The separation of goals
In amongst a torrent of pretty mad analysis of the election result at the weekend, we noticed the most insane reason yet suggested for the loss of the SNP’s majority:
The co-founder of a much-lauded but little-read pro-independence website asserted that the SNP were cruising to victory until the Nats got the backing of the Scottish Sun and Nicola Sturgeon was pictured posing with the front cover endorsing her party.
The whole litany of gaping flaws in that argument is something the Yes movement has needed to talk about for some considerable time now. So let’s bite the bullet and do it.
The radical left has long had a major perception issue. It perceives that it speaks for “the working class”, and the blunt reality is that it doesn’t. Normal people simply DON’T despise the Sun. It’s NOT “toxic” – it’s the best-selling newspaper in both Scotland and England and most people who buy it and read it are working class.
Indeed, the radical left loathes most things that the working class actually like. You only need to say the words “Top Gear” to set them off onto a furious rant, yet it’s just about the most popular and successful programme the BBC has ever made. The working class also overwhelmingly supports the monarchy, no matter how much Cat Boyd of RISE might shout about hanging the “parasites” from lamp-posts or whatever. C2DE demographics are (sadly) the ones most likely to be angry about immigrants.
The Scottish Sun endorsing the SNP is not a new development, nor is an SNP First Minister posing with it.
Yet when it backed the Nats in 2011 and 2015 (having bitterly but unsuccessfully opposed them in 2007), and Alex Salmond was repeatedly seen posing happily with the paper, the SNP won a pair of vast landslides. It wasn’t “toxic” then and it isn’t now.
(Its support didn’t stop Labour winning elections either.)
As revealed by the hashtag in Kevin Williamson’s tweet, the excuse for the fresh outpouring of rage at the Scottish Sun last week was the verdict in the Hillsborough inquest. The left has never forgiven The Sun for the 1980s in general, but in particular for an appalling front cover story it ran shortly after the 1989 tragedy, and for which it apologised in the most abject terms a few years ago.
But the Scottish edition of the paper never ran the Hillsborough story. Practically the only journalist still associated in any way with the Sun who was there 27 years ago is Kelvin Mackenzie (the editor in 1989 and now a columnist), and the Scottish edition doesn’t carry his column either. There’s no justification for anyone screaming furiously about the Scottish Sun in relation to Hillsborough. It did absolutely nothing wrong.
And the left’s capacity for nursing historical grudges is oddly selective. It’s only 15 years since the Daily Record (which was by far Scotland’s biggest-selling newspaper at the time) was at the forefront of the homophobic “Keep Clause 2A” campaign, yet it seems to have been entirely forgiven while the Scottish Sun is still savaged after 27 years over an article it never ran and a man it doesn’t employ.
The fact is that there’s nothing uniquely loathsome about The Sun. Its owner is an unpleasant and unprincipled power-hungry billionaire, but that in no way distinguishes him from Paul Dacre (ultra-right-wing director of the Mail group), Richard “Dirty” Desmond (porn baron and owner of the Express), the Barclay Brothers (tax-dodging plutocrats in charge of the Telegraph and Spectator and formerly The Scotsman), Evgeny Lebedev (KGB boss turned capitalist oligarch and chief of the Independent) or just about any other newspaper proprietor.
The Sun (both editions) also has a deeply hostile attitude towards benefits recipients, but once again that’s something it has in common both with most other newspapers (including the supposedly left-wing Mirror, which is as happy as anyone else to run stories about “scroungers”) and the general public, particularly the working class.
Vitriolic, hysterical attacks on one newspaper that’s no worse than most are in reality nothing more than exercises in “virtue signalling” – a means by which those on the left jockey for position in the commentariat. They’re a kind of nuclear arms race, by which the only way to continue to gain attention (or avoid vilification) is to continually be more and more extreme in your self-righteous holier-than-thou piety than everyone else – the left’s equivalent of a Katie Hopkins article.
But we’re getting off the subject. The relevance to the independence movement is that the radical left in Scotland are convinced that the way to win people round to the Yes cause is to promise them a Marxist utopia. (To that end, many have delighted in the loss of the SNP’s majority and the fact that the election result threatens to make the party more beholden to the Greens, who they hope will push the Nats to the left.)
It’s a view that this website has consistently warned against for years, and indeed since our very first weeks of existence:
But it’s one that persists in the radical left despite all the available evidence. The fact of the matter is that even with the benefit of a greatly increased membership in the wake of the referendum, far more money to campaign with and a high media profile including appearances on almost all of the leaders’ TV debates, the Greens still secured only 6.6% of the vote on the list, and a miserable 0.6% in constituency seats. Just 3.6% of the total votes in the election were cast for the Greens.
The Greens are NOT a popular party. They’re especially not popular with the working class – their vote was most heavily concentrated in comfortable middle-class areas. The only constituency seats they seriously contested were Edinburgh Central and Glasgow Kelvin, both well-to-do bohemian enclaves.
(The former was won by the Tories because the Greens stood a no-hoper candidate who took a third of the pro-indy vote, enabling Ruth Davidson to sneak in and grab a huge propaganda victory by a few hundred votes.)
RISE and Solidarity, the other two parties of the radical left, did even worse, scraping barely 1% of the list vote between them. Their combined vote was just over half of UKIP’s. Taking policy advice from them and the Greens is, by any remotely sane analysis, NOT going to win over any of the 55% of Scots who voted No.
(If the public “despises” The Sun, yet still hands over its money for around 220,000 copies of it every single day, then how should we assess its opinion of a party that can garner just 11,000 votes which don’t cost anything?)
Political activists in Scotland are going to have to decide quite quickly what’s more important to them – the pursuit of independence, a goal tantalisingly within sight which will give them the chance to make their case against the SNP’s small-c conservatism at the ballot boxes of an independent Scotland; or railing with futile impotence about the monarchy and The Sun and Kelvin MacKenzie and Jeremy Clarkson forever, in the hopes of maybe securing a couple of pointless, powerless MSPs for a few years.
The latter option, of course, is much easier. There’ll never be a shortage of right-wing hate figures to shout at. It’ll always be possible to spend your time having a jolly day out with some student pals to one of Donald Trump’s golf resorts, bellowing through a megaphone at the bewildered minimum-wage employees from Eastern Europe then scooting off after an hour to post pictures on Twitter and wait for the revolution of the proletariat to spontaneously erupt while you’re at a gender-balanced poetry workshop.
It’s also much easier to make a marketable name for yourself that way. If you want to wallow in grotesque, ghoulish grief tourism about an event that happened before you were born in a social, cultural and political environment that you don’t understand the first thing about, you’ll always find a willing audience that loves to hear bogeymen being vitriolically excoriated in a small but noisy echo chamber of self-congratulation.
The downside is that other than inflating your own hungry ego it achieves absolutely nothing. You’ll never reach anyone who wasn’t already on your side, and soon enough someone will come along prepared to be even more pious and intolerant and extreme than you, at which point you’ll be the new baddie in the endless People’s Front of Judea factional wars of self-absorbed ideological purity that have divided and subdivided the left for more years than most people have been alive.
(It can only be a matter of time before RISE, like Solidarity and the SSP that gave birth to it, tears itself into ever-smaller splinter groups shrieking at each other over some ridiculously hair-splitting point of arcane principle or language, or an argument about which order the letters of “LGBTQIFA” should go in this week.)
The Scottish Parliament controls almost none of the levers necessary to bring about real change, and the UK is a fundamentally Conservative country which has elected Tories roughly 65% of the time throughout the entirety of living memory. The only way there’s even a slim chance of reaching the left’s goals is to secure independence first, and that won’t be done by terrifying normal people with lurid tales of a nation turned upside-down and inside-out by a bunch of over-excited junior Trotskys.
Normal people want their bins collected and their fires put out and their streets kept safe and potholes in their roads fixed and their illnesses treated. They rather like and respect the Queen. They buy The Sun and they watch Mrs Brown’s Boys. They have no idea what “land reform” is and nor should they – it would make no difference to most of them even if it happened. They don’t give a toss about “standardised testing” so long as their kids get educated. They don’t want their taxes put up.
(They might say that they do in opinion polls, but what they actually mean by that is someone else’s taxes, and if you campaign on a platform of putting up everybody’s – well, ask Scottish Labour what happens.)
The biggest contribution the radical left could make to the cause of independence now would be a period of silence. They’ve had a big platform for the last 18 months to make their case, and the electorate has rejected it resoundingly. Now they’re turning viciously and jealously on the parts of the Yes movement that HAVE been successful in connecting with real voters and actually persuading them.
The SNP was so badly damaged by Nicola Sturgeon posing with the Scottish Sun, so out of touch with the public’s hatred of the paper, that, er, it got the biggest vote ever recorded in a Holyrood election, increased its vote in both the constituencies and the list, and secured a record 59 constituency seats, as well as – barring some pretty spectacular unforeseen events – very likely securing the 2021 election too.
(The Nats’ total vote was 234,148 higher than 2011’s landslide, a 13% increase.)
The vehemence of your own personal beliefs does not translate to those beliefs being shared by others. That’s a basic lesson the radical left has needed to learn for a long time, and sadly it shows no sign as yet of doing so. We can only hope that if they can’t or won’t just shut up for a bit, the electorate’s stoic total indifference to their diatribes will at least stop them from fatally damaging the indy movement until such times as another referendum might come along.
@Capella says: 10 May, 2016 at 12:19 pm:
” … some would argue that nuclear power stations are “vital” infrastructure.
Aye! And some would be totally, technically and scientifically wrong.
” … But clearly you support Green policy in opposing them.”
Nope! I support sound scientific policy in opposing them. As I point out the mining of the ore uses conventional fossil fuels. They need massive amounts of raw ore to gain a small handful of actual nuclear material and then they must process that small handful also using conventional fuels.
Both processes have massive, still radioactive, waste that is soluble in water and can, and does, leech into the local water table. It also gives off radioactive Radon gas. Just what are they going to do with all that mining waste?
I’m not even going to go to the health problems of the miners that dig the radioactive raw ore and local residents. This stuff is going to be still lying around thousands of years from now and all that before they even start to process the actual fuel, pellet it and put it in the fuel rods.
“Dual carriageways aren’t “vital” either IMO. The Swiss put lorries on railways”
Don’t want to be too critical but would not it make more sense to put the actual freight on the railways and stop the road transport except short local runs?
” … But as to the particular case of the Aberdeen Bypass there is a perfectly legitimate planning process, protagonists on all sides. Should it be short-circuited for dual carriageways but not nuclear power stations?
Of course not – It should, however, be streamlined and made a great deal less expensive. Also with a Government power to legally step in and prevent such obvious waste of time and money.
As to the short-circuiting for Duel Carriageways but not Nuclear power stations there is a very large fly in that ointment.
There is quite obviously a case that duel carriageways are essential to save lives and there really is no proper case that a duel carriageway adds any more to the carbon footprint.
That is, if the travel has to be undertaken anyway, then better road links are actually less of a problem as fossil fuelled engines are more efficient when running without stop/start and at their best cursing speeds.
Not only that but science is moving on and transport pollution is getting less with each new scientific advance.
The present Scottish Government has proven their case and the recently published stats of the renewable energy generation last year is really, really good news.
The point is that you cannot stop the World’s progress and return it to the stone age but you can solve the problems caused by fossil fuel use, (by the way nuclear fuel is a fossil fuel).
The old arguments that, for example, wind turbines are inefficient is utter bunk. They are misunderstanding, or misusing, the term, “efficiency”.
Efficiency in the case of renewables is rather different from that of fossil fuel use. In fossil fuel use the calculation is the cost of fuel in to the cost of power out plus losses, plus disposal of waste matter, plus transport of fuel.
With renewables the, “fuel”, gets itself to the input and it is free of charge over the lifetime of the unit. There is no disposal of waste matter and no transport charges for either fuel or waste.
That is, no matter that the actual machine itself is less efficient – what you get out is a 100% gain. i.e. no ongoing cost for fuel, no ongoing cost of transporting it, no ongoing cost of waste disposal either.
It is not entirely free power, however, for there are still distribution and maintenance costs but even these are either the same or less than that of fossil fuelled power.
Making the same mistakes as we did in 2014 is not what i want to see Cat.
Yes 2 or indy ref 2 should be one group run by one person backed by all the indy folk with our strongest leader in charge.
You dont leave your best player sitting on the bench in a final.
If it’s democracy you want, there’s the numbers, can’t argue
Some still will though,
Checking the time
O/t probably , Wee Ruthies pal Pritti Patel just now during the debat on Universal Credit while attempting to defend Tory policy is creating and handing more Amunition than Nicola Sturgeon could possibly fire in one session .
Any comparison of Miss Patell and a Brick is probably just a coincidence , a brick can be useful , the Tory minister if she is indeed a minister maybe needs further investigation .
Where have all the comments gone? There’s not even a new page showing for continuing (over 500 comments).
This is the 2nd thread this has happened to recently.
Most odd.
Aha, panic over, new page and comments now appeared and, for the first time in years, my log in details now show in the boxes – Hooray x 3!. 🙂
@TJenny
Boo hoo! Mine hasn’t!
@ Robert Peffers
Thanks for your very detailed response. However, you seem to be confusing me with someone who supports nuclear power. I don’t.
I also favour city bypasses but that is because public transport is so under-developed and rundown.
The Swiss put the big Euro lorries on trains to carry them through from the German to Italian borders. The lorries pay for the upkeep of the railway and the road system is spared the inconvenience.
link to youtube.com
I do support due process in planning decisions.
Breeks says: Friends and Family in the Borders starring the Galashiels Mafia.
You paint a picture of a cozy Glasgow Council sort of situation ? with the added salt of being used as a ‘rural retreat’ for the better paid of Edinburgh.
I am not sure that the SNP can fix that. What chances of these people being replaced in next years elections ?
Yep DOS attack by Ruth and her gang ouch .
yesindyref2, I’m not sure this is the right forum for conspiracy theories.
“Robert Peffers is your friend now you want to push wedges in and lever them apart between SNP and Greens.”
I have no friends as such but most of those other posters you mention, with the exception of sensibledave, hold views that I share and respect. It looks like I am not alone in that these days. Funny how things can change like that, isn’t it?
Suggesting that I want to create a wedge between a pebble and a mountain doesn’t make much sense to me.
The Green party gets much more attention than it deserves based on numbers who vote for it. I’m fairly neutral and liberal on the subject because, as said, they’re basically targeting protest votes and of minor importance; the SNP aren’t likely to need their support in parliament.
Schrodinger, sorry but I find it hard to take scientific advice from someone who can’t string a basic sentence together. Call me a snob. You seem to be suggesting I read some studies on the impact of fracking but I have read plenty on the subject.
We will see what the scientists say to our SNP government on the subject of fracking soon enough.
For anyone actually interested in the disastrous mining processes of nuclear fuel may like to visit these sites::
link to theguardian.com
link to ccnr.org
link to nrdc.org
link to cfp.ca
These links were chosen at random but should give any reader a reasonable idea of the health hazards never mentioned by our UK advocates of so called, “Clean”, power. The last one is from a Canadian Family GP.
This stuff is the most dangerous, dirty and longest lasting pollutant you could imagine. It will still be hanging around thousands of years from now. A quoted Half-life is just that – the time for any given source to lose half its quantity of radiation. It is NOT the time for it to become safe.
Thought Stu had up sticks and left us for a minute there. Had withdrawal symptoms for about 5 minutes, it was horrible I tell ye.
Comments back, life is good.
Flower of Scotland – did your details appear before? If not, I’ve recently updated to Win10 which, if WOS has had an update, maybe it now plays nicer with Win10? (I’m clearly not tecchie! 😉
The warm weather has brought out the memes in greater numbers.
The Tory group visiting Niddrie
link to twitter.com
@TJenny
I have an iPad, so use safari.
I’m not techie either!
I see Henry Mcleish is calling for another independence referendum to save the Labour party
and to take the fight to the SNP and Tories
@ yesindyref2 Well spotted that Manny I was rushing about yesterday & didnt post up on the Particulate changing they’re name.
Many more post to give us floaters of the ein.
@ Robert Peffers says at 12:17 pm …… @Petra says at 9:57 am: …. “Oh, and also for the record, many of those trudging the streets (I met them) for the pro indy cause during the referendum were greens – and that was BEFORE their big increase in post referendum membership. Unionists want nothing more than to split the pro indy movement. Don’t want to sound patronising, but wise up folks.”
Robert Peffers: ”Sheesh! Stop apologising for the Greens, Petra. Perhaps it is you who needs to wise-up.”
I think it’s you who has to wisen up Robert. I didn’t say (any of) that. You’re confusing me with someone else.
As to the Greens well they didn’t win the election the SNP did and I put my faith in Nicola to deal with any of their extremist policies (IF they have any). I therefore don’t see any point in castigating them at every turn especially as when the Labour Party folds up many of their supporters may join the Green Party rather than the SNP. Imo time is better spent on attacking our REAL enemies rather than individuals, from whatever party, who are on our (Independence) side.
@ Schrodingers cat says at 10:24 am …
link to andywightman.com
Thanks for that link SC. Definitely on my ‘books to buy’ list.
Breeks regarding tv stations in the borders. Broadcasting is not a devolved matter. The problem with the lack of Scottish TV is down to WM. So the Tories down there must love English broadcasting as they vote to keep the Tories in power!
Maybe some brainwashing taking place, but is it any worse than BBC.
@ Valerie They basterds would think there’s ah brown blinds sale oan at BnM bargains.
Scottish Gov to build 60.ooo new homes my arse. Get all those councils with empty houses to renovate them or Fine the councillors Glasgow & Edinburgh are the worst examples I have seen to date.
Get the Finger out SNP name & shame these Councils & save money by Renovating, quicker in the long run.
Off Topic sort of
The election is done and dusted and it is now a case of learning the lessons and moving on. The removal of Brit Nats from the local councils is important now. It is easier said than done due to high levels of apathy at local elections.
The election of the Tory Douglas Ross via the H&I List to the Parly will mean a council by-election at some point on Moray Council. It probably wont change the balance of power on the council because Ross was a maverick Tory when it came to votes and consistently voted against the ruling Independent & Tory Brit Nat coalition, including voting against the councils last budget. Labour usually sitting on its hands her and abstaining or just not bloody turning up. I guess the Great Abstainers have some sort of virus that has spread through them.
Whatever I am curious as to how a maverick Tory gets to be top of the Tory Regional list in H&I.
@ Valerie says at 2:53 pm
”The warm weather has brought out the memes in greater numbers. The Tory group visiting Niddrie.”
link to twitter.com
Thanks for that Valerie. One for my archives. A picture that speaks a thousand words don’t you think? Davidson hee-hawing her head off in front of a site of horrendous dereliction caused by the Unionists … Tory and Labour. Not a ‘supporter’ in sight. Maybe all having been informed belatedly about how their lives could have been …. rich as the Swiss, if we had achieved our Independence in 1979 …. before robbing us of 300 billion plus.
This should be passed all over the Internet. Their total lack of compassion and understanding of the Scots is truly staggering. Didn’t any one of them, non-photogenic smiley Tory people, point out that this was a very bad idea. Roll on I say. Keep it up Ruthy et al.
More rancid The Graun UKOK stuff and nonsense anyone? It could be their scotland region wot loses/wins it.
link to archive.is
“It may lead to calls for a second referendum on independence, while resentment over Scotland’s increasing autonomy within the UK may well grow among rightwing English Tories and Ukip activists and leaders.”
as they all try to catch up with Lab, SLab, BBC Scotland and every other toryboy newsroom across their region, no doubt.
The Borders had an injection of new stock with the Glasgow Overspill (know a family who stuck it for a month!) but it seems to had little effect. Common Riding, “Aye Been”-ery & Forelock Tugging rules all I’m afraid.
Thing is Grouse Beater, you’re not seen as leading them to water. Its a rare thing for central belt influence to be a good thing.
For example, take the SRU, based in the self styled home of rugby, Edinburgh, decided rugby should go professional and destroyed Borders Rugby which like it or hate it was a big thing for the Borders. And just to promote it as a central belt sport. Thanks for the history Border Clubs, now fuck off and watch us fill the National team with antipodean ringers who can’t get a cap for the Kiwis or Wallabies. Big cheer for Scottish rugby now…
The Borders also suffered a big loss of identity when a lot of Glasgow overspill was moved into the Borders back in the 60’s. One occassion of push me pull you between a Hawick kid and a Glaswegian kid spiralled into two coach loads of folks being lifted by the police and carted off to jail. I don’t imply any smear against Glasgow, but the culture and especially the sectarianism wasn’t something the Borders felt it needed but it got it just the same. The atmosphere of the place changed forever. Suddenly there’s a railway coming, well, technically coming to the Borders, and 10,000 more homes apparently. It’s ok, put away the dogs and pitchforks, this time they’re yuppies from Edinburgh. Err, yeah. It worked out so well first time around lets do it again.
The Borders is a weird place, and always has been. During the Independence wars, it was torched by one retreating army to leave a scorched earth for the invading army, who torched the place again for good measure because it was enemy territory, and torched it again on the way home to leave a scorched earth for the returning defenders. Anything that survived down the ages had to be remarkably fireproof or quick on its feet. It is fiercely Scottish in spite of centuries of being continually shat on by Scotland, largely because it was regularly shat on by England too. The Borders is independent by choice, Scottish by geography.
If the rest of Scotland suddenly started to appreciate the Borders with genuine warmth, I don’t think Borderers would really know how to react frankly. Cynicism and deep suspicion I expect. But just turning up and expecting folk to vote SNP… well… Prove me wrong, but I’m not sure that’s gonna work…
Believe it or not, I genuinely do want Independence, and I’m canny enough to understand that means the SNP, but fk sake. Why have you sent us such duff ambassadors to do the job?
I am starting to hear a lot of nonsense about Fracking being safe. It will be so safe that the Tory Naw Bag NIMBYs will be the ones squealing the loudest about it if planning permission is granted for it. Perception is everything and they will perceive a threat to their property and land values from it – well fuck them. We are Better Together after all and they will be getting what they voted for!
North chiel @ 13:49,
A minor quibble and a major objection to your proposal:
It would be a single question with three options, not three questions.
I think we don’t need a referendum of the type you suggest to know which option the majority of people would currently choose. It would have been the same back in 2014, where there could easily have been a two-question referendum, q1: do you want independence or not?, and q2: if there is not a majority for full indy, do you want enhanced devolution or not? The Unionists blocked it then because they reckoned they could decisively defeat independence without having to concede one iota to further devolution, which they didn’t want either. They got into a panic when it looked like full indy would prevail, hence the infamous “Vow”.
That “vow” was signally traduced by the contemptible Smith process, the Unionists desperately trying to backpedal after winning the indyref, while in the meantime converts to indy have moved on, and realise “actually, I quite like the idea of having a distinctive Scottish defence policy and a distinctive Scottish foreign policy”.
Indy hasn’t melted away, so now these insincere Unionists are desperately trying to revisit the vow they so readily traduced by all this new talk of “devo max” and “federalism”. It’s the exact same problem as the FibDems faced over their AV referendum, or the indy movement faced over a currency union – it puts progress entirely in the hands of the Westminster Establishment, and the English are just not interested in any drastic change like that, especially merely to accommodate the likes of us. It’s a complete non-flier. A dead duck. A taxidermic specimen. It’s all just more Unionist smoke and mirrors in a last-ditch attempt to stave off the loss of their Scottish colony.
Have nothing to do with it!
Archbishop Gavin Dunbar of Glasgow’s magnificent curse on Borderers probably explains everything, although I don’t think single-track railways rated a mention.
Think Mcwhirter means adults are talking, shut up now.
Why these cheeze balls are so annoyed by yours and mine opinions n shit, is my teaMGB mystery of the day.
“Hypernats” a new one for me though. Bet one million euro’s, BBC vote anyone but SNP Scotland didn’t offer the WoS blogger of Bath an election night talking head spot in Pacific Quay.
We just got another load of miserable old proud Scotch but gits like Macwhirter trying to not cry about end of era Slabour.
Iain Macwhirter ?@iainmacwhirter May 7
Petulant defeatism of hypernats is doing unionists’ job for them. There is a majority of independence MSPs. And SNP vote went up not down.
@Petra says: 10 May, 2016 at 3:12 pm:
“As to the Greens well they didn’t win the election the SNP did and I put my faith in Nicola to deal with any of their extremist policies (IF they have any).
If I confuse you with anyone I’m sorry but my point is that all these claims of attempting to drive wedges is utter claptrap.
Like every other political party the Greens are ready to criticise other parties and individuals and they have every right to do so. No party, including the SNP, should be allowed to go without criticism.
It is the way of politics that this is so. If it wasn’t there would be no need for parties as they would all be agreeing with each other. They do not and should not.
So why on earth should anyone pussyfoot around the Greens? As I point out Harvey himself is quite ready to criticise the SNP and the SNP SG. I quoted a couple of occasions when he did so. The Aberdeen bypass and the Queensferry Crossing.
So are the people shying away from criticism of the Greens really thinking that it is acceptable for the Greens to criticise the SNP but wrong for the SNP to criticise the Greens? Are you also saying that the Greens will suddenly change their policies and become anti-independence?
It doesn’t work that way in politics. What happens in such circumstances is the party being pussyfooted around views it as a weakness in the pussyfooters and goes for the jugular.
Even parties that join in formal coalition are critical of each other – and so they should be. They are, after all two different parties.
Which brings us round to logic. It is logical to say that in any further Scottish elections the SNP will need to win over Tory, Labour, LibDem, Rise, Solidarity and Green voters. There is, of course, those who don’t vote but they probably are more inclined to not vote again.
So why is it legitimate to criticise everything that the Labour, Tory, LibDems and others do if you want to get them to vote for you but you dare not criticise the Greens who will, in all probability, still vote Greens who have their own policies including Scottish independence?
No party should imagine themselves above criticism – even whatever party you support. It is the way parties are persuaded to change policies to retain THEIR OWN supporters.
NCN has gone…..
Oh, no! He’s back.
A rose by any other name, ‘n’ that.
Please don’t throw him a bone, guys.
thanks for the Photo Valerie , no description necessary .
Front page of the Record ? , aye right .
@AhuraMazda
Yeah, it would be a pretty Low trick wouldn’t it?
Tinto Chiel said:
Indeed. I didn’t even need to deploy my stylistic analysis software on the new missives, the style is unmistakeable! =grin=
(Though the awful thought does intrude – maybe there’s more than one of them!)
Had the pleasure of once overhearing a conversation concerning planning in Glasgow that went along the lines of making it as shit for motorists as possible and causing as much congestion in order to discourage them. The stupidity of it is that all that does is cause pollution. That’s the reason the last M74 link was delayed as long. Ideology vs evidence and practicality. Everyone does it.
McCleish is just as dumb and selfish as the rest of them. He doesnt want a referendum to help Scotland. He wants it to save the Labour party. So he is fundamentally not interested in what Scotland wants. It’s what will be good for the Labour party.
Had Labour been where the Tories are and gained a few seats. But Scotland had still returned 63 SNP mp’s . he would probably call that progress and see no need for a referendum. Listen to their language, it’s not about the country it’s about their wee party and how they can get back on the gravy train!
When you have a conversation where your audience have their colective fingers in their ears. You are talking to yourself.
Hyper yoon culture self obsessive as usual
Duncan Hothersall Retweeted
J.K. Rowling ?@jk_rowling 2h2 hours ago
@HelenMilburn @johnmcternan @AidanKerrPol @dhothersall @JournoStephen @davidtorrance Can’t believe I didn’t make the short list. Devastated.
Its just tories running a most ghastly yoon book but it is interesting reading all the toryboy threats like in rancid The Graun today, if we dont vote how we’re told by our imperial masters who want Brexit.
Hyperyoon hack JK Rowling , paid Blair MacDougal a million Project Fear quid, terrified the YES out of everyone in her scotland region with all kinds of frightening UKOK stuff
from
“On the other hand, I’m mindful of the fact that when RBS needed to be bailed out, membership of the union saved us from economic catastrophe and I worry about whether North Sea oil can, as we are told by the ‘Yes’ campaign, sustain and even improve Scotland’s standard of living.
via
“Writing on Twitter over the last few days, Rowling has reiterated where her loyalties lie, telling her 3.65 million followers that “I’m voting ‘no’ then supporting anyone who’ll give us Devo Max”, even though she believes that she would be “just fine” in an independent Scotland.
to
“All the major political parties are currently wooing us with offers of extra powers, keen to keep Scotland happy so that it does not hold an independence referendum every ten years and cause uncertainty and turmoil all over again. I doubt whether we will ever have been more popular, or in a better position to dictate terms, than if we vote to stay.”
OK we get it transport in the Borders is crap , if it dosnt suite you move .
The islands if thats where you want to live fine dont expect the rest of us to pay for yer ferries and pay for yer bleedn queer choice of MP & MSPs , my sincere apologies to the people on the Islands who support Independence maybe a free travel voucher could be arranged although i expect the Liberals and tories would squeal like pigs and demand a end to this discrimination , aye well f/k them .
I read discussion of the STV system for 2017. A much more likely scenario is the Yoons tactically voting 1,2,3 for each other and stuffing the Indy candidates of any Party – unless we get 50% to turn up.
I think it is more likely that the SNP will get control of no councils than getting a clean sweep. Hopefully not!
in ref to council elections,
what f#ckwitted voting system does it employ and does anyone know if a vote for the greens helps the SNP in any way,
and what % of the people that actually vote will understand the voting system?
@Dave Robb.
Yes, we’ve temporarily just got rid of one confusing voting system and now another one comes along. All merry Yoonster fun to perplex the non-nerd voter, of course.
I have this fantasy of hosing all the Unionist dead beats out of the local authorities but I think the voting system makes this harder.
And from what you hear on the doorstep, getting people to vote in these elections will be difficult.
We need a high turnout. Thank God we’ve got a year to re-energise and plan.
I’m beginning to think I’m a Labour supporter (or politician) …. you know what I mean …. totally confused.
The Daily Record, their mouthpiece, has stated that the (their) Vow has been delivered. Their other lone mouthpiece at Westminster, Ian Murray, has backed up that statement and additionally broadcast far and wide that Scotland is now the ‘most powerfully devolved country in the World’.
So what’s all this discussion about now? Has the Vow been delivered or not?
If they want to do a Lazarus they should start off by telling the Scots the truth such as the Daily Record’s Vow was a load of old mince and that Gordie Broon was lying through his teeth to everyone.
Then admit to and explain their fear-mongering strategy in the lead up to the Referendum; tell us what they actually proposed having devolved re. Smith (that should be a short statement); why their cronies in Westminster knocked back every Scotland Bill amendment; why they constantly oppose or abstain on key issues relating to Scotland and supported the Tories austerity policy. The list is endless in fact and we’re all patiently waiting to hear what they have to say. Henry McLeish (publicly bullied by MacDougall pre-Indyref) has made a start.
yep 2017 and the Single Transferable Vote , has to be nailed now so we dont have a repeat of the last election .any thoughts from the resident experts ? .
Dave Robb says:
10 May, 2016 at 4:41 pm
“I read discussion of the STV system for 2017. A much more likely scenario is the Yoons tactically voting 1,2,3 for each other and stuffing the Indy candidates of any Party – unless we get 50% to turn up.”
That is pretty much what happened at the last Moray Council bye election. The Yoons privately advocating to their supporters to vote for other Yoons even though Moray Council is in my view one of the most corrupt and incompetent in Scotland. The Independent that got elected joined the ruling Brit Nat coalition. It was sickening! The SNP put in a big effort as well in that I actually got canvased for a council election, I was flabbergasted but it made no difference. The Yoons still got their flunkey on the council.
“RobertJ Sutherland” at 1349 , thanks for the response Robert .I agree with
your minor quibble as regards ” one question , 3 options ” .However, I don’t need the history lesson, as I am more interested in the future. If Nicola can call a 2nd referendum during the term of this parliament then ” great” . whether it has permission from London or not is another question . Without the section 30 legality then Cameron can ask the unionists to boycott it. However, a genuine referendum on 3 options could be a better option , with or without London ” permission” ( however it might be more difficult politically to block) . My strategy is to eliminate the Tory/Unionist option initially , which makes it a straight fight between “Home rule” and Independence. My worry is that the next Holyrood election may not produce an independence majority of MSP’s and consequently no 2nd referendum. I am factoring in the propaganda channel& MSM over the next 5 years which will be to undermine Nicola at every opportunity.
Petra @ Yep i bet most of the country believe this , as you say mince has been delivered , i like you must have been out when the delivery truck pulled up , eh do you think they will try again tomorrow or do I have to go and collect it ? .
Council FPTP Just vote SNP. All the way. Do not vote Green in any circumstances. No public money can get excessively wasted, on none essential services.
The Holyrood Election system will become easier, as people get wiser. Just SNP all the way. 1st and 2nd. That will be more in resemblance of FPTP. Just vote one way right through, Even the Unionists, (non) Greens etc.
The (non) Green connection to SNP could be putting off possible Independence voters.
Umm just for the avoidance of doubt, that meme I posted is a Photoshop.
Hope no one was taking it seriously.
@ Niddrie outing.
Prominent in the photo last on the left is the unelected guy who stands to own half of Aberdeenshire. Burnett. Mother is a cousin of the Queen. Lady in waiting – for the ladie in waiting. Worth £Billion?. Tax evasion?
Disappearing posts.
I had the same and I think it’s just that the thread goes over 500 posts. The previous 500 posts are on “Older Comments” under the last current posting.
It must indeed have been a bit of a culture-shock in Border towns with no history of prejudice having all these Glesga Keelies & their sense of humour planted in their midst. Mebbes a bit like the shock in Ireland at all these Borderers shipped over by James VI and causing mayhem ever since.
I say Borderers who are strangers to predidice, unless you happen to be a young lassie with a horse who fancied a gallop with the Red-Necks & nearly caused a civil war.
“Ruthie Straddles Buffalo at Hawick Common Riding!” How would that go down with the “Aye Been’s” one wonders, ken?
Quite a number here truly lost when it comes to renewables, another from the Guardian a week ago with video this time, check out his Tedx material too.
link to theguardian.com
The Tories ended onshore only, new build only, 365 days early, the rest will continue for their 15 years, some at £5m a turbine, tax evading like Fergus Ewing’s pal the Earl of Buccleuch landowners coining a million a turbine over 25 years, the total community benefits in Scotland was under £9m last year.
link to theguardian.com
The UK total for renewable subsidies was heading for £9.1bn by 2020, £1.5bn more than previously estimated, hence the cut, not quite the ‘betrayal’ it’s been played out to be, but under indy Scotland’s 5m will struggle with £6bn+ annual subsidies for our biggest mistake in modern history at £1,200 per family member each year for intermittency.
link to theguardian.com
The intermittency of course requires 100% backup i.e. another power station’s worth, a power source that doesn’t require the intermittent renewable nonsense if it was more wisely chosen instead. Power sources that can be built on existing sites or anywhere close to the existing grid, no billion pound/euro interconnectors to Norway to sell us what hydro they have left at inflated prices, no £820m power lines from the hills to the hood (Beauly-Denny) no planned destruction of Culloden (Beauly-Kintore) required. I’m sure I’ve spotted £6bn of as an official figure given for Scottish renewable infrastructure grid spending in Scotland.
As for sunny days like today, you’ll want to avoid solar panels like the plague, everything you need is covered here:
http://euanmearns.com
Scroll down to the bottom to get – ‘Older comments’.
ken500 – Shirley you mean elected 🙂
Re. delays to the Aberdeen Bypass. I can’t remember the exact details but I think there was an ongoing Public Inquiry over this, when I was working in the Scottish Office Roads Directorate, back in the ’90s.
I suppose I should respect the Official Secretes Act 🙂 but I was actually drafting an analysis of the cost-effectiveness of a couple of dozen similar schemes developed over the previous decade or so. Imagine one of Kevin’s graphs showing how shite Scotland is. That was how piss-poorly the scheme appraisals fitted with projected benefits.
IMHO, the CBA methodology was fundamentally flawed by weaknesses in benefit forecasting. I doubt things have changed.
All I’ll say is that a one-size-fits-all Treasury does not give money away ’cause it’s nice. So why all the unjustifiable expenditure? Do you think it’s ’cause they love us? Or is it our high-value exports?
The new catch phrase. ‘Ulsterisation’ being fielded by a few ignoramouses. Who are out to prove their inability to read a relevant history book. Many are ’employed’ by MSM. Press failure.
Shy folk would keep their nib oot.
Sorry, I’ll try that again.
IMHO the planning methodology was fundamentally flawed by weaknesses in benefit forecasting. I doubt things have changed as I doubt the procedure has improved.
@Robert Peffers
..There is quite obviously a case that duel carriageways are essential to save lives and there really is no proper case that a duel carriageway adds any more to the carbon footprint.
That is, if the travel has to be undertaken anyway, then better road links are actually less of a problem as fossil fuelled engines are more efficient when running without stop/start and at their best cursing speeds.
Not only that but science is moving on and transport pollution is getting less with each new scientific advance.
——
That’s a good point, and I think green opposition to road building costs them a lot of potential votes. The constant hold-up to the Aberdeen bypass was a disgrace. And its just as well the Greens weren’t in charge or we wouldn’t have a new Forth bridge on the way.
I was reading about the new Tesla electic battery car with 400,000 advance orders in the USA.
link to theguardian.com
In another 20 or 30 years, battery or fuelcell vehicles will be commonplace. Far less pollution, but people will still need roads to drive on. And it’s not like Scotland’s road network is already way behind after decades of under-investment.
It is SNP spending on motorway/dual carriageway completion and infrastructure improvements that earns them a lot of respect as a competent government.
Robert J Sutherland @ 4.30: “(Though the awful thought does intrude – maybe there’s more than one of them!)”
As Jim Murphy himself might have said, “You know, he was unique, like so many others.”
😛
Look like Ken Mackintosh and Johann Lamont are up for Presiding officer ?
If it came down to a vote on a second referendum is it wise to have a guy who thinks Scotland shouldn’t get any new powers in that role ?
Or to be building up his profile for future elections ?
Whereas Johann Lamont may be up for retirement in 5 years time..
Robert Graham says:
10 May, 2016 at 5:03 pm
yep 2017 and the Single Transferable Vote , has to be nailed now so we dont have a repeat of the last election .any thoughts from the resident experts ? .
Not really. Any system that gives a say to ordinary people, many of whom are insane and/or pretty dim, is going to produce bad results from time to time. We owe a lot to the public relations industry in that regard.
If I was given full dictatorial power, we’d be Independent; the workers and their firms would be busy and happier; and England would be begging for (and at the same time fearing) our military contracts.
Instead of changing horse mid-stream, you want to change stream mid-stream? Don’t you think we have enough on our plate?
Sussing out Richard Walker, possible candidate for head of YES. Only problem is I think he’s as anti-Tory as most of the rest of us! But a good article from him here:
glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/richard-walker-time-continues-run-11296640
And I’d like to see Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp on the board. No serving politicians in my opinion. No hotheads either! And people who can keep their twitter under control 🙂
One or two of this lot on the board (not Ian Blackford he’s an SNP MP now). I’d go for Fry and Simpson.
link to wealthynationinstitute.com
Balance with Robin McAlpine but not as leader, that needs to be as neutral to centre as possible politically, perhaps even non-political.
I don’t know these people, the problem is finding charisma with neutrality of politics. Apart from Independence of course!
Hi yesindyref2.
Here’s your link sorted and archived.
link to archive.is
head of the next Referendum campaign could maybe go to Lesley Riddoch,
knows her stuff, looks good on telly,i don`t think she is aligned with any party,
don`t see a down side.
yir2 @ 6:45
Interesting choices,do you know what Jonathan Rowson stance is ? Would he be the interested ?
Just thinking out loud 🙂
Cheers
If I was given full dictatorial power, we’d be Independent; the workers and their firms would be busy and happier; and England would be begging for (and at the same time fearing) our military contracts.
Just how do you propose keeping people happy when you have just stolen democracy from them and replaced it with dictatorship ,get a grip Dave now you have said some stupid things but that takes the biscuit are you guys at GCHQ really that desperate lol
I hear on the grapevine the tories are planning on cutting the funding to your ops what a shame i bet you voted for them as well.
Hi BDDT
Thanks. Thers’a a poll on that page, “Do you think there should be a second independence referendum?”. But the click through works from the archive, just have to hit yes or no of course LOL again.
Currently running at YES 43%, NO 57%. I figured it might do with a bit of help …
Lesley Riddoch is Green I think, or at least was pushing Green on the list vote. Nothing wrong with that but a bit controversial. Could and should be on the board though.
Don’t like the word “board” by the way for the next YES. Far far too corporate. Committee would be better, even tiddlywinks clubs have them. I think. Oh, and their fund-raising target shouldn’t be £23 million (it was around that), they can make do on £1 million – and be unpaid apart from expenses. £100,00 plus is just an insult, and that was multipl;ied by 5 or was it even 7 “directors”? Bollocks to that.
Google Ulsterisation of Scotland and first up, far right neocon toryboys like Torrance of the Herald. Disgusting characters one and all and ofcourse none can dare say out loud, this is exactly what they want.
link to conservativehome.com
Hi yesindyref2.
Yeah, I spotted that and was “eyebrows raised” at the running result.
As #5 said, “NEED INPUT!”
8=)
@carjamtic
Jonathan Rowson – don’t know him I’m afraid. Look up tells me pawn to Queen 4 🙂
Thinking again, not fair for full-time people of YES to be on no wages.
Thet can be on livign wage not a penny more, not a penny less. But as a responsible employer YES gives them 1.5 over 40 hours, double on a weekend, and double and time off in lieu for bank holidays. Paid sickies of course, gives them the occasional hangover day off celebrating their converts.
@Breeks
Sorry me again, I have my moments.
Interested in what you say about the Borders, more please!
O/T
According to this lot of useless tossers Scotland is not a country so you are
unable search by a country called Scotland.
This is one if the oldest countries in the world.
Makes analysis a bit more difficult
link to offshoreleaks.icij.org
I haven’t read much of this thread, just the excellent piece by the rev, so I don’t know if anyone else highlighted slab’s Alex Rowley on the news last night.
” Labour can’t just sit like bystanders”.
I still can’t believe they’re doing badly with people of this calibre on board!
heedtracker,
“The National played a blinder,
1. Boost far left tiny minority, guarantee us SNP majority
2. Terrify toryboy world in Scotland the far left are coming to get them. Assure YESers to chillax, its an SNP easy win, no need to bother going to polling centres.
Very UKOK cunning.”
I have been warning about The National for a long time.
Beware of the true intentions of those who directly or indirectly promote The National, the Greens, RISE or Bella on this blog.
Not a single WOS type headline article appeared on it, when it mattered.
Expect a lot of window dressing now that the election is over.
The National does not support independence.
Its only purpose is to milk gullible independence supporters, who are in my view more stupid than those who vote Scottish Labour in the belief that it stands for them.
Exciting times for my Slovene girlfriend. Just wants to get on with it! go get em girl.
Adam Tomkins MSP ?@ProfTomkins May 9
Highly impressed with efficiency of @ScotParl staff in settling new MSPs in. I’ve still a lot to learn but I just want to get on with it.
9 retweets 42 likes
Future Lord Tonkinski came a very close third last week, 4057 votes. Actually one of Prof T’s major backers has the stats
Scottish National Party
CandidatesBill Kidd Votes15,007 51.7% Net percentage change in seats+8.5
Scottish Labour
CandidatesBill Butler Votes8,854 30.5% Net percentage change in seats?12.6
Scottish Conservatives
CandidatesAdam Tomkins Votes4,057 14.0% Net percentage change in seats+5.6
Scottish Lib Dems
CandidatesJames Speirs Votes1,098 3.8% Net percentage change in seats?0.4
link to bbc.co.uk
And may god have mercy on our vile separatists souls. Come along way though, Herald Btl, Graun btl, ferocious abuse that got totally hysterical when toryboys thought they might lose 2014.
D’Hondt stinks. Sorry but its awful set up if it lets in zoomers like this.
Hope he really really gets stuck in though:D
Lesley Riddoch was pushing vote Rise/Green or basically anyone but the SNP only days ago.
And that PISH cost the SNP a fucking majority whilst RISE disappeared up its own arsehole.
Good riddance.
Unaligned she is not.
All well with the latest forgive and forget demand but these ultra left/souls sold for unionist gold has beens caused mayhem without any power,can you imagine the damage if they had any real clout.
Backed by a coming in its pants BritNat crew who couldn’t beleive their luck and pushed this 1/2 vote pish for all it was worth.
But now we’re being told still that the best way to vote was for another party?
Seriously?
Thought I’d got this out my system but there you go.
And by the way ….see they Greens they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread so they are and they’re gonna vote for another referendum.
63+6=69.
Personally I think we should just bypass all the skewed and manipulated referendum and go for Straight Independence.
That’ll do pig.
Looks like the tories are losing 29 through election fraud.
Now if they only got a 12 majority then the GE election should be declared null and void and re-run.
Can you imagine if that was 29 SNP MP’S involved with election?
Result?
Ahhh but what result????
Paula Rose says:
“@Rock Yes No”
Shame.
In my view, it would be much more transparent if you were the Greens’ ambassador to the SNP.
re Roads
The Dukes of Gordon and Richmond held up the Fochabers by-pass for nigh on 70 years and those folks are not what you would call Greenies except when it suits them. It took an SNP SG to say enough was enough and get the road done.
Indy Ref 2016 -YES spending £1.5million. NO spending supposed to be the same – £1.5Million. Both supposed to be limited. BT got £Millions donations from outwith Scotland. (Illegal) Westminster Gov picking up tabs for false flag Pollsters BT spending. By LibDem mate.
The Tories have a habit of illegally getting their elections budget wrong. Trying to illegally sweep it under the carpet. Can’t count and try to cover up. Just like a typical Tory/Unionist Gov Budget. It’s an offence. Prison.
Peter McCulloch,
“I see Henry Mcleish is calling for another independence referendum to save the Labour party and to take the fight to the SNP and Tories”
Mcleish is a chameleon who knows how to camouflage himself better than the rest of them.
Don’t trust him one bit.
No offence meant to chameleons of the animal species.
@Onwards
“I was reading about the new Tesla electic battery car with 400,000 advance orders in the USA.”
My daughter has had a Nissan leaf for about a year, its great.
Range is a bit limited but that problem will disappear with battery technology improvements e.g. the St Andrews air battery.
BTW its only about 2 years ago when I posted here that electric cars will replace ICEs and was ridiculed for the suggestion by some.
Swing around old UKOK Graun btl crew and its nice to see they’re all very much in tune with what we just dont know how good SLabour really are for us.
Huge WoS fan and so proved wrong over and over via the ballot box he must be a plant.
NiclasReddish ?@NiclasReddish May 8
Did our tax policy work politically? No or not yet. But should not assume that a policy that did not get traction actually damaged us.
Can anyone post up the video of Tavish Scott having a tantrum acting like a wean in Holyrood
@ heedtracker says at 7:38 pm …. ”Exciting times for my Slovene girlfriend. Just wants to get on with it! go get em girl.
Adam Tomkins MSP ?@ProfTomkins May 9
Highly impressed with efficiency of @ScotParl staff in settling new MSPs in. I’ve still a lot to learn but I just want to get on with it.
9 retweets 42 likes
Future Lord Tonkinski came a very close third last week, 4057 votes. …………..”
Well Heedtracker I read that Tomkins wants to hang onto his Uni job (and lucrative wage) plus get £60,000 as a Tory MSP. Said reason he doesn’t want to give up his Uni job as he has a young family to support and an MSP’s wage, only, is not sufficient to do so. Tell that one to the unemployed, disabled and those on zero hour contracts, in particular those who have children.
He’s going to be a part time MSP. There to serve his constituents, my ass. It may also account for the vast majority of the electorate not voting for him resulting in him coming in third, but hey ho another greedy, wee Unionist fly man being rewarded for being an unpopular, abject failure. What’s new?
PS ”Tomkins: Highly impressed with efficiency of @ScotParl staff in settling new MSPs in. I’ve still a lot to learn but I just want to get on with it.”
No doubt he’s sussed out the expense claims system already. I, for one, will be keeping an eye on his / their expense claims.
AhuraMazda says:
Schrodinger, sorry but I find it hard to take scientific advice from someone who can’t string a basic sentence together. Call me a snob. You seem to be suggesting I read some studies on the impact of fracking but I have read plenty on the subject.
Im merely suggesting that the most well known issue wrt fracking or normal wells on land and especially in built areas, such as the central belt is subsidence and earthquakes
link to dutchnews.nl
dutch courts have now announced that the land frackers are responsponsable for any drop in house value in the area, whether the property has been damaged or not
ie, a known and accepted issue with drilling in built up areas and also a means of stopping it
Wee bit of comedy relief for a Tuesday night: labour hame and Dunc’s meltdown was highlighted earlier. There is a belter of a piece just gone up- young guy so I canny be too critical but Jesus H! A taster:
“Labour with Kez’s leadership is one which seems to have, finally, developed a long term plan to define itself, and carve out its own place in the new political landscape of Scotland. Since definition and purpose is one thing voters feel we lack, progress on our core messaging from Kez is exactly the kind of thing that will help rebuild our party.”
Wow! Keep Kez and Carry On. It’s no a psephologist they need to consult.
Oh no. Deliberate gaffs pretty good though.
link to archive.is
Mr Coburn also suggested that he intentionally made glaring policy errors in public to draw attention to the party.
He wrote: “By being controversial and colourful I have been told by the press I managed to get as much publicity as Sturgeon to the annoyance of the other party leaders.
“One man’s deliberate ‘gaffe’ is another man’s publicity opportunity.”
A party spokesman suggested leader Nigel Farage backed the tactic.
UKIP polled around two per cent of the vote in each area, meaning the party lost eight £500 deposits.
There are 1,000 UKIP members in Scotland, according to the party, but insiders claim that figure may now have dropped to around 600.
@ liz says at 8:10 pm ….”Can anyone post up the video of Tavish Scott having a tantrum acting like a wean in Holyrood.”
I don’t see it Liz but I came across this one. Did he gain more votes this time round?
‘Scotland Decides – Tavish Scott holds on to his Shetland constituency despite 19% drop in support.’
link to youtube.com
@ Macbeda says at 7:22 pm …. ”According to this lot of useless tossers Scotland is not a country so you are unable search by a country called Scotland. This is one if the oldest countries in the world. Makes analysis a bit more difficult.
link to offshoreleaks.icij.org
That’s a great link Macbeda. I know Scotland isn’t on the list, as per usual but that will change, however one has the capacity to enter a company’s name better still an individuals.
Off-shore leek Database.CIJ · The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists revealing thousands of names of those who are screwing the system. I like it!
@Petra – thanks for that but is was one in Holyrood where he is acting like a child shaking his head.
It’s that I’m having a convo with the Shetland Times which seems to think that Tavish could have an impact on SNP policies so I wanted to show him acting with no authority
schrodinger, I’m not jumping on some bandwagon here picking on you or something. But the issues surrounding fracking are well known to anyone capable of typing the word “fracking” into Google.
Now can you stop being so patronising and stop assuming that I am not aware of the issues or capable of finding info on the subject?
Our government, the one I loyally voted twice for, will assess the science and come to a decision. Everyone else will just need to live with that decision.
Having looked into it and weighed up the concerns and issues etc., I hope we start fracking as soon as possible. I am beyond the stage you assume and have arrived at opinion.
My opinion is the pros outweigh the cons and I quite like the idea of creating say 30,000 jobs and boosting the Scottish economy.
The point you make about built-up areas goes without saying and applies to a range of sectors and industries such as mining and quarrying. Nobody to my knowledge has suggested we frack in Buchanan Street.
I understand you are a Green type. With respect, I am not. I don’t want to antagonise you needlessly, and I mean that, but I see the Green Party as a fad, the Bay City Rollers of politics.
I have “friends” in the environmentalist movement, and some have made careers in areas like Sustainable Development. Most of them live in virtual castles and have carbon footprints bigger than a whole block full of people living in flats.
In a 500 years we will look back at most of this environmentalist stuff and laugh, and I bet the world won’t be any hotter then that it is now.
Pollution and destruction of habitats etc., have been concerns for hundreds of years, well before the Green Party arrived on the scene. Those are legitimate concerns but the Green party doesn’t own them.
One last thing. Please stop assuming like some Christian or something that you have the moral high ground. I don’t buy any of it.
The (non) Greens should no be let anywhere near a 2nd Indy Ref organisation. It was possibly them who mucked up the last one. Lining their pockets etc with totally non organisation. Especially when the calibre of candidate is revealed. It is possibly because of their involvement and one issue obsessions (Land policies etc). More voters were not impressed and will not vote for FFA/Independence. They are part of the proplem. A minority, one track single issues pressure group, to muck other people up. They already have a reputation.
@ Robert Peffers says at 4:15 pm ….
@Petra says: 10 May, 2016 at 3:12 pm: “As to the Greens well they didn’t win the election the SNP did and I put my faith in Nicola to deal with any of their extremist policies (IF they have any).”
”Robert says: If I confuse you with anyone I’m sorry but my point is that all these claims of attempting to drive wedges is utter claptrap …….
Are you also saying that the Greens will suddenly change their policies and become anti-independence?”
I didn’t say that at all Robert. Nor do I think that. This is the second time today that you seem to be confusing me with someone else.
So if UKIP got 2% in Holyrood vote..
What happened in the Euro Election?
Does it prove that Unionists
‘spited’ the SNP?
Does it PROVE that they are likely
to vote AGAINST the interests of
Scotland..?
Whether by deliberate belligerence,
or innocent misguided trust in what is being spun around them, the dim get dumber.
Thon John Ruddy also failed completely. The same one? Didn’t even get a 3rd place jump in for the expenses scandal gain game. Came 4th? A total bunch of failures.
John Major called them ‘bastards’. He should know. Has anyone told Davidson. Just another one.
Pollution
I have a 12 year old Mercedes in which I do around three thousand miles per year at approx 34miles to the gallon petrol and I maintain that car in perfect tip top running condition because I like my car
I don’t go into town any more because it chokes me to death with diesel fumes from buses and taxis belching out black crap
In order to maintain it’s supposed “Green” credentials the UK government taxes me and my car £265 per year (I only pay £200 to insure it) in order that I subsidise the very buses and taxis which are choking us to death
From new my car has done 50.000 miles I intend to keep my car for as long as some disaster doesn’t befall it
so in it’s entire lifetime my pollution rate and damage to the environment could probably be measured in a cup
whereas 1 double decker diesel black smoke spewing public transport bus which I pay for in approx 18 months will reduce the life of a person living in town and using that bus by two years
All the motor manufacturers and there are a few now who have dodged the emission tests for their diesel vehicles in order to get round their customers paying higher road tax thus selling more diesel spewing monsters are not being assessed to pay one penny more in road tax, and if anybody dares to tell me about Green diesel I’ll borrow Stu’s hammers and come round your house, it doesn’t exist, diesel is crap in the air and it will kill you
It’s gone quiet I can’t hear the Green party shouting and yelling about the damage public transport diesel vehicles are doing and the company reps with their diesel cars doing 40.000 miles per year on practically no road tax but killing the planet and people by the mile
The reason I’m saying all this is, the only person who has ever very kindly replied to me when I wrote to them on this very subject and expressed interest was John Swinney even though I am not a constituent as I had written to his constituency office
Greens, no reply, Osborne no reply,to be fair I didn’t expect one from Osborne
It’s very easy being Green when you don’t have to do anything about anything just keep repeating over and over
“We cannae burn all the oil captain” “Fossil fuels bad”
John Swinney’s actually working on a transport plan even though road tax of course is a reserved matter
So road tax, it’s sod all to do with being Green, it’s just tax and people like me are paying it to subsidise a complete and utter lie, unrefuted by guess who, the Greens
And if you’re reading this standing at a bus stop you’re dying by the minute, but my petrol car won’t be what killed you
Sigh
@ Indy Ref 2014 –
Limited spend supposed to be £1.5Million each. – YES/NO . It was reneged upon by BT/Unionists. No penalty.
Scottish Green’s aren’t Green. They’re both carpet baggers off of the Green movement in the EU and patsies for tory England’s control of Scotland.
link to bbc.co.uk
German Green’s have shut down German nuke power. Scotland is the UKOK nuke waste and weapons dump.
Why dont Harvie and the Green carpet baggers go after toryboy world in London, which is what the SNP do, day in day out?
They’ve got the Holyrood platform last week but instead of going after Westminster and the far right UKOK anti renewable bullshit, they’ll be trying to make political capital out of blocking, blocking anything and everything that might not be Green, in Scotland.
@liz,
Here ye go
link to tinyurl.com
30 mins in
Dr. Jim, if you want a bit of Green opinion , why not drop a note into The Green in house daily paper….. The National.
Before the election the rag did it’s best to split the SNP vote. After the vote, letters pages full of glee with the SNP loosing it’s majority, democracy saved…… No concern at the SNP loosing it’s majority…….
Several thousand Labour voters,
in Argyll & BUTE,
switched to Alan Reid (Fibdem)
Why would they take the risk, what if he had actually got in,
Haven’t they seen his WM voting record?
And as for hos campaign literature..lol.
Oh I forget,
it’s not about politics any more,
it’s about denying Labours corruptable moral self image..
For the easily interchangeable LABOUR AND LIBERAL DEMOCRATS…
..its all about staying part of the establishment,
that is,
right up to the moment,
when they will become nothing..
..of any use to anyone.
Whups! 20 mins in 🙁
@ liz says at 9:13 pm …. ”Petra – thanks for that but is was one in Holyrood where he is acting like a child shaking his head. It’s that I’m having a convo with the Shetland Times which seems to think that Tavish could have an impact on SNP policies so I wanted to show him acting with no authority.”
Sorry I couldn’t help Liz. Maybe someone else will manage to dig it up.
………………………………..
@Schrodingers cat says at 8:37 pm …. Fracking.
SC over and above the numerous recorded risks and negatives relating to fracking a recent report by top US scientists has highlighted that fracking poses gender bendering chemical risks to humans. That alone will put paid to fracking in Scotland. Reported in the Sunday Herald.
George Kerevan has also pointed out the dangers of fracking in an excellent article …. ‘Huge gas leak at Aliso Canyon in California shows the dangers of fracking.’ Reported in The National.
I’ve just been having a look at The National. Some brilliant articles there such as ‘Ferguson to make British shipping history with dual-fuel vessels, two years after rescue by Jim McColl and Scots scientist cracks genetic code of bacteria that helped clean up multimillion-barrel oil spill.’ Strange that some of the more positive, current issues relating to Scotland (that you read of in the Sunday Herald and The National) are never reported by the SCUM.
AhuraMazda says:
schrodinger, I’m not jumping on some bandwagon here picking on you or something.
Now can you stop being so patronising (tx)and stop assuming that I am not aware of the issues or capable of finding info on the subject?
Having looked into it and weighed up the concerns and issues etc., I hope we start fracking as soon as possible.
i have looked into… organised entire operations, carried out extensive fracking ops in the southern gas fields for shell
but google is your friend
My opinion is the pros outweigh the cons
google is your friend
Nobody to my knowledge has suggested we frack in Buchanan Street.
no real info available on the specifics on intended wells,
that is something to look out for, but even rural properties around groningen have been damaged by the earth quakes too
central scotland is the most built up area of scotland
I understand you are a Green type. With respect, I am not.
um….i recycle empty wine bottles… but no more green than most
i dont really care about politics, except indy
I don’t want to antagonise you needlessly, and I mean that, but I see the Green Party as a fad, the Bay City Rollers of politics.
agree with that, more like a pressure group than a serious political party
In a 500 years we will look back at most of this environmentalist stuff and laugh, and I bet the world won’t be any hotter then that it is now.
not sure about that, plenty scientific data says otherwise, but i am not really qualified to really disagree. i am a petrolium engineer
One last thing. Please stop assuming like some Christian or something that you have the moral high ground. I don’t buy any of it.
dont buy it then, im not selling it anyway. opinion is free, i dont have any moral high ground, just an opinion on fracking…from personal experience not google… i dont think it is a good idea in central scotland..
xtians?? dont know any, never met any…dont want to
Dr. Jim
Out the wrong side of the bed this morning? 🙂
Yes there’s a lot of carcinogenic black particulates chucked out by public transport but this can be resolved, to some extent, through investment in improved technology.
Even an almost empty bus is generally more fuel efficient per journey, compared to private vehicles. Every little counts. 😉
@ any youngsters out there
What do you associate with the three “R”?
@ Telegraph
‘Mr Whittle wonders what to do about the Directorship of two online companies and also coaches athletes’
The 3rd and 4th raters are trying to turn Holyrood into another corrupt Westminster. They just could not leave it alone.
liz @ 20:10,
I know the incident you mean, but don’t have a link to it myself, alas. However, you could also consider his tantrum as a witness at the Carmichael Enquiry, and his “sore winner” speech at the recent elections, which is up there with Meg Curran’s similar ingracious outburst back in 2010.
Tavish has a decidedly sneery and peevish streak that has made several public outings. The idea of him having any kind of (positive) influence with the new SG is frankly risible.
@petra
have read and seen a lot of stuff on social media about such issues
but salmond stopped new nuke power stations in scotland by refusing planning permission (a power i think the house of lords has recently stripped from holyrood… i could be wrong about this)
had salmond tried to take on the nuclear industry on technical issues, it would have been a long, expensive a possibly unsuccessful endevour… so he just denied planning permission. sorted
the point about the reference to Shell/NAM and the court ruling in groningen is it shows a real and well known technical issue and such a court ruling could be another method to ensure fracking doesnt happenin scotland
Don’t know if it has been mentioned here, I’m not reading through all the comments.
I see the Scottish NHS has reached its A&E waiting targets.
No fanfare there and no comments allowed on the Herald. Hmmmn.
US fracked Gas is being imported into Grangemouth and fracked in England. Scotland does not have a separate distribution system. Frack gas could be being used in Scotland. Using fracked gas from other countries. Hypocritical?
Gas has been extracted in Scotland from the 1900’s to the 1960’s. In the central belt. Google (or whatever) it. None of the houses fell down. They fall down in nuclear disasters. The consequences are disastrous. Hinkley Point build beside the sea with the rising tide, is an ecological disaster waiting to happen. The waste gets trailed around and exported.
There are electric buses. Produced at Alexander’s Falkirk. Introduced in the UK etc. A £2Billion contract with China.
@ Rock the SNP is an alliance of views – I have been at my branch meeting tonight debating how we ensure more support for independence.
Why Oh Why do some noteable Wingers insist on answering the Particulate, we,ve deal with many Trolls by IGNORING THEM.please People dont give them any feedback.
By all means attack those individuals who tried to dupe SNP voters into voting Green/Rise on the list, but don’t blame the actual people who supported the Green party. It’s a personal choice if you decide to put planet before country. The lending of votes cuts both ways – the SNP (and YES campaign) has certainly benefitted from natural Green supporters over the years.
So let’s finish our rant, stop blaming others and start focusing on the next important tasks to hand: fighting the tories and winning the Scottish council elections in 2017.
Make no mistake: We are winning – get over it. 🙂
Well Heedtracker I read that Tomkins wants to hang onto his Uni job (and lucrative wage) plus get £60,000 as a Tory MSP.
Petra £60k plus expenses is pretty good by any standards, so its just my Slovene girlfriend pissing on Holyrood, not worth his full attention, far more important work to be done at Glasgow uni, Scottish democracy’s a joke anyway as all the big boy stuff’s decided in Westminster, as god intended, or in précis,
Its a pretty good yoonster up yours, in his first week too.
Gas has been extracted in Scotland from the 1900’s to the 1960’s. In the central belt. Google (or whatever) it. None of the houses fell down.
thats cos the shale gas (town gas for the oldies) was mined from the surface, crushed to extract the HC’s
thats why there are so many bings around the area now
fracking is via a bore hole
should have said west calder
my grandfather worked in that industry for many years
agree with you about hinkley point or any nuke power station though ken
Another great article from Weegingerdug: ‘Photo ops and a whole load of bull.’
…………… ”Listening to the Tories and their supporters, you’d think that they’d become the governing party. This is despite the fact that they’ve got fewer seats than Labour had until Thursday, and as far as the SNP is concerned the second biggest party just got a whole lot smaller. But the Tories are going to do what Labour wasn’t able to do, and that’s to scream SNP bad at such a pitch that windaes will shatter throughout the land. What they’re not going to be able to do, despite their claims to the contrary, is to block another independence referendum if the SNP introduce a bill for one in Holyrood.
The Tories wouldn’t have been able to block another referendum if the Greens had abstained, because there’s no way on this green Earth that the Greens would have voted along with the Tories to prevent the people of Scotland deciding their future for themselves ……..
Adam Tomkins can complain all he likes that there’s no mandate for another independence referendum, but there’s bugger all he can do to stop it happening if the SNP and the Greens vote for one. Adam Tomkins is just a Glasgow list MSP, no one voted him the referendum referee. This is not a law class where you’re the professor, dear. You’re just an also-ran from a party that came a poor second. He’ll do just fine as long as he bears in mind the important legal doctrine memora quod perdidisti, which is Latin for “Remember that you lost.”………
In her first attempt to single handedly lead Scotland out of the foul clutches of a party that got more seats than the entire Unionist cabal put together, Ruthie has told the other Unionist parties that she’s head girl now, and she’ll be the one picking the hockey team. The other Unionist parties have responded with another of Adam’s legal doctrines, quod rectum erit, which means “that will be right” and not “stick it up your rectum”, although that works too.”
link to weegingerdug.wordpress.com
heedtracker
Tomkins is a deva, now he has the limelight as an msp… the voters may have just handed him enough rope to hang himself
here’s hoping
@cat
You’re engaging a troll. Unless you can carry on till daylight so it turns to stone, it’ll be back again!
saw allan grogan on twitter throw his hat into the ring wrt the launch of yes2
any ideas who else might be suitable
@Ronnie anderson –
Sometimes you get a bacon-roll and it smells a bit dodgy but you’re properly hank-marvin so you have a nibble, but then think better of it and bin the thing.
Then it comes back on ye all day…
Bleeeeurgh.
🙁
Funniest moment from SNP branch meeting tonight was someone talking about SLAB’s latest attempts to “listen to people”, “start afresh”, possibly become the party of “federalism”…. as this member put it: “They’ve had more ‘new looks’ than Madonna”!
schrodingers cat says:
10 May, 2016 at 11:01 pm
heedtracker
Tomkins is a deva,
He’s a UKOK fanatic. Its just one more insane result of the NO win 2014. Scotland parliament’s got these fanatical yoons hell bent on causing as much harm to their Scotland region as they possibly can and thereby end Scottish independence. And he’s got better things to do back at uni, which to be fair, for a yoon, that is a serious slam.
No wonder he came third:D
Fuck knows what I’m laughing at.
Only in the Scotland region.
Did i just hear that Ken McIntosh and JoLa have thrown their hat into the ring for the Presiding Officer job ?
Tell me its April 1st today ….??
Way off topic but did anybody see the episode of PENNY DREADFUL tonight with it’s reference to the ‘…mad Scottish Nationalist…” being held at the Bethlem Hospital?
Talk about casually planting negative images into the minds of the British population ……
@SC –
FWIW, I’d love to see Tom Devine’s hat being lobbed in, if for no other reason than to annoy windswept nyaff Oliver.
Can you imagine a heid-to-heid ver Indy2 after the latter’s recent rant? Devine would hand Oliver his baws, but ever-so-politely…
@ Ian Brotherhood John King needs tae hand in the Toybox key,UR YOU there John.
Ho ho
link to weegingerdug.wordpress.com
The post of Presiding officer attracts a salary in excess of £100,000
I’ve got a hat, where’s the ring?
Last terms deputy was the Tory MSP John Scott who to be fair actually was very good, anytime he was in the chair he was always business like and impartial, so I have to say I’ve got absolutely no objection to him at all, and it helps keep the Tory vote down
Whereas the other two!! Lamont and McIntosh lining yer pockets widnae be their reason eh…A disgrace! Both of them
@SC –
Bearing in mind what this thread is ‘about’, it would also help if Sheridan withdrew his hat from the ring (so to speak).
Mind you, he’s got enough on his plate right now, what with this and that…his last ‘unblemished’ public performance was at the Declaration of Calton Hill (FFS – 12 years ago?!) at which one of his co-speakers was none other than Adam Tomkins.
Wheels within wheels, swings and dodgy roundabouts, eh?
@David says: 10 May, 2016 at 5:25 pm:
“Quite a number here truly lost when it comes to renewables, another from the Guardian a week ago with video this time, check out his Tedx material too.”
Havers, David. I’ve tried to reply several times only to see the post vanish. So here’s the short version.
The Prof got it wrong and did so by not understanding the most basic fact of physics. Any form of e form of energy cannot be created – it can only be converted from another form of energy.
Nuclear power uses nuclear reaction to produce heat, The heat makes steam or hot gasses and these drive turbines and turbines convert motion to electric power.
The prof says we need lots of batteries but he is wrong. We can store water uphill as potential energy and release it downhill to drive turbines. Hydro-electric schemes.
We can use electrolysis to split sea water into hydrogen and oxygen and use hydrogen as a fuel. The Methil Hydrogen Office is not only self sufficient in power but feeds surplus generated power into the grid. It uses salt water for hydrolysis and the hydrogen gained as fuel.
Just days ago Aberdeen announced it was the first city to offer hydrogen powered cars for public use. The hydrogen is produced by surplus power from wind powered turbines.
BTW: there are other storage methods and a lot more renewables than wind powered devices. Sea currents, wave motion, water powered turbines, water motion, Fuel cells.
The late Professor really should have known better.
I’m not going to provide you sources as that was when my more detailed posts vanished. Do yer own research. Start with Aberdeen’s recent announcement of hydrogen powered cars for public use.
I can’t remember if any thread on WOS has surpassed 1000 comments, but if Rev’s taking a break and we’ve got a few ‘own-goals’ onboard, this could be a long one…
Eyes down, look-in – here’s hoping something productive emerges afore we get a fresh thread, whenever it may be.
SC’s invitation for names for Yes2 is positive, and folk will be watching/thinking about it, so let’s come up with some good ones.
Yesindyref2, you seem to go around calling people trolls, what is it you are afraid of, being deprived of attention? I’ve read your posts, trust me, you have nothing to worry about.
I notice you did the same with this Neocon character. A few of you attacked his or her views as trolling. I’m no expert but it looks to me like more or less everything he said was in line with what Rev Stuart has enunciated in this latest blogpost.
Fickle is one thing, stupid is fine too, but please, for the love of humanity, stop being drips.
Got to love those English twits banging on about all those EU migrants but nothing being said about all those English migrants now living and working in the EU.
As a population goes they are thick as mince,arrogant and frankly so stuck up their own arses its incredible.
I hope they do brexit and the EU flings out their people then they will know all about it when the ex pats all come back.
Funny that if you are from the UK living in an another country you are an ex pat not a migrant,anybody know the difference as im buggered if i know ?
re Yes2 –
Henry McLeish is an obvious one.
He’s not going to astonish anyone by ‘coming out’ once and for all, but he’s getting on a bit and it’d keep him in the public eye, whether anyone likes it or not.
We’d get an ex-FM as a cheerleader, and he can finally get his arse off the fence – must be rid-raw, wobbling there all that time…
Same goes for Professor Gerry Hassan.
Tom Devine’s
brilliant idea ian, id back him
dads, do you mean AhuraMazda?
@AhuraMazda says: 10 May, 2016 at 9:18 pm:
I don’t agree with yon daft cat gadgie as a matter of principle but, AhuraMazda, yer talkin pure pish.
Just listening to the debate about immigration on BBC2 at the merment.
Henning Wehn (our favourite German comedian) made a couple of interesting comments on “The One Show”, Monday evening.
I’m paraphrasing, coz I didn’t do a transcript. What he said was along the lines of,
I’ve just found out that I qualify as an immigrant. I don’t feel like an immigrant. All I did was go to the airport at Dortmund, get on a plane and, an hour later, I was in England.
Anyway, aren’t immigrants supposed to go to somewhere better?
re Tomkins keeping on his lecturer job.
Why doesn’t someone ask his students what they think?
AhuraMazda
i dont mean to be blunt but….fuck off
ian, you really think mcleish is gonna jump? he would be a star turn, bbc scotlandshire would turn green… lol
thing is, during the yes1, people just came out of the woodwork from across society
eg, i know you are more left wing but having ivan mackee on tv and in town halls was a real boost, articulate, presentable and kens his stuff, unfortunately (he just got elected :)) and i dont think elected snp mps or msp can be included at the start of yes2. once indyref2 kicks off in earnest then they will come storming in, of that i have no doubt
what im asking here is names for a possible commite,not a board, sounds like something the miners would invent, how about a collective? is that too communist sounding?
but it needs to cover all bases
this may not be popular with morag but craig murray is excellent wrt foriegn affairs and uk diplomacy, westminster would like nothing better than to shut him up. but he kens his shit wrt such subjects
a lot of the most active are on the left wing so the “board” needs to have a wide scope of talents
i think if their is to be a leader… we should watch and wait to see if one rises naturally
gotta throw in stu cambells name
what about the wgd? he writes beautifully, very witty, dunno him personally but would or is he good on a stage, in front of tv cameras and a hostile bbc interveiewer? as i said, i dunno, but if he is
he should defo be in?
@ Brian Doonthetoon
Its total cringe stuff Brian if there is a brexit it will not be because of economics it will be down to prejudice,hatred and ignorance.
I just hope the EU people know we do not think like that in Scotland and what they are seeing is England not the UK.
yon daft cat gadgie
if they call and name a date for indyref2
im changing my handle to that
@cat
Yes. It’s the twin / other personality of AngraMainyu, a Zoroastrian thing, and NeoconNat’s avatar was – AngraMainyu.
Very simply speaking zoroastrian is choosing between truth and lie. Or alternating!
except in perthshire they dont call them gadgies
they’re called cogies
When’s the next Wings Do – cos I is falling apart laughing now.
@Ian
Good suggestions.
Anyone cast their vote at Pitreavie Primary School in Fife last week? I’ve been reading (in The National) that someone named John Nolan has reported that as he stood in a small queue around 10:15am an official was telling everyone that they didn’t have to cast both votes for the same party. No one had requested any assistance on the matter.
Nolan said ”I find the remark very suggestible. It was the last word heard by a voter before placing an X on the two forms. It suggests a doubt about the correctness and propriety of casting both votes for the same party.” Nolan believes that such comments could have had a negative effect on the SNP results.
Fife Council said the staff were given training on what to advise voters and were told to stick to reading out instructions on the top of the ballot paper.
An investigation into the complaints has been carried out but the Council said that no evidence could be found of any wrongdoing. Linda Bissett, Head of Democratic Services for the Council, said ”no members of staff were removed from duty.”
Head of Democratic Services for the Council? Mmmhh righty oh.
alan bissit
bruce fumey
link to youtube.com
bruce fummey
link to youtube.com
Peffers, you’re supposed to be my friend.
Anyway, with regards to the “pure pish” I’m talking, could you be more specific and tell me what particular deposit you were referring to?
It’s the purity part that puzzles me. I’m fairly prolific and didn’t consider that levels of purity would be a factor.
Is there any basis for arguing that pure is better than unpure when it comes to this sort of thing?
Thanks in advance. Your expertise is appreciated.
@SC –
I’m pleased to say that I have met WGD, and, as luck would have it, got to see him in magnificent full-on action against an aggressive real-life troll. I don’t think he’d be fazed by public appearances, televised or otherwise, but the man himself may feel differently about having that kind of profile thrust upon him.
It’s such a shame Ludovic Kennedy died when he did – he’d surely have loved to witness this whole adventure, and would’ve struck a suitably Mosaic profile. And there’s always Sean Connery, The Big Yin, and sundry sports/film stars – nothing’s impossible. If someone, or some-thing just gets it kicked off, it could be unstoppable.
Let’s see how ‘Brexit’ pans out.
In any event, I’d love to see WOS get out of the pub and do an open-air all-day gig somewhere, with proper marquees, bands, the works. It’s do-able.
cat
Collective is good, and I like co-operative, as in community co-operative. Co-Chomunn!
what about a comedian to lead the board
frankie boyle
oooeer missus
imagine frankie getting ripped into andra neil…. 🙂
I know he tried to become an SNP candidate but I would not be against Ivan McKee being considered for head of Yes2.
Not sure why he didn’t make the grade for SNP. Always thought his business head and direct speaking would have made an impression in Indyref 1 in place of mealy mouth Jenkins.
@ Ian Brotherhood says at 12:08 am …. ”re Tomkins keeping on his lecturer job. Why doesn’t someone ask his students what they think?”
The fact that he came in third Ian may indicate that his students did think about it and decided not to vote for him. And of course it’s early days. If the students feel that their education is being neglected they’ll not be long in telling him … wee protest movement.
Then there’s the issue of his constituents. If they feel that they’re being neglected by someone they didn’t vote for in the first place he may find that the Glesweegians don’t take too kindly to being hornswoggled and … eh … they’ll not be long in … eh … woggling their horns at him. It doesn’t sound good and I reckon it wouldn’t feel too good either.
@SC –
Frankie Boyle?
🙂
Def-i-nettly, but only if he agrees to grow yon mental lavvy-brush beard, nurture it for the duration, and have it ceremonially shorn on Independence Day.
i;d book ring side tickets for frankie agin brillo….
dads, mebee we should come out fighting call it a claymore…
actually, from revs article, ” I have consistently said that the yes supporters should avoid being proscriptive about policy”
why dont we just select the best comediens, kevin bridges etc, to rip the piss out of the bbc
this could be a winning strategy???
Sturgeon has ‘taken flight from reason’ over fracking with ‘anti-science’ statements, expert claims
link to archive.is
————————————————————-
The Labour peer George Foulkes, who Ms Dugdale worked for as office manager and political advisor during his stint at Holyrood, said questions over Scotland’s constitutional future were not going away and that his party should “take the lead” in proposing a solution following a new, UK-wide, constitutional convention.
link to archive.is
Aye right! 🙂
OK, this is my FOURTH attempt to post this comment…
The site doesn’t seem to like the content. I finally managed to post it in “Quarantine”.
……………………………………
OK… A post I did around 11.45pm has disappeared but my later “Henning Wehn” one has appeared. So, I’ll try the contents of my missing post again.
It was addressed to Chic McGregor and was about electric cars. I supplied the info that I had been given a copy of the movie “Who Killed The Electric Car?” some years ago and had found it available on t’interweb.
It can be found here (more or less):-
link to wingsoverscotland.com
If you’re using a web browser that supports the “Videodownloadhelper” add-on, you can download for later viewing, offline.
Ian Brotherhood
still like the wgd, we can dream…which is what im doing, just sayin’ etc
graeme doig, ivan mckee was rejected as an snp candidate, but got elected on thursday as an msp. hooray
he will be there, or there aboot, but only when indyref2 is officially launched
nicola has already said, launching yes2 is up to us
Bit behind with comments so just had a catch up and disappointed to see some anti-south of Scotland comments further up.
The impact of broadcasting cannot be underestimated in terms of the independence / SNP movement because broadcasting has a massive impact on identity. If you live in the south chances are your TV defaults to BBC North East & Cumbria and iTV Newcastle. In the middle of Dumfries I struggle to receive Scottish broadcasting. That means that not only do we have to go out of our way to access Scottish voices, it also means that south of Scotland voices are largely silent within Scotland’s broadcast experience of itself. We are rarely part of the Scottish conversation, and the SNP, frankly, have been astonishingly bad at even getting the geography of the south correct within some of their national communications.
And that’s before you even touch on issues of transport, digital connectivity, centralisation, low wage economies, extraordinary high levels of self employment because industry has disappeared, disconnect from national agencies and so much more.
I’m not at all surprised that the south voted Tory. I sincerely hope the SNP make some effort to understand the reasons why because that bright blue stripe stretching across the south illustrates a clear disconnect between the south of Scotland and the SNP.
And those pro independence and SNP activists based in that bright blue stripe deserve medals for the hard work that was done here to try to turn the south yellow, not snide comments about how Tory we all are. I can guarantee that activists in the south will have experienced more hostility on doorsteps than anywhere else in Scotland, and yet our list vote held up and we have 3 cracking SNP MSPs based in our blue bit.
If there’s going to be some sort of Yes2 steering group, it should be done properly and professionally.
The fact that you folks are even talking like this is actually quite worrying. The big problem is you think that meaning well somehow exonerates you when you screw things up. We call that “folk psychology”.
Most of you get far too emotional when it comes to politics too, I’ve noticed. Leave it to professional PR people and keep out of the way.
My obvious choice for managing the Yes2 campaign would be Saatchi & Saatchi.
Do you want to win or do you want to feel at one with the trees or your fellow man or something? That’s the first question you should address.
Thank you all and goodnight.
State o’ Wednesday’s front page fae the Herald:
link to twitter.com
@Ian
Ah, a comedian(enne). Or a cartoonist? Chris Cairns or Greg Moodie in an interview with Andrew Neil, doing a quick cartoon of him?
From Rev’s twitter Labour Uncut…tearing a new one for Slab after Thursday’s result:
link to archive.is
I think our Zoroaster bother-er has been trained in the duelist practice of Blackwhite and, as such, is fluent in Duckspeak. Don’t Bellyfeel for his/her Goodlife message.
loads of folk say the indy movement should be more agressive, why not frankie boyle
imagine the interview
laura keussenburk. tell me about your economic plans for an idy scotland
boyle.. well you’re so far up camerons arse your company is issuing shares on any potential organ donations should he pass on. scotland intends to invest heavily in your ponsey scheme and potentially could make millions…. or so it says on yer facebook page laura….
maybe the route to victory is through ridicule. dont dismiss this idea out of hand
people would watch this stuff, and share it on social media
schrodingers cat – I would LOVE to see an interview like that
@cat
More please!
The Rev’s away – behave or I’ll gat annoyed.
Schrödinger’s cat
I had no idea he’d been elected. Good stuff.
Ivan McKie was returned as an SNP constituency MSP for Provan in Glasgow, so he is now in the Scottish Parliament.
if the yes2 campaign is to be organised and staffed by the grass roots, rather than the snp, perhaps we should avoid dour and characterless people like blair jenkins
we could crowd fund and award at the edinburgh festival (£1-2000) for the best pro indy comic
inject a bit of humour into the campaign and find our own representatives
god knows, even if we fail, as long as it is a laugh it would be worth it
tis late
bed time
i promise to be good paula
honest 🙂
A general 2p’s worth.
‘Independence First’ was one of the initiatives which came out of a private on line pro indy think tank. It was a publicly targeted project in response to two main developments. The first being the refusal of the UK Government to allow an independence referendum, the second being a quite strong suspicion at that time (2004/5) that the SNP were considering abandoning independence like PC had done in Wales.
In response, its aims were:
1) To organise marches demanding an independence referendum.
2) To inform SNP MSPs that a string of ‘buried’ opinion polls asking a straight indy Y/N question showed that at that time support for independence was in the majority.
3) To press the SNP to drop ‘Europe’ from their preferred indy question and instead to offer a policy of deferral on EU membership until after indy.
4) To compile a dossier to submit to the UN with evidence that Scots wanted independence (the buried polls) that the UK Government refused to allow a referendum and also refused to specify another mechanism whereby Scots could pursue self-determination (official Government communiques received by IF). In fact they stated that there was no mechanism at all, which is contrary to several UN treaties and declarations.
When IF launched publicly, endorsements were sought from all pro indy parties.
The Scottish Greens leadership immediately endorsed IF and ratified their endorsement a couple of weeks later and the SSP (a then nascent force) almost as quickly but the SNP response was less enthusiastic. Eventually SNP MSPs were allowed to endorse individually but there was never a party policy on it. However at least three who held ministerial posts in the last administration did endorse IF then, on that individual basis.
So my personal experience re the Scottish Greens and indy is a very positive one.
So what happened to IF?
Well re 1) we did in fact organise the two largest political marches on the Scottish Parliament in 2006 and 2007. Obviously these went unreported by the SMSM but did receive some TV coverage internationally.
On 2) SNP MSPs were sent the said poll results and internet links to the source data in the pollster’s archives.
On 3) The SNP (under returned leader Salmond) did indeed commission a straight indy Y/N poll in 2006, which showed the typical 54% Yes result and subsequently the SNP dropped ‘in Europe’ from their preferred indy question. However, no commitment to deferral of the EU membership question was undertaken.
On 4) The election of the SNP, albeit as a minority Government, in 2007 brought to a halt the supplication to the UN (which had already been instigated) since it raised a new ‘avenue of domestic remedy’. It is a condition of supplication to the UN that all avenues of domestic remedy have to be exhausted before an application will be considered.
IF’s aims, coincidentally or otherwise, had been met. As it happened, with boring predictability, it was also coincidentally experiencing an episode of Left wing entryism. As the founding members resigned and left IF it was suggested by me that IF could yet be a healing vehicle for the far left which by then, courtesy of Rupert Murdoch, had fractured. Perhaps even forming a new left wing party and one which the very name would help exclude the closet ‘international socialists’. However, that never happened.
Re fracking. There exists ample data on line from Australia and the USA to illustrate its ‘benefits’.
The minority pressure group of totally (non) Green hypocrites. Is driving voters away from the Ibdependence Movement. They try to hand on the SNP for publicity. Damaging the SNP at every opportunity. Their (non) Green hypocritical, damaging lunatic behaviour and insane policies are driving people away from the Independence Movement in droves. They are making a mockery of it. They are not Green In any way shape or form. The only one focus interest they have is to muck up other people’s lives at every opportunity and illegally waste as much public money as they can. They are total charalotan in every thing they can. No wonder the 2014 Referedum fail with their close involvement. Their reputation precedes them and endorse the disruptive damage that they do at every level. They hang onto the SNP at every corrupt opportunity dragging the YES Movement down.
The only truly Green Party in the UK is the SNP. The rest in Scotland are just damaging charlatans who bring the Independence Movement down. Vastly unpopular for good reason. They just try to use the Independence movement to promote themselves because it works. They will renege on Independencee at every turn and just make up pathetic excuses. When Scotland votes YES they and their and their non Green policies will be inconsequential and they know it. Just another bunch of opportunistic, public money wasting losers. .
Most people are too aware to fall for their nonsense. The majority can see through them at every turn. The non Greens are doing the Independence Movement irreconcilable harm and their inane behaviour has been tolerated for far too long. Many people will not vote for Independence because of their one issue obsessional (non) Green policies, which will never be implemented in any case. In any way shape or form.
@schrodingers cat says: 11 May, 2016 at 12:25 am:
“except in perthshire they dont call them gadgies
they’re called cogies”
“Gadgies”, is actually a Romney word that has been absorbed into Lowland Scots. It actually means an non-Romney person in Romney but just means a person in Scots.
I live just 0.5 miles from the Fife/Kinross & Perth border and they certainly use, “Gadgie”, around Kinross and Milnathort and spilling over into Marybourgh, Blairadam and Kelty.
I’ve no idea if they use, “Codgie”, further into Kinross & Perthshire.
I’m an snp member but I’m hearing alot of green bashing here. The only green i want to bash over the head is Philip green.
Meanwhile Osborne’s ponzi economy is collapsing with London house prices dropping 8% and we are squabbling amongst ourselves.
Just to chip my tuppence on fracking. I’m against it. I hear the pro fracking lobby saying it’s safe, and see pictures which tell me it isn’t always safe. Yet even if it was completely safe, it’s yet another carbon based fossil fuel which is going pump yet more CO2 into the atmosphere.
My perception is the argument is being steered by the pro-lobby to be the big yes-no choice dressed up over an issue about whether it’s safe or not. At the risk of outing myself as one of those scurrilous Green independence subversive troublemakers, I thought the whole essence about being green was having a new and mature level of respect for our planet. We don’t need fracked gas. Leave it where it is. If we must irreversibly pump shit into the ground into the ground at such pressures it fractures the strata, then please, let us first have a better reason to do it, like need, rather than grubby cash.
As for leader for YES2, my vote is Mila Jovovich. No idea what her politics are, but she is gorgeous, enchanting, strong but feminine, and best of all if you’re mean to her on TV she’ll beat the living crap out of you in a sexy but deadly kind of way. I feel sure she’s a YES2 kinda girl at heart.
If we need a volunteer to go and ask her, I’m available.
Indigo 1.01am,
Thanks for that excellent post.
It’s the Tories, see.
It’s a fossil fuel, see.
It’s capitalism, see.
Squeeze the land til it bleeds, give short term gains to some locals, and to hell with the rest of us.
It’s about renewables, see.
@ Breeks – good choice – on you go.
I’m beginning to wonder if Ken500 is really Donald Trump posting here in disguise?
@ Chic McGregor – thanks for that insight into some historical moves to achieve independence and the historical majority of YES voters. I used to be a laLabour voter but would still have voted YES if asked. Now it’s SNP but I can see more people coming over to YES in the next year or so
@ SC In Edinburgh we used to call the bucket-men “barry gadgies”. No idea why.
@Breeks
It’s the economics of it not just the environmental impact. Energy return on energy invested is something pro fracking governments will not want to talk about..
If we looked long term we would be using water for heat exchange
Indigo
Agreed. Folk forget very quickly that Dumfries & Galloway, AND Roxburgh, Berwickshire and Selkirk gained SNP MP’s at the election last year. Some folk can write these areas off as tory- they just don’t get the distance D&G and the Borders feels from Edinburgh and decision making.
And that distance doesn’t correlate just to physical distance- as you say broadcasting and other factors play a part. If ANYONE can relate to feeling distant from the decision making process and feeling ignored by the government you would think it would be independence supporters!
Anyway- thanks for your post.
The National front page – a triple whammy!
link to twitter.com
40,000: gallons of chemicals and 8million gallons of water are used for every fracturing site. There are 600 different chemicals used in the fracking fluid. They include known carcinogens and toxins including lead, benzene, uranium, radium, methanol, mercury, hydrochloric acid, ethylene glycol and formaldehyde. These are injected 10,000 feet into the ground through a drilled pipeline.
There are 1.1 million active gas wells in the United States and they use 72 trillion gallons of water to run current USA gas wells. 360 billion gallons of chemicals are also needed to run current USA gas wells to produce 300,000: barrels of natural gas each day.
Known bad side effects include :-
During the process, methane gas and toxic chemicals leach out from the well and contaminate the ground-water. That contaminated water is used for drinking water in local communities. There were over 1,000 known cases of water contamination near fracking areas and reported cases of sensory, respiratory and neurological damage due to drinking contaminated water.
In 2011, the New York Times reported it had obtained thousands of internal documents from the EPA, state regulators and fracking companies, which reveal that “the waste water, which is sometimes hauled to sewage plants not designed to treat it and then subsequently discharged into rivers that supply drinking water that contains radioactivity at levels higher than previously known, and far higher than the level that USA federal regulators say is safe for these treatment plants to handle.”
Just one well can produce over a million gallons of waste water containing radioactive elements like radium and carcinogenic hydrocarbons like benzene. In addition, methane concentrations are 17 times higher in drinking-water wells near fracking sites than in normal wells. Only 30 to 50 percent of fracturing fluid is recovered and the remainder is left in the ground. It is not biodegradable.
Do we really want this claimed, “Safe”, procedure in Scotland? The choice is yours you can vote for the anti-fracking SNP or vote for a pro-fracking UK unionist government.
SC , there is a wee programme that appeared on youtube and can be found I’m sure via the WGD site.
It includes input by Derek Bateman and Paul WGD Kavanagh.
He is one sharp dude and comes over exceptionally well – sharp mind , sharp dresser!
I would truly love to see him on the mainstream telly – he’d eat them up and spit them out in bubbles!
It not a YES/NO choice, It is a YES or pretendy Green choice. it is safer than offshore extraction. which has only been blighted by the UK Gov tax regime. Who is in Gov in Scotland? The SNP or a tiny minority of an unelected (non) Green pressure group. Far too big for their boots with absolutely no mandate, in any shape or form. The certainly have form for their hypocritical behaviour. Time to cut them down to size.
Unfortunately some (non) Green supporters totally over estimate their support and importance within the broad SNP/Independence movement and the irrelevant tail tries to start wagging the dog.
The absolute minority (non) Green Party elated and conceited because of it’s SNP connection, then tries to manipulate the argument,
What can be assured is the majority supported SNP Gov will make the right decision for Scotland. Nicola is totally up for the job.
The (non) Green Party is terrorising moderate supporters and others away from the SNP/ Independence Movement with inane policies of mythological ‘land grab’ assumptions and 60% tax rates that are never going to happen in any shape or form. Policies which are not radical but just profoundly incompetent.
The only radical solution to Scotland’s economic, political and social matters is FFA/Independence which the (non) Green charlatans are usually trying to damage for a bit of cheap publicity.
Time to regroup to take distance and ditch the (non) Greens who are trying damaging the Scottish economy and the Independence movement. The (non) Green charlatans who have show in every minority elected post and in any situation to lose any principles for any wad of cash e,g, to be the Deputy leader of the Unionist and NO party and muck up the local economy with (non) Green policies at every opportunity, wasting £Million/Billions of taxpayers money. Just because they can.
The SNP will formulate policies in the interest of people and the Scottish economy. Not some minority pressure group. The SNP majority government is as usual trying to keep a successful mixed economy within the confines of a damaging UK Gov policies which are totally negative and damaging to the UK economy and the Scottish Gov in particular. Possibly to try and destroy the Independence Movement. To usurp the democratic preference of the people in Scotland they are the ones who damage the UK economy, along with their totally incompetent policies.
RE: the leadership/committee of the next YES campaign
Some good names being bandied about right enough up thread from most sectors of society.
On that committee you could do worse than Messrs Kavanagh and Bateman. Also like the idea of L. Riddoch. Safe to say there are plenty folks with media savvy gravitas and presence we could suggest. Those three would certainly top my bill on that score.
Still, it will need a respected political name on that bench IMO and one with the widest possible appeal who can bring the left and the right to coalesce around the centre. Its almost a shame Alex became an MP last year. As an independent he’d have been an awesome name to throw in the pot. That and I’m sure he’d have relished the idea of brakes off chairing the popular campaign, rather than wearing the hat and restrictions of office. However I’m sure he’ll be doing his bit on the govt. side of things.
I wonder if Angry Salmond is available to sex things up? 🙂
Apart from the fact apart from the usual hysterical histrionics. Any Onshore Gas extraction in Scotland is off absolutely tiny proportions in Scotland especially when compared to the offshore opportunities which have been destroyed by the UK Gov tax regime. It was undertaken in Central Scotland from the 1900’s to the 1960’s when it became non economic, supplies dried up. No houses fell down. Or house prices crashed. In fact just the opposite. More houses were built and prices went up proportionately.
Plus UK Gov policies of shutting down coal production, banning wind farms in England, less support for renewables. Leading to a damaging economic increase in imports. Higher trade deficit and balance of trade. Higher deficit and debt. The total hypocracy and expense of the the dangerous and costly Hinkley Power station, which could result in the rest of the UK having to rely on Russian Gas. That’s an unexpected turn up for the books.
OH FFS!
They seriously can’t be considering Johann Lamont for P.O.?
This person likened the SNP and the support of independence to a virus! How can anyone consider a person who makes that kind of statement fit for the office?
Dear God, they must be insane.
Ken told us we should listen to Ian Wood.
Donald Trump is another ignorant pretendy Green, who will do anything for a wad of cash, fund the pretendy Green anti offshore wind agitators but were confined in Scotland by Law. Trump even gave money/funding to pretendy Green organisations which was gleefully and gratefully received. Hypocritical. No they just wanted more.
Let down the Scottish taxpayers to a degree. Still unfinished business but increased tourism by 100%. Pretendy Greens don’t like tourism or planes. They just fly to the US on them financed by taxpayers money. The good life for the pretendy Green hypocrites.
To avoid any confusion this is an Independence supporting site. Not a pretendy Green excuse for manipulation.
If you wanted the City Centre pedestrianised in the shortest more inexpensive way, which the majority wanted and still do. UTG Project was the winner.
Robert @ 2.05pm yesterday
“cursing speeds.”
That would be the speed of traffic from the bridge to Halbeath roundabout on the M90? 🙂
@ Boab Peffers, Romney’s a marsh! 🙂
Johann Lamont, having just had a kick in the teeth from the electorate she’s back and she’s looking to fill her bank account at the peeps expense.
Her photie on page 7 of the National is an absolute stunner, even Rock (alias Torcuil) would agree.
All MSPs comprehensively rejected by voters but elected by list votes are now living off the public purse. Don’t tell me that that is a just and fair system.
“Nigeria and Afghanistan are fantastically corrupt” says David Cameron, Prime Minister of the fantastically corrupt UK.
It might be a good thing that Johann Lamont/Rosa Klebb is kept in the limelight as is the Herald having ridiculous front pages.
@Capella says: 11 May, 2016 at 7:38 am:
“In Edinburgh we used to call the bucket-men “barry gadgies”. No idea why.”
I’d hazard a guess, Capella, that, “Barry Gadgies”, probably, “Barrie”, rather than, “Barryy”, is Lallans Scots for, “Barrow people”, wheeling bins around.
Oh looky, while we’re on the subject of rejected candidates…
On Union Kaye call in we have Braden Davy, the one time Northumbrian Nationalist, late of standing for British Lab 9Region 9) against Eck at last years election. He’s landed a gig in the Vote Leave crowd.
Im in Inverness on Thurs nite at the Cannish camping park Slaters Arms pub is roon the corner, if any Wingers are about we can share ah pint or two ah,ll bring the straws lol.
Call Kaye might as well be “Nicola Sturgeon ate my hamster”
It’s astonishing how the SNP ever get elected according to the amount of people who blame them for everything in the universe on this program
The first 3 callers on the EU referendum couldn’t wait to get SNP Baad out of their mouths quick enough
I always love the way some of them do the “I’m an SNP supporter but they’re Baad” thing
@jdman says: 11 May, 2016 at 8:51 am:
“cursing speeds.”
That would be the speed of traffic from the bridge to Halbeath roundabout on the M90? 🙂
Not me, gov, t’was my spooling chooker wot dun it.
I noticed it, had a chuckle, and decided to let it stay to let other have a laugh too.
My thoughts were less the bridge to Halbeath interchange – more like the Dunfermline Wynde.
In Fife, it was either bucket men or scaffies.
Macart: “On that committee you could do worse than”
To have any credence in the public’s mind, leadership of a new ‘Yes’ movement of like minds has to include one economist of high reputation – even as consultant if not able to be a full participant.
The torrent of lies and fabrication to show Scotland is too fiscally poor to get out of bed will increase.
Call Kayee EBC: EU should we go or should we stay? Main message SNPBAAD, yoons are certainly the preferred contributors. SNPBAAD! Regarding EBC & LONDINIUM we should certainly GO!
In the old days, well in the 60’s, the scaffy had his own enclosed rubbish barra that he wheeled around. Maybe the barra gadgie came from that. They were scaffy’s and bucket manny’s back then. I think they are called environmental waste collection operatives now 🙂
The non diplomatic liar Brown has re-emerged spouting the usual nonsense. The joker comes to mind. He didn’t even know what the Banks were up to in the UK. Complete ignoramous. The one who crashed the Scottish/UK economy for a wad of taxpayers cash. Murdered innocent people. Caused the biggest migration crisis in Europe since the 11WW.
The Chilcot a Report is coming out July 6. What will be said then?
@GrouseBeater
Aye Afghanistan is certainly corrupt now that it has its western friendly puppet regime. How it got to this point is interesting.
This is well worth a read..
link to books.google.co.uk
Says a lot when a country’s press is more outraged by ‘named person’ legislation than the criminal murderous behaviour by its political establishment at dolphin square.
That’s corruption.
The National
I’m sorry @Cat Boyd supporters but the lassie’s a moron and why this paper keeps allowing her brain dead observations in the hope somebody might pay attention to her beats me
She’s doing that stupidity thing again in her latest scribblings with this “We need the SNP to get us independence but don’t vote for them” crap
The arrogance of this dimwit after having been totally rejected by the voters tells us it’s basically their fault and that the SNP think they’re entitled and it shoulda been ME ME ME, where have we heard that before
Jeez, too early in the morning to get agitated by these nutters, I’m off out in the sunny light where I hope folk are happier today, even if they’re not I’m going to be Shiny
The headline in the Scottish Daily Mail re the Cameron gaffe is:
CORRUPT REGIMES GET OUR AID CASH ADMITS CAMERON
But Tory MP Philip Davies called for Nigeria and Afghanistan to be stripped of aid until they clean up their acts.
‘It is completely unjustifiable for the Prime Minister to pour taxpayers’ money into Nigeria and Afghanistan even though he knows they are fantastically corrupt, it is an absolute scandal,’ he said.
The two countries pocketed £435million of British cash last year – despite deep cuts to public services here. Their payments have soared 35 per cent since Mr Cameron took office in 2010.
Peter Bone, another Conservative MP, said the PM’s pledge to spend 0.7 per cent of Britain’s income on aid meant more cash would inevitably be lost to corruption.
He added: ‘We have got tied to this ridiculous target which means we are more interested in spending money than in where it ends up. It is perverse.
‘Why else are we giving millions of pounds to countries that we know are fantastically corrupt? We just end up lining the pockets of corrupt leaders, bent officials, criminal gangs and, in the worst cases, terrorists.’
Listening to call Kay’s moan in. If we leave Europe, Scotland will not have powers over the fishing industry, this is much to important to be given to the pretendy wee Scottish parly. It will be claimed for Westminster as Extra Territory and licenses will be sold to the highest bidders most likely those countries fishing there right now.
@Grouse Beater
Absolutely on the economist point Grouse.
The committee must be representative of all major sectors IMV. Media and Culture, Economy, Politics, Civic bodies. Chair and Campaign manager will, I believe, be best served by a mix of either Politician and Economist or Politician and Media spokespeople. Recognisable and relateable in equal measure. The back up they recieve from the rest of the committee will prove essential and must be solid.
I made an attempt to read the Labour Uncut article:
Why aren’t we furious with the Scottish party?
but found I couldn’t be bothered. Frankly my dear ……….
Kall Caye,
EU Ref, Braden Davie on for out campaign given lots of airtime by Beeb.
Same Bradyn that appeared on QT Dundee, Northumberland Independence leader and list candidate in NE.
BBCScot love him and must have him on speed dial!
Business as usual for the unelected Unionist/non Greens and the hysterical unelected Press. Time to ditch them. Get them put in their place. They are trying to turn Holyrood into a non elected paradise. Most of the non elected criminal parasites should not even be there. They have no respect for the electorate. None. An affront to democracy. ‘Hold the SNP to account’ ‘with radical policies’. Time to put them in their place and make them pipe down.
For someone who is supported to be impartial. The Tory tax evading Royals are certainly having their full say and share. Encouraged by the hypocritical public fund fraudster embezzler, tax evading enabler cousin Cameron.
If we leave the UK Union Scotland will have it’s control and representative over it’s fishing industry in the EU Union.
Grouse Beater, nobody was comprehensibly rejected. The system facilitates voting for people, not against them.
The party lists were made known beforehand. The mechanics of the system were made known beforehand. All of those who took part and voted Labour on the list therefore expressed support for the outcome. That makes it just.
Fairness isn’t even in question since all parties and participants are treated equally within the system. Nobody is disputing that.
The system worked exactly as intended. It’s a good system for smaller parties. The fact that the likes of RISE couldn’t win a seat, with a system as favourable as this, should be interpreted as a very clear message.
Ouch BBC nasal Kaye – it’s a shrinking audience or flat earthers. That’s why I never tune in for more than 2 minutes. The woman’s whine is enough to put me off.
Talking of YES 2 leaders we also need some YES 2 economists. Not the neo-classical types -I.e joe Stieglitz (yes I mean it). Too many are wedded to the mainstream economic myths which are systematically destroying our future. We need to look to the heterodox school – economists such as Bill Mitchell, Steve keen , Stephanie Kelton (.advisor to Bernie in the states). None of this shared currency crap please.
Dr Jim says:
Classic concern trolling techniques. Quite clearly it’s all stage managed. Whether it’s simple filtering of callers to get the ‘right kind’, or whether some callers are complete stitch ups, it is far from representative.
To some extent the EBC bias will be counter productive. People see through the lies and spin. It also acts to reinforce the views and stance of Indy supporters.
However, what about the BritNats and those who haven’t seen through it? I suspect it reinforces their warped opinions too.
In that respect the EBC is being divisive. Convincing both sides of their worldview – those who still believe ( or choose to believe ) the lies, and those who have seen through it.
Our job is ensure more people see through it. It’s a one way process. Once you see the reality, you won’t buy into the deceit again.
We won’t get rid of the EBC, or even change it, prior to Indy. Dreams of alternative broadcasting (Freeview or Sat) will not happen either. However we can discredit the current output at every opportunity.
Ronnie Anderson,
Where are you staying the next night?
I was going to join when it passes the end of my turning on Sunday but I have to go into the hospital (nothing serious) for a day monday so won’t be able to.
A barry gadge` is,
barry = good
gadge = guy/person
they do not have to belong together,
as in if something is good it is `barry`,
or,”see that gadge or (gadgie) over there”
I`m sure Irvine Welsh uses both words and many more venacular Edinburgh words in Trainspotting.
B R O A D C A S T I N G
The Scottish Government could have set up an office with it’s own website and or digital Channell, that could d,issect BBC lies ……. Now that the majority has gone, it’s probably impossible to implement.
The SNP have sat back and accepted a media landscape controlled by broadcasters who are against the party, consequently day after day voters have been subject to a constant stream of one sided propaganda. The majority was lost by 2 MSP’s. Instead of relying on Wings and Newsnet.scot to battle the Unionist side, if the SNP had got the finger out, It’s not too difficult to envisage them having a majority…
Why have the SNP done nothing to counter The BBC at a time when the party had total control of the Parliamant.
Scottie Dog, Yanis Farouakis would be a good guy to have on board.
Ruby, re the 0.7 of Gdp as aid. I know someone who has been involved with DFID in Afghan and it is bonkers. They are thrown money to get rid of and if they dont meet their targets then they get a negative report and their next posting is a step down. If they do meet them their supervisors get a bonus and a step up for the next posting. It is indeed about spending the money to reach the 0.7 target. Introduced by the clinking fist if I’m not mistaken.
Clyde Built: “the party had total control of the Parliament.”
Do they, really? We don’t even own the building.
Alan, you beat me to it. I was just going to suggest Yanis. Great guy for arguing the economy and a well kent face.
The Scottish Gov has absolutely no control over Broadcasting. It is devolved. It would be illegal for a Scottish Gov to set up a separate Broadcasting service, punishable by prison. Breaking Ministerial Code etc over powers – because the majority in Scotland voted NO.
The SNP Gov have done everything in the powers, trying to get more Broadcasting power devolved. Set up Committee, they were televised. Kicked up Hell (including ironically the NO voting Unionist) to no avail. The BBC Charter is up for renewal and it is a waiting game to see if these representations, when the broadcasting authorities were telt, will make any difference. Or getting commercial broadcasting coming on board. That is happening abeit slowly. Money talks.
What has happened to Lesley-Anne. Does anybody know?
Clydebuilt
Frustrating as it is for all of us, imo, if the SNP ‘ set up’ a rival, do you honestly think our beloved media would not both through the owners self interest and their own preservation let that be established ?
It would be portrayed as North Korea control tactics on steroids.
Plus, if we want Independence , we can’t just appeal to SNP voters .
The great thing about YES was it was people from all walks of life and slowly ( not just in Scotland) the likes of the BBC are being shown for what it is. Laura Kunesberg, the junior doctors , HSBC etc.
People are starting to notice what is not being reported as much as what is.
The print media , we have a choice , don’t buy it.
As for Call Kaye and the likes, the people who phone in now appear to be the same small band . John from Aberdeen , Scott from Edinburgh all talking to themselves.
Yes we hate the EU,Yes SNP bad , no to renewables , Yes we love the BBC , you can write the script and perhaps that’s the point .
RTE has a much broader and far more interesting phone in, without the need for the presenter leading the callers one way or the other but then I don’t suppose they have to kid on to their trust that they are appealing and maintaining listening figures like the BBC do.
Let’s face it, they must kid on because they certainly don’t try to engage with 45% of the nation
Clyde- The SNP are damned if they do ,and damned if they don’t. As soon as they criticise the BBC for legitimate reasons. They are declared Stalinist control freaks. If you think of UKIP who for different reasons complained about the BBC after Farage was bullied on Question time or the debates.
The media went to town on UKIP and turned it around saying they went in the huff and wanted everything their own way. As much as I hate UKIP. The point was lost. Farage was set up and that is typical of the BBC and media.
The SNP know that if they complained on TV or in a debating situation. The BBC’s plants would crucify them and the point would get lost in tirade.
Think of how the Yes voters were treated when they turned up at the BBC to protest. They were described as an angry mob by every newspapaer. So again the complaint gets lost on the general public.
99% of the media are against the SNP. Until independence that will not change. We will have to win the referendum despite the media. Salmond has always said we have to live with them. It’s wrong on so many levels but that’s the Real-Politic. We can’t blame the SNP for playing the game as any boycot or complaining ends up putting them in a worse position.
It’s up to us and civic society to chip away at the BBC and others over their abuse. The SNP cannot be seen to try and control the media.
cearc
Last I heard of Lesley-Anne was a couple of photos on Twitter before the election showing her car all kitted out/logo’d up as a battle bus to be used for Joan McAlpine’s campaign.
There’s nothing on her twitter feed since 17th April.
Hope she’s OK
Afghanistan, Nigeria etc. Queen bee and cousin Cameron seem to have missed the point as usual. it was the British Gov of which she is State Head and cousin Cameron is PM that had responsibility for leaving these country in that corrupt state, by illegal intervention. On behalf of the American State. They caused death in destruction in both them and other countries. Iraq the Middle East and Commonwealth counties. They milked them dry and still do.
Churchill took all Iran Oil caused unrest, discredit and imprisoned the PM. M15/M16. Reinstated the corrupt, dislike Shah and hid it all under the Official Secrets Act for over thirty years. The UK corruption is undisputed. They are responsible for the worst migration crisis in Europe since 11WW. Mass killings of innocent people. Anyone who complains is put in prison. Costing European countries £Billions. Along with The US and France (Nato countries – another expense) breaking International Laws.
The Chilcot Report 6 July. Will the guilty get put in prison or will it be kept secret under the Official Secrets Act for years. Until the perpetrators are dead. Buried with their crimes. The US and associates have been starving North Korea for over fifty years. China’s tries to help them out, otherwise even more of them would be starving. Scared of US promoted invasion.
Queen bee must be outliving the responsibility. Getting rid time. Too many unexplained guffs. Or just muck ups? Usually covered up under the Official Secrets Act by ‘D’ notices.
@G4jeepers 09.51- that’s the one thanks.
@Robert J Sunderland – 10.26, yes will mention that as well.
Yanis Farouakis
great idea
Cearc, Nana and I have both asked about Lesley-Anne a few days ago, but we haven’t heard from her for a wee while.
Now I see Lollysmum @ 11.00 and there has been nothing on twitter since 17th April. That’s not like her, she usually pops up somewhere along the line.
The fact that no one has heard from her is quite concerning. She is the opposite side of the D&G region to me, so anyone from over the Annan side know anything? Hope you’re all right LA.
As ever, The Rev’s article has some insightful observations but
“They have no idea what “land reform” is and nor should they – it would make no difference to most of them even if it happened.”
Gie’s peace. Land reform isn’t just confined to rural areas. We can’t build a fairer Scotland without it.
“Land reform isn’t just confined to rural areas. We can’t build a fairer Scotland without it.”
Then you need to do about a 10,000% better job of explaining that to people.
I am now waiting for the people of Edinburghshire. To start complaining that Holyrood is run by Weegies! the Borders elect Tories and moan all the time!
The best way is not to give the BBC an audience, unless absolutely necessary, especially News programmes. Lower audience numbers will talk. Commercial broadcasting will come on board. It is happening abeit slowly. There are plenty of other news channels to watch, for a balance report, in any case. Keep campaigning don’t stop. People do take notice.
The mystery is why the BBC can spend a budget of £3.7Billion (enough to relieve poverty) and make such rubbish (news) programmes. The debate going on involving the Charter is how to cut £100Million from the BBC budget, (austerity). That should be easy. The ‘celebrity’ lovies are kicking off complains. Many are tax evadering Non Doms who benefits greatly from taxpayers money.
At the risk of outing myself as one of those scurrilous Green independence subversive troublemakers, I thought the whole essence about being green was having a new and mature level of respect for our planet. We don’t need fracked gas.”
The “whole essence about being green” sums them up quite well. We are the Greens and that’s not Green so we’re blocking it, and so is that, blocked, and that, block it.
I’m British Green in my Scotland region, with all the sanctimony and logic of a religion. Did you know that if you leave your car running with out moving, you produce enough hyrdophlorians to kill a penguin.
Save a penguin, vote Green. Its what nice people do.
Marie,
Well I’m the other end of the country from her. She was intending to do the epic convoy and I hoped to see her up here. Indeed it was she who first posted about it here so it does not sound good.
link to archive.is
UK To India: Please, Take The Money, We’re Begging You
Hundreds of thousands of pounds was spent on delivering more than 7,000 televisions to schools — most of which did not have electricity. 🙁 🙂
Ahura Mazda: “That makes it just.”
Don’t fool yourself. It’s a pathetic system.
Any system that blocks new, fresh individuals committed to public service yet welcomes discredited serial liars is demands to be ditched. If left unaltered our Parliament will be viewed with the contempt Connolly described it – “pretendy”.
Actually drifted off for an extra hour of snooze this morning when listening to Carmichael on GMS droning on about the Scots having made their choice in 2014 that the EU decision was a UK wide one and basically suck it up Scotland.
Then somewhere in the land of nod and dreams I thought I heard that Gordon was coming back to tell us all to remain in the EU.
I was so confused as I ate my porridge later that I never bothered to tune into ‘your call’ so I have no idea how that went.
‘The National’ cheered me up with the WGD article.
But I got a fright when I caught Lamont’s coupon on page 7 (warning) 🙂 a candidate for Presiding Officer.
The SNP group might go for Ken Macintosh instead, not accepting that her past record could ever make her take a neutral stance, and also just to be bad.
Tony Blair should be impeached says Salmond for his antics in Iraq and a plea from McLeish for ‘Home Rule’ as McKenna gives him a nod and reminds the Tories that Indy2 may be nearer not further.
X-word(s) excellent! Sport…It was a penalty but hey! The ref never went to specsavers but the Kelpies saw it from Falkirk!.
UK pensioners living abroad should be getting their % raise says SNP at WM and what happens after Brexit MR Cameron?
No children to watch and the suns up X-words done I’m off to the beach for the ozone!
PS: Another rain cloud in the Hootsman:
Scott Macnab: Time to open up debate at Holyrood
link to archive.is
@Rock
10 May, 2016 at 7:49 pm
Having been born and brought up in the Levenmouth
area which is part of the Central Fife constituency Henry McLeish represented as an MP,I have never trusted him and never will.
Fracking seems to have turned America into a population based laboratory with many identified health and environmental hazards.
1) ‘Residents described their health concerns in terms of their changing community as a result of unconventional oil and natural gas development (UOGD), their feelings of stress and powerlessness related to these changes, and the limited response of their local policymakers and protective agencies’
McDermott-Levy, R. and Garcia, V. Health Concerns of Northeastern Pennsylvania Residents Living in an Unconventional Oil and Gas Development County. Public Health Nurs. 14-4-2016.
2)’There are immediate threats to health resulting from air pollution from volatile organic compounds, which contain carcinogens such as benzene and ethyl-benzene, and which have adverse neurologic and respiratory effects. Hydrogen sulfide, a component of natural gas, is a potent neuro- and respiratory toxin…There are major concerns about water contamination because the chemicals used can get into both ground and surface water. Much of the produced water (up to 40% of what is injected) comes back out of the gas well with significant radioactivity because radium in subsurface rock is relatively water soluble. There are significant long-term threats beyond cancer, including exacerbation of climate change due to the release of methane into the atmosphere, and increased earthquake activity due to disruption of subsurface tectonic plates’
Carpenter, D. O. Hydraulic fracturing for natural gas: impact on health and environment. Rev.Environ.Health 31(1), 47-51. 1-3-2016.
3)’To investigate race and poverty in areas where oil and gas wastewater disposal wells, which are used to permanently inject wastewater from hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations, are permitted…Wastewater disposal wells in southern Texas are disproportionately permitted in areas with higher proportions of people of color and residents living in poverty, a pattern known as “environmental injustice’
Johnston, J. E. et al Disposal Wells, Fracking, and Environmental Injustice in Southern Texas. Am.J.Public Health 106(3), 550-556. 2016
4)’Our findings indicate that fracking contributes to a disruption in residents’ sense of place and social identity, generating widespread social stress…’
Sangaramoorthy, T. et al Place-based perceptions of the impacts of fracking along the Marcellus Shale. Soc Sci.Med. 151, 27-37. 2016.
5)’To understand the toxicity and potential carcinogenic effects of these wastewaters, flow back waters from five Marcellus hydraulic fracturing oil and gas wells were analysed… Barium and strontium were among the most abundant metals in these samples and the same metals were found to be elevated in BEAS-2B cells after long-term treatment’
Yao, Y.et al. M. Malignant human cell transformation of Marcellus Shale gas drilling flow back water. Toxicol.Appl.Pharmacol. 288(1), 121-130. 1-10-2015
6)’This study examines an association between wells and healthcare use by zip code from 2007 to 2011 in Pennsylvania…Cardiology inpatient prevalence rates were significantly associated with number of wells per zip code (p<0.00096) and wells per km2 (p<0.00096) while neurology inpatient prevalence rates were significantly associated with wells per km2 (p<0.00096). Furthermore, evidence also supported an association between well density and inpatient prevalence rates for the medical categories of dermatology, neurology, oncology, and urology'
Jemielita, T.et al Unconventional Gas and Oil Drilling Is Associated with Increased Hospital Utilization Rates. PLoS.One. 10(7), e0131093. 2015
7)'There is growing concern about how hydraulic fracturing affects public health because this activity involves handling large volumes of fluids that contain toxic and carcinogenic constituents…The constituents of hydraulic fracturing fluids (HFFs) present occupational health risks because workers may be directly exposed to them, and general public health risks because of potential air and water contamination'
Tuller, D. As Fracking Booms, Dearth Of Health Risk Data Remains. Health Aff.(Millwood.) 34(6), 903-906. 2015
8)'To address potential health impacts, passive air samplers were deployed in a rural community heavily affected by the natural gas boom. Samplers were analyzed for 62 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)… Closest to active wells, the risk estimated for maximum residential exposure was 2.9 in 10000, which is above the U.S. EPA's acceptable risk level…This work suggests that natural gas extraction may be contributing significantly to PAHs in air, at levels that are relevant to human health'
Paulik, L. B.et al. Impact of natural gas extraction on PAH levels in ambient air. Environ.Sci.Technol. 49(8), 5203-5210. 21-4-2015
In summary the evidence base thus far does not suggest a healthy industry.From carcinogenic effects at a cellular level to organ specific diseases(respiratory, heart, neurological)linked to increased rates of hospital admissions,disrupted, disempowered and politically excluded communities and of course very serious environmental damage to air & water quality with carcinogenic contaminants it doesn't appear to be a desirable energy alternative for Scotland.
We should learn from the American research.Expert opinion should also be able to debate and inform such concerns and take the long view but we need strong politicians to stand up to the pressures of large corporations whose CEOs will no doubt live in fracking exclusion zones.
Fred says
Her photie on page 7 of the National is an absolute stunner, even Rock (alias Torcuil) would agree.
I dont why she looks so grumpy. If Id just landed £60K/year plus expenses, all guaranteed for 5 years, for potentially doing eff all, Id be over the moon.
Especially as she didnt even need anyone to vote for her to get the job.
@ Robert Peffers and Scot Finlayson
You could both be right. I remember barry in Edinburgh slang meant “great” as in these chips are barry or “barry scran”. But talking about riubbish barrows as barries could be right too.
@Almannysbunnet – street orderlies?
Nowadays I call them Bucketeers.
cearc
Re Lesley-Anne-just tweeted Dumfries SNP branch.
They suggested she’ll be AnnanDistrict branch member but I don’t do facebook. Do you?
@ scottieDog says at 7:11 am …. ”I’m an snp member but I’m hearing alot of green bashing here. The only green i want to bash over the head is Philip green.
Meanwhile Osborne’s ponzi economy is collapsing with London house prices dropping 8% and we are squabbling amongst ourselves.”
Yeah it’s become boring and totally counterproductive ScottieDog. You come on here looking for some interesting information or even a laugh and the first post of the day it’s full on castigating the Greens AGAIN. The main thrust of the argument being that the Greens are driving voters away from the Independence Movement.
More likely this type of divisive rhetoric will drive potential SNP voters away, maybe into the arms of the Greens or worst still elsewhere. It’ll also be driving people off of this site. Why not just wait and see how they perform at Holyrood and then discuss their current / ongoing behaviour?
Meanwhile the real enemy is Westminster, the Tories, the SCUM and the Labour Party (if it rears it’s ugly head). Why not get tore into them instead of the Greens? A discussion has been taking place with regard to the border area. Lets look at O&S. Why the disconnect? Boris pointed out recently that some dirty dealings are going on behind the scenes. Maybe we should be taking a closer look at that?
The Chilcott Report is due out in July which will hopefully undermine Labour support even further (if possible). Meanwhile there’s the battlebus issue. Will it result in calling by-elections for a party with a majority of 12? Tory electoral corruption should be broadcast far and wide.
As to fracking why not take a closer look at those who are pulling the strings such as members (12/13) with vested interests sitting on the Economic Affairs Committee at Westminster? The crowd that are issuing one round of fracking licenses after another. Name and shame. Get it out there. Greenpeace has a great deal to say about this at energydesk – maps, who owns the rights to drill for oil and gas etc etc etc.
I see we have moved onto another issue but will post this on here anyway.
Grouse Beater,
“Any system that blocks new, fresh individuals committed to public service yet welcomes discredited serial liars is demands to be ditched.”
It wasn’t the system that put discredited politicians on the Labour lists. That was the Labour Party.
The system doesn’t block or promote any individual in particular — that’s up to the parties, i.e. party politics.
If the AMS system has bias it is towards smaller parties who win significant support regionally but don’t have enough support in on the FPTP constituency side to win seats.
You know all this. I know you know all this. You know I know you know all this. Everyone knows you know all this.
I despise Labour and am happy to see the same old stale faces represent them. That works in our favour too.
Anent the Queen & Cameron faux pas, former nobody Jim Wallace appeared in the background looking for an arse to lick.
Ahura Mazda: “I despise Labour and am happy to see the same old stale faces represent them. That works in our favour too.”
A system of representation must represent people’s will, even those whose opinions we despise. There has to be a cut-off point below which a poor grade candidate cannot be elected again.
The system you think works in our favour, actually favours mediocrity sustained.
Lollysmum,
No I’m not on facebook. I try to avoid data collecting companies, just look at people’s public stuff occasionally, same with twitter.
You must be counting the days now!
cearc
I’ve just tweeted Annan branch & asked them to follow me-that way I can send a private message to them.
Counting the days? Oh yes I am. Retirement is July 31st then full steam ahead I hope.
Been looking for a house for the last few weeks then realised there’s a shortage of rentals due to people being flooded out of their homes in January. The majority will still be waiting on getting back into their own homes I expect so I may have to cool my heels a tad.
I think there are still a couple of wee bungalows way up north. It’s an Edinburgh based housing association. Might be easier to transfer to your ideal location when available as a tenant than be trying to rent as a newby.
A long way from where you want to be, though.
Grouse: “A system of representation must represent people’s will, even those whose opinions we despise. There has to be a cut-off point below which a poor grade candidate cannot be elected again.”
I can see you and others are intent on working yourselves up into a tizzy over this. That’s fine, but with me you can always count on a refined scientific and logical response rather than an emotional one. Let’s look more closely at what you are saying.
1) “A system of representation must represent people’s will”
And it does. You can’t just look at one part of the system, the regional list part, and make judgements about the system as a whole. By the same token, you can’t look at a flat tyre on a bicycle and conclude that all bicycles are bad.
Information on who was on the lists was publicly available before the election. The mechanics of the system were also publicly available. This amounts to Mens Rea in the sense that they were aware of the implications of giving second votes to whoever they gave them too — & of course: Ignorantia juris non excusat
2) “There has to be a cut-off point below which a poor grade candidate cannot be elected again.”
The system itself isn’t responsible for choosing which candidates get on to regional lists. The parties themselves do that. You might consider addressing your complaint to Labour.
Additionally, it isn’t for you to decide who is and who isn’t “poor grade”. That decision is for voters and by voting in sufficient numbers with second votes they decided that those you deem “poor grade” were to be elected.
Seriously, if you can’t follow basic reasoning… ah forget it.
I suspect this whole conversation is a deliberate distraction of some sort; it’s too childish to be serious.
“We can only hope that if they can’t or won’t just shut up for a bit, the electorate’s stoic total indifference to their diatribes will at least stop them from fatally damaging the indy movement until such times as another referendum might come along.”
So after an entire article abusing the “radical left”, reinforcing that the Working Class tend to be small-c conservative, admitting that so too is the SNP which is why they get votes, and then demanding the left cease factionalism… we get to the real reason for the outrage; you think it’s damaging Independence.
And here’s the real reason Independence isn’t truly convincing for many of us… how exactly does Independence change the nature of the Scottish Electorate? You deploy the argument that the working class is conservative when it suits your needs, but if it’s a fact, surely it’s going to persist as a fact after you’ve achieved Independence. So where exactly is this sudden swing to a liberal or left leaning voting public going to come from? I’ve asked before here where this belief that somehow the Scottish national character, once freed from the English yolk, will shine through purer and less prone to the corruption that money and human nature leads too… it’s an article of faith among all nationalists through out history that it must, but it’s never, ever been true; You still get bastards, except now they’re your bastards.
The strongest argument for Independence is that it encourages a new type of politics. By breaking old bonds, traditions, new ones can be expressed and formed; you don’t create a new electorate but they finally get to say what they’re thinking and be heard in ways they never have before. It depends of course upon there being an actual disenfranchised electorate there in the first place. Which you’ve just spent a very long time telling us there isn’t one of.
And the response here to those examples where new voices are visible? No, don’t bond with them! They aren’t all that important anyway! Drive those fifth columnists and useful idiots out! Expressing the very factionalism you just spent so long railing against, in fact.
Yet somehow, this is going to unify people behind Independence, is it? This sense that “hey, New People, FUCK OFF?” But do you remember when the SNP was new, and they were all kilt wearing lunatics as far as the press and powers that be were concerned? Why, they are hardly a serious party of Government at all, eh? Well, they’ve certainly proven those hateful stereotypes wrong… and look, their supporters are even now becoming gatekeepers of the establishment, and locking everyone else out!
I wish I was being ironical or hyperbolic, but I’m not. I remember on the day of the Referendum leaning somewhat more towards hoping Scotland would vote Yes; largely due to despair of Westminster ever doing right by anyone. And most of the commentariat here seemed to share similar concerns. But articles saying “throw all that under the bus, we must get Independence ahead of everything else” just makes me, and I suspect many other people too go “Oh hell NO then.” If the whole point of it wasn’t to get better politics, or at least, you’ve no idea or won’t say how it does, then you’ve got rather less allies than you thought. Independence isn’t closer but receding farther away with this attitude.
MAZDA: “Seriously, if you can’t follow basic reasoning”
What a condescending prat.
You’ve posted waffle, making up inference I didn’t imply.
Standards.
If regaining sovereignty is not about raising standards in all aspects of public life, as well as affirming civil rights, we might as well not bother.
There has to be a better method of voting that does not nurture mediocrity. And there is, except you’re too lazy to think about. Now, take a hike.
Grouse Beater, I’ve just realised this is all a misunderstanding.
Please accept my sincere apologies.
I assumed all along that you understood the difference between reason and opinion.
The debate is about the electoral system, not regaining sovereignty or affirming civil rights. Deflection by waffle will not work on a man trained in the black arts…
What you call “raising standards” is a value-laden statement. It is based on your value judgement as to what “raising” means.
You then say, “There has to be a better method of voting that does not nurture mediocrity”.
Again, “better” and “mediocrity” are value-laden terms. What you regard as better and mediocre might very well differ from my viewpoint. Actually, I would bet quite a lot on that.
If you are serious about changing our electoral system, and I find it hard to believe this is a serious suggestion, you strike me as being very short-sighted. The SNP has it good now but it’s easy to imagine a different system playing very much against us.
I think we have fatter fish to fry but it’s nice to see everyone chatting like civilised human beings again on here. Carry on.
People must stop bickering over the outcome of the second vote!
link to moflomojo.blogspot.com
Mazda: “I think we have fatter fish to fry”
You can begin with yourself.
@BrianDTT
“Who Killed The Electric Car?”
Thanks for that.
I think the difference now is a quarter of a million Nissan Leafs on the road.
No compromise on power, comfort or styling.
And greater, ever increasing, range.
Add into the mix greater awareness of climate change, or perhaps that should be greater belief that it is happening.
My daughter does Bathgate to Kirrie nae bother though she has to recharge in Kirrie.
Easily handles day to day running around town with the joy that sitting in a traffic jam does not waste energy (well apart from in car entertainment).
The journey experience in a Leaf is extremely smooth and quiet compared to ICE cars.
The fuel cost is a fraction of gas guzzlers.
Another factor I have not seen mentioned is that once these vehicles become the norm, they will in fact represent a very significant off-peak storage utiliser for sustainable energy and off peak nuclear surpluses.
Some quick arithmetic. A full charge on the Nissan Leaf is 30kWh. Don’t know what the average daily usage is, but if we assume for the sake of argument that each car uses half that, 15kWh per night, and we also assume that there will eventually be around 2 million of such vehicles in Scotland, that comes to a grand total of 30 GWh storage.
Comparable to existing pumped storage capacity.
That could leave all hydro pumped storage to help cope with daytime peaks and shortfalls.
Much less back up generation used.
From a BBC article today, about UK industry being in recession..
link to bbc.co.uk
“However, the oil and gas industries saw sharp gains, increasing production 17% in February, and 10.9% in March from the same months a year earlier.”
Chic
This might interest you. link to wp.me
Since I penned it Dyson has patented a battery that might just take a car more than 300 miles on a single charge.
“how exactly does Independence change the nature of the Scottish Electorate?”
To read that you might suppose there has been no change in Scotland’s political outlook since the 1960s.
But articles saying “throw all that under the bus, we must get Independence ahead of everything else” just makes me, and I suspect many other people too go “Oh hell NO then.” If the whole point of it wasn’t to get better politics,
Sanctimony? Check.
You must be a Green. Why criticism makes Green’s or whoever, vote NO now, is my teamGB mystery of day:D
Paula Rose,
“@ Rock the SNP is an alliance of views – I have been at my branch meeting tonight debating how we ensure more support for independence.”
Please don’t leak any SNP secrets to your Green colleagues and friends.
Grouse Beater
Think that might be a wrong link.
Re battery technology, the most likely range solutions I have seen have been based on using oxygen from the atmosphere which greatly increases the energy density (compared to carrying a source with you).
For example, Professor Bruce’s first rechargeable ‘air breathing’ Lithium battery invented at St Andrews uni (STAIR battery). I think Nissan are looking at that idea in the NE facility. Main issue is increasing the useful number of recharge cycles. But compared to say a 200 mile conventional battery of the same physical size, it would give a range of around 1500 miles. Job done. However problems with deterioration due to e.g. pollutants in the air coating the carbon matrix would need to be engineered out.
Another air breather uses Aluminium plates, which dissolve releasing the electrical energy ‘stored’ in the al at the time of smelting. Problem is plates and electrolyte would need regular replacing, but that might be engineered to be an acceptably quick and cheap servicing process. Nissan and Renault are planning to use this type in the next couple of years.
Hi Chic.
Glad you got it! The Wings’ filter seems to have taken a dislike to a string of characters in the url I provided – like the old ‘n-f-l’. Couldn’t be ar$ed working out what the string was – life’s too short!
8=)
Chic: “Another air breather uses Aluminium plates”
I’ve heard a bit about that – Nissan and Renault share the same boss hence the tie-up – but if those giants think it has promise it might just happen. Sorry about the Dyson link … the Guardian carries a similar story, if I can find it.
Sorry Grouse Beater
I was expecting to see something about Dyson battery in the link.
But maybe you meant to post about the Tesla. I saw the previous posts on it. Exciting. But maybe we should wait to see if the American imperial reactionary monster rears it head again as per BDTT’s link.
I think even those monopolists will have to go with the flow this time.
Megacorps, Empires and politicians all like to think they are enablers of progress but in reality they just represent varying degrees of resistance to real progress created by technologists and artists.
Chic – here it is:
“A couple of months back, a government document accidentally revealed that Dyson has started work on its own electric vehicle.
The company’s great with vacuum cleaners, hairdryers and all manner of home electronics, but an actual vehicle? Dyson may actually have what it takes, according to the experts, thanks largely to Sakti3, a battery company Dyson gobbled up last year.
Sakti3 has a patent for a rechargeable, all solid-state battery that could prove safer and longer-lasting than those currently used by electric car companies. Though we don’t yet know exactly what sort of energy density the company has achieved,
Sakti3 (surprise, surprise) claims that no other solid state batteries with ceramic electrolytes come close, and experts reckon it’s already hit the 300Wh/kg mark.
To put that into context, MIT’s Donald Sadoway recently said that energy densities of 350Wh/kg would give electric vehicles 350 miles of range, and spell the end for petrol.
“Dyson have some excellent product engineering and some excellent marketing skills, so could they follow the same path as Tesla? Well, yes, probably they could,” said Professor David Greenwood, who leads the energy storage work at the University of Warwick’s manufacturing group.
He added that it would take several years to scale up to cost-effective, high-volume production, and building a quality vehicle is an entirely different project. Still, it’s a very promising outlook for the suction specialists.”
This is relevant at most times, sadly under our SNP administration too: link to wp.me
[…] The separation of goals […]
[…] The separation of goals […]
[…] The separation of goals […]
[…] The separation of goals […]
Excellent!
I’d forgotten this so thanks for the reminder Tweet. Seems like it was more prophetic than I could have imagined.