The short walk to democracy
Posted on
June 21, 2014 by
Chris Cairns
The world's most-read Scottish politics website
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Love this – I need a constitutional after the last week.
I felt like the debate got a bit crazy last week. Good to feel things are on an even keel again now.
Keep right on to the end of the road.
Its that easy but there is nae sayers though. This “impartial says BBC Scotland Prof at Glasgow uni is very very no constitution for Scotland
link to notesfromnorthbritain.wordpress.com
and gives very shouty anti Scotland everything lectures on here too
link to id.theguardian.com
“https://id.theguardian.com/profile/abiesalba/public”
Oh look – it’s our old friend Jezerna Rosa.
“it’s our old friend Jezerna Rosa.” It sure is. Or bettertogether Slovenia branch, which would also be a great T shirt with a WoS badge:D
Brilliant cartoon. Even tho I have mobility probs I will definitely be taking that walk YESSS 😎
Sorry should have added zimmer and all
Great to see Chris back and in fine fettle too.
Hope as many as possible contribute to consultation on future constitution.
link to scotland.gov.uk
Important to have your say.
O/T – Here’s a list we can all put our names on..
link to indiegogo.com
It’s oor Thistles fundraiser. Kevin is working hard and bringing all these debates to us he needs a wee hand..
Great cartoon, nice word play.
If I were a skeptic, I would deduce that the cybernat horror orgy of last week was timed to distract from the release of the draft constitution for discussion. Wait a minute, I am a skeptic.
The contrast between a written constitution with sovereignty lying with the people, and Westmidden’s idea of government couldn’t be greater. The importance of a written constitution and it’s part in the debate won’t go away.
Stuart said: Oh look – it’s our old friend Jezerna Rosa.
I think I can claim to have unmasked her on the Guardian and her readily cooked 1,000 plus word replies.
Many before me were sceptical of her intentions but she claimed consistently to be a Yes supporter keen only to clarify the risks involved in independence, a tactic engaged to bat off incredulity.
By sheer dedication over a week I eventually broke her temper, and out popped this nasty wee bigot who admitted to disliking Scotland’s new-found confidence. It felt like picking up a shiny stone only to find a host of creepy bugs squirming underneath.
After that her massively verbose posts were a bloody pain, designed to break up thread sense more than cause doubt about independence, but curiously, never seen by the Guardian as anything but courteous contributions.
I had a run in with “Albiesalba” on the Graun too; an emotive writer when talking about Slovenia, knows bugger all about Scotland.
I had a run in with “Albiesalba” on the Graun too; an emotive writer when talking about Slovenia, knows bugger all about Scotland.
Effing mouse.
Well done grousebeater, have you a link so I can check it out, do love it when honesty wins out 😎
Just read the Daily Mail piece Stuart.
Trying to put a target on your back right enough.
Stay safe….
Conan: knows bugger all about Scotland.
It took me hours to check the “carefully researched” facts and figures she’d scattered with abandon all over her posts. (People who do that cheat – how can you debate in real time without time to check an opponent’s facts?)
Eventually it was clear her ‘facts’ were irrelevant, or grossly inaccurate, crammed with false comparisons.
THE PEOPLE OF SCOTLAND ARE SOVEREIGN
I really like that line. It’s actually left a wee lump in my throat when i first saw it. What a start and i’ve read the rest and have to say i feel we are on a journey that will transform Scotland.
Technically it’s treason to say that. I get a wee laugh every time i see it. But those words are now etched on the minds of every Scot any where in the world.
YES = hope, compassion , unity and identity
NO = none of the above.
Come on Scotland . They say we canna but we know we can.
I know this has been posted before but a brilliant saying from the great Roman, Lawyer, Senator and Orator Cicero. Cicero was born in Italy (Arpino or Arpium in Roman times). It’s a small hilltop village, south east of Rome, and the piazza has a statue of him, in his honour. After last week shenanigan’s this is still relevant today.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the ("Tractor" - Ed) moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the ("Tractor" - Ed) appears not a ("Tractor" - Ed); he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The ("Tractor" - Ed) is the plague.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero (Ancient Roman Lawyer, Writer, Scholar, Orator and Statesman, 106 BC-43 BC)
In regard to Scotland’s malaise an apposite quotation, timely too.
Professor Aliesbadass of Slovenia was also on the Sarah Smith Lose Unionists show, last few minutes late Monday evening BBC 2, which was a bit a surreal even by ever weirder BetterTogetherBBC standards.
link to bbc.co.uk
Yet another fantastic cartoon from the people at cairnstoon.com, well done!
I hope the people of Scotland are sovereign is just a soundbite. If we are following the ground rules of our own constitutional theory then the correct statement is the declared and supported will of the people of Scotland is sovereign.
Lallands Peat Worrier has a good post on John McTernam’s ignorant trashing of the constitution
link to lallandspeatworrier.blogspot.co.uk
link to dailyrecord.co.uk
Interestingly enough, there is a comment under this story calling for the SNP and A. Salmond to “die.
Though one of you “twitterati” might like to use it..
@TheItalianJob 1.15
Looks like Cicero was describing the first Troll!
But saying that the people of Scotland are sovereign is not treason. The monarch is the Queen of Scots – not of Scotland. In England they have the concept of the Crown in Parliament but in Scotland we don’t. Even the Crown Estate is not actually the property of the monarch. So we, the people, could choose to have a different monarch, or none at all, or leave things as they are.
geeo
Now disappeared.
@handclapping
On behalf of ‘the people at cairnstoon.com’ I thank you.
That Chris Cairns – he’s good people.
On reading through the draft Scottish Independence Bill Part 6 The territory of Scotland In accordance with international law, the territory of Scotland continues to consist of all the land, islands, internal waters and territorial sea that formed the territory of Scotland immediately before Independence Day.
What the score on the 6,000 odd nautical square miles of Scottish Sea that were stolen in 1999 by Labour and the Liberal Democrats who secretly removed Scotland’s marine boundaries?
@mr panda
You sure its gone ?
User name is Allan McFadden.
17th comment down
Oh No! Hamish isn’t a cairnstoon people! 🙁
I thought he posed and you drew from life
The last thing I want is the SNP to write our constitution after a YES vote. Start with European Convention on Human Rights yes, add in inspiring bits from Arbroath yes, but let’s make it a national debate and not let the SNP call the shots – after all YES is far bigger than the SNP.
And what about us Republicans ?
Geeo
Went to Daily Decord page and every time i click a link it redirects to flamingoland. Kind of sums them up.
Great cartoon btw, sorry for going off topic.
Seems the “missing” 100 days to go DR poll is back.
link to dailyrecord.co.uk
Ah..wait up, im accessing it by the DR app on my phone, maybe that is the issue ?
Mary asked: have you a link?
Alas, it was early last year, too much checking to reach. I recall it vividly because her/his outburst coincided with my success getting two of her sermons removed out of seven posted, the moderator regarding those as off-topic.
There’s a bully there – vast diatribes in one thread alone evidence of a narcissistic sociopath at work. She does not broach correction. In any event, I thought her posts self-defeating – convoluted, constipated by spurious statistics.
When I finally challenge her she went ballistic, suddenly (like trolls on Wings) I was ‘shutting down free speech’ – her professorial grace falling away alarmingly.
She gets the free speech angle wrong consistently – as if anybody can say anything amounting to deliberate deception or defamation and not be prosecuted. The web isn’t safe territory for that little scam, not these days.
“Life, liberty and the pursuit of numptydom”
Lovin it!
Here in proud Scotbut land it’s “just who the hell do you lot think you are anyway” when it could be
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Eddie Izzard—check out the words he uses
link to scotsman.com
@ Inbhir Anainn 2.31
Craig Murray has a good post about the redrawing of the sea boundary here
link to craigmurray.org.uk
Can’t beat a good constitutional.
Thank you grousebeater. They’re a rum lot sure enough. Just wish I didn’t suffer from brain fug and I could argue well like I used to. Still there are plenty articulate voices like yourself and all who agree with independence, thank goodness. Thank you
I have had a run in with Albiesalba on the Groan too 🙂 I thinking it is a recurring theme. I could overlook the somewhat insulting notion that there is no such as Scotland/Scottish culture or even a Scottish people. I can also overlook that even if there were to be all these things post 18th Sept everyone would hate us. However, I struggle to forgive the mind numbingly boring extraordinarily long posts. Precis was obviously never Albie’s strong point.
I don’t think they have noticed that it is called Comment Is Free – not Dissertation is Free
@ Grouse Beater, came across said person the other day, knew all about it, no idea what sex and do not care. Read a bit, enough for me to dismiss it as twaddle. did not stay for an argument, sneaking in you see, would be in for a row for giving them the advertising. even though I have adblocker.
@Grouse Beater
you’re a better man than me
she is the most tedious commenter i have ever met, i frequently lose the will to live when she starts posting reams of havers, which i never read
if it is adam tomkin, his lectures must be a real drag
i just wind up abie normal nowadays so she tends to avoid me
Have to say my walk to the polling station will hardly be a constitutional, it is the School across the road, but it will be an historic walk.
@grousebeater
I along with a few regulars, had many run ins with Jazerna Rosa on the Herald. I almost got banned from pointing out that “Jazerna Rosa” is no Slovenian name any of my Slovene friends can find = she is a fraud. Her epistles on independence are designed to look convincing and require time to direct – I took the opposite route which wa to challenge her on the principles. She never could answer WHY she opposed Scottish independence (which clearly she does) while supporting her own country’s independence. I am assuming here that despite her “stage name” she may well be a Slovene.
Someone did an analysis of her English and style (I forget who) which was pretty convincing, although his conclusion was that she was NT Slovenian.
One thing is clear, she is a Better Together plant/troll
Paul of Wee Ginger Dug, says he fears for her sanity. He says she doesn’t sound like she is able to cope but still she keeps on batting. I would think it was probably him who said she did not sound like she was Slovenian, as he is a linguist.
Tony Litte
It was wee ginger dug, Paul Cavanagh
Tony
Likewise, I asked why they loathed the idea of an independent Scotland so much and also why would we care what someone who has no stake in matter, no vote in the matter and is wholly unaffected by the result thinks.
She (or possibly He) said I was very arrogant.
I don’t read any of the posts that stretch beyond two paragraphs (so that is most of them).
Thanks guys for the info. If I recall she had a bleating complaint on the Graund in which she actually linked to the analysis!
the info she used and how it was used reminded me very much of the NO sde’s political SPADS. Far too much research detail there for someone who is supposed to have a full time job and is “an interested bystander” in the Scottish referendum.
She was chased off the Herald by posters like Dr D McKenzie and others who took her copious comments to pieces
@ HandandShrimp, after a good constitutional, the Daily Mail makes for very good roll, with Paul Dacres visage on the front.
If it’s Prof Tomkins SC? There’s a YES mole in his department of no way is Scotland going to be a nation state, at the university of Glesga.
Tony Littel said: Someone did an analysis of her English and style
Interesting.
As some may have noticed, I’ve a practised eye for sentence construction and where it was nurtured – and an ear that can tell styles, a composer in one bar of music (a useless talent) as swiftly as a Kiwi from an Aussie, and often which region they live or were educated.
She-he-it began writing in what I can only describe as broken English, odd sentence construction to signify she had not quite mastered her own lingua franca – holding tight to that camouflage while professing support of self-determination, until, that is, I jerked her chain hard.
Suddenly a torrent of perfect invective poured forth. An idiot savant, thought I. Wrong. A troll. D’oh!
A delight of independence is being free to tell her and those like her, go take a hike.
thanks for the heads heed
heads up
Heedtracker asks: If it’s Prof Tomkins SC?
Is this the same chap claiming to sweet Sarah Smith our BBC belle that the Draft Constitution was concocted ‘in secret behind closed doors’?
How idiotic a statement.
Its inevitability was announced months before, discussion ensued, a draft published for open debate and augmentation.
What in hell’s name is secret about that?
A dumbass professor who doesn’t know the difference between ‘brief privacy’ and ‘secret.’ Closing the door when he uses the John, is he protecting a secret?
He wouldn’t be attempting to besmirch the reputation of an elected government, now would he?
A rather annoying aspect of the Graun is you can’t point out the obvious trolls be they sock-puppet or concern, without getting your comment removed.
Ah’m Tellen and the Slovenian are on at the same time right now, bad for my blood pressure.
i feel sorry for his students
imagine having him post reams and reams of mince on the screen every 2 minutes
soul destroying
conan
im trying to remember, was it tellen or the answer that used to post stuff about the war dead memorials in scotland being wrong
when the trolls move from the hootsman to cif they often need to change their tone to avoid being banned
I think it was the_answer.
Glad to help
The contemptible “The_Answer.”
The contemptible “The_Answer.”
New mouse for me Monday.
LOL
The Answer…who always maintained they wanted a Yes vote so they could be shot of us Scots. I have never seen anyone use statistics so remorselessly often with no apparent understanding of their content. He crossed the line on the war dead thing though.
@ GrouseBeater, I don’t mind trolls and phoneys and big swinging unionists like Prof Tomkins are worth listening to if only because he knows a lot and is really vicious and life is often like that. If you’re going to win, raise your game.
We all know the dysfunctional sneaking around of the nutty Professor as BetterTogether Slovenia, stems entirely from his UKOK unionist absolute determination that Scotland just will not exist and that his country, England/Britian will not be “broken up” but like he said to Sarah Smith last Monday, it’s academic dudes like him that’ll actual be writing it.
By the way, vote no vote Tory Press and Journal here in Aberdeen didn’t mention the Scottish constitution once this week. Funny that.
TheItalianJob says:
21 June, 2014 at 1:58 pm
I know this has been posted before but a brilliant saying from the great Roman, Lawyer, Senator and Orator Cicero.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the ("Tractor" - Ed) moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the ("Tractor" - Ed) appears not a ("Tractor" - Ed); he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The ("Tractor" - Ed) is the plague.”
Should we start a list ?
I’ll go first.
J…………
A………..
A……….
D………….
List or no list, there will be consequences after the 18th.
Vote Yes – and start a new life.
@angelswithdirtyfaces says, “The last thing I want is the SNP to write our constitution after a YES vote”.
Then, angleswithdirty faces, you most certainly are in 100% agreement with the Scottish NATIONAL Party concept of how to draw up a Scottish Constitution.
May I suggest you read a little more on the subject before drawing any more wrong conclusions? The Scottish National Party has no intention of drawing up a Scottish Written Constitution. They are only proposing drawing up a Draft constitution.
@Conan_the_Librarian says:
21 June, 2014 at 4:24 pm
New mouse for me Monday.
when we win in sept
i’ll crowd fund you a new pc m8
I tagged Jezerna for exactly what she was on her first Herald post. She began by implying she was YES inclined.
Being challanged she moved to claiming to be neutral but was very obviously anti from the very start. Nothing she posted had the slightest relevance to the Scottish case and her comparasons were quite insulting.
Far as I can see there has never been another World case of a country forming an equal political union of Two Kingdoms by a treaty. That when they decided to constitutionally vote to revert to the Status Quo Ante were then told their union partner was to continue as the whole union even after the union disunited.
It’s like a couple getting married and then one partner divorcing the other being told they were single again but their partner was still married to them.
I see Albie is on the Guardian, I made a halfhearted attempt to wind him/her up…for old times sake. 🙂
Conan
New mouse on Mouseday.
Sorry, wine is of an inferior quality today.
Conan, H&S, the rest of you. How many potential No-or-undecided-swinging-to-Yes voters read the comments threads on CiF? Srly, do something more useful with your time and leave them to it.
Morag
I think that is fair point for just about all the papers and comment sections.
I do a bit street leafleting with the local Yes shop though…just to keep it real. Got a bit sun burnt the other week – which was a bit realer than I really wanted.
Morag dear we all need a bit of down time – some of the boys here suck oranges whilst having half times fantasies, but then of course it all goes pear-shaped.
Sunburned H&S? Even my midgie bites have got midgie bites. I’ve got new ones, half-healed ones and wee itchy scabs. And no doubt I’ll acquire some more soon. Sunscreen and deet are the way to go.
Sure, down time. But sometimes you guys talk about “doing a shift” or “going on duty” on CiF as if you were doing something constructive for a Yes vote. You’re not. Get out there and talk to people. Deliver leaflets and newspapers.
If there hasn’t been a Yes public meeting in your area, volunteer to organise one. It’s not that hard – the speakers are ready and willing to come, hire a hall, get leaflets and posters printed and distributed, and there you go. I did it.
link to vetpath.co.uk
This is what we have to do. All over the country. It’s going to take all of us and more. Like a massed choir, nobody more important than anybody else, but the numbers are needed to make the music work.
You could say posting on Wings is unnecessary too, but Wings is vital, and Wings needs the comments threads to fly. That’s the place for the R&R. The hell with CiF and the rest of them.
@geeo says:
Ah..wait up, im accessing it by the DR app on my phone, maybe that is the issue ?
The Daily Record website is (as they used to say when I worked in the construction industry many years ago) “a bag of nails”.
They are clearly continually fiddling with the way it works, with unpredictable results e.g. pages not displaying properly on some devices, commenting not working sometimes.
I found this interesting documentary made just before the 1997 referendum.
link to youtube.com
Morag you could try smidge from midgesnomore. Much recommended by a great site “life at the end of the road”.
kind regards
@ Morag Graham Kerr, you’re a hero Morag! Plus if I was midgie, I wouldn’t dare bite you.
@angelswithdirtyfaces says:
21 June, 2014 at 2:33 pm
The last thing I want is the SNP to write our constitution
So you might be pleased to know that the Govmt agree. The Draft Bill is published for any comments now:
link to scotland.gov.uk
a bit dry but interesting to see what is proposed, and the commentary included on why!
Anyone who believes today ‘nonsense on stilts’ about our Govmt not being prepared should read this to see exactly how ready and inclusive they are.
Such a shame we dont have a public broadcaster who might make informative political TV programs on critical topics like this when we have people desparate for info …. 🙂
Not really, I just emailed a few people. Others in the Yes group designed and printed the leaflets and posters, and about seven of us distributed leaflets. If one person agrees to get stuck in and specifies what help they need, it all happens.
I keep hearing about all the people others have persuaded to Yes, and I don’t think I’ve persuaded anyone. All I get are convinced Nos shouting at me over their garden gates. To be fair there have only been about seven of these in maybe 700 newspapers, but it’s discouraging.
Lots of people have smiled and thanked me for the paper, but nobody has ever said, that changed my mind. Sometimes I wonder if it’s cargo cult campaigning. Just get that paper into those letterboxes and the votes will come. No?
I feel that each one of us can only do a very little in the face of what is an enormous task. To counter the lies and the scares the MSM are only too happy to propagate. So it’s important to do whatever we can, and if that means pushing a bit beyond your comfort zone, or giving up an evening at a concert, then bloody well do it.
thanks Chis great cartoon 🙂
interesting draft constitution i think they have covered most bases with it.
There is just one point i would like ratified in constitutional law and that is any politician caught and found guilty by a jury of the people fiddling expenses pandering to special interest groups ie lobbyists fat cat millionaires and the scum that follow them should automatically get 2 years minimum jail sentence and never ever be allowed to hold a public position of power ever again.
That should keep their noses clean and i would sign it 🙂
re ‘activism’ generally:
If you go to your local Yes shop, bring a bag with you and ask them to fill it with an assortment of the stuff they’ve got – badges, car-stickers, ordinary stickers, flyers, window-posters, whatever else. They’ll be happy to give you stacks of stuff if they know you’re going to use it.
If you know of homes in your area with any kind of Yes material in their windows, or on cars which are definitely theirs? make up a wee bag of stuff and discretely drop it in their front garden. No need for door-knocking – a lot of folk don’t like that.
Last night I dropped a wee bundle of car-stickers just inside the front garden wall of a house which has had a ‘Yes’ newspaper propped up in the living-room window for months. Passed it today, and one of the stickers is slap-bang in the centre of the window. Hopefully, the person will pass on the others to like-minded friends.
The number of stickers/posters/badges on view has taken a huge leap in the past few weeks. I was speaking today to an extremely well-connected SNP person who expects the tipping-point (i.e. when MSM can no longer maintain the charade that the BTUKOKERS have any kind of lead) to be late July – BT will, in effect, have to throw in the towel then, and all efforts will be directed towards making the win overwhelming, beyond any possible dispute or hanky-panky.
We’re winning the fight ‘on the streets’, nae danger. And it begs the question – what other fight even comes close in importance?
@Ian – We had a first poster today who works at the yes shop in Irvine 😀
By the amount of first posters and the amount of posts on WoS in the past 2 weeks it looks like it’s ours to lose, don’t want to tempt fate..
@Croompenstein –
Nice one. Do you happen to remember when this person ‘first posted’?
God, Ian, I hope he’s right. I’m about a nervous wreck.
I’ve been patiently giving this “one more push” for 20 years. I don’t know if I really believed this year would come. I certainly thought I did, but having said that I never imagined it. Now it’s the end-game, and if we lose this time it’s not just that I’ll be a gey old lady by the time we get another crack at it, it’s that the intervening years are going to make the 1980s look like the years of plenty.
I don’t really have the option to leave if we lose. I spent 25 years out of the country and now I’m back and I love it to bits and I’m not going anywhere. But I don’t want to live through what’s going to be done to us if these bastards win.
And Yes Scotland are anodyne and passionless and I do not have a freaking clue what they are doing with the millions they’ve had in donations. And the entire media of the globe seem ranged against us. I didn’t expect that. I thought there would be some inspiration as well as the doom and gloom, but there’s been nothing. All the positive visions we have for the future, and nothing on TV – not even anything to mark the Bannockburn anniversary.
We have to win this and I don’t know what else to do but go on distributing the material we have and arranging a meeting or two, so I go on doing it. But the people with the power over the media are just laughing at us.
@Ian – Pauline Stewart @6:51 on the Daily Mail readers thread..
Also check Helen @10:29 on same thread..
We are winning Ian.. 🙂
@Morag –
It’s not easy to respond to your last comment without sounding patronising or ludicrously optimistic, but the bare-arsed fact is that what we’re doing is what will win it i.e. what we’re doing here, on this site right now, or in the hours when we’re not here – when we’re folding leaflets and newspapers, drumming up support for public meetings, establishing contacts with folk who we’d otherwise walk past in the street without so much as a second glance.
This is an awakening. In some ways, it’s the ‘revolution’ that the more ‘radical’ among us have always yearned for. It may take years to become tangible in the lives of ordinary citizens, and many of them may never know or care how the change came about – but change is happening, and we’re the ones making it happen. And we’re doing it peacefully, despite all the provocation that an experienced imperial-trained MSM can fling at us.
IMO, we’ve already ‘won’ this – all we need is final confirmation on Sep 19th. ‘They’ will have to resort to filthy tactics to deny it. ‘We’ just have to keep doing what we’ve been doing since the referendum date was announced.
Morag
First I’ve ever saw you use a wee sweary word. I know the stress you felling because I feel it too.
Listen to Ian’s wise words though, I agree with them and think we are winning. All this stuff about “it’s only goning to get worse” may be having some effect but no where near what was expected.
They expected us to hide under a rock or run with the tail between the legs. last thing they expected was a fightback, a backlash. That is what is happening. I can see with my own eyes there are hundreds of new posters on Wings this week.
Now we’re on the run in, I don’t expect you to weaken, just to push yourself that teeny bit harder. Get in there!
Thanks guys. I’m going to feed the cat and go to bed. And put on a wee bit of Mahler.
Mit Flügeln, die ich mir errungen, werde ich entschweben….
@Morag – sweet dreams..another wee German lesson for LOL’s
ich nichten lichten
link to youtube.com
Morag,
When l discovered Wings I was an unquestioning Yes, through nothing more than a ‘feeling’ and I possibly fell into the ‘learnt Scottish history from Braveheart’ category.
Your posts on here are some of the most thought provoking and incisive and have very much helped me to understand what the campaign is about and what in future it will mean for Scotland. I also remember the chat we had at CH2 where you politely but firmly put me right on a few matters concerning Lockerbie, no more than I deserved due to the fact that I was unquestioning about that as well.
What you and others have taught me is how to be critical of what we are told to believe and that is a lesson that I needed. You and others have given me the confidence to be open with others, and explain to them why we can do this.
One thing we can all be sure of, people like me who formerly had no real interest in Politics are talking to their friends, relations and kids and getting them to engage in the debate. We WILL Win this, because of real information from the Morags of this world.
(I’m in bed now, honest.)
Bob, all I remember was asking you HOW you knew Megrahi didn’t do it. I realised one day I didn’t know the answer to that myself. It was just something I’d heard people say.
So I started to find out. It led further than I imagined, to the discovery that there was evidence proving his innocence that everybody else had overlooked. Then to me writing a book, and submitting a paper to the SCCRC, and talking to the police about it.
That’s where we are now. I don’t think I’m Kenny MacAskill’s favourite person right now, because he seems to want the conviction to be upheld. But I believe we need to start our new country by righting that wrong.
My point was really just that we need to understand why we believe as we do. Only then do we have the ability to defend our position.
The Scottish gov should not be formulating a Constitution before the YES vote is won. Keep it loose, historical and open, otherwise every other lawyer will be suing about every line. It could become a legal feast of utter irrelevance, costing Public monies an absolute fortune.
A video on the Scotsman showed how Megrahi was not guilty. The verdict was an affront to the Scottish legal system manipulated by Labour/Unionists. Bliar who wanted to line his pockets wasting £Millions/Billions of public monies against the public interest. People are starving and being killed, the world over because of what Bliar did. The worst terrorist in the world.
The short video was made by the Yorkshire private detective who investigated the case.
Surrpressed by Westminster? The detective went through the evidence which had been tampered with and notes had been added. The fabrics of the shirt was a boy’s sheet.The detonator had survived the explosion. Experts said that was impossible. The detective was in Malta trying to clock the chief witness, who was paid £Millions to give evidence.
It was the same with the 45mins (to hit Cyprus, not Britain), WMD was made up by a known fantasist, who was paid £Millions. The CIA/M15 knew he was lying and told the US/UK government.
Where is the Chilcott verdict? Being Suppressed by Westminster Politicans.
Millions of people in Scotland never thought the Referendum Day would ever happen. It was their dream to run their country better. It will happen because it has to happen. The dream will become a reality because it has to be fulfilled. Let it happen in our lifetime.
Morag
The Lockerbie conviction is a poor reflection on our Scottish Justice system, of which we can otherwise be justifiably proud. Resolving this unsafe conviction will allow iScotland to start off with a clean slate on the path to become the country to which we all aspire.
Ken, the film you’re talking about was made by Al Jazeera, and is one of a series of three. (I was in the third one, briefly.) The detective was George Thomson, who is a Fifer. He’s a great guy, and it was him who gave me the files where I found the evidence the bomb had been smuggled into a baggage container at Heathrow in the afternoon, not at Malta in the morning. He’s rather inclined to over-interpret inconsistencies in the evidence though, some of which are imaginary and some irrelevant. Other people who have looked at the shirt thing are inclined to think it was a small adult size and there’s no demonstrable inconsistency.
The trouble with all the trawling through photos for apparent inconsistencies is that even if there was some hanky-panky there it doesn’t prove Megrahi was innocent. At best it provides “reasonable doubt” and perhaps grounds for appeal. However even if that succeeds it leaves the Crown Office able to say, well it’s a pity the appeal court didn’t think the evidence was quite strong enough but we believe we did a good job here and “the police are not looking for anyone else in connection with this incident” (code for “we’re still convinced the bastard did it”).
The evidence of the blast-damaged suitcases is in a different category. There’s no definite proof of misconduct there and in a way it looks like weapons-grade incompetence, but properly analysed it shows the crime happened in London at a time when Megrahi was provably in Tripoli. That is one of the things the SCCRC are now looking at.
Morag,
“I don’t think I’m Kenny MacAskill’s favourite person right now, because he seems to want the conviction to be upheld. But I believe we need to start our new country by righting that wrong.”
Why do you think Kenny MacAskill wants a false conviction to be upheld? Seems to be the exact opposite of what the SNP stands for. Is he being blackmailed?
In my opinion, all systems of justice are corrupt and designed to protect the Establishment at all costs.
As you will have heard, one of the INNOCENT Irishmen jailed for IRA bombings has just died.
A very senior judge at the House of Lords, the most corrupt institution in the universe, was on record at the time for saying something like it is preferable for innocent people to be kept locked up so as not to discredit the justice system. More like the ‘injustice system’.
Mmm. Lord Denning. Some say he was senile when he said that, but you don’t say that sort of thing if you haven’t been thinking it.
I don’t know why Kenny MacAskill is so hell-bent on shoring up the conviction. Alex Salmond too. David Torrance said he thought Salmond genuinely believed in Megrahi’s guilt. If that’s so, it can only because they’re taking their briefings from the Crown Office, and the Crown Office is in full cover-your-ass mode.
Dave McEwan Hill says Salmond and MacAskill know Megrahi is innocent. In that case, this really isn’t pretty, including Kenny’s much-admired speech when he granted the compassionate release in which he rubbed it in far harder than he needed to about Megrahi dying a guilty man and never having his name cleared and not showing compassion to all the people he had murdered.
It’s a puzzle to me. I was in the same room as Kenny yesterday lunchtime, but I don’t suppose he’d have told me if I’d asked him.
Red Squirrel, I’m not that proud of our justice system. Ask Shirley McKie. And a few others.
The Cadder legislation undermines the right to appeal very seriously. Abolition of the requirement for corroboration is very dangerous unless a lot of other safeguards are brought in and they haven’t been. Abolition of the prohibition on double jeopardy removed an ancient safeguard against persecution by the state.
Don’t believe the propaganda. Just because they tell you we’re the greatest, doesn’t mean we are.
@ Morag,
I didn’t manage to catch the Al Jaseera film when it was aired to TV. Are you aware of it being on YouTube?
Morag Graham Kerr,
“Dave McEwan Hill says Salmond and MacAskill know Megrahi is innocent.”
If they do, and that makes sense, then the only reason they are insisting on the opposite must be the enormous pressure they must be under.
In my view, the Scottish justice system, like all other justice systems, is inherently corrupt and designed to protect the rich and the powerful.
Re the likes of Lord Denning, it is only when they are senile that they spout out something truthful. Or they will be branded senile if they say anything that harms the vested interests.
Wasn’t Lord Healy dismissed as ‘old’ (meaning senile) when he spouted the truth about the oil?
What a rotten to the core system we live under, and so many ignorant people voting No to support their own exploitation. UKIP TV and the MSM must be proud of themselves.
Adrian, here you go.
Part 1, “Lockerbie: The Pan Am Bomber”
link to youtube.com
Part 2, “Lockerbie: Case closed”
link to youtube.com
Part 3, “Lockerbie: What really happened”
Hmmm, doesn’t seem to be there. There’s only a 20-second trailer on YouTube.
link to youtube.com
It was pretty disappointing to be honest. A bunch of allegation, assertion and rumour which may or may not be true. The bit I did, which was an explanation of how it can be seen that the bomb was in a suitcase seen at Heathrow an hour before the feeder flight landed, was skipped over quite quickly and it’s not possible to follow the detail of the explanation.
Sadly, the producer died before the film was quite finished, and it seems to have been messed around with by other people after that. But the bottom line is, all they did was present hearsay evidence which wasn’t even new. The only bit that wasn’t hearsay and was new, was glossed over too quickly to be understood.
Rock, I have been disappointed by the SNP’s handling of Lockerbie since they came to power. I thought we would see a new openness, but that hasn’t happened. The appeal was delayed and postponed, despite Megrahi’s terminal illness, in a way that seemed very cynical.
Granting compassionate release was obviously a good thing, but even there it looked like a set-up. All the international players wanted Megrahi back in Libya. The Scottish government was obviously given the green light to arrange that, but then once it was done everyone from Obama down lined up to condemn Salmond, MacAskill and Scotland as a whole for letting this evil mass murderer go home. I don’t think Salmond expected that.
It also looks very much as if MacAskill made damn sure the outstanding appeal was dropped before Megrahi was allowed to depart, even though that wasn’t a legal requirement. He then went quite a long way beyond what was necessary in declaring that Megrahi would “die a guilty man”, would never see his name cleared, and hadn’t shown compassion to all the people he murdered.
It may be that pressure has been applied from somewhere. Or it may simply be that the Scottish government is trying to run the country and win the referendum, and sees Lockerbie as an unnecessary distraction. The Crown Office is in full “we have never done anything wrong” mode, insisting that Megrahi is guilty and they could see off another appeal. If Salmond and MacAskill are simply taking their briefings from the Crown Office and Mulholland, they may believe that to be true.
I don’t understand the politics. I do know that the crime happened in the afternoon, in London, not in the morning in Malta, and the entire investigation was an exercise in chasing red herrings down blind alleys. Megrahi has an unbreakable alibi.
One day that will be publicly recognised. That day is not today though.
@ Thanks Morag,
Made a note of them and will watch later in the week when I can put some time aside.
Test
Morag,
“It may be that pressure has been applied from somewhere.”
That seems to be the only valid explanation. On all other matters, the SNP has acted honourably.
“The Crown Office is in full “we have never done anything wrong” mode”
As I said before, every justice system is inherently corrupt and specifically designed to protect the Establishment – the rich and the powerful.
In this case there are extremely rich and powerful forces to be protected. So despite your efforts and those of others like Mr Swire, the chances of the truth getting out are very slim indeed.
Quite a lot of the truth is out already, actually. And there are three separate lines of attack open in the effort to get more of it out.
It’s not officially recognised, but that doesn’t mean it’s not in the public domain.