mind-breaking.
That’s what this place is reminding me of.
Peace.
link to caltonjock.com
orri @1.00am.
Agree. TM is a total shambles as PM as is her government re the EU. English arrogance is at the fore with EU negotiations. Europe will not take kindly to that and will favour Scotland and NI as they have intimated.
We will have our Scotref despite the UK government and we will win it – for the people of Scotland and all of Europe who will support us in that.
Remember when, within minutes of Nicola declaring the intention to hold a referendum, Sky news decreed Scotland would be OUT of NATO ?
I just read this article and thought…GOOD!!
link to drive.google.com
Cancel that last link…wtf happened there i do not know !!
Supposed to link to an Al Jazeera article on Nato countries blanking a UN summit to ban nukes.
Was TM just looking for a soundbite?
“The Prime Minister traveled all the way to Scotland for discussions with the First minister prior triggering Brexit”
Legerwood @ 11.52 pm
Thank you for that archived link to DT article on May’s jolly to Glasgow. Wow they know how to get my blood pressure rising. What a pleasant attitude they have to Scotland.
As usual, un-named sources ,ie nobody, supplied them with insider information on the talks that took place.
Can see how panicked they are that Nicola Sturgeon emphasised that she sought clarity from May that the detail of the Brexit negotiations would be clear within 18 to 24 months.
And therefore, as planned, that would give the people of Scotland a good enough idea of what lies ahead to make an informed decision when they go to vote for Scotland’s Independence within our First Minister’s proposed timetable.
Before it is too late for Scotland to defend itself from Westminster’s plans.
Silly old May just went and got herself out-manouvered again =)
May came for a sound bite and has gone away with another headache = )
Well that’s embarrassing – link to postimg.org
Links
link to indyref2.scot
link to grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com
Scotland on the Sidelines once Brexit is Triggered?
link to scer.scot
link to ericjoyce.co.uk
James Butler is joined by Dawn Foster and Pat Kane to discuss the forthcoming Scottish Independence Referendum
link to novaramedia.com
link to itisintruthnotforglory.wordpress.com
Scottish Government to cover the loss of housing benefit for 18-21 year olds
link to insidehousing.co.uk
link to athousandflowers.net
link to politicalscrapbook.net
Article 50 negotiations: Implications of ‘no deal’
link to publications.parliament.uk
link to bloomberg.com
link to thecanary.co
I wouldn’t get ideas above our station just yet.
An LBC listener contacted the show this morning and suggested that England reimpose direct rule on Scotland.
And you know how public opinion shapes policy in England lol.
link to ukconstitutionallaw.org
link to thecanary.co
Royal Navy new aircraft carriers cannot stop Russia’s new hypersonic Zircon missiles
link to archive.is
link to thewallwillfall.org
Nana: Good Morning,
Very foggy this morning Nana, but I’ll still see your links. I’ve got fog lights. Thank you.Kettle’s on!
🙂
Peace Always
I keep hearing this “What will you call your currency” jibe on TV.
Why don’t we tell them straight that if we are equal partners in the UK, then obviously the £ is ours to use as we wish, just Like Ireland Did, Australia, Gibraltar, Egypt, and Syria.
As the £ is in such an appalling state, we might be more likely to attach to a currency that isn’t falling like a stone, one that doesn’t have £1.75 Trillion of debt around its neck.
The brexiters seem to assume the Germans, French, Italians, Dutch, Belgian, Danes , Irish , Swedes etcetera have no plans to deal with RUK.
Honestly, the rukkers are in for a rude awakening in their arrogance.
@Smallaxe
Good morning. Cloudy here right now, hopegully brighten up later.
Another scandal brewing.
link to lbc.co.uk
link to zelo-street.blogspot.co.uk
Natalie Rowe has a tape recording
link to twitter.com
O/T Listened to the first hour of R4 Today program this morning. Good place to suss out what Tory/Brexiteer policy is.
Looks like major backpeddling on the idea of walking out with no deal.
Forgot to add this one to my post at 8.01am
link to inforrm.wordpress.com
Teresa May comes up to Scotland and makes a fool of herself. Par for the course. Creeping around in some sub station. Making Civil servants clap. What an ignorant, incomotent. A ‘successful union’. May has a short memory. Westminster illegal wars, banking fraud and tax evading. Starving, maiming and killing millions of innocent vulnerable people to death. Ruining the world economy. Getting into £Trns of debt.
May must have a selective memory. The same as that crook Thatcher who took all Scotland’s Oil revenues, secretly and lied. Caused untold hardship in the society and crashed the economy. She must know that the majority in Scotland detest the Tory/Unionists. They are so unpopular.
So May tries to arrange some stand alone visit that just looks and becomes ridiculous. She creeps up for ‘security’ because so many folk are out to get her. Lands at a Cop shop where their are plenty of weapons to protect her. Gives a talk to bemused Officers and civil servants. To which no one knows the relevance of her appearance. Looking and sounding more and more ridiculous. She did not want to have a Press Conference and answer questions because she is scared of being found out. That Brexit is a shambles.
The Tories are once again going to illegally crash the economy. People are now so worried they can’t sleep. People who can’t sleep get sick, ill and anxious This puts up the NHS bill. Half the population are on depressants. Then there is a need for more mental health funding and provision. Drinking too much and becoming depressed. All because of Westminster intransigence and their poor, illegal decision making. Telling lies, and spying on the population while destroying the world economy. Then blaming everyone else for their malicious stupidity. They are clueless.criminals.
The latest nonsense ‘ Brexit is not about immigration’. The next con for the public. Brexit was about a Tory fight, rats in a sack about who would be PM. The poison chalice. After an illegal election. The Tories committed electoral in 31 Constituencies. That still have to be resolved. People are supposed to be put in prison for electoral fraud, false declaration and signing off false accounts. The Tories should never have been declared the winners, with only a 13 majority.
Got in a Tory campaign leaflet. It is going right back as junk mail. It is incredible to have Council elections. In a farce of a system which many folk do not understand. Where folk have to vote for candidates/Parties whom the voter can’t stand. In order that the candidate/Party that they do want can get in. It is beyond farcical. That folk have to rank candidates in order that they detest. While first and second voter preferences are thrown in the bucket. What a joke and travesty of Democracy. People don’t even understand the system. They will end up putting through candidate/Parties they can’t stand and devaluing their vote. What a farce. No wonder folk don’t vote and are turned off the electoral system.
A Bishop has refused a Palestinian group, a meeting place in a church, because someone made a complaint. How uncharitable. Jesus is reported to have said, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me’, but if they are a Palestinian and been brutalised and throw off their own land. Criminalised, brutalised and criticised in order to illegal house building. Israel an apartheid State getting away with murder. Breaking International Law on far too many occasions. The Churches have been scandalised by, ‘ suffer the little children to come unto me’. All kind of other connotation. Without any apology. Just like the BBC and Westminster Parliament. The Churches should be speaking out about the need for charity in a land of plenty. They don’t because they are afraid of criticism. They do not support the righteous but are sticking to the status quo. For safety, honours and Westminster patronism. They will not take a risk but play it safe.
The Westminster Tory ignoramuses are now threatening Russia on their borders. Trying to create a diversion to distract from from their total Brexit muck up. Destroying the world economy. Spending £Billions on redundant weaponry and Trident. Hinkley Point, HS2 and Heathrow all illegal under EU rules and a total waste of public money, which could be better spent. There are less harmful, less expensive more credible alternatives.
Theresa May’s visit to Scotland yesterday was was bizarre but very interesting and well worth closer scrutiny, not least because the purpose of her trip had nothing to do with meeting the First Minister, as the Unionist media had led everyone to believe in the days beforehand. Yesterday, May had a plan, but Nicola wasn’t in it.
The purpose of the visit lay in the least publicised part of it – the meeting with Police Scotland. It was reported that the Prime minister discussed issues of security arising from the incident near Westminster recently. But this just doesn’t stand up. No one and no place in Scotland is a target for Islamic fundamentalism. Everyone here in Scotland knows that. No, Mrs May was talking to Police Scotland about something else. About something to come.
On the bizarre side, the Prime minister avoided the First Minister’s home territory of Holyrood and headed instead for the metropolis of East Kilbride and the safe haven of the Overseas Development building. There, her visit coincided with a visit by a camera crew from the BBC.
Giving a speech to camera and a carefully vetted audience, Mrs May said something, the like of which she has become famous for. She said that the UK was known for being kind and generous.
Not only did she say that, she said it as if she really believed it, the same way she says all the other unfounded statements she makes. We now know this about the Prime minister – she appears to believe her own spin doctors are telling her the truth. She believes her own lies to be true.
The meeting with the First Minister in the Crowne Plaza hotel in Glasgow, near the Squinty Bridge, and directly across the Clyde from BBC Scotland Pacific Quay. This meeting occurred after the offer of a government building was rejected by the Prime Minister. Protocol abandoned completely by Mrs May. We’ll meet in a hotel, a move designed, like much else on this trip, to humiliate Nicola. In the photo call which later took place – still cameras only – Nicola’s face told the whole story while Theresa May looked as if she was a thousand miles away.
Conclusion: We have a double-act – Trump & May.
@ fireproofjim 4:54pm 27/03
“99% rock” Think what we could do with all that rock! Er…
Halleluia we have a second chance to emulate Norway.
We vote for independence and this time start an oil fund.
Mr Gray quess where we will get the money from?The tax regime need not be higher that at present but it will go to the Scottish Treasury.
BTW having experienced the day job in Health Education and Policing Scotland is doing better than England and Wales but you will not read that on. the front page of the Daily Mail
The Russians won’t put up with being menaced on their own border. They will retaliate. They still have recent melancholy memories of war. 26 Million Russians died in the 11WW saving the West but devastation the Russian economy. Poland was handed over to Russian dominance at the Yalta settlement by Britain and the US. Churchill and Roosevelt. That is why so many Polish people come to the UK to work and stay, They should be welcome. Smart, enterprising hardworking people. The Wetminster Gov was Party to ruining their economy.
@ Manandboy
There will be more of these summoned meetings in the next year Nicola should be playing hardball now, & dispense with the Political conventions . Its all a ploy to show our FM up as subservient to the will of Westminster.
The next two years will determine what kind of country Scotland will be – so Scotland must have the final choice on our future
Alex salmond on bbcqt
link to twitter.com
Largest discovery’ of oil off Scottish coast could raise chances of independence
link to rt.com
Brexit: UK backing away from threat to leave with no deal, say EU diplomats
link to archive.is
Trump and May do not have a ‘special relationship’. That went out with Brexit. Lost in translation. The EU should give the US/UK Gov a bill for the ex ‘special relationship’. The EU having to bail out the illegal war mess of the UK/US which is costing €Trns. The disasterous UK/US illegal Foreign/Defences policies. Causing mayhem in the world and desroying the economy.
That’s yer Lady Mone being trundled out now, on tv
So they’re either really, really confident that we dont give a feck or its batshit panic all round from GB central office.
Sarah Smith (BBC) was on Today (Radio4) this morning saying that the Scottish Government had ruled out holding a referendum without Westminster agreement.
I cannot find a source for that and am wondering if I have missed an announcement or something.
Anyone know ?
@ Manandboy
Just who exactly did may meet at Govan? Was this anymore than a slight to Nicola, her constituency. Shocking bad manners and arrogance, certainly, would May actually exclude Nicola, from a briefing meeting. Was the oo involved?
Nana says:
Presumably, we must have ScotRef before the Great Appeal Bill sweeps aside our EU laws!
Another consideration to build into the timetable.
Regarding timetables, Nicola seems content that May intimated that negotiations will be complete in 18months. Then we hear denials from London, that was said/agreed. I suspect what happened is Nicola asked about timescale with ScotRef in mind, and May replied without even considering ScotRef unaware of the implications of what she was saying. May really does come across as not the sharpest.
Almost spookily, I posted this elsewhere on PM May’s visit yesterday morning:
“In case anyone is in any doubt, PM May is not coming to Scotland to offer any deals. That’s how the media will spin her visit of course, but the reality is far, far different.
Theresa May is coming to Scotland to threaten. She is coming to Scotland as a PR exercise for the right wing press and she is coming to Scotland to delay and obfuscate. That’s pretty much it. She already knows that in Scotland, she and her party are about as popular as a fart in lift. She’s not coming to win hearts and minds. She’s not coming to save her precious, precioussss union through use of her winning smile and warm, fuzzy, compassionate tory nature.
She is visiting in order to do harm to our democracy end of.”
And that’s exactly what happened.
There was never going to be ANY deal on offer. There was never going to be an olive branch to either the Scottish electorate or the Scottish Government.
Yesterday was a calculated insult and PR exercise rolled into one. All you need do is see under the refusal to answer any press questions, attend meetings in official government residences, or follow today’s right wing meeja headlines. Yesterday was about putting uppity Jocks in their place.
As for the Mail’s front page? Sexist doesn’t really begin to scratch the surface of that shambles. Mind you, if read the Heil to inform your world view, then you really, REALLY have earned your Brexit and ALL that goes with it.
So, anyone really feel like getting back into their box after yesterday?
I sometimes listen to Nick Ferrari’s morning show on LBC, though these days more for entertainment value than for information. It’s easy to understand when listening to this tripe how Goebbels succeeded in convincing so many German people that invading the rest of Europe was a good thing.
According to our Nick, The SNP have been a disaster running Scotland. Our education system is a disaster, likewise our health service, and nobody wants a referendum. “Independence…the SNP have already proved that they couldn’t run a whelk stall” says he.
Theresa May’s visit to Scotland was largely a cosmetic exercise for the media, as listening to Nick Ferrari this morning proves. Much sympathy for her “reaching out” to Nicola Sturgeon only to receive a frosty reception.
Of course he had “experts” to back up everything he said.
Heavy (+) hints from Russell that ministers in Edinburgh have something up their sleeves
link to twitter.com
DEBATE – David Jamieson vs Jon Proctor
link to youtube.com
manandboy @ 8.25 am
Interesting thoughts.
May’s visit to the Police station to announce a sort of wars games and to civil servants probably normaly ignored is odd.
(Anyroad,Dismay might believe her spiners, but I doubt many folk in her audience did.)
So what was she really up to? Time will tell.
A good soundbite from talking at our First Minster and a photo with no Saltire in sight, would have been useful to take home. Perhaps an attempt to claim that she is keeping Scotland in the picture.
But on that at least, poor May failed dismally.
It appears she was blissfully unaware she had been out-manouvered AGAIN until the Telegraph grasped the significance of what she had let slip = )
No rational reason Scotland can’t have it’s Referendum in 18 month’s time!
manandboy
T May and Police Scotland: she can’t have secret talks with PS, the SG would know what was discussed.
Well, May came and went, a PR event only. Of course she managed to insult our First Minister and by definition all the Scots who voted for her.
In May we have yet another evil Tory woman, one who will only discuss her own dubious Tory agenda, at the expense of Scotland and the other devolved powers.
Yes this was a PR exercise, one that Tory HQ thought it would be advantageous to make, otherwise she would never have come.
Speaking only to a captured audience, recorded and cut as required by the ever devious BBC.
I do not think Theresa will get any reward for what she did yesterday, not from our government, nor our people.
It simply showed, as if we needed showing, her total disrespect for Scotland.
She repeated ad nausium that ” this is not the time”, well it certainly is not a suitable time for the Tories, the want to use Scotland’s assets when negotiating any deal with the EU.Of course nothing should get in the way of that. We will, again, be sold down the Thames.
It will of course be an Westminster deal, resulting in some way or other to benefit England, of that you can be sure.
Scotland will have no input, what we have, will be bartered by what is essentially an English Government.
What country would allow this?
Time for Scotland to raise it’s ire and put a stop to this unacceptable, and far far from a democratic situation. We should be angry, really angry, and much more vocal in showing them up for what they really are, parasites in disguise.
I forgot say that Direct Rule for Scotland was mentioned this morning, though I can’t remember who said it. That might sound far fetched, but if you understand that the picture being painted is one of total incompetence by the SG, it would probably be acceptable to the English people.
Anagach says:
Sarah Smith (BBC) was on Today (Radio4) this morning saying that the Scottish Government had ruled out holding a referendum without Westminster agreement.
I cannot find a source for that and am wondering if I have missed an announcement or something.
Anyone know ?
—————————-
I saw an article a few days ago saying a sg minister had confirmed
the sg would not hold an indyref2 without a section 30 for fear the unionists would boycott it.
i mentioned this in a previous post, replying to robert peffers, but since then I have been unable to find the article again
I wonder if Theresa May came to Scotland hoping for an acrimonious and pugnacious Nicolas Sturgeon so she could quote Nicola’s fightin’ talk as evidence before triggering Article 50 that Scotland couldn’t be reasoned with.
Instead she got a steadfast reply, but mixed with sincere aspirations for the Brexit negotiations to go well from a real statesman. That quote from Kuenssberg makes more sense if she was briefed to expect Scotland being “difficult”.
I’m not sure that’s right, but whatever May did want, I don’t think she got it, and Kuenssberg is being pushed for her curious “source”.
schrodingers cat says: things and details
Thanks.
O/T but note the difference
BBC headline. Hurricane makes ‘largest undeveloped’ oil find in UK waters
RT headline ‘Largest discovery’ of oil off Scottish coast could raise chances of independence
link to on.rt.com
Ah, the ever on-the-ball DM!!
link to community.screwfix.com
@Nana
That Canary piece doesn’t go far enough Nana. That enactment of the ‘Henry VIII powers’ the use of the GRB is a precedent, not a one time only deal.
She’ll be handing Government Ministers and future Prime Minister those powers from that day forward. Unaccountable and with either the lightest or no scrutiny at all, legislation which affects the fundamental rights of every soul under that parliament’s reach.
The peoples of the UK have no written constitution limiting the powers of parliament to protect them from political excesses.
They have no idea what they’ve done.
Teresa May just looks and sounds more and more ridiculous. Doubt if she will stay very long. Within two years she could be gone. Another even ‘worse’ replacement. Especially if she loses the Union. The Tory Brexit is a mess. Especially when the majority in the UK want to stay in the EU. Immpossible. England/Wales will get a worse deal then they have now. Hopefully Scotland will be away. Independent in the EU With increased trading, more investment and Grants. Full employment and investment in an Oil Fund. Poverty eradicated. Trident gone. Happy healthy people in contentment, who sleep well. Unlimited. Opportunities for the future.
If Nicola, Alex and co do not go down the legal route. They could be put in prison. Tried fior treason because folk voted NO to Indyref1 Privy counsel binding rules. Take a vow. To hold the status quo. If there is no Indy vote supported by 50%+ of the electorate. They have to obey the political rules. That is why they can only speak with limited action and co operation for change on broadcasting and other non devolved matters. Cameron broke the vow. He is gone,
If they declared UDI things could become really complicated about having an legitimated mandate. It could be called illegal under International Law. The Law that gives a right to a Referendum every time people in Scotland vote for it. Or just grow away completely. Until Independence is achieved, it is the status quo. Lots can change in a short time politically. A GE soon could give the SNP a balance of power in Westminster. That should liven things up and change things very quickly for Independence.
Once again, Theresa May displays muddle-headed thinking by her obvious confusion regarding the use of the word “NATION.”
“When this great union of nations – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – sets its mind on something, and works together with determination, we are an unstoppable force. That’s why the plan for Britain I’ve set out (a plan to get the right deal for Britain abroad as well as well as a better deal for ordinary working people at home) has at its heart one over-arching goal: to build a more united nation.”
In one sentence, Scotland is a nation. In her very next sentence Britain is a nation. It’s as daft as suggesting to the Danes and the Swedes that Scandinavia is a nation.
Tweet by BBC’s Nick Eardley…
“Heavy (+) hints from Russell that ministers in Edinburgh have something up their sleeves”
Aye Nick, it’s called Scottish Sovereignty.
Pacific Quay frauds bury new big NOT Scots oil finds, Europe news via USA,
link to nbcnews.com
@Macart
I have previously posted articles relating to these powers.The following were in my archives. I’m sure there was a really good easy to understand article written by a constitutional lawyer, but I can’t find it right now.
link to blogs.lse.ac.uk
link to publiclawproject.org.uk
link to publiclawforeveryone.com
@Nana
Thanks Nana.
The LSE piece pretty much confirms what I understood of the concept.
Wales changing? No Welsh MP’ on Question Time last night, just a Murdoch roaster, and a UKIPer with no mp’s.
link to blogs.lse.ac.uk
“As previously discussed, the major stumbling block for Welsh Independence is the absence of an indigenous media. ‘Traditional’ media platforms such as the print media and the BBC are still British in nature and staunchly Unionist.”
Heedtracker 10:12
Question Time.
Why did the BBC sell the Question time franchise to UKIP? Will they also sell top gear to the conservatives and the great british bake off to the liberals, Greens will get gardeners world and Planet earth.
Bet we get all the top of the pops cut outs they can’t show on tv now the presenters are all in jail.
What would be great would be if the Yoons would just say when a good time would be for them.
@Dr Jim says:
27 March, 2017 at 11:37 pm
I’m fully expecting the full range of adjectives insults and (“Tractor” – Ed)ous death threats from the Mail the Express and the Telegraph with full colour cartoons and retouched photos in voluminous quantities to rile up the English, Whoops! I mean British, or whatever is the most patriotic sounding Klaxon of hate employed
========================
All to the good if we can make as many current NO folks aware of it all. I’ve thought for a while that various ways (leaflets, for instance) of making NO folk aware of the BTL comments in English newspapers about us whinging jocks who should get back in our box would go a long way to converting them to YES.
Switching the topic here, but I’m trying to find evidence that Scotland’s education system is “no longer world class” etc.
I ask this because yesterday I went to a meeting at my local primary school where we were told all about the Language 1+2 initiative to get primary school children exposure and use of two languages in addition to english (that’s the one language). This actually started in Nursery for my two who are in P1 now…. by the time they get to P5 they will have had 5 years of using French in school and in P5 they will start having using German as well.
When I was in school years ago, we barely learned a single word of French in primary except for a school project type nonsense. Yet now my council run primary school linked in with the secondary school is promoting and pushing children to learn two additional languages before they even get to highschool.
How is that work not being world class? Well perhaps not world class as I’m sure the european schools are far further down that path than us – but compared to when everyone talked about Scotland having a World Class Education system say 30-35 years ago it is now light years ahead!
So I can’t understand how suddenly things are great and we are no longer any good. I understand teacher numbers are down etc but that can’t be the reason surely? What am I missing with rising results year on year – initiatives in primary to learn two languages etc…. my experiences just do not come close to claim our education is failing? I know it’s a soundbite, but what is the basis of that false claim?
The Proctor Lewis says:
28 March, 2017 at 10:18 am
Heedtracker 10:12
Question Time.
Why did the BBC sell the Question time franchise to UKIP?
Why was there a Murdoch zoomer on the panel last night or, as usual? There is always a Murdoch gimp somewhere in the mix, with BBC QT especially, or its a Dacre ghoul.
From Murdoch boot boy Ligger Neil to Melanie Philips is it, future Lady Melanie, never stood for a British election, endlessly savaging election British results, may aswell just have our dear old neo fascist uncle Rupert on all the time.
link to independent.co.uk
Sorry last paragraph should have started “So I can’t understand how suddenly things aren’t great ….”
FYI
Today’s business bulletin
link to bb.parliament.scot
May was up here to try and appease Scotland’s FM with new ‘temporary’ powers. It would have been a ‘without prejudice’ offer thereby preventing the FM from divulging the offer that was made unless, of course, she accepted the offer.
Mayhem: Postpone the Section 30 vote for a year and we’ll give you new temporary powers over x,y & z. Should you vote to remain in the UK we will make those new powers permanent.
FM: Ram it, doll! We’ve heard this mince before. Besides, if we delay the Section 30 vote for a year, Scotland will be out of the EU before we can have a vote to actually remain IN the EU. Not going to happen on my watch. Anything else?
Mayhem: Ermm – no.
FM: The door’s over there. Nice legs by-the-way.
Nana and Macart
Ministers using Henry V111 clause would then be individually and personally responsible for what follows. Henry could do it because he was a king, they would be legally responsible for fallout of their actions.
How on Earth can T May and her merry brexiters go into negotiations when a good chunk of what they planned to bargain away looks very likely not to be their gift to give?
Surely as soon as anything outwith the borders of England and Wales are put on the table the EU will refuse to consider as those very assets could vanish with Scotland’s Independence and Ireland’s Reunification.
The EU’s promise of transparency is another cluster headache awaiting May. Oh dear.
The EU’s promise of transparency is another cluster headache awaiting May. Oh dear.
yup, scottish fishermen can watch real time as treeza sells them down the river
schrodigner’s cat,
I hope and pray that NOW the fishing communities understand what is at stake here.
Ghillie says:
schrodinger’s cat,
I hope and pray that NOW the fishing communities understand what is at stake here.
———————-
as yet they still dont, but they are about to find out. when they do, we must be ready to point out what the massive benefits that a scotland with EFTA/EEA membership would be for them, ie not being part of the CFP and cutting a deal with norway to block EU and rUK fishing fleets from scottish fishing grounds
Doug @ 10.25 am
Teacher numbers.
There are vacancies but there are more teachers getting jobs
and more training places.
This from yesterday’s National for example
link to archive.is
Brian Powell @ 10.40am
Not if they make a Law sayin that they are no going to be held Legally responsible.
Westminster holds for it’s self the right to MAKE or UNMAKE ….ANY..Law.
That, for them is the whole point of Parliament’s Soverenty.
That’s why they don’t want,and, portray negatively a written Constution which would frame their power’s.
Although they seem to be ignoring (hopefully to their cost) the warnings of Dicey about over stepping the mark when exercising that power.
But that will depend on the English electorate waking up,and Scotland will be long gone by then I think.
Hopefully for the sake of the ordinary people, removing our resources will speed things up!
—-Oh and Dicey….AC Dicey….Is their go to “writings” on how Westminster’s unwritten Constution is ment to work!
But as per,,,they selectively quote him,and cherry pick.
Liz G… Although I think you already know it…
“Parliament means, in the mouth of a lawyer (though the word has often a different sense in conversation) The King, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons: these three bodies acting together may be aptly described as the “King in Parliament”, and constitute Parliament. The principle of Parliamentary sovereignty means neither more nor less than this, namely that Parliament thus defined has, under the English constitution, the right to make or unmake any law whatever: and, further, that no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament”. —?A.V. Dicey Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution (1885)
I would draw your particular attention to the “under the English constitution” bit… predated by Scotland’s Declaration of Arbroath and the popular, (as in of the population), sovereignty which was formally recognised and legitimised for all time by the Pope; Gods eyes and ears on Earth. By all due standards of its day, a thing was done that cannot be undone. By accident or design, the people of Scotland became sovereign for all time, and neither Westminster, Mr Dicey, nor the Supreme Court, nor even ourselves for that matter, can remove that sovereignty from us.
Scotland cannot overrule English sovereignty, but in a Union of equals, nor can English sovereignty overrule Scottish. The whole concept of the United Kingdom presumes these separate sovereignties were joined, but yet it is impossible for the absolute condition of sovereignty enshrined in the people being in any way compatible with the absolute condition of sovereignty enshrined in a Monarch by God. The two sovereignties are mutually exclusive incompatible conditions. Westminster can only function as a UK parliament if Scottish sovereignty is subjugated. That is where Westminster’s parliamentary sovereignty comes unstuck, because it lacks fundamental competence since it has no authority to subjugate Scottish sovereignty.
It’s there, once you see it, you cannot unsee it. Why did the United Kingdom need an Act of Union in the first place if not as an attempt to bind two wholly incompatible sovereignties by signed Treaty? For over 300 years Scotland has been conned into believing the Treaty of Union bound Scotland’s sovereignty to Westminster, but it just isn’t true.
Part of the sinister manipulation involved in the visit to Police Scotland’s anti terrorist centre was to appear to be giving the orders. In other words on paper they might be under Holyrood control but when it comes time to impose a modicum of martial law and intimidate the general populace with machine guns and armoured officers it’ll be Theresa May giving the orders. Kind of like there was an increased armed presence on the run up to the 2014 referendum that Hoyrood had to enquire about on several occasions.
Apparently this will be a join exercise with forces in the North of England. No doubt we’ll get a re-gurgitation in the run up of how we need to remain part of Scotland in order to secure ourselves against the kind of attack that happened last week. In other words whilst England can cry defiance and carry on with politics and other aspects of their day to day lives as usual we in Scotland must allow our desire for independence to be put on the back burner for fear of them.
@ geeo at about 2 am
You might find this interesting:
link to banthebomb.org
Not sure what the visit of T May to Police Scotland signifies. If there is any joint actions it would be through the SG and the Home Secretary.
Breeks @ 1.19
Thanks Breeks, I did indeed know it but, could not have put it so well.
Especially for new readers who haven’t come across it before, I think, it can’t be repeated often enough.
As you say once you see it!
Although… Know all that I am you would think that I would rember that it’s AV Diecy and not AC… Especially if anyone was trying to look him up…OOPs My Bad….
I see David Davis is saying Northern Ireland can get back into the EU but an Independent Scotland can’t.
link to independent.co.uk
Dan Huil says:
27 March, 2017 at 7:13 pm
@Iain More 6:19pm
Try The Howff and McGinty’s both on Union Street.
Ta, I will try them both tonight since I am still in Aberdeen. Got a bit wasted on drink last night and never got beyond the Prince o Wales. Still officially on holiday so that is my excuse.
You got any wings stickers or card to be left around to promote this site
O/T
Doug @ 10.25am
On your query about education: all public services are stretched/challenged but that’s what happens with ‘austerity’ and, given the limited economic and fiscal levers that Scottish governments have had to pull, we suffer consequences.
Given that context, Scotland’s public services and economy are surviving austerity, in my view, remarkably well due to sound, competent SNP government. But its right and normal for parliamentary opposition parties to complain and press for something more/different – that’s how parliamentary democracy works. However, the Unionist opposition in Holyrood and the media are, in my view, going well over the top in criticising Scotland’s public services – as evidence shows e.g. in comparisons with similar services in England.
Specifically, much of the criticism about Scottish school education is well over the top – even if improvements are needed and acknowledged by the Scottish government. (I suspect there always will be need for improvement and in countries everywhere – an ongoing need to ‘treat’ problems, impossible to completely ‘cure’ them?)
Much criticism has been based on the recent score achieved by Scotland in the OECD’s PISA (Programme of International Student Assessment) rankings – one international snap-shot. But you should know that PISA rankings are not universally regarded as valid or useful indicators – see this short international academic statement at link to archive.is
Written in 2014 by a notable array of international experts (see the list at the end of the article), it states in conclusion:
“We assume that OECD’s Pisa experts are motivated by a sincere desire to improve education. But we fail to understand how your organisation has become the global arbiter of the means and ends of education around the world. OECD’s narrow focus on standardised testing risks turning learning into drudgery and killing the joy of learning. As Pisa has led many governments into an international competition for higher test scores, OECD has assumed the power to shape education policy around the world, with no debate about the necessity or limitations of OECD’s goals. We are deeply concerned that measuring a great diversity of educational traditions and cultures using a single, narrow, biased yardstick could, in the end, do irreparable harm to our schools and our students.”
But in the context of those pursuing an SNPbad agenda is this of any concern?
Lovely piece of political history with fun quotes.
Now is not the time for Teresa May to come to Scotland and visit our Police to have them prepare for an incident.
Not Nor is it the time to as I think she did try to ultimatum the First Minister.
Now is the time to prepare for #Scotref and have all our facts ready.
The route to self determination I do not think will be easy, not by the route we might expect.
stewartb @ 8:24pm
Thanks for that. It is as I suspected taking a single source/survey PISA saying how things aren’t as good as they used to be and ignoring all other sources which don’t support that view point of Education being no longer world class.
In my limited experience I would say that currently primary education is light years ahead of where it was when i was a lad. However that is likely because it doesn’t seem to be so focused on learning by rote and instead is about teaching the process of learning which is much more useful as it develops skills rather than relying on memory.
Standardised testing to compare schools or nations against another is always a poor way to determine how well a pupil is doing or how over all education is doing in a nation. Such a shame that in a obsessive world pushing children to achievement based on a test that the process of learning and teaching to have a love of learning going forward is ignored.
To quote Richard Feynman “You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird… So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing — that’s what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.”
I fear that the media and UK Government obsession with testing and results is to push teachers not to teach children to think at all and to focus on “facts” (which can be changed depending on the ruling party).