Wings Over Scotland

Brilliantly done

Just the very thought of stairheid rammy, Dougie Alexander, Fundelymundley Murphy brings me out in cold sweats. Who can forget old George “pie face” Robertsond claim that the UK will save us from an Alien invasion.

Forward to the past.

A pure belter….!

This abomination of an SNP Government needs politically putting down ASAP. It is beyond an omni-shambles, that would be a huge step-up from where we are. They are so incompetent (and so venal as well it seems) that they can and are doing huge damage to Scotland and also the independence movement (this is inevitable sadly).

So we need them out first and foremost. It really does not matter if Labour or the Tories replace them. Let people refresh their memories of what they are like…

A period of opposition is exactly what the doctor orders here. Clean the house, rebuild. It is absolutely unavoidable.

These clowns have a reverse Midas touch. Everything they touch turns to shit. And it will get worse and worse until we get rid of them at the ballot box. Its got to be done. The SNP are the block right now.

A kid in my year at secondary had scurvy, this is the 70’s.
Poor / absent parenting rather than poverty.
Deleterious to cognitive development.
He thought the plural of mouse was meeses, as in “I hate those meeses to pieces”.
Do they even show that cartoon anymore?

And Always Keep Ahold of Nurse, For Fear of Finding Something Worse…
like NorthBrit Labour, the old vampire returning to suck what remains of life from Scottish politics.
Point the weapon at the adversary NOT at your own head.

Robert, the comment did not survive. Despite the brilliant segue (joke) I knew it was at high risk of deletion / moderation as I am well aware it is subject SC does not want on here… but you know when you read something so shocking that you feel compelled to share, almost like it is your duty… I just could not help myself there for a while. Apologies.

We really are living in some wild times right now. Not quite the jet-packs and robot butlers future we imagined (although Musk thinks the robot butlers are just around the corner). If the findings of the Japanese study are correct the implications are devastating. Worst fears and beyond… ah well.

Plymouth Live reported this on 25 Feb 2019.

“Gout, scurvy and rickets are on the rise as hospital admissions for ‘Victorian diseases’ soar.
Almost 300k cases reported in 2017/18 – an increase of a quarter on the previous year.

Cases of rickets alone have rocketed by a third according to NHS Digital data, analysed by the Press Association.

Children under the age of nine were among those admitted to English hospitals for malnutrition and rickets.

Vitamin D is essential for bone health and preventing rickets, and is often called the sunshine vitamin.

The body can get its vitamin D from sunlight and diet, but the UK’s poor weather has prompted experts to say adults and children should take a supplement.

Some 284,901 hospital admissions in 2017/18 were for – a 24% rise on the year before.

The admissions included 101,136 with a main or secondary diagnosis of vitamin D deficiency – 34% more than the 75,708 in 2016/17.

There were an additional 474 admissions in 2017/18 where the main or secondary reason was rickets, up from 445 the year before.”

Johnlm says:
9 September, 2023 at 9:12 am

” Trannies with rickets and Billy Bragg cassettes.
Haud me back. ” . lol .

As if that wasn’t a terrifying enough prospect …. I was reading the other day about polls suggesting the Greens could INCREASE their vote-share in the forthcoming election/s . FFS !! NAW !! Shoot me now .

Of course , this nightmare scenario is ATM putative , if it does come to pass , it will be a supreme irony – the lunatic Greens invited into Government by the Nu SNP Clown Show advance at the expense of their hosts ( the SNP catching ALL the flak for the numerous Greens promoted fuck-ups ) . Well , the parasite , having destroyed one host , will move on to it’s next victim – the Flower Pot Men of New Labour – ” weeeed , little weeeed , flob-a-dob ” . Head Flower Pot Man – that Charmless Man Starmer , Establishment * insider * and worthless shell of man will merely continue the work of turning the UK into the terminally ill Man of Europe . Cannae wait

It’s the weather, innit.

From “Nature”, 2017.

“Impact of Multidecadal Climate Variability on United Kingdom Rickets Rates

Haris Majeed & G. W. K. Moore
Scientific Reports volume 7, Article number: 15764 (2017) Cite this article

Children who receive inadequate exposure to sunlight have reduced levels of vitamin D, resulting in rickets, a disease that is characterized by bone deformity, stunted growth, and long term pronounced disability. The United Kingdom rickets incidence rates declined from the early 1960’s to mid-1990’s, after which there was a dramatic increase. The reason for this change is not well understood. Here we show that an important low frequency mode of climate variability, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), with a period of ~60–80 years, has an impact on rickets incidence rates in the United Kingdom through changes in sea level pressure, cloud cover and sunshine duration. This research highlights the important role that multidecadal climate variability can play in human morbidity and suggests that future changes in the AMO may modulate rickets incidence rates throughout the United Kingdom.”

ROBERT HUGHES

The only sets who believe there is such an entity as «the Science» are politicians out make a name and product pushing pharmaceutical companies and their ancillaries, may also include politicians, out to make mega$$$$$$$$
The shelf life of politicians ought to be a relatively short one, for most are makeweight. The longer they hang around the greater the noxious fug of sanctimony, and worse.

There were 284,901 rat infestations reported in England in 2022 and 24 442 in Scotland.

Scottish Labour and the SNP.

Now those ARE two cheeks of the same arse!

The terrifying thing is that Labour have got worse since the last time they are in. It would be hard to spot them out of a Bedlam lineup from the SNP and the Greens. Or half the Tories for that matter.

Its only the sheer depths the SNP have sunk to that let them in.

As for the Greens gaining ground, is it the gender insanity or the doubling of everybody’s energy bills that is pulling in the punters?

Scientist employed by government funding are hardly likely to be controversial to the direction in which the government wants to take new policies, laws and statutes for want of loosing funding are they.

akenaton says:
9 September, 2023 at 9:44 am

Is there really no one in Scottish politics with the guts to call out these freaks?

Salmond in his prime could have done it. but not now . he’s finished in the political sense due to his attachment to RT and doubts among women of his character. All amplified by media of course.

Are you suggesting it’s only women who are manipulated by the media?

I posted the following on the previous thread. I’ll re-post it here as my gripe with these two posts is the same.

North Chiel says:

I recall spending hours monitoring the “ propaganda channels “ for weeks & months prior to the vote . ( principally scare stories ) which had the desired effect on female voters who voted for the status quo whilst male voters in the “ main” voted Yes .

Ps oh we will lose Coronation st & Eastenders !!
Myself I preferred “ River City” !

Big fan of David Paisley?

I can’t stop thinking about all the misogynistic hate crimes that I’ll report to the police in the event of misogyny becoming a hate crime. 🙂

JAMES CHE
«Science» and academe have a poor score when faced with government whether notionally democratic or totalitarian.
Think Nazi and Soviet «science», book burning and book suppression, along with the authors.

The other sadness in that great cartoon is the fact that those old tenement council flats have of course now been purchased via Right to Buy and sold off by the grandkids for vast profit to be used as Short term lets or student accommodation.

Naebdy gabbing out their windaes anymare!

During the Covid pandemic I read that more dark skinned people died of Covid due to lack of vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency can result in a weaker immune system.

I don’t know if the above is true or not or if it is or isn’t a waste of time taking vitamin pills. I do it anyway and Vitamin D tablets from Boots are pretty cheap and who knows taking the Boots vitamin D tablets might have been as effective wearing a mask.

Do we have any information about who has the rickets?

Could taking puberty blockers result in rickets?

@ TURBADIN

Quite so , mon frère. The intellectual scalpel of Science – more precisely , the open-ended , Scientific Method eg continuous bias-free testing/experiment & debate – has been turned into a blunt instrument serving to bludgeon public opinion/perception into submission whilst serving the ends of nefarious bad actors

@ Mac . I think I can guess the subject your deleted comment referred to – the M.I.C’s latest fabulous wealth generating investment in the East ? Too bad the subject is O/T here , particularly given the 100% MSM propaganda we’re subjected to 24/7 : though I understand Stu’s desire to keep the focus on Scottish affairs . His blog , his rules . Fair enough

@ Robert Louis at 10:56 am

Aye, agree with what you say. So many councils across Scotland seem to have lost the plot on what should be their priorities.
There’s a situation near where I stay where the already poor rural bus service has just got worse for several small communities.
The bus company has put a double decker bus on the route, but it can no longer pass under a railway bridge on one part of the route, so it now bypasses that 4 mile road section leaving those several communities without service.
But get this, the double decker bus could actually fit under the bridge, however because the bus has had to have a tree branch deflector fitted to stop windows getting broken by the low hanging branches of the un-managed trees along the road, it has increased the overall height of the bus a couple of inches to the point it now can’t go under the bridge…
So if the council actually bothered to properly manage the roads by pruning trees properly then these sort of issues would not arise in the first place.

There would also have been a way of alleviating this particular issue if sensible heads had looked at the recent main road improvements on the road the bus now takes, because a couple of bus stops could easily have been incorporated on the dual carriageway main road which runs parallel and close by the original route, and that would have maintained service provision to these affected communities.

Patrick Harvie has posted in The National:

“I joined Scotland’s Energy Secretary, Neil Gray, for the opening of the Greengairs East Wind Farm.”

Greengairs is operated by Muirhall Enery which also runs the appropriately named Crossdykes Wind Farm!

🙂

Then there’s Scurvy!

Bad News
Scurvy is a disease caused by a serious vitamin C deficiency. Not eating enough fruits and vegetables is the main cause of the disease. Left untreated, scurvy can lead to bleeding gums, loosened teeth and bleeding under your skin. Treatment for the condition includes getting plenty of vitamin C in your diet.

Good News
Not only does cider fight against cancers and heart disease but the Vitamin C found in cider helps fight against bacteria; the immune systems best friend. Vitamin C, the immune system booster, is naturally found in many fruits including apples. In case you didn’t know, apples make hard cider.

Ruby @ 11.27

There were reportedly 442 cases of Rickets in 2022 in the Greater Glasgow & North Lanarkshire area.
The tentative suggestions made as to causation included the amount of time children and young persons spend indoors playing computer and video games, the lack of organised outdoor school sports and the lack of healthy nutrition in modern ‘fast and cheap’ type readily available tinned and preprepared foodstuffs.
My personal view re puberty blockers and similar “genderwoowoo” treatments is that the true damage wrought by them has not yet worked through into our next generation of children.
It’s only in relatively recent years that we’ve started carrying out medical and social experiments on our youngsters and I believe the horrific consequences are not yet with us.

Great cartoon, Chris. Says it all.

Cynicus says:
9 September, 2023 at 11:41 am

Imagine Penny Mordaunt as a “windae hinger”. Preferably in her Coronation gear.

Ha! Ha! Ha! Shouting for her children to come in for their tea.

Any thoughts on what her children might be called.

Ah, John Main ToryBot – always deflecting any blame for *anything* away from his beloved London Tory masters.
Here’s an old Scottish favourite;

“TORY SCUM OUT”

Just threw that in to get him/her/it gibbering and flecking his/her/it’s lunch with spittle….

Ha, ha, ha.
To quote the Rev, welcome back Holiday Boy.
The state of Scottish politics, disaster

For the ignorant.

Thatcher’s legacy is neoliberalism.All UK governments (including the SNP) since Thatcher have been neoliberal with the consequent effect of greater levels of inequality and poverty and all the social harms that come with that.

Here are the key elements.

Economic restructuring, markets and privatisation—increased competition; removal of the state from commercial activity, greater openness to international trade and investment, freedom of movement of capital, labour and goods (‘globalisation’).

Limiting public expenditure on social services, including healthcare and education, and infrastructure, with debt reduction the major goal (later called ‘austerity’ policies).

Deregulation and promotion of individual responsibility—limiting government regulation that might inhibit economic activity, despite risks to personal health and safety or the environment; giving priority to individual responsibility and ‘choice’ over concepts of ‘public good’ or ‘community’.

Where we are now, with poverty and destitution, great inequality, barely functioning health and social care, Thatcher’s legacy.

In 1961 poverty levels in the UK were 13% of population. Under Thatcher poverty levels rose to 25% of the population. They remain about 22% of population today. Lower in Scotland than England. Highest in London at 27%.

Prior to Thatcher Scotland’s health record sat in the middle of other European countries.After Thatcher, Scotland became the “sick country of Europe”.

Scott-Samuel and colleagues research has looked at the impact of Thatcher on the health of the UK.

We consider Thatcher’s denial of health inequality as a policy concern, including the rejection of the Black report. We discuss how Thatcher’s governments began the application of private sector management principles to one of Britain’s most popular socialist creations, the National Health Service (NHS) – and in doing so, paved the way for subsequent NHS privatisation by the governments of Blair, Brown and Cameron (9). Finally, we draw on a range of data to summarise the impacts of Thatcher’s policy reforms on social determinants of health and health inequalities. The concluding section argues that Thatcherism bears historical and
contemporary responsibility for making Britain a less healthy and more unequal
place than it might otherwise be.”

TURABDIN.

Well spoken,
The more we learn, the more we realise the directions they are attempting corral us into,

Are SNP attempting to fight Labour in any way?

Any reminders of 100 years of 2 or 3 terms Tory to 1 Labour that has run Scotland into the ground?

Never forget the Labour multi millionaire list like Blair, Brown, Kinnock.
Even Blair’s son is supposedly worth £20 million.

How about the Glasgow Labour Council spending hundreds of thousands and a decade fighting against equal pay for women.

Remember the Tory Bedroom tax that took finance or housing from the poorest in society
81% of those affected were disabled but Labour didn’t vote against it.

Thatcher brought in a rule that trade unions had to ballot to see if members still wanted to be involved with them.
Labour did nothing to negate Thatcherism.

Now Labour feel they must be a second right wing party if they are to get into government.

To quote Thatcher” My finest achievement was the formation of new Labour”

Sums them up totally.

Tho no one wants to investigate if a certain jab is causing autoimmune diseases.
Some autoimmune diseases reduce vitamin D uptake.
Low vitamin D levels promote diseases such as rickets and MS.
Be careful what you stick in your arm.

This is one of the best cartoons I can remember seeing from Chris Cairns.

Johnim @ 13.36

The more time which passes, the better I feel about my wife and I having declined CoronaVirus & Flu inoculations and having stepped up our Vit C & D supplementation. Even though I was told we were “arseholes” by a military person involved in the rollout of the jabs.
And, in my uninformed way, I can’t help feeling that there is a lot of damage still coming our way from this worldwide medication.

It’s a Class War, the real pity is that the vast majority of folk don’t realise it’s going on and it’s getting worse !

Shock1………Sturgeon lied
Shock2……..SNP are covering it up using our money in Court.

link to archive.ph

It’s certainly intriguing, maybes even innarestin, to ponder over some of the reasons why, when percentage figures for poverty are being bandied about.

Take last year, for example, when 606,000 extra people came to the UK. Add those figures to the net hundreds of thousands PA, every year for 20 years now, excepting the Covid Years.

And then speculate about where all these New Brits sit on the “poverty spectrum”. Consider the many hundreds of thousands drifting in on their rubber dinghies with little more than the clothes on their backs.

Spoiler alert. Not one New Brit has come here to be poorer. They all expect to enrich themselves, and thus logically, we must already on average be richer than they are.

Whatever the poverty figures are, I am genuinely surprised at how low they are, given the constant importing of new multitudes of the impoverished.

It’s a considerable addition of insult to injury, that not only do our politicians of all flavours continue with their great population replacement effort, but they also continue to fleece us to compensate the New Brits for the “tragedy” of them being less well off than most of us.

@Sam 1:55

This “very large scale unemployment” you claim.

Has it truly escaped your notice that the UK has been importing hundreds of thousands of workers yearly for decades now?

Very odd if so. Polls have been consistently showing a solid majority of Brits opposed to this policy for virtually all of that time. It’s even reputed to be the single largest contributor to the UK voting to leave the EU.

But you never noticed?

@Ruby 3:19

“No more personal abuse or swearing”

So it is actually you. If you can keep to your good intentions you may be able to positively help the Indy cause this time around.

I’d have a word with Rev Stu though. There’s a few just as bad as you ever were, and nobody’s limiting their posting rights.

John Main says:
9 September, 2023 at 3:32 pm

@Ruby 3:19

“No more personal abuse or swearing”

So it is actually you. If you can keep to your good intentions you may be able to positively help the Indy cause this time around.

I’d have a word with Rev Stu though. There’s a few just as bad as you ever were, and nobody’s limiting their posting rights.

Why would I need to have a word with Rev Stu can you not do it yourself?
I think you know how!

Unlike you I don’t have a problem with personal abuse or swearing. Most of it seems to be directed at you and ‘A Scot Abroad.’

Just out of interest do you believe you are ‘squeaky clean’ when it comes to personal abuse, swearing and more importantly in your case ‘flame-baiting’?

“It’s even reputed to be the single largest contributor to the UK voting to leave the EU.”

And now there’s hundreds of thousands of vacancies in the all the NHS’s because the English government lied over Brexit and it was aided and abetted by the media, and folk from the EU said to themselves well we’re not wanted here, lets go back home and they did.

Even the likes of you Main aren’t that stupid, that you don’t see that, or am I being to complementary.

Of course it wasn’t just the NHS’s that suffered through the disaster that was Brexit, all manner of employment fields from soft fruit picking, to building site works, to hospitality felt the hammer blow of EU citizens going home due to Brexit.

Unsurprisingly a number of MPs and Lords (which is rising even further) at Westminster have applied for and obtained an Irish Passport to counter some of the effects of Brexit. However the majority of us need to suffer the consequences of these lying deceitful politicians and their equally guilty of propagandising media.

Speaking of such matters I see Scotland will be forced into a likely trade deal with India, as the English PM looks to seal a trade deal with Modi, as usual Scotland will have absolutely no say whatsoever on any of it. Why Scots tolerate this when we’re not even in a union with England is utterly astonishing and beyond me.

@Ruby 3:59

You don’t have a problem with personal abuse or swearing???!!!

Recollections may differ, eh?

Anyhoo, I detect a bit more of the “Auld Ruby” making herself known already. As a proud Scot, you will be familiar with the Jekyll & Hyde story. Mind it doesn’t come true for you.

A second time!

….Here are the key elements.

No disagreement Sam, but for me, one of the key elements of NeoLiberalism was the abandonment of quality as a design criteria in public works. Reputable Contractors who did the job properly were forced to compete with rogues and cost cutters, who would suffer no consequence for roguishly cutting costs. Cheapness became the primary, if not the only, criterion for virtually everything, with benchmarks for safety, quality, durability and built-to-last robustness largely swept aside.

Public and private procurement became a playground for crooks and spivs adept at winning contracts because unlike the conscientious Contractors, the crooks didn’t burden themselves with responsibility for actually doing a job properly. They didn’t have to.

The Government was complicit, Local Authorities were complicit, Contractors and Trade bodies were complicit, and the whole post war economy became a racket for the endemic corruption which NeoLiberal deregulation let off the leash. Something our “FreePorts” are no doubt about to reinvigorate once again…

Even today, we have the emerging “scandal” of the RAAC concrete components, but heap blame upon the Manufacture of a product designed to last 30 years, which is now failing after having lasted for 60 years. Do the arithmetic.

Don’t blame the product. Blame the NeoLiberal Designers and prevailing NeoLiberal attitudes of recent decades, which have happily consigned our traditional trades, crafts, and robust manufacturing standards to the dustbin, in order to save a few quid and go with the cheapest option.

Look at modern housing. Never, in the field of human habitation, has so much crap been so cheaply and shabbily built, but cost so very much to buy.

And money, biblical tons of it, which once upon a time circulated through our local economies and High Streets keeping them vibrant, is now syphoned out of our local communities on an industrial scale, and disappears into the world of corporate finance, never to be seen again.

Aye, no lamenting Thatcher’s passing in all this, but an awful lot of “little people” have been equally complicit with the rise to dominance of personal greed and “I’m alright Jack” philosophy.

There’s not much happened or happening in Scotland of late, which sits well Scotland’s traditional sense of Common Good.

And don’t get me started on Scottish “Justice”….

@Sam 5:43

Thanks for your response.

I can but repeat what I posted earlier. If Thatcher was any spur or encouragement for us Scots to support Indy, we would be Independent lang syne.

It’s disappointing that this encouragement from me to stop banging on about the past is interpreted as me being pro-Thatcher. But I’m just trying to steer the debate onto more relevant subjects.

We could stop to ponder why we aren’t all planning to vote for politicians and parties who are committed to rolling back Thatcher’s legacy. But such politicians and parties don’t exist.

Defo makes one wonder why, don’t you agree?

Incidentally, UK unemployment last December was the lowest it had been since the 1970’s, half a century ago. Just another fact that makes dwelling on the past irrelevant.

Ever wondered at the Scottish Government’s ability to get lawyers to support nearly everything they say or do, even when some of us think it is absurd?

It’s a private sector law firm that is appointed each year to provide this service. It’s the public that pay for it, but only Ministers that benefit from it.

They say they benefit the public too, but I’m not so sure about that.

I see they have just been re-appointed. Another example of a “continuity candidate” I presume.

Any straight law firm walking into the Scottish Government just now might get a bit worried about what is being covered-up?

So, the continuity candidate it is then.

TURABDIN at 2:12 pm
“10% of the «UK» population has autoimmune problems, many do not know they have the condition.”

If they themselves don’t know, how do you? Was that just a click-bait headline you read somewhere?

@Breeks 5.45

Agree with all of that Breeks, particularly the quality of housing.

Scotland’s history is punctuated with the existence of slums.

@Main

“But I’m just trying to steer the debate onto more relevant subjects.”

Innarestin but more shite. Academics and economists are interested in Thatcher and her legacy which endures yet.

“Defo makes one wonder why, don’t you agree?”

No. I know the answer.

Faff. Verb

“Soz, RoS, you’ve lost me. Maybes a few of the alert readers too.”

Main.

You know exactly what I mean I explained it to you on the previous thread and you didn’t question it in your reply to me. You’re too old and too British to be coy now.

I want Independence for country of Scotland.

I see big Eck was in Cyprus cheering on the boys.

He loves our country. He loves our people. He loves Scotland.

The true leader of Scottish independence. The figurehead, the statesman the one true patriot.

I want an Independent Scotland with the Alba Party. Come one Scotland!

Captain Yossarian says:
9 September, 2023 at 6:31 pm

Ever wondered at the Scottish Government’s ability to get lawyers to support nearly everything they say or do, even when some of us think it is absurd?

The answer is simple they pay them.

They do need better lawyers maybe like the accountants they have a very limited pool of lawyers to choose from.

Every time they go to court they lose.

Alex Salmond judicial inquiry
Alex Salmond trial
Supreme court malarky

Then there’s the upcoming GRRB court case which I suspect will be another very costly failure.

What I wonder about is how the SG get anyone who isn’t being paid to support them.

David Hannah at 715pm,

Aye, Salmond is the real deal, a true patriot. The fact we cannot see Scotland games on the TV, except when we play England (oh how surprising), is an utter disgrace. I am not a diehard footie fan, but I genuinely do not know why those who are are not going for the metaphorical jugular of their MPs or MSPs.

No other country in the world would tolerate it for one second. Could you imagine German footie fans unable to see the German team play live on German TV, but could access all of the France games live, on German TV?? Then imagine all the sport discussion shows on German TV or radio focussed almost exclusively on French football, French sport and the French National team, with the odd ten second segment at the end to say, Germany will also be playing, but will likely lose. The government and the organisers of the Bundesliga would not last a day.

Like I say, no other country in the world would tolerate this for one freaking second. So why do Scottish football fans put up with it?

Ian Brotherhood – Why not just stop using PFI? They stopped it in England 5 or 6 years ago. We are still using it and that’s one of the reasons for the £1Billion black hole in the country’s finances.

@captain Yossarian 8.35pm

Payments for PFI in England have not finished. The final contract will not end until 2049/50. Meanwhile, billions are yet due in England.

Jim Cuthbert, former Scottish senior civil servant wrote about the latest scottish version of PFI called Mutual Investment Model.

“He said: “It is extraordinarily worrying that Scotland and Wales are being forced, by the limitation on their capital budgets and borrowing powers within the devolution settlement, down a PFI-type path which has been abandoned by England – and by most other countries operating under more rational financial regimes.”

Cuthbert says this is due to changes in the way the Office of National Statistics classifies capital spending in Scotland, moving projects carried out under the non-profit distributing model (NPD) back “on-book” and so restricting Holyrood decision-making.

The Common Weal paper, authored by Cuthbert, describes PFI as “ruinously expensive and prone to failure”.”

John McGinn said in his post match interview:

“only our wee country, could mess it up from here.”

Steve Clarke doesn’t want us to get ahead of ourselves. Even after 5 wins, the “Scottish psyche” believes we could blow it.

But I believe. I expect. And I love this amazing team. 11 wins out of 11.

We should be on terrestrial television. We must campaign for it to happen.

@Captain Yossarian (9.06) –

‘But, the point is: why don’t we dump this system of procurement altogether?’

I have no idea. Someone like Campbell (or perhaps someone like Lesley Evans?) would be better placed to answer that one.

As a cynical layman, I’d guess that it hasn’t been dumped because there’s a conga-line of characters getting kickbacks and keeping their heads down.

Katy Loudon the SNP’s candidate in a crucial by-election has insisted her main focus is on campaigning after she appeared to welcome an MP ( Patrick Grady), who was accused of sexual harassment to canvass for her.

link to archive.ph

“A hairdresser who repeatedly punched and tore clumps of hair from a homeless woman’s head in a Dublin shelter has avoided jail.”

Still no jail for Shuana the Hairdresser.

I’m guessing morto = mortified
what is a knacker?

Anything to do with Shuana’s hairdressing technique?

I saw that Geoff. The SNP candidate in Rutherglen Katy Louden would welcome campaigning alongside the toucher upper, of other people’s teenage children.

Sex pest MP Patrick Grady.

I hope he loses her deposit. They are trying to throw the election to Labour.

I’d worry about the young activists that campaign with Katy Louden. If Patrick Grady was with them.

You don’t know what he’s going to do with his hands.

He’s a sex pest after all.

Aparently he was hoping for redemption, by appealing to the religious vote.

He’s not going to be forgiven by the voters. He’s a sex pest. A sex pest is a sex pest for life.

Like Jordan Linden. I hope he faces the full hard dick of the law.

And the rest of the sex pest SNP.

You better watch out. Sex pest MP Patrick Grady, doesn’t try and ply you with alcohol and bend you over in a thrupple with Patricia Gibson… While Ian Blackford looks the other way.

Sinister going’s on in the SNP. Really really vile toads.

Some of the most horrible people in our society, are members of the Scottish National party.

The people can not tolerate this. And then your children be next. As the manic street preachers sang.

Get them to hell Rutherglen. You know what to do. There’s doors to be slammed.

link to archive.ph

This article about ‘Shuana the Hairdresser’ is bloody hilarious!

@Breastplate –

Who was the Scottish cartoonist who did all the stuff about us repelling the Romans? It’s driving me mental trying to remember. Some great gags. Was it Bud Neill? MacCormack?

‘There was two of them!’

Asterix: Asterix and the Picts : Album 35
Ferri, Jean-Yves
Published by Little, Brown Book Group Limited, 2013
ISBN 10: 1444011677 / ISBN 13: 9781444011678

A delightful Scots version of the most recent Asterix tale. This translation has a twist, however, with Asterix and Obelix speaking Glaswegian, the Picts speak in Doric and the Romans in Dundonian Scots. Great fun. (Scotland Now)

Cartoons aside, I find it profoundly mysterious how and why the Roman Empire chose to retreat behind Hadrian’s wall, 122AD, and then subsequently, did, or rather attempted, the same thing 20 years later with the Antonine wall.

That evidence doesn’t seem consistent with a Roman conquest abandoned by choice. There was clearly a desire to expand occupied territory, and that desire was frustrated and defeated rather than abandoned.

I try to avoid the seductive trap of “Pictish Exceptionalism”, that somehow Pictish warriors were somehow Ninja style guerillas whom the Roman soldiers couldn’t defeat.

Maybe there was a tactical superiority. The possibility shouldn’t be ruled out. I once saw a programe on TV which described the Celts as the “awkward squad” who would not bow to Roman rule, so maybe Scotland did indeed become a stronghold of indomitable free spirits with nowhere left to retreat. It is a possibility.

Maybe it wasn’t raiding parties which the Romans built a wall to keep out. Maybe it was a corrosive ideolgy which led to rebellion and insurrection, and destabilised Roman hegemony.

Were the Romans at the end of their colonial tether? Supply lines stretched to breaking point?

Hardly. An army running low on manpower and resources would rarely undertake the construction of 73 mile long fortified stone rampart, then 20 years later, attempt to build a second frontier roughly 100 miles further North. There is a profound mystery in that narrative. What adversity, precisely, did the Roman Army face in the North?

Maybe the answer isn’t to be found in Scotland, but Europe. I’m no expert, but the Roman Empire in mainland Europe adopted the Danube as it’s “defensible perimeter” to the North. So why didn’t the Romans do likewise in Scotland and exploit the Forth and Clyde estuaries? Presumeably something prevented them. Hardly the topography of the Central belt.

I find the whole subject fascinating. I’m as open to a humble and prosaic explanation as I am to a mighty battle of will and tactics between peoples and warlords. But to date, I’ve simply never heard an entirely satisfactory interpretation.

Breeks @ 8:33 am

“So why didn’t the Romans do likewise in Scotland and exploit the Forth and Clyde estuaries?”

The Romans built the Antonine Wall between the Forth and Clyde, so they did exploit the geography. This was strategic also because most of the Pictish tribes lived north of the Forth-Clyde isthmus. Hadrian’s Wall was similarly built between major rives east and west, the Tyne and Solway.

Extensive Roman camps were constructed at Inveresk, and Cramond, both accessible by sea. The Romans had an extensive maritime fleet to support them, also undertaking ’round-Britain’ voyages, ‘devastating the Orcades’ after the Mons Graupus battle. However, they did not appear able to maintain the Antonine defences and withdrew, also due to pressures elsewhere in the ’empire’.

The Romans described the Brittoni as the ‘customary foe’ of the Picti/Scotti, so some things have not changed.

I read a book called ‘ The ancient paths’ by Graham Robb
His theory was that, the Celtic people had their own mapping system based on the Sun position at equinoxes and solstices.
Graves and stone circles, temples and roads were based on this system he contends.
Battles were fought, not on strategic principles, but in places where it was a good place to enter the afterlife.
Interesting theory, I thought.

@Dorothy Devine –

I think you’re right. It probably was McGinn.

Sorry I first met Matt in the “Folk Centre” Montrose street, which was situated right on the top of a four story tenement, now long demolished. Lots of folkies performed there before the Billy Connolly era. Josh McCrae. Danny Kyle Jim Craig andThe Islanders All went on to tour the West coast towns for years and made a living which they quickly converted into beer and whisky.
Great days.

The Scourge:

A good depiction of where it’s at.

I originally observed the “Scottish Labour” response coming from the person sitting on the cludgie in the middle window and just like rickets, they probably ARE-sitting bow legg’ed – similar to the stance of the branch office of OIM Scottish Labour.