The Shortest Day
Something rather extraordinary happened yesterday, dearest readers. Very briefly, we absolutely genuinely thought someone in a position of some influence in the SNP had taken a meaningful step towards being serious about independence.
We are not being sarcastic. Look: here it is. (Transcript at bottom of article.)
Dave Doogan is the SNP’s leader at Westminster. And let’s be clear: that is EXACTLY what the SNP’s stance ought to be. Its only purpose is supposed to be the securing of Scottish independence, and no peaceful democratic means of achieving that ought to be off the table. We couldn’t believe what we were hearing, like it was a dream.
The SNP was not formed with the purpose of denying England/the UK the government it voted for, it was formed to completely sever the governance of Scotland and England from each other as a matter of permanent principle, regardless of the prevailing political climate at any given point in time.
If England wants Nigel Farage as Prime Minister, that’s England’s business. The point of independence is that Scotland doesn’t have to get him too. No more, no less.
So obviously, the hapless Doogan’s brave and bright new dawn was brutally slapped down within a matter of hours.
His original comments had been spectacularly clear. He’d been pressed on the matter of working specifically with Reform by a stunned National hack. (Yes, not only was an SNP politician being serious about independence, a National reporter was actually performing conscientious and competent journalism. What a day!)
And he was absolutely explicit – really couldn’t possibly have answered the question any more fully, directly or definitively, with the sort of blunt plain speaking that people yearn for in politicians but almost never get – that “anyone means anyone”.
But then, in a move which was clearly completely spontaneous, all his own idea and definitely NOT the result of a furious phone call from someone who wants to stay First Minister for the next decade, he explained that what he’d meant was the exact and polar opposite of what he’d repeatedly, carefully and unambiguously said.
You know how it is, folks. We’ve all been there.
“Would you like tea or coffee?”
“Tea, please. Milk and two sugars.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. Tea.”
“Definitely tea?”
“Yup. Tea is the best. I love tea. Mmmm, tea. Way better than coffee.”
“So just to be clear, you’d like a cup of tea.”
“100%. It’s tea for me.”
“Not coffee?”
“Tea means tea.”
“Here’s your tea.”
“Ah, sorry, I phrased my answer clumsily. I meant to say coffee. Black coffee. I would never ever drink tea under any circumstances. Awful stuff. I hate it with every fibre of my being. Honestly, I’m such a scatterbrain!”
We truly believe that the leadership of the SNP is engaging in some sort of game of political Buckaroo with the party’s remaining supporters at this stage, readers – daring each other to make their total opposition to independence more and more blatantly, undeniably obvious and laughing themselves right out of their chairs as hopelessly gullible mouth-breathers in loyal blogs and newspaper comments sections contort themselves into hilarious logic knots to try to explain it away.
John Swinney’s already upped the stakes by standing in front of a Glasgow crowd in his shortbread-tin outfit and lustily belting out “God Save The King”.
So it can only be a matter of time before he gives Ian Murray a call and asks if he can borrow his Union Jack suit. Maybe for this year’s conference.
The last time independence looked like it might have found itself in a propitious set of circumstances – after the Brexit vote, as the UK government blundered from pillar to post like a punch-drunk boxer, stepping on rakes at every turn – the SNP suddenly switched its focus to trying to undemocratically deny England and Wales what THEY’D voted for, rather than using the situation as leverage to get Scotland out of the UK once and for all.
We’re told endlessly that the UK’s woes – whether it’s Brexit or COVID or Boris Johnson or the rise of Reform – will lead to a landslide in support for independence, yet the SNP bends over backwards to stop those things from happening.
And every time support does creep up a tiny bit, the SNP moves the goalposts further away. What used to be a threshold of 50%+1 first becomes 60%, then 65%, and – this week, according to Brendan O’Hara – 75% or 80%.
All that matters is that the goal is always just out of reach, like the carrot on a stick dangled in front of a donkey. In the very same article, O’Hara gives the game away:
Alert arithmetic enthusiasts will have noticed that you cannot possibly achieve 75% or 80% if there are 30% who will NEVER vote for something no matter what. The target that would trigger the SNP into action is always designed by the SNP to be impossible.
Because when push comes to shove, the party always reacts the same way to any actual prospect of achieving independence – panic. They know it would end their reign in Scotland, and they really really like life on the gravy bus.
We’re not sure if it’s the gravy bus or the Brexit bus that Dave Doogan just got shoved under, but we suspect it was driven over him heavily enough to make sure he keeps his mouth shut for the forseeable future. Nobody’s going to let him talk to the media again for quite some time, and in fact we’ll honestly be quite surprised if he’s still the Westminster leader this time next year.
Because in the modern SNP – as Angus MacNeil, Fergus Ewing, Kate Forbes, Ash Regan, Neale Hanvey, Chris McEleny and scores of others will all readily attest – doing or saying anything that suggests you might want to bring independence even an inch closer to reality is the most unforgivable crime of all.
.
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APPENDIX: FULL TRANSCRIPT OF ABOVE VIDEO CLIP
DOOGAN: We’ll negotiate with anybody. We’ll help anybody into power. But you don’t need to be the last word in psephologist to know what the SNP will demand in exchange for that support.
NATIONAL: Would that stand — “We’ll help anybody into power”? Surely not Reform, the Tories?
DOOGAN: I don’t think we’re in a position [to rule people out]. The pursuit of Scottish independence is at the forefront of everything we do. Every day we get up as an SNP group and as an SNP party is about securing and delivering independence.
So we might not — in fact we absolutely will not — share the views of whoever we help into power. But if it unlocks the door to our independence future, then we will absolutely do whatever we have to do to deliver that. That is the point of having an SNP MP. That is the point of voting SNP, is for good governance in Scotland and the route to independence at Westminster. That’s why people vote for us.
So we couldn’t, we absolutely couldn’t, stand there and say “Well, we could do this or we could do that with them, or we could do that with them, but we don’t really like their politics”. The point is to leave their politics behind and repair back to Scotland for our independent future.
NATIONAL: Yeah, I understand your position. I’m saying that it seems contrary to John Swinney’s position in Holyrood, where he’s saying “We will not work with Reform, full stop”. He’s not even inviting Reform to-
DOOGAN: It’s different stakes, though, Xander, it’s different stakes. John’s talking, quite rightly, about introducing an ultra-right-wing party into domestic UK politics where they will have ministerial positions and they will be taking decisions that affect the people of Scotland.
So John Swinney is absolutely right to make sure he protects the people of Scotland from the views and values — I use that term advisedly — of Reform. That’s a very different scenario from leveraging consent from the UK government for an independence referendum in Scotland, because we know which way that referendum will come.
NATIONAL: Yeah, that’s really interesting. I feel like that’s a bit of a departure from what I’ve been hearing from the SNP, which is more –
DOOGAN: Well, I haven’t mentioned Reform. You have.
NATIONAL: Well, you said “anybody”. That encompasses everybody, especially the party tying at the top of the polls with Labour.
DOOGAN: Well, Labour are ahead of them now.
NATIONAL: Yeah, depending on which one you look at, on what day. But “anybody” seems to me to take Reform in. But are you saying it wouldn’t? Are you saying that wouldn’t include Reform? You wouldn’t?
DOOGAN: No. Anyone means anyone.
NATIONAL: Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough.
I have heard from a very good source (ie someone that was specifically told to their face by Swinney when they wanted to stand as a Councillor) that local SNP councillors in Perthshire and Angus (where Swinney and Doogan reside) have been told in no uncertain terms to keep independence of the doorstep and the whole strategy is to get and retain power.
Doogan is careerist. He is Cosy Feet Pete 2.0. loving Westminster, jumped on every committee he could even if it had nothing to do with Independence.
Not sure I agree with your analysis here Stu. I don’t detect any U-turn in what Dave Doogan said before and after, and there are enough SNP members who agree with him that it is very unlikely he can be thrown under a bus. I’m hopeful about his sincerity and his heavyweight potential.
“The SNP will never work with Reform or do any deals with them”
could not possibly be any more of a U-turn on
“We’ll negotiate with anybody, we’ll help anybody into power. We will not share the views of however we help into power but if it unlocks the door to our independence future then we will absolutely do whatever we have to do to deliver that.”
Assuming that, y’know, you have some basic grasp of what words mean.
It’s literally written in the article and directly quoted…
If people of your comprehension skills have a vote, is it any wonder we are in the mess we are in.
As someone said here the other day “even Homer nods”! Geoff is a founder of the SSRG, I believe, and has been involved in many other attempts to reform the SNP and to progress our cause. He’s no fool.
Wings rules include not passing personal remarks on btl commenters…
We just had a Holyrood election where the SNP stated two vote SNP to stop Reform and yet Reform won over twenty seats because of the SNP strategy.
Now we have the SNP Westminster leader saying he’ll work with Reform for Indyref2 not only is this stupid it isn’t required.
Internally Scotland Isn’t going to become Independence with the blessing of England and for me it isn’t needed. This is something we can do our selves by just declaring UDI, all we need is for England to look on with envy and for Wales and Northern Ireland to follow suite with Scotland taking the lead.
The British Supreme court has made a ruling on Indyref2 and the SNP will adhere to that ruling to the letter and yet the same Supreme court has also made a ruling on biological sex which the SNP doesn’t accept, make of that as you see fit.
If you had Dug, POP, Riddock and the like, along with the National came out and stated quite clearly they could no longer support the SNP or what it stands for, might just have an effect on the leadership to change their position and allow debate at conference on an Indy strategy. Here’s a challenge to the soft Indy supporter, please prove me wrong.
I do not believe it’s enough for these individuals who make a living out of talking about Independence to just sit silent without taking any form of action towards the SNP.
If there is a way to delivery Independence the SNP will find a way to stop it.
To be honest I am sick and tired of hearing about how Westminster can’t stop democracy YES they can and they are for all three nations.
Why or why can we expect anything from a party who’s stolen twice from its supporters and tried to jail the only man who I might had had faults but he wasn’t a fucking moron.
Let’s be honest it’s a simple choice Holyrood or Independence the SNP made it perfectly clear they want Holyrood so what’s the problem let’s get rid of the SNP.
I do not know about anyone else but I am sick and tired of white papers you can wipe your arse with them that’s all the effect they have.
It might just be me, but I hear people saying Swinney needs to go and thinking replaced by whom?
Maybe you could read that all again, Geoff. Do it slowly
Never trust a man who indoors wares sun-glasses on top of his head as if they were an alice band when his barnet is relatively short.
Fish Face is the Chief Clown as you well know.
Anybody? Does that include the Taliban or Antifa? and it feels like only yesterday that the very mention of Reform would cause laughter and an abrupt slap of the arrogant hand. Changed days.
This Doogan clown is a “heavyweight”!. More like a paperweight, the ones you can shake and all the snow falls.
Wow,couldn’t have been put on the Naughty Step faster if he’d said men should stay out of the Ladies Loos!
As for Brendan O’Hara, I can’t believe I stood out in the pouring rain with his name on my rosette at a polling station! Posh waste of space office here in Helensburgh which was rarely open and is now gone where he couldn’t even be bothered to display a tribute to Alex Salmond when he died but who supports all the woke nonsense currently espoused by the SNP and who mostly seems to speak in Westminster on topics which have nothing to do with independence.
An effete, social climbing turncoat. They are so narcissistic these characters, so comfortable in their elitist bubble they can’t see how much we despise them. O’Hara will have plenty coin in the bank account and a massive pension, etc. Nae doot he will think that protects him from the kind of shite that the people he has sold out has to go through. I hope reality comes knocking at his door some day soon.
It’s simple self-interest.
The most obvious way to get a second Indy Referendum is to pass a bill in Parliament.
The Labour Party will NEVER agree to this, as too many Labour MPs are from Scotland, and would lose their jobs if Indy happened.
The best option is to do a deal with Reform, in the event that party are in a position to form a government if they obtain SNP support. The deal is simple–the SNP will put Reform in power, in return for the referendum.
Reform will probably have only a handful of Scottish MPs whose jobs would be abolished if Indy happened. So it would more be in their self-interest to grant the NSP’s request.
Is this proposed deal lacking in “principle?” Probably. But that’s how things get accomplished in the real world.
If the SNP isn’t willing to do this, then it shows they DON’T put Indy first.
Why is Swinney wearing a woman’s dressing gown, is he and Murray having a competition to see who looks like the biggest twat?
If the Reform was to use a Westminster election to win Scottish voters in order to win an our right majority wouldn’t it be in Reforms Interest to have a Indy plan in there own manifesto rather than work with the dead beat we call the SNP.
The SNP can never hold power In Westminster ever. I know we keep getting told the SNP could hold the balance of power at Westminster and when they did they did fuck all about it ask Boris Johnston.
Lets be honest here Scottish Independence has been replace with gender ID and the SNP membership has been replace by LGBTQ+.
The man obviously has no self respect and has shown himself to be an everyday gravy bussing ‘yes man’, three bags full Sir!
The only reason he has now for getting out of bed is to get his snout into the trough.
He’s ust another lowlife SNP parasitical worm.
David Doogan is the cretin who will manfully demand that Burnham’s “writing” of the UK’s unwritten constitution will spare a few lines to accommodate Scotland’s right to leave the UK, and in so doing, he will undermine Scotland’s constitutional sovereignty, Claim of Right, centuries provenance and national integrity before and after the “Union”, and abdicate Scotland’s capacity not just to leave the UK, but actually to properly end the UK, not merely leave it.
Such is the “potency” and constitutional illiteracy of the sharpest tools the SNP has in Westminster.
How I wish these fuckers would do their homework before horse trading away Scotland’s constitutional rights and integrity.
I am really concerned that you possibly gave ANY credibility to ANYTHING excreted by an snp mp , especially when that excretion is broadcast on the FAKE sturgeon supporting fanzine , when I looked at the podcast it just looked like 2 WALLOPERS grooming each other
I am interested to know if ANYONE sane actually believes that ANYONE within the hierarchy of the Scum Nonce Party is fighting for independence , could they NAME any individual they believe benefits the independence movement
Please give names I am dying for a laugh
Aye, TH, pretty much my thoughts too.
Now if for example Dave Doogan had used his parliamentary privileged position to call out the shit occurring in Scotland like David Davis did, then maybe one might still believe Mr Doogan rated the issues and concerns of Scotland higher than his own Bisto intake.
But like every other lame as fuck MP Scotland voted for, we got silence and the corruption in Scotland / UK endures whilst the generous taxpayer funded salaries of MPs keep flowing into the Party before people twats’ bank accounts.
Uncannily and entirely coincidentally, from Denis Johnson’s book, Tree of Smoke p.194:
”Do you know what makes me bitter above all? The heretofore unattainable level of bullshit we’re now all forced to engage with, and I do mean non-fucking-stop.”
The SNP is all for maintaining the status quo for the benefit of SNP staffers and elected representatives.
It has no desire for Independence, for to achieve such would logically lead to it’s staffers and elected representatives ceasing to have a trough in which to bury their snouts.
It’s all about give us your votes for jam tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…
To say I despise them would be an understatement, and that’s as a former member, CA Political Education Officer and two-times local election candidate.
I often agree with Robert, but not here:
“It (the SNP)has no desire for Independence, for to achieve such would logically lead to it’s staffers and elected representatives ceasing to have a trough in which to bury their snouts.”.
Surely, particularly if we agree with our learned professor’s claim about the massive extra wealth that an independent Scotland will have, they would strive ceaselessly for independence as their trough would then be massively larger?
The SNP troughers want gravy, now.
As you know [and as has been explained numerous times by this sites author] once we gain independence the SNP will be swept away in an almost immediate election. No more gravy.
Once upon a time, the raison d’être of the SNP was to restore Scottish Independence.
In my day, this resulted in a fairly broad kirk amongst members, whose natural political aspirations of left, right, or centre, were set to one side in order to achieve a common goal.
At times this led to friction within the party and a struggle internally to steer the party in a particular direction.
However, there was an unspoken acceptance that an independent Scotland, having a population of 5 million or so souls, would naturally split along the traditional three party system, reflecting left, right and centre; having achieved it’s goal, the SNP would naturally fragment as members drifted to the truly Scottish versions of Labour, Tory and LibDem – the SNP effectively having become the turkey which had successfully voted for Christmas.
Leap forward to the SNP post Indyref1 and there appears to have been a slow shift to the need to maintain the status quo in order to keep the SNP bandwagon rolling. With a need to develop a policy of kicking the Indy can down the road indefinitely so as to achieve that goal.
Under Murrell/Sturgeon the party morphed from a protest movement, with dedicated ambassadors for Indy in the wider Yes movement having persuaded 52% of Scots to vote Yes, to a business, hijacked by minority interest groups and social anarchists brought on board by a deviant FM and her Woke cabal, to the detriment of the genuine Indy supporters within the SNP – who, self included. drifted away.
Top it off with a corrupt CEO with his hands in the till and a host of government agencies rotting from the head as a result of SNP appointments favouring diversity and Yes-men/women over raw talent, and you’ve got to the point where we find ourselves today – a political cul de sac.
It’s a shite state of affairs and short of a Romanian style revolution we’ve only got the ballot box as a means to get rid…
Indy for Scotland!
SNP Out!
Excellent point, FC.
To refute it, one must seek recourse in second level fantasies.
The favourite one being that immediately Scotland is Independent, a horde of brand new, world-class politicians, civil servants and administrators will burst out of the woodwork to dynamically steer us to prosperity. Perhaps the estimable James sees himself in a senior role there, effortlessly managing the achievements of a major Department with a stream of his trademark memos and emails, all saying “Prick”.
Of course, the reality, seldom acknowledged in case it wakens or enrages the proles, is that around Day Two of Indy, the SNP will commence their long planned machinations to hand over all the hard bits of governing Scotland to Brussels.
It’s that rare achievement, a win-win-win.
They get to stay in their comfort zone, tinkering with the pointless, progressive parts of government.
They get to endlessly wring their hands over the stuff they’re not allowed to do cos Brussels says “No”.
They get to travel lots to where the expenses and restaurants are even better than London.
How lame can the Snp become when they pretend to demand Scotlands democratic right to remove Scotland from a voluntary union with England then accept the answer NO.
And why are they still asking when they are in the WFD, a group that would consider Scottish independence a security asset risk to the well being of Westminster parliament itself.
Westminster needs Scotlands assets, never mind the in-Security it would cause Westminster.
The UK Anglo- Irish parliament of 1800 must keep pretending that Scotland did not join in a voluntary union and instead England holds it as a Colony officially.
Which one is it SNP?
Colony or voluntary union,
Which we were dissolved from almost immediately it was made in any case.
Meaning Scotland does not keep need to carry on begging through the pretend SNP and pretendy devolved parliament in Scotland,
Likewise England whom must also be in a voluntary union with Scotland therefore has no say on what Scotland actually does.
It Takes two to tango.
The independence door has been ajar for years, the SNP are just to Scared an feared to go near it cos hey… they would loose their employment gravy train at Westminster parliament and in Scotland. For What would the SNP loose, Well…..
Bribery of and in politics has not faded since the 1600 an 1700s. Just got more corrupted.
Those that give and those that take is as old as the hills.
And they say that is honest john with his pockets jingling, has no relationship with CEOs.
Scotland declaring independence, UDI from a voluntary union, just leave and end the voluntary bit.
Only Englands parliament is doing its upmost to hang on to Scotland as if it were not Voluntary on Scotlands part.
What do you call it, when you didn’t volunteer or offer your Country and people to England, colonial powers?
There’s laws against that you know.
What’s really shocking is anyone being in any way surprised at any of this.
Post-Alex the SNP were always more about self-preservation and maintenance of the gravy train rather than the people of Scotland, due to being inheritors of the SLab mantle of Cronyist Communism.
LOL.
The Scottish people themselves never voted to join a union, so why do a % of Scots need to vote to go out, for something they never entered,
What did the Westminster parliament boast on its site regards the union.
We never gave a vote to the Scots because we knew the would vote No.
Errrrmmm, we had an independence vote in 2014 which resulted in independence being rejected. Voter turnout was very high (85%) and the result was a majority against (55% No Vs 45% Yes).
Bear in mind, this was arranged by a committed nationalist government (Alex as FM) who were elected with the referendum as a key policy, which was honoured , negotiated with the M25 omniclusterfuckpermashambles (Call Me Dave was PM) and enacted.
To date, the split remains very close to 50/50 and has remained so since the 2014 referendum, suggesting that any debate pro/against has entirely stalled and people are sticking to their previously held views, aside from the odd waverer like myself.
For the record, I voted “No” in 2014. I wasn’t convinced by the argument put forward then. Recently I have changed to being mildly in favour of independence, due to the ongoing M25 omniclusterfuckpermashambles inflicting utter ruin on the whole country. Things need to change, substantially.
However, it needs to be done properly, which in my view requires solid, focussed, undogmatic, fiscally prudent government, democratic accountability at all levels, removal of extremist influences within the state (Communists/Socialists, Environmentalists, LGBTQ+ Activists, Party-First professional politicians etc), a well-written and thoroughly researched plan for post-independence with all the positives and negatives clearly laid out and, crucially, a public vote.
That right, aye?
Aye, nae rigged postal votes, nae peculiar toon cooncil type franchise, nae ootside political or media interference. We had a referendum right enough.
Jog on Yoon.
“I voted “No” in 2014”
You and others like you deprived us Scots our freedom.
English Tory rule that appealing, is it?
“Yoon”… To quote your favourite reply, “LOL”. There’s nothing “Yoon” about me. Last time round, I paid attention to the arguments laid out and wasn’t convinced by either. I want a second referendum and based on the facts available today would vote “Yes”. Your other points are otherwise valid if I overlook the schoolyard insult (which doesn’t bother me anyway, but I’m happy to correct).
Alf – used to enjoy your contributions (have visited here on and off for several years and only recently started commenting) until you became like a broken record. “Deprived our freedom”? Absolute mince – I made a decision based on the (crap) facts available. 12 years ago feels like an eternity and the world (and the UK) has changed dramatically. Anyone else would be crowing from the rooftops in glee about my conversion to their view but for the weirdo obsessives they just can’t get over history. A shame.
S117
Alf is right.
A lot of us felt very angry with the “my heart said.. but my head said” and the “I wanted independence but just couldn’t, I cried when the result came in” types that propagated the tv the day following.
Changing your mind is all well and good but the fact remains that when the cards were down in a likely never to be repeated event, you said NO.
So leave Alf and his posts alone and learn and exercise a little (less self interested proud Scot but) humility.
A majority of Scots, 53%, voted Yes in 2014.
That majority for Yes was overturned as a result of non-Scots voting No.
In 2016 no EU citizens, with the exception Irish citizens resident in the UK, were permitted to vote.
If non-Brits were denied a vote in 2016, why weren’t non-Scots denied a vote in 2014? Both referendums concerned wether a country left or remained withing a social, political and economic union, so why the difference?
Loving the way Alf effortlessly equates Scots with Yes voters there.
Thus proving what I’ve always said about the true definition of a Sovereign Scot in the minds of the believers – a Scot who agrees with them.
As for the cognitive dissonance that allows Alf to deny that his ideas might have anything to do with denying us our freedom now, I can but regard it with slack-jawed incredulity.
Alf must certainly believe that to the one third of all Scots employed by ScotGov, promising to sack them post-Indy if they’re not fluent in spoken and written Scots will have them queuing to vote Yes.
Just as he must be convinced that constantly spouting the racist ravings of some anti-white, agitating troughers that few Scots have ever heard of, is a substitute for the plausible, practical, reality-grounded policies that would grow Indy support.
Good post, Bob.
Seeing as how it’s a holiday weekend, why not spend the rest of the day fretting about it and posting about it on here?
You wouldn’t enjoy going out anyways.
It’s raining outside…
…and it’s NOT a “holiday weekend” in my country.
robertkknight says: at 10:37 am
“It’s raining outside…”
link to bbc.co.uk
#WetterTogether
Sure, Bob. If you tell us you don’t celebrate Christmas either, we’ll believe you.
After all, that was never a holiday in “your” country.
Until ordinary Scots decided it was.
That’s a very good point, James. Why should we vote to leave something we never voted for in the first place?
Blown away by your insight, SR.
“No True Scot votes Yes” about sums it up.
Perhaps that’s because that’s how democracy works in the 21st century.
The reason we (the people of Scotland) were not asked our opinion in 1707 is because we had never been asked our opinion about anything. Despite the ‘Claim of Right’, ordinary Scots did not get a vote.
That’s then. This is now.
“It was outside our price range, but we decided to do the right thing, sacrifice somewhere else and move to electric cars…”
link to robinmcalpine.org
Chuckle. Aye, no attempts at moral shaming in that sentence… But then if you still take flights for foreign holidays and didn’t say to yourself “that’s plenty” and maybe skip the jaunts abroad to practice what you preach, I guess the guilt means one has to virtue signal about saving the planet in other ways…
Many questions arise, though. Why did he have to change a “planet saving” leccy car after only 3 years? Even if it was secondhand and a few years old when it was bought, the carbon footprint of making cars that barely last ten years is ludicrous.
Plus, different folk use vehicles for different reasons, so ridiculous to infer that anyone still using functional older tech vehicles that are within their budgets to do a few thousand miles a year is the problem.
The fossil fuel allocation of a seat on a flight abroad will often use a larger volume of fuel than a vehicle with ICE engine uses over a year. No CATs or DPFs on plane engines either so your allocation of fossil fuel burnt emissions gets punted out directly straight into the atmosphere.
Plus the absolutely ridiculous amount of tech and highly refined resources jammed into modern cars is a fucking joke which few eco-warriors ever seem to mention.
A lot of folk aren’t capable of understanding and using most of the superfluous crap built in to new cars, they often don’t get their vehicles serviced at correct schedules either, thus degrading or wrecking things way before the life of designed life of components is reached.
A nation filled with utter fuck wits that don’t even know how to check their engine oil or tyre pressures without relying on the onboard computer telling them.
I bet you’re popular in the village cracking on like that.
But just so you know, I have a V8 petrol, and I enjoy flying abroad as often as I can and I feel zero guilt for either. Life’s too short.
More power to your elbow.
I have no fewer than 5 vehicles and am currently in Rome, lunch booked. Zero guilt, anyone has any issue with that, go talk to the Chinese with their couple of dozen or so new coal power plants every year.
The Pantheon looks beautiful in the sun; looking forward to carbonara with Mrs Cavey and a cheeky bottle of red later, Valpolicella Classico DOGC methinks.
Hope you take the time to visit the Pantheon, CC. It’s an amazing example of architecture and engineering.
It’s also Scotland’s favourite surviving example of a Roman-era tourist attraction.
Because entrance is free!
I can’t believe I’m the only Scot who rejoiced at finally finding something in Rome that wasn’t going to further deplete my wallet.
Absolutely Hatey, it’s my favourite building in the entire world. As an Engineer, it’s surely an unsurpassed gem for that oculus alone, let alone that actually, the entire building is also a calibrated scientific instrument precisely aligned to the sun and seasons. Wonderful.
They do now charge to get in though. 🙂
You barsturt, CC.
I really didn’t want to know that!
Another fondly remembered experience from the past that the young people of today can never know.
@ AIdan
The residents of my village are for the most part appreciative of my efforts to interact and educate folk from being utter fuck wits on certain matters to being better informed. And fyi that is a reciprocal process where I can learn from others knowledge and skillsets. Nobody is born knowing it all and we’re all utter fuckwits until we learn about stuff.
Some of the old timers of the village have passed on over the years, but I learnt many things from them over the decades I have been here, about the area and things like crop growing.
My small efforts in the garden this growing season of nurturing 12 runner beans from last year’s kept seed to mature plants has furnished pounds of tasty runner beans that have been distributed to over a dozen neighbouring households.
The growing season this year has been problematic due to the hot and dry weather, so my and others’ crops haven’t yielded as much produce as I had hoped.
Have over the years tried to discuss food production and self-sufficiency for Scotland btl previously, but utter fuckwits try to distract because apparently sustenance to keep you alive isn’t that important in their scheme of things…
Well hold on there Bald Eagle!
Engineering and span without curtailing the building footprint below?
Nah!
Santa Sophia in old Constantinople (modern Istanbul) or Brunalesschis dome at Florence cathedral surpass architecturally and structurally within an era still using similar materials except for concrete and the Pantheons oculus drip..
@YL
Fair points. 🙂
However, I think for me, one of the most impressive aspects here is sheer longevity; a magnificent 2000 year old building that isn’t a ruin, but still in daily use. In that regard, it is objectively unsurpassed, being the oldest such building in existence.
I was very fortunate enough to be invited to read the Lesson during Sunday Mass on three separate occasions, an amazing and humbling (and scary) privilege. At that great lectern, the room acoustics are incredible against the near complete hush. It has its own vestry with C13th painting, a wondrous place. I know you love history; I was in wonderment thinking of those amazing people who were in the space over entire millennium. Very humbling indeed.
Well hold on there Bald Eagle
Doing a reading there, a rare privilege indeed.
As for the acoustics, was there a notable echo at all or do the perimeter niches deaden it?
Hamilton mausoleum, circular, domed roof with oculus has a notably long measured echo. Makes me ask.
And yes, the buildings longevity is very notable.
I’m sure if you were to measure the reverberation time, it would be long indeed. However, with a “full house”, all those people add absorption – as does the occulus, literally directly above the person giving the reading.
All I can say is, the reverberation was perfect from the POV of carrying un amplified speech yet maintaining speech intelligibility. A wonderful space, the sheer unalloyed gravitas is palpable when you’re up there.
A good post and, regarding your closing sentence, you’ve only got to read anything on the internet to see that the average IQ is definitely sub-100.
Aidan – my daily drive is a small-capacity single-cylinder motorcycle which is hard to beat for smiles-per-gallon and efficiency. One or two weekends a month however I fly privately, burning 20lt/hr of leaded aviation fuel. And like you I feel absolutely zero guilt about it, principally because the Climate hysteria and the totalitarian Net Zero ideology piggy backed onto it is just that, hysterical totalitarian garbage. Enjoy your V8 and life.
A good post Dan and, regarding your closing sentence, you’ve only got to read anything on the internet to see that the average IQ is definitely sub-100.
Aidan – my daily drive is a small-capacity single-cylinder motorcycle which is hard to beat for smiles-per-gallon and efficiency. One or two weekends a month however I fly privately, burning 20lt/hr of leaded aviation fuel. And like you I feel absolutely zero guilt about it, principally because the Climate hysteria and the totalitarian Net Zero ideology piggy backed onto it is just that, hysterical totalitarian garbage. Enjoy your V8 and life.
What bike is that, Spartan?
Back in the day, I used to have an old Honda CD200 Benly. Indestructible thing, zero ground clearance but plenty of torque for such a small steed and endlessly reliable. 🙂
Good man Spartan! I’m guessing you have your PPL? It’s something I’d love to do, particularly in Scotland where we’re spoiled with all the remote highland and island airports. I was up in North Ronaldsay a few years ago, must be one of very few places where people commute to work by plane!
People are too dumb to realise that Net Zero is a corporate marketing campaign in order to get people to consume more. That consumption involves replacing perfectly working exist tech like ICE cars with electric motors.
Then there’s the cognitive dissonance you need to master before you willingly hand over your hard earned to buy expensive tech from the same Covid Spreaders who killed, if not your granny, then possibly your neighbour’s.
Probably you’ll be waving your EU banner too, as you contribute to the collapse of Europe’s last serious, major industry – automotive.
How many of the smug, Chinese EV drivers also believe we’d be better off in the EU, whilst being supremely ignorant of the hollowing out of the industries that made the EU wealthy by the Covid Spreaders state-backed dumping of subsidised products on world markets.
A few months back, there was an organised protest movement torching Teslas. It bemused me how idiots could get agitated over trivial issues and not respond to the obvious reasons for torching Chinese EVs.
Perhaps when the Covid Spreaders employ the vast wealth transfers they have sucked from the west to fund their mind boggling militarisation, to destroy Taiwan, we’ll finally understand, as the last shards of our peace and prosperity shatter around us, what we’ve allowed the progressive, virtue signalling lefties to do to us.
HMcH
Some fair points.
However Taiwan was part of China till the Japanese took it over then obviously lost it at the end of WW2 when it reverted back to China. I believe it’s celebrated in China as Retrocession Day.
Chang Kai Shek (spelling apologies) retreated there and took it over after losing the Chinese Communist civil war not long after WW2.
Why should we get nuked over an area in the east with dubious historical credentials, unless you are a commie (Orc in your words) hater?
It’s a bit like the English “Pales” that England took encroaching on all bounding territories and beyond (us included) till they were physically booted out..
Serious question?
Ifs all supposed to be about the “World Order” created after WW2 after all is it not? Eh?
Seriously, YL? You believe the Orcs are still commies?
Crivens!
“supposed to be about the “World Order” created after WW2 after all is it not?”
Seriously, YL? You believe the post-WW2 international order is still a thing?
I really hope you live your life consciously avoiding all exposure to current affairs.
Because if you don’t, yet you still haven’t grasped how much everything has changed since 2020, then there’s no helping you.
HMcH
“Orcs”/ “COVID spreaders”; whatever your invented pet names/ insults are..
Of course the post WW2 order is still a thing, Uncle Sam, Westminster (and possibly the French) clearly still wish/ want it so.
2020 (??) has not, could not change those beliefs/ desires.
“John Swinney’s already upped the stakes by standing in front of a Glasgow crowd in his shortbread-tin outfit and lustily belting out “God Save The Queen”.”
King surely! Unless Swinney and the gender obsessed SNP have transed Charles as well…
I wonder why nobe of them ecer have the balls to twll HO the f…. Off
I stand by my words if you dont like it sack me and By the way I will do what I say
The press and party would be supportive.
Eventually we will find someone with the balls
Reform are right wing fascists who like Trump are there to make the rich richer and using corruption at the obvious unfettered level we see currently in the USA.
Mr Farage picking £5 Million from a foreign based Crypto Millionaire tells me that England’s next government will be investing big on pie in the sky Crypto Currencies.
Farage has openly stated that health insurance policies in the U.K. will become the norm.
Soon you will see millions with no health cover and Paramedics will be retained to look for a new first vital sign on a body, a credit card.
As you can see above I would never have anything to do with these people under normal circumstances but the English have learned nothing but hardship from Brexit and they are ready to vote with these vultures again.
I therefore would see it a fair trade off to back up England’s desire for a fascist government in return for Scotland’s referendum and the opportunity to escape these vile carpetbaggers.
Early last month the USA celebrated the 250th anniversary of independence I don’t recall on any documentaries,books magazines or online articles that I have seen say that the then thirteen colonies requested permission from Westminster to become independent.
If the SNP were serious about independence they could mention employment law were employment contracts state that they are under the jurisdiction of English law.
Why shouldn’t John Swinney “lustily belt out” the National Anthem? There’s no clear indication that this chimera of “independence” which from the tone of the comments hereon, is to be forced onto the population of what is currently administratively recognised as Scotland, despite the low level of support for it, is to be in the form of a republic or a monarchy, retaining the sovereign as head of state, as previously envisaged by the late Alex Salmond, or as a distant, shambolic and impoverished satrapy of the EU.
Wheesht, John!
There’s no more appetite for truth tellers on Wings BTL than there is in the parliamentary SNP.
Perhaps, in light of this story, we should henceforth refer to truth telling as “Doing a Doogan”. If we do, we can be sure that any poster Doing a Doogan will be immediately pounced on by the Usual Suspects.
Oddly enough, exactly like what happens on WGD and CM!
Spartan 117.
On your comment yesterday regarding ” but you had a vote in 2014,
Here is a logical response.
If the Scots people were not given a vote to join a treaty of Union, it withdraws Westminsters and Englands right automatically to approach the Scots with its posed Question on wether Scots want a devolved parliament or not in 2014.
As the Scots themselves have remained Sovereign as people by not being asked to join the 1707 treaty of union.
These are the Errors of politics, and politicians from hundreds of years ago.
However that does not change or alter the facts That Westminster parliament with the Scotland Act, and the devolved governance are not legal in their approach to Sovereign Scots hundreds of years later.
when they have been Satisfied for over three hundred years and boast about it, on The Westminster site, they did not ask the Scots to join because they would have automatically said No.
So governments after hundreds of years not being attached to sovereign Scots, want to try a trick fraudulent question to Scots that are unaware Westminster and the political structure had no legal right to even pose the 2014 referendum question.
As Scots were never asked to join the 1707 treaty of Union.
Obviously Scots do not require a % of votes to leave a treaty of union they were not invited to join because the the Scots would automatically have said NO.
Further more that places the 2014 question to sovereign Scots from the Westminster parliament as void.
As the 2014 question from Westminster was an illegal piece of fiction to Sovereign Scots not in the treaty of union.
It is Westminsters own devolved government they sent to Scotland that requres permission to leave and has to ask for a section 30, or do UDI.
As the Scots are and were never attached to the Great Britain parliament or the UK parliament.
And have no official Scottish parliament in either parliaments down south due to,
1:
The old Scottish parliament Being dissolved in England.
2:
Being withdrawn in Scotland.
3
And The Scots were never asked to join.
The Scots remain out with the treaty of union,
The devolved government in the Country of Scotland from Westminsters Scotland act, remains an illegal piece of fiction for Sovereign Scots not in the treaty of union.
The monarch of England remains the monarch of England, not Scotland.
The laws passed by the crown through their devolved governance in Scotland are English crown laws. And fictitious to Sovereign Scots not in a treaty of union with England.
These loop holes were made by politicians long ago,
Try to capture the Sovereign Scots that escaped the treaty of union, required trickery, falsehood and a lie posed, as reality to Scots whom do not know their own history, in the Scotland Act and in the 2014 referendum.
Scots were not asked to join the treaty of union, so have nothing to claim UDI from, they do not require % high votes to remove themselves from a treaty they were not asked to join.
The Keynes Mutiny – “Growth in a time of debt”
link to russincheshire.substack.com
I’m not ruling out, sam, the possibility that you truly believe that one fifth of UK adults choose not to work because some faceless, greedy elites refuse to share their wealth.
To a certain extent, sam, I’d even defend your right to believe that, but then I’m not a progressive, virtue signalling lefty.
The truth though, is much more prosaic.
One fifth of adults choose not to work because they can enjoy an adequately comfortable and enduring lifestyle without working. Whether they simply turn to crime, or finagle wealth transfers from the “mugs” who do work, they have enough coming in to give the finger to the rest of us.
Not all your lefty claptrap, or your self-referencing Student Grant type “academic” analyses can stop the truth that as economic conditions continue to decline, that gravy train is going to hit the buffers.
The one fifth of adults who have made indolence their lifestyle choice will face a new choice – work, or starve.
Spreadsheets get it wrong. It does happen. As so often with you, you let your prejudices overwhelm your limited intelligence.
“Large firms have failed to learn lessons from Enron, one of the most famous cases of corporate fraud, where thousands of spreadsheet inaccuracies were later discovered. Errors in company spreadsheets could be putting billions of pounds at risk, research has found”
link to telegraph.co.uk
Spreadsheet errors have led to major financial losses, such as JP Morgan’s $6 billion loss in 2012 due to copy-paste errors in a risk assessment spreadsheet and Barclays accidentally buying 179 extra contracts because hidden rows in an Excel file weren’t deleted before submission.
“Errors in spreadsheets are common, with more than 90% of spreadsheets containing errors. These errors remain undetected as spreadsheets are rarely tested. Research has shown that 50% of spreadsheet models used in large businesses have material defects. Organizations rely on spreadsheets for complex data management and decision-making. It is important to be aware of the risks associated with spreadsheet errors. Errors can lead to million-dollar mistakes and public embarrassment and find ways to eliminate the risk.”
link to microassist.com
It’s nonsense to suggest that this single paper was the entire basis for the post-2010 coalition economy policy, not least since it was only published in May 2010, the same mmyy that the coalition government was elected.
Looking back to 2010, there was virtually a complete consensus across the developed world of the principle of the need for fiscal tightening through a combination of tax rises and spending increases. In fact, the main political debate at the time of the 2010 election was whether the deficit should been eliminated in one parliamentary term (Tory) or two (Labour). In any event, George Osbourne actually reduced the deficit at a lower profile than even proposed by Alastair Darling. In that period GDP growth also went from unperforming the OECD average in 2010, to considerably overperforming the OECD average in 2015, and private investment growth increasing significantly over the same period.
I note the author of your paper uses 2022 (a covid year) as their reference year, a sure sign that in other years the data does not support their conclusion.
“Aidan says:
30 August, 2026 at 11:47 am
It’s nonsense to suggest that this single paper was the entire basis for the post-2010 coalition economy policy, not least since it was only published in May 2010, the same mmyy that the coalition government was elected.”
You’re making stuff up. Nobody said that the paper was the entire basis… etc. as a working paper “Growth in a time of debt” was published in January 2010.
“Looking back to 2010, there was virtually a complete consensus across the developed world of the principle of the need for fiscal tightening through a combination of tax rises and spending increases.”
Spending increases? During austerity years some £540 billion was cut from funding of local councils and welfare.
There were economists who thought austerity was the wrong policy. Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Diana Coyle, Richard Koo, Mark Blyth and others.
“There were economists who thought austerity was the wrong policy”
There were and still are economists who think that ever increasing government borrowing to bankroll ever increasing benefits spending is the wrong policy too.
That’s the thing about benefits spending. It neither increases productivity, nor fosters potentially profitable innovation.
As for ever increasing government borrowing, the ever increasing interest repayments eventually leave the government with no spending money at all.
@Sam – the paper YOU posted concludes:
“And that’s how David Cameron’s entire calamitous economic policy – and all of the subsequent damage – was the result of a stupid error in an Excel Spreadsheet”
link to russincheshire.substack.com
“In 2013 Thomas Herndon, an unsung, 20-something economics student from Massachusetts, was handed a homework assignment. He was tasked with picking a published study and trying to replicate its results, and the one he chose was Growth in a Time of Debt.
He immediately ran into problems. No matter what data he shoved into the paper’s economic models, he couldn’t reproduce its conclusion: that economies performed less well on average when their state debt rose. So he dug deeper into the calculations behind the original paper’s results, and what he found astonished him.
As a result of a simple mistake when adding up their spreadsheet data, Rogoff and Reinhart had accidentally left out the growth figures from Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada and Denmark.
With that blunder fixed, the paper’s findings were reversed. Its revolutionary, earth-shattering, internationally important economic theory was proved wrong. The paper now agreed with Keynes. State investment boosted growth. Austerity stifled it.
And that’s how David Cameron’s entire calamitous economic policy – and all of the subsequent damage – was the result of a stupid error in an Excel Spreadsheet.”
The really incredible part of the story is how David Cameron/George Osbourne, when divising economic policy in 2008/9, were able to go forward in time to May 2010 to read a paper, then come back in time again to incorporate it into their economic planning.
Whilst we are at it, the papers conclusions did not “reverse”, it’s just the relationship between debt/GDP and growth suppression was shown to be slower than the paper previously envisaged. If you want a case study on why running huge unsustainable deficits is a bad idea, see one L.Truss 2022 (fascinating that Osbourne/Cameron didn’t touch on this during their time travel episode).
The first paragraph of Aidan’s post is irrelevant.
“Growth in a time of Debt” was published in January 2010. George Osborne’s first budget was in June 2010 with £40 billlion of tax increases and welfare cuts.
Osborne used the Reinhart and Rogoff paper as support for his policies as noted: “It has been frequently cited by major economic policymakers, including the US Congressman Paul Ryan, the UK Chancellor George Osborne, and Olli Rehn, the leading economic official of the European Commission.”
The paper suffers from identified errors and the authors find:”However, Herndon, Ash, and I show that these results were based on three sets of mistakes: (1) exclusion of some of the available data; (2) coding errors with their working Excel spreadsheet; and (3) inappropriate methods for averaging statistics to produce their overall results…. UK economy operated with high public debt/GDP ratios. The UK economy experienced postwar growth at an average rate of 2.4% over these 19 years.”
They also say: “More generally, as my co-authors and I write in concluding our CJE paper, “policymakers cannot defend austerity measures on the grounds that public debt levels greater than 90% of GDP will consistently produce sharp declines in economic growth.”
link to blogs.lse.ac.uk
Okay – it was first published in Jan and then republished in another journal in May. Either way, it came long after the world had collectively decided that fiscal consolidation would be needed following the financial crisis. In particular, it came at least a year after the Cameron/Osbourne opposition publically set out the need for spending cuts.
So unless you can show that a big shift in policy occurred in early 2010, we’ll have to conclude you are talking nonsense again.
There are of course individual names on a old list, with signatures that explicitly name the people that are in the 1707 treaty of union, and got finances and positions of power for doing so.
Westminster parliament are quite Clear however that did not include the Scots nation.
“Same Shit Different Day” was specifically written for you James. You own that one.
Saffron Robe,
Regards your comment yesterday,
Indeed, Scots were delberately not asked to join the 1707 treaty of union, because of the high probability they would vote NO.
That ancient fear unravels that fact the Sovereign Scots as a nation and Country are not in the treaty of union hundreds of years later,
Ha, James, any Sovereign Scot alive today can choose to ratify the Union.
Until you can get your head around this Sovereign Scot concept (it’s not a difficult one), you’re never going to get anywhere 🙂
It may have escaped your notice that most!! Of the Scots thst were around in 1707 are now deed.
They may be long dead, but that doesn’t alter the fact that our ancestors never voted for the Union. Our consent was never sought. You don’t need permission to withdraw from something you didn’t consent to in the first place.
James, the English nation did not vote for the Union either. There was no ‘democracy’ then – one man/woman, one vote (except for the SNP garbage every election). The people who did sign the Treaty were the representatives of the people (voted in by and from a very narrow electoral base, as was the norm then). They were, the majority of them, landowners and burgesses (local businessmen) who had sunk their assets in there ill-fated (almost entirely down to William of Orange’s interference in forbidding the American colonies and The Netherlands (and Spain) from helping to feed them and offering them medicines when they fell ill). The very fact that the Panama Canal exists today says it all really.
Scotland was not bankrupt as a country, but many of its landed and business interests were bankrupted and they sold out Scotland to England in order to receive recompense for their losses, sustained almost wholly through English subterfuge. The irony is stark. THEY sold out Scotland through the Treaty, in full knowledge of what would happen thereafter, but they knew that they, themselves, were in clover again, while the ordinary people had to pay off England’s massive National Debt. The number of times I have been told or have read that SCOTLAND was bankrupt and had to go cap in hand to England is beyond counting – and it is utter rubbish. No, the ordinary people never voted for the Treaty and Union and neither would they have voted for them. However, the Treaty stands because it was signed by those who purportedly represented the people of Scotland in the Parliament of the day.
Unfortunately, many, many treaties are like ours and many, many undemocratic decisions were taken in the past that still bind the populace. It is unfair, but it stands. That is why we need to win a plebiscitary election, no matter how narrowly, and then, immediately declare UDI. The Treaty will come into its own when we negotiate the terms of the Scottish secession and require its backing in international law to retrieve our assets and resources. After that, it can be resiled and left in our past as Scotland heads into the future – a better one, we must hope.
LC
Very good!
However you forgot to mention the bribery, offers of position and rank and overall subterfuge with a heavy dose of military threat that encapsulated the whole farce.
Then there’s the religion, preached weekly.
Don’t underestimate that..
It was a stitch up, pure and simple, time and occasion leapt upon and screwed down hard by the levers of State. Anyone who says otherwise is a bare faced liar or an apologist.
“We have catched Scotland and will hold her close” sums the whole affair up neatly: (speaker of the Westminster House of Commons in 1707)..
Nothing will change while Swiney and the clique of seat-warming, Sturgeon loving, gender woo woo grifters remain in charge of the SNP.
I believe that roughly 50% of Scots, residing in Scotland, are in favour of Independence. I am one of them.
I also believe that if there was a referendum tomorrow the percentage who would be prepared to vote for it, without knowing what this would actually mean to them in their daily lives, would be considerably lower. I would vote NO.
What sane person would vote for the unknown? I appreciate that there are a lot of Wings readers who would vote YES.
It can’t be said with any certainty what any independent country will look like as time passes.
Within my considerable limitations here are some ideas of an independent Scotland. Do, please, add your own.
There would be plenty to do in an independent Scotland. In energy there would be the building of a grid and its transmission.
There would be decision to make about the use of Scotland’s oil and gas.
CCGT use along with renewables and stored energy as pumped hydro and batteries
There is a need for a better transport system, rail, road and sea.
A stable currency would be needed, along with sustainable budgeting.
There would need to be some relationship with the EU. EFTA if it will have us. England, with losses of billions every year through Brexit will also probably want to join the EU. The current loss to the UK is around £240 billion so far.
Need to seek investment. The Scottish diaspora (30 million or more) should be encouraged to invest in Scotland and to visit as tourists
Easy answer Sam.
Who will do the how’s and when? The SNP? Are there people waiting on the periphery ready to spring into action? If so, who?
What poltical party has even attempted to set out any plan financial or otherwise.
I must be honest and say your response was lacking in any detail. Nothing happens by magic in Scotland or anywhere else.
There are some men who think they are women and some women who think they are men. There are even some children who think that they are animals. Sam identifies as a Government.
Good comment, Sam — thoughtful and forward-looking. An independent Scotland would be a nation reborn and, more importantly, revitalised.
Chas seems to be one of those proud Scots who think that Scotland never could manage its own affairs.
He seems to think that the SNP is the only possible political party to govern in an independent Scotland It is the likely extinction of the party that ensures the SNP will not govern in an independent Scotland.
Scotland’s diaspora offers the possibility of good support for an independent Scotland.Not in getting there as much as after independence. The numbers in the diaspora are over 30 million.
Ireland has done research on the support it might have from its diaspora. Here is a bit of it, looking at the West of Ireland
“For the West and Northwest, diaspora relationships represent a significant strategic asset. They include skills, experience, networks, advocacy, cultural capital and investment potential. Few regions have experienced migration on the scale seen here or retain such strong emotional and practical connections across generations. With stronger coordination, dedicated support and sustained ambition, the potential exists not only to deepen existing relationships, but to unlock new opportunities for communities, enterprise and future generations across the region.” .
“With stronger coordination, dedicated support and sustained ambition, the potential exists”
Wow! After decades of Independence and quite a long time as the EU’s tax haven of choice, they’re still working on growing some potential for benefit from Ireland’s diaspora.
And that’s the role model Scotland should try to emulate?
We’ll all be long deid.
If it was up to Chas we’d still be living in caves.
“What? Build a shelter? Best not, we don’t know what it’d be like. Let’s stick to what we know eh”
“Control fire?! You’re out of your mind! Anything could happen!”
Just stick your head back in the sand Chas, you’ll be fine.
Strange response Dave. Does the ‘L’ represent loony?
Away back to your whinging and moaning about posts you don’t like but can do nothing about. Beg Stu to help…then beg some more, finally stick your head back in the sand where it’s safe and with nothing unknown that may cause you fear or alarm.
Definitely don’t consider ‘the wheel’, the sky may come crashing down.
Chas
There’s no guarantees in this life.
Even sitting on your hands scared and so holding with the status quo like a life raft looking for insurance backed gold plated guarantees you will still end up disappointed.
Guaranteed.
Bit of a disappointment eh?
If only you’d had that bit of conviction when you could have influenced things, but that’s ever destined to elude you by choice it seems!
Hardly the Lion roars eh?
Think of bog standard investment advice; the value of your investments could go down as well as up..
Come on out from behind the couch Chas, there’s a big world out there..
The Scottish Independence Referendum (Franchise) Act 2013 set the scope for the franchise for the referendum.
It defined those able to vote as folk aged 16 or over who were registered as voters either through the existing local government voters register or a new “young voters” register and holding an appropriate citizenship (Commonwealth, Irish or EU member state).
Salmond, overwhelmed by his immense ego and spotting his chance at historical greatness, failed the Scots when he agreed to this very open Universal Suffrage voting franchise based on a local government election model.
A too-open Toon Cooncil vote tae decide an indigenous people’s future… only in Scotland, eh?
Salmond did Scotland and the Scots no favours by pushing for a referendum model that was open to abuse and doomed to failure… failure for indigenous Scots seeking to recover their nation, anyway.
It would have been better, now, for Scotland and the independence movement if that referendum had never been held at all.
Scotland’s independence referendum was a farce. A farce dominated by buffoonery and bullshit promises; a sick pantomime based on crude characterisations of the Scottish people and peppered with ludicrously improbable ‘guarantees’ of more autonomy within a ‘better together union’ if the Scots chose to surrender their nation, and themselves, tae a firrin pouer.
The truth is that the 2014 referendum was a disaster for the independence movement – God forbid we ever have another one based on the same model… because YES would lose that yin anaw.
Respect to you, Northy, for daring to utter some of the truths that most won’t.
It remains but to add that by hurrying precipitately into the referendum in 2014, before settling some of the key deciding factors, such as the currency question, Indy sowed the seeds of its own defeat.
Why the rush anyway? Why the pell mell scurry for 2014, when just one more year of planning and momentum building would have seen Indy over the line?
The answer is, of course, that the symbolism of that 700 year anniversary was just too good to pass up. And thus the serious adults lost out to the faction forever fighting the old battles and living in the past.
Cameron needed it to be done and dusted before 2016 and the Brexit vote. He threw the kitchen sink at undermining it, and he really needed to win it to ensure that Brexit would not succeed. Without Scotland, the English nationalists would almost certainly have been in the ascendancy long before the vote, while many, in Scotland – a majority – were against leaving the EU. Mind you, many were also for leaving, but, with Wales in favour of Brexit and the English nationalists also in favour, had Scotland voted Yes in 2014, the pro Brexit lobby would have won fairly easily in England. Cameron always knew it was going to be a tight vote, even with Scotland still in the Union, and he was pro EU, so he had too much to lose if Scotland left the Union in 2014. The irony is that he lost anyway.
Imagine what England would have become had it lost both Scotland and the EU, with the NI restless, too. Wales and NI would almost certainly have started to campaign for independence immediately, following Scotland’s example (albeit unification would also have been on the agenda in NI). All of that is going to happen anyway, and in the not-too-distant future because England is in the worst mess, socially, politically and economically, it has been in for a very long time.
“Imagine what England would have become had it lost both Scotland and the EU”
I imagine what this place would be like if Yes had won in 2014 and we were delivered like trussed chickens into the EU in 2015. As per the plan of the SNP and their disciples.
Much the same usual suspects would be posting much the same posts, only with “Westminster” and the “English” replaced with “Brussels” and the “Europeans”.
Professor Baird would be telling us that we’re colonised from Brussels, that we send 150 or 200 billion Euros to Brussels every year, and that all the top jobs in Scotland are taken by Europeans.
Foreign ownership of property, businesses, landed estates, and tenement flats would be at all time highs, and our remaining benefits, rental homes and SNHS care would be buckling under the weight of “New Europeans” exploiting their freedom of movement to the hilt.
HMcH
Aye Hatey, it’s being so cheery that keeps ye going isn’t it?
One baleful benediction after another tonight, and after having spent SO much of your time here for years moaning about all (others) who don’t get out there and persuade the undecideds!
Great move there, way to go Einstein..
Oh dear, it’s now dawned on the zombie SNP membership. I’m not laughing I’m applaud you’ve been taken in so easily when the leadership were taking great delight in point it out over last 12yrs who they are and what they represent, which is that they have been working not for you but the British state, isn’t it time you got your own back.
At times you wonder who’s side The National’s on, well all the time really. We’ve had a lawyer writing in The National saying how Westminster is sovereign and how we can’t leave blah blah blah and then we had SNP MP Brendan O’Hara saying how UDI wouldn’t work blah blah blah, I don’t read crap and I never listen to piss.
Maybe Peter could write to the National and ask why the paper hasn’t had arguments from the side of why Scotland can leave the Union through the international courts and how UDI will work legally.
We keep getting feed by The National and the SNP how Scotland is a Country and the people can vote as long as its for the SNP and Scotland can leave, but it needs to be done by a section 30, piss.
I’m sick and tired of being feed a lie followed by another lie, the SNP needs shutting up and closing down. It’s them who been feeding us lies followed by another lie, knowing that its all a big con. Scotland can UDI, it only takes a party to STOP complying and to start defying, which of course the SNP will never do. But for The National to feed this lie then no wonder your subscription is so low, people aren’t stupid so waken up and get on board or get out of Indy business, you’re not helping your confusion the issues which isn’t helping the No’s to the Yes side.
I got a free year’s subscription to the National when it first started up. I was compelled to cancel that free year’s subscription when the paper posted an article from these alphabet women in its paper the day after Salmond’s acquittal. I was so angry and that’s when it dawned on me about The National and its commitment to Independence, the paper was just another rotten tabloid RAG.
I can’t help but notice how often we are being fed the lie about Westminster is sovereign and that we can do anything about it and the lie is coming entirely from the SNP and The National and for me it’s a simple argument if they were so convinced this was correct then they’d allow the opposite argument to be published, the reason they don’t allow this to be done is simply because the other side makes more sense.
“….Good Governance in Scotland….” er, you what, Dave? As has long been documented on WoS, since 2015 your “Government” has been far more interested in pet schemes & consolidating power than on governing well.
As a recent example, perhaps Dave you would like to explain to the people of North Lanarkshire why the replacement Monklands hospital – which your “Government” specified and has spent £92.4 million on so far without a single brick being laid, the plans for that have now been thrown in the bin for being too expensive and the old hospital building must soldier on until – when, exactly? Utterly corrupt & useless.
North Code.
You sadly missed the point on the Scotland act and the 2014 referendum.
It is not up to Westminster to broach any of those two Questions to Sovereign Scots when The Westminster parliament site boasts that they avoided in asking the Scots nation nd people to join the treaty of union,
As the Scots would probably vote NO anyway.
The Scots are Not in the union due to that error of judgement made hundreds of years ago.
No, James, I didn’t.
Yours is a classic example of someone mixing historical grievance, constitutional myth, and modern legal reality into one big ball of confusion.
I’ll break it down for folk.
Here’s what you get emotionally right.
There is a long-standing Scottish grievance that:
All of that is historically grounded.
So when folk say:
“Westminster avoided asking the Scots nation and people to join the Treaty of Union”
they are expressing a real historical frustration.
But… and it’s a BIG but, James.
The claim:
“The Scots are not in the union due to that error of judgement made hundreds of years ago”
is incorrect under modern constitutional law.
Here’s why in four important regards:
1. The Treaty of Union was lawfully enacted under the constitutional rules of 1707.
2. The Union was ratified by both parliaments.
3. The Union has been reaffirmed repeatedly through subsequent constitutional acts. Most importantly:
4. International law does not invalidate a treaty because the people were not consulted… if it did, half the world’s borders would collapse overnight.
So your claim is emotionally understandable, but legally false.
James, your comment is:
Your’re trying to express a real grievance, but you’re doing it with incorrect constitutional reasoning.
I’m sorry, James, but that’s the reality surrounding Scotland’s current constitutional situation.
That was a worthy effort Northy. The psychiatrists just give him 100mg of largactil three times daily.
Good post, Northy. Lacking only references to and quotes from the post colonial boys (Fanon, Memmi, Cesaire, etc.) to make it a great one.
Yes James, if Swinney were really our national liberator he would select a referendum question befitting the reality of the 1707 annexation of Scotland by England and the Scots people being doun-hauden ever since by the colonial ‘union’ treaty hoax. Something like:
Do you sovereign Scots fowk want to remain a plundered and dominated colony of England?
Colony – Yes/No
or
Do you sovereign Scots fowk want to decolonize from domination by England and revert to being a free liberated people and nation?
Decolonize – Yes/No
Why be so equivocal Alf, why not;
Do you want:
– to be tortured in the fires of hell for all eternity; or
– have everlasting peace, happiness and prosperity.
If you have someone at each polling booth spotting and promptly shooting anyone with an English accent, that should do it
Why don’t you ask the people of Ulster about that one. I’m sure they will be very interested in what you have to say.
What do you folks think independence is, if not decolonization?
Because decolonization is what the UN says it is:
“Since the birth of the United Nations, more than 80 former colonies comprising some 750 million people have gained independence (and)..the process of decolonization is not complete.” (UN)
LOL. Well done youse two!
The half-wit and the inmate [but which is which!?].
HI-LARIOUS!
Keep em coming, please! Comedy Gold.
Vote Yoon, right?
“Since the birth of the United Nations, more than 80 former colonies comprising some 750 million people have gained independence (and)..the process of decolonization is not complete.”
Here’s a translation.
Since the west set up the UN in the collective fantasy that everything would be better if people could only be NICE, the west has become impoverished by the loss of more than 80 former colonies, and the mass migration of tens of millions desperately escaping the shitholes so many of these abandoned colonies have become.
Meantime, less cuddly and more realistic colonising empires, such as the Orcs and the Covid Spreaders, have not only retained most of their colonies, but have embarked on ambitious campaigns to seize or re-conquer additional ones, becoming more emboldened in their efforts as the west has weakened into decline.
As we can see in Eastern Europe, around Taiwan and the Pacific, or in Central Africa, the processes of re-colonisation have hardly yet got started.
In your regular set task to divert, you forgot to answer the question, Hatey:
If not decolonization, what do you think independence is?
“you forgot to answer the question”
I learned that at the feet of a master, Alf, YOU.
Haha, just my little joke. Or maybe not.
Independence is Independence. Simples.
For Scotland to be a colony of England, we’d have to be denied the right to form our own political parties and it would have to be forbidden for these parties to campaign on a plebiscitary platform.
Furthermore, the leaders of those plebiscitary parties would have to face harassment, imprisonment, or worse.
The day these things happen will be the day I agree that Scotland is a colony.
But for now, as these potential routes to Indy go ignored and unexplored, I see that we’re not independent because of the fundamental lack of the wish by a majority of Scots for us to gain that condition.
Simples again.
“Furthermore, the leaders of those plebiscitary parties would have to face harassment, imprisonment, or worse.
The day these things happen will be the day I agree that Scotland is a colony.”
A high degree of colonial amnesia there Hatey, mixed in with standard doublethink, denial etc.
“A high degree of colonial amnesia there Hatey, mixed in with standard doublethink, denial etc.”
Sez you, Alf!
I’m only taking criticism from the “real deal” from now on. Fanon, Memmi, Cesaire, Elkins, or the rookie, Nandy.
Although I’m also prepared to at least listen to the Jonesy boyo.
Alex Salmond like other politicians never read the details, and the SNP today ignore that the old parliament of England and Scotland delberately never asked the nation of Sovereign Scots if they wished to join the treaty.
Noting the Constitutional differences at that time between Scotland and England,
Under the Act of Settlement passed by the parliament of England prior to the treaty, the people of Englands sovereignty was under the Crown of England and that act took the Sovereignty of England into Westminster parliament,
That is why the parliament of Englands Westminster claims it is a Sovereign parliament today.
At the same time in history In Scotlands Constitution, Sovereignty did not lie with the Crown, with the government, but with the people,
And today the Crown of England will not wear or place or be seen with its head under the Crown of Scotland,
The Scottish crown and throne has actually been vacant for over three hundred years or more.
Again confirming the Scots are not in the union.
“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” – Captain, ‘Cool Hand Luke’
That is exactly what we’ve got here today in Scotland. People don’t talk they rant and shout. The left side of the brain has been running riot in to many people these days. Some folk need to visit the right side of their brain once in a while. It was Tony Ben who said a government has two wings and it would fail on one wing. Scotland the Left-wing pigeon flying round and round and round and round.
LOL.
Stu.
What about starting a ‘crowdfunder’ to get some medical help for Che? If this was a success and the treatment actually worked, it would possibly spare the rest of us from the constant reams of shite. If there was some monies left over we could do the same for the supposedly learned professor.
How about settling down and stop your moaning and creeping?
One to celebrate;
On this month in history (best reckoned as August 1018) the Scots under Malcolm II “Forranach” (the destroyer) allied with Owain the Bald, King of Strathclyde thrashed the English army of Uhtred of Bebbanburg (Bamburgh) at Carham beside the River Tweed.
This effectively cleared the Anglian squatters from old Godothin Lothian though ancestral ancient Votadini tribal lands extending south of the Tweed towards auld Hadrians wall remained lost.
This pivotal battle first created the borderline recognisable (in the main) in south east Scotland.
Uhtred himself is generally considered among the slain in this battle as opposed to the literary contortions of him represented in Bernard Cornwalls Saxon Stories and as serialised on tv where surprise surprise they have him defeating the Scots!
And they say Braveheart ran loose with historical facts!!
Here’s to em!
No Lochy I was there., I remember distinctly Uhtred kicking the shit out of the Scot. I can still see the stupid jock blubbing at Uhtreds’ feet. It was embarrassing.
MB
Errr, that’s a no.
No matter how much you wish it so..
@ young Lochinvar
It is artistic licence. Loosely based on history. Uhtred spanned four kings and fought in about eighty years of war. Uhtred represents the men on the ground who made the kings. Cnut was never defeated. He became king. They must have had a laugh with his name behind his back mind you.
MB
“He (Cnut) became King”
Should read “He became King of England”.
As for never being beaten, dying at 40 as he did limited the scope somewhat, but as he was English King when Carham happened then he was beaten (by proxy) and lost all of Lothian.
And no, he didn’t try to hold back the tide either..
I’m sure something happened in 1066 that made the “English” of 1018 a different people/race/tribe/dynasty from the “English” of 1067 onward.
As for “Scotland”, back in 1018 that name still lay a couple of centuries in the future, with our country still being known as Alba.
It wasn’t until the Scots had genocided everybody else (as boasted about in the Declaration of Arbroath) that there was nobody left to question them calling the country they had stolen, Scotland.
I guess these distinctions are too subtle, or too awkward, for some.
HMcH
The supplanting of the name Scotland in lieu of Alba (basically the landmass north of the Forth – Clyde line) was a progress already in place by the 11th century and cemented by Carhams gain of Lothian and Strathclydes assimilation in Scotland after Owain the Bald died.
Try and keep up “old boy”..
🙂
What’s that you say, Sooty? Why does Auld Lochnagar want to airbrush the Norman Conquest out of history?
I guess that the fact that it’s the single most known date and event in all of “Anglo-centric” English history rather gives the lie to AL’s frequent claim that English defeats are always airbrushed out of “Anglo-centric” English history.
YL; kudos for trying, but you are wasting your time on the paid-poster that we all know as “Site Prick”.
Ye cannae educate pork.
“Ye cannae educate pork”
Ye cannae educate a fatberg either.
But ye can flush it.
I get the impression that your delicate sensibilities are bruised by my posting on here.
Just try to be a brave wee sojer fer yer maw for a wee whilie longer. Scotland will be Independent in next to no time at all, thanks to your sterling efforts.
Believe me, there will be no louder advocate for a commemorative Scottish postage stamp depicting a w*nking fatberg than me.
LOL. What a “Prick”.
Keep it up….
Cheers, James!
Actually … it’s not up.
Although I don’t like to boast, I can well understand why one of life’s unhappy disadvantaged, right at the end of the queue when they were handed out, might believe that it is. 🙂
Never ye mind. Ye’ll aye hae yer maw.
HMcH
You are guilty again it appears of sliding off the subject in hand and jumping instead to a subject that you DO want to talk about.
Can you please clarify exactly what 1066 “an that” has remotely got to do with the events of Scotland in 1018?
Hee haw I would hazard to suggest.
Sorry folks but I’m going to bite here; 1066 has nothing to do with the formation of Scotland, and while appearing desperate at every turn to turn most things historical into a one person “croosade” against matters mentioned in the Declaration of Arbroath, you fail to recognise the historic importance of the document sent to the Pope on the considered position of Scottish independence (which you have sort-of claimed here to support) and Kingship in preference to late 13th/ early 14th century opinion in national foundation mythology..
I think you’ll find they were all at it then being on the flip side of the “hint hint” dark ages..
Then youve got Longshanks pilfering the depositories of our historical archives to thwart legal recourse to proving ancient (as far as England is concerned) independence from a state that then did not exist and whose statelets were busy purloining that belonging to not just others but each other as well.
The foundation mythology (the clue is in that word) contained in the declaration of Arbroath was simply a thing of its time. Perhaps you should cast your gaze further afield and analyse the matters put in front of the pontiff at the time by the English state claiming superiority over (hint again) Scotland then and continuing to be bruited (no pun intended) about well into the 16th century based on (wait for it) “Brut”..
No not the 70s aftershave worn of a night out on the pull but on an English ancestral “giant from Troy” ie circa 1260 BC.
That’s the nonsense legally spoken by the English state that the declaration of Arbroath was aiming to rebut, strange for one who talks about it in negative terms here that you consistently aver from going anywhere near auld Brut which the declaration of Arbroath was written to counter.
St Trinians class report of Hatey: struggles focussing, incredibly opinionated, confrontational to a fault and incredibly easily distracted from the subject in hand.
Must do better.
PS the debating club can’t stand his facetious manner either..
Just saying it as it is.
Try and keep up “old boy”.
🙂
So you’re the founder and sole member of a one-man debating club, Auld Lochnagar?
Oh to be a fly on the wall when you get started!
Would I be right in thinking things often get really heated around 2 AM?
I bet you can hardly get a word in edgeways, eh 🙂
Meant to add:
Maggie Thatcher!
The King!
Winston Churchill!
Graham Botham!
Jimmy Hill!
Danny La Rue!
Longshanks!
Fat Hal 8!
Indeterminate sex Lizzie Tudor!
Noel Edmonds!
Sue Lawley!
Bob Monkhouse!
Boris Johnson!
Oliver Cromwell!
Keir Starmer!
Oswald Moseley!
Aunty Burnham!
Jimmy Tarbuck!
Boy George!
Jimmy Saville!
Enoch Powell!
“Troy (c. 1260BC); your boys took one hell of a beating!
Brut missing in action as he ran away”..
Was going to add in Norman Wisdom but just couldn’t bring myself to!
🙂
HMcH @ 10.53
Is that it?!
Seriously?
A bit pathetic eh?
Below par – not that it’s a very high bar! 🙂
I’m sure come tomorrow or the days after you’ll be “whanging oan” endlessly about the Declaration of Arbroath as if none of this ever happened!
It’s 11.25, time surely for another pointless reply from you before Matron turns the ward lights and Wi-Fi off and locks the doors.
Must be the meds..
🙂
everywhere fools, useless idiots and referendum freaks.
Scottish democracy is a grotesque inarticulate Frankenstein monster best not viewed in daylight.
try NatSpex*the eyewear that shades reality.
*made in England by the ProudScot partnership.
Nicely put.
The Scottish democratic elites seem quite happy within themselves nonetheless. They are maybe just a shower of self serving cunts with a superiority complex?
I note GM that your attempt to try and educate the Paypal grifter on his site to the benefits of unity within the independence movement elicited the usual response from him and his brain dead apologists and sycophants
You’re a very bad boy trying to cast BLAME on the snp for refusing to unite with other independence parties in trying to achieve a plebiscite election
He removed my comment about the Welsh town regretting their encouragement and eagerness to accept mass immigration into their village , and the negative impact it was having on the locals and surrounding areas
He said that the original poster was a BNP member who was a very bad person, it seems that it doesn’t matter if the message is truthful and confirmed , it is to be ignored if the person saying it doesn’t have the same values as yourself
“it seems that it doesn’t matter if the message is truthful and confirmed , it is to be ignored if the person saying it doesn’t have the same values as yourself”
Naw! Say it isn’t so!
“made in England by the ProudScot partnership”
Yes TURABDIN, ‘colonialism is obscured by assimilation’ (Memmi) of native groups (elites, bourgeoisie etc) into the colonizer’s culture, language and ‘values’.
The ‘I’m British and (whatever)’ colonial/cultural illusion.
The native ‘laughs’ aince thay feegure oot the colonial hoax that has duped them for so long.
link to salvo.scot
“The native ‘laughs’ aince thay feegure oot the colonial hoax that has duped them for so long”
Are you sure, Alf?
I’m positive I’ve read many studies and seen many examples of how humour varies across cultures, peoples and ‘values’.
Aren’t you denying the ‘native’ the right to respond in his own indigenous way? Are you unthinkingly enforcing a foreign value set on him when you assume that he will ‘laugh’ at being duped?
I don’t think you should be making this stuff up if you can’t find a supportive quote from Fanon, etc.
How about:
“The native will express emotion in a culturally appropriate way, not as formerly mandated by the oppressive, foreign values of the coloniser, aince thay feegure oot the colonial hoax that has duped them for so long” (Hatey).
Iceland says “No”.
I guess it’s too much to hope that we might get a few Icelandic regulars posting on here.
They might be able to teach us that Independence and majority rule from Brussels are not the same thing at all. And that if you already live in a prosperous country, joining the EU means sharing your prosperity with hundreds of millions of others.
As for freedom of movement. If your only reason for wanting freedom of movement is so that you can immediately fuck off out of the country of your birth to somewhere better, then it is really advantageous for everybody else that it’s made as difficult as possible.
Quite pleasing to see a small independent nation reject the EU’s advances. Democratically, as well, rather than bring railroaded by politicians.
Commentators already saying that the thought of being forced to share their wealth as the first net contributor to the EU for some time focused Icelandic minds.
One to remember the next time we’re being told that after the UK falls apart, Scotland will be £150 billion or £200 billion richer every year, before our politicians troop off to Brussels to see if they “left the lights on” for us.
Of course they did, duh! They need our wealth.
On a lighter note. Has anyone else seen Useless’s new attempt to reinvent himself as a Leader advisor! whatever the hell that means. Yes you can give the idiot money and he will show the way to political greatness. He will share his wide experience of government and the secret to success.
“He will share … the secret to success”
He’ll reveal how much he has in his pension fund.
And you will weep bitter tears of envy.
From the MSM:
“Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration was “in advanced talks with Venezuela for the U.S. to take a direct stake in more than a dozen oilfields that house nearly one-third of the country’s massive energy reserves”. Axios also reported on the negotiations, quoting a US official who claimed the deal would be “massive”.”
I’ve been wondering when Trump would start to open the taps to get the Venezuelan oil gushing. Looks like we’re finally getting some answers.
If this is played wisely by the US, it ultimately won’t matter if the women-hating medievalists fill the Hormuz straits with concrete. Their oil won’t matter any more. Venezuela has the world’s largest reserves.
Remains to be seen if the US will pitch the global price of their new oil supply at a level low enough to finally shut in the North Sea for good.
But with a bit of luck, it will defo be low enough to drive the Orcs into bankruptcy.
Happy days!
It’s not as simple as that – their oil doesn’t “gush”, the bulk of it, Oronoco crude, is thick, dense and reluctant to flow – it requires a lot of different processes to convert it to petrol, avgas and diesel. It’s also “sour” and very corrosive to the refineries.
Do-able, but expensive
Oh no. Don’t prove the Site prick wrong yet again.
He hates that,
They managed before, Gordon. I’m sure they can manage again.
But look what you’ve done. You’ve aroused Wee Wallie W*nkie to take himself in hand while his maw’s oot and there’s still 50p on the leccy meter.
The puir lad’s first word was “prick” and his maw praised him so much he’s been saying little else ever since.
This post on substack might be informative and relevant to people who want to be kept informed and up to date on what is happening in fellow independence seeking Wales
link to markacollett.substack.com
Aris is aris, Ní neart go cur le chéile.
And Irish expression that says much.
NÍ NEART GO CUR LE CHÉILE
Meaning, pronunciation, background:
link to allaboutirish.ie
An interesting article on healthcare in Ireland:
link to theguardian.com
“Nearly half the Irish population relies on private health insurance, as in many cases this means they can skip the long waiting lists in public hospitals”
Who knew, eh? We’re frequently told on here that as an excellent example of a prosperous, independent EU satrap, Ireland is the kind of role model Scotland should be striving to emulate. Now we find out they have a two-tier healthcare system!
It’s a bit like discovering (if we didn’t already know) that the other excellent example of a prosperous, independent country we are told we should emulate, Norway, is a constitutional monarchy that has just put a new king on the throne.
God save King Haakon VIII!
Makes you think, eh?
A wonderfully perceptive article on how the progressive left always eventually consumes itself:
link to unherd.com
It’s written from a US perspective, but no biggie. Lefty, ideological purity spirals are a universal phenomenon.
The parallels with so much of what we read on Wings BTL are excruciatingly funny.
“what happens when every honest disagreement over tactics, language, art, or policy becomes a referendum on personal character. The defendant is never merely mistaken but corrupt; never simply compromised but bought; never insufficiently radical but secretly reactionary”
Ah, a two tier health system just like that the Tories, Reform and Labour want to introduce – and a system that increasingly is the way in England.
I guess that if prosperous, successful, independent Ireland can’t afford universal free healthcare for its citizens, plus every other third-world grifter and crim who can blag his/her way across the border, then neither can we.
Reality, willie. Ain’t it a bitch.
That is not fair though since Ireland has had this two-tier, personal insurance-based system for many decades and as far as I know has never had a universal free-at-the-point-of-use system like most places in Europe (e.g. people are charged for every GP appointment). So its healthcare problems are not directly related to migrants, though no doubt increased population does not help. The problem they have according to the article you posted is that they don’t have enough consultants as too many leave, presumably many to the UK.
Quite honestly reading comments about Norway how could anyone want to emulate a country that has absolutely excellent state social and healthcare provision along with an absolutely humungous state pension fund that holds wealth funded reported to own about 1% of the worlds stocks. Whatever is worth its just absolutely huge.
And like Scotland they were cursed with oil, gas and hydro. But hey hoe, the benefit of living in Great Britain’s golden age so promised before Brexit becomes ever more apparent.
And Ireland, another small population country similar to Scotland it has a GDP very much higher than Great Britain, and then some. But again, who would want to be like Ireland when you can be a first class country like Great Britain as it strides the world stage cutting trade deals like the Titan it is.
Choice, folks, that is what it is about. The Norwegians and Irish made their choices – and the British made ours.
Some good points, Willie.
As Professor Baird loves to remind us, Ireland has a humongous GDP. As Professor Baird and yourself always glosses over, that’s because Ireland is EU home to the rootless, multi-billion, tax evading US multinationals, whose eye-wateringly high EU turnovers and profits make Ireland’s economy look great on paper, but generate very little taxes to the Irish people’s benefit.
Riven by ethnic strife too, as the EU uses freedom of movement to dump unwanted third-world grifters and crims on the ungrateful Irish working class. Best ignore that too, Willie!
As for Norway, it’s a serious people in a serious country. Big economic and practical supporters of our fighting friends in the east, arising from their lived experience of having a real aggressive, imperialist, colonising military on their doorstep. Not a pretendy one like Scottish Indy supporters like to greet about.
And a popular, constitutional monarchy too! What’s not to like?
Ireland has an artificially inflated GDP because the of extensive use of base shifting profit erosion which allows economic activity not taking place there to nevertheless be recorded there for tax proposes. Not even Ireland’s own central bank uses its GDP figures.
The reality for Ireland is, whilst salaries are slight higher, personal taxes are much higher and generally don’t include comprehensive healthcare. Better off being in Scotland.
” allows economic activity not taking place there to nevertheless be recorded there for tax proposes.”
do you anglo fucking idiots ever look in the mirror
“fiddling the numbers”
– the english count whisky exports as english because diageo are HQ-ed in London
the irish GDP figures are no more untrustworthy than the UKs. The world bank IMF compile these anyway and they are far more trusted than lying bullshit anglo numbers like GERS.
– the irish are now (collectively) richer than the english and you don’t like it.
“the irish are now (collectively) richer than the english and you don’t like it”
The metric to use is Gross National Income (GNI)
UK GNI per capita is $54,550.
Irish GNI per capita is $55,084.
Of course, if we apply the standard Wings BTL distortion to the UK figures, and assume that England’s numbers are inflated by stealing from Scotland, we can easily “prove” that Confused is, once again, confused.
As to whether we “like it”, that’s all in Confused’s heid.
Ireland has 4 years longer life expectancy.
Seems you can have good health or socialist ideological purity, but not both.
That’s right Hatey – and if you look at Average Individual Consumption rate, the average Irish person it poorer than the average Brit (or Scot!). Ireland’s GDP figures are inflated because economic activity that doesn’t take place in Ireland and creates no revenue for Ireland is allowed to be domiciled there for tax purposes.
So yet again “Confused” looks “stupid”, even though he’s lied about Whisky exports.
Norway’s hydro potential is night and day different from Scotland’s. Five time the catchment area for rain and snow that mostly falls on high mountain plateau then races down glacial valleys.
Ah who would like to be like Norway. Who would like to be like Ireland. My God and riven with third world grifters at least that doesn’t happen here.
But America. Now that’s the boys altogether. The land of the free. A veritable table overflowing with milk and honey. What not to like.
Careful Willie…
That sort of thing is just an open invitation for the site Prick to start spreading more shite than a Fleming MS1000, not that he considers an invite to be a prerequisite – just look up-thread for confirmation.
Too bad, Bob, you’ve just been pebble dashed.
Better bin the lot, or maybe just let it dry, then see if anybody says anything.
Looks like ICELAND DID THE SANE THING; though it was far closer than it should have been, rationally.
pretty decent article about Iceland and the EU in the telegraph – of course it is coloured by the implied slant that this is supportive of brexit, but it distorts the picture. First of all they quickly skip over the fact that it was the UK that Iceland had to stand up to to guarantee its own wealth – the Cod War of 1976, where britain tried to steal their fish. But the icelanders stood firm, quite impressive since britain still had a navy then.
link to archive.ph
The thing about the fish is this : because of their situation they have to import a lot of things, which are expensive; imports are effectively “paid for” by exports (in a normal situation say, where your currency is not the worlds reserve) – so the fish is crucial beyond what it makes on paper. Most of our cod, haddock, comes from there as we overfished the north sea ages ago.
Iceland, in many ways, is the model for our indy; because of SOSUS and the rus han subs they are covered by the US defence apparatus; they are in EFTA and in the EEA. It seems to be the best of all possible worlds. Why mess with a good thing? Iceland has also shown impressive and independent actions, both with its stance on freedom of speech and banking fraud – and laughed at e.g. Gordon Browns attempts to bully them.
When you have everything you want, the way you want it, any change represents a loss, so why are they even thinking of joining the EU fully?
– I think it comes down to emotional arguments about “greater integration”, peddled by – you guessed it, wimmin. EU starts out as a great idea, was pretty decent for a long time, no matter what the brexit boys would say, but the past few years it’s gotten worse as the foreign lobbies really took hold of it. And it must be emphasised all the “bad shit that happened” – came from outside influence, including the euro ( floated at bilderberg in the 50s, because the yanks didn’t like dealing with 10 exchange rates), the eastward expansion, the pivot from trade to political aims.
Ursula’s got about 7 kids – they need to be drafted, and get exposed to the drone warfare she is trying to provoke. Skin in the game, in it to win it – her children all quadraplegics would be a small price to pay to avoid mad vlad and his – reasonably priced long term gas contracts. A price we are all willing to pay. They can all use a breathing tube, and who knows – maybe some of them can learn to do the maths like hawking. (Hawking may have got his hole on epstein island, which, for me at least, is a lot more impressive than his theorems about black hole horizons).
Someone should remake (AI?) one of those old noggin the nog cartoons where it is shown conclusively and explicitly that NOGBAD the BAD represents the predations of the EU superstate.
richard werner is always good
link to youtube.com
“Hawking may have got his hole on epstein island, which, for me at least, is a lot more impressive than his theorems about black hole horizons”
Now, now, Confused. Don’t go projecting your own lived experience onto others.
I mentioned the REFORM/RESTORE SPLIT the other day – here is another take with some more detail; a nice graphic down the bottom, something you won’t see in the national – afghans and somalis, all the war zones
link to archive.ph
in short, if you are “reform minded” then voting for reform is a con trick coz nige very quickly sold out to the same lobbies all the other parties obey – he is a one trick pony who will do real damage with his one idea “deregulation” (the city is already a free for all, largely, including private stock markets called dark pools, which some folks say will cause the next market crash) and to gut whatever is worth gutting in the UK, NHS for one. Restore is actually “the real deal”.
– we shall see how it goes; likely a makeup before the next election, and some backroom deals. If restore won’t shut up and look to cause problems, we could see them banned, not simply far right, but as terrorists. They have tried to ban similar parties in germany for example.
Maybe lowe will use my “20 flights a day” remigration plan which will cost 2B but save 12B (a net gain of 10B and a lot less fannies/buttholes being bashed); he might not realise my first goal is anglos out of Scotland.
It’s not just that-London tho, check out the stats on this, go to comments first.
link to archive.ph
CRAIG HOUSTON might be a fuckwitted yoon, but he seems to be one of the few people actually, just, talking about “things going on”; his amateurism also humiliates the pros – this, slow witted geezer who spends half the time, um, ah, forget what I was gonnay say … just walks about, films on his phone, things happening – that all the rest of them want to walk away from – la la la – what is Glasgow like these days … let’s go down to St Enoch … lawdy lawdy … and so on; the other, more interesting, type of fella who does this citizens journalism is billy moore, a scouse lad with a bizzy past
link to youtube.com
– here we have him posting a film about some ex muslim “going undercover” by just, openly, asking for where he can do jihad
CH also had a good one on Sarwar where he seems to be ambiguous about his identity and seems to be calling for a takeover of some kind … but but … jock tamsons civic nationalism ya blood and soil bastids
CH has also been called far right; it looked like for a nanosecond geissler of scotcast would talk to him – CH goes round to the bbc to offer himself … er, no
– CH is not part of the fragrant class, the sort of people you can do a national podcast with.
I have joked that “far right” is now a middle class dogwhistle for working class – but it’s no joke, for with a bit of verbal trickery – far right (people I dont like), extremist ideology (things I dont like), then that is – the definition, really – of “terrorism”. And that is the landmine you need to step over – once the plod can nab you on a terrorism(-related) charge, they can do what they like to you; you don’t get a jury, it’s one judge, and your legal representation and defence is severely limited; they are bringing back the diplock courts for people who don’t like diversity and all that.
You back Confused? Thought you’d been permabanned.
Confused claims “– the english count whisky exports as english because diageo are HQ-ed in London”.
Wrong, yet again, on a point easily checked on a variety of websites, including Scotgov:
“No, Diageo’s Scotch whisky exports do not count as English. They are officially classified and recorded as Scottish exports.”
“While Diageo is a British multinational conglomerate headquartered in London, England, corporate ownership does not dictate the legal or statistical origin of the product. To legally be called Scotch Whisky, the spirit must be entirely distilled and matured in Scotland. Because Diageo’s single malts and blends (like Johnnie Walker) are produced across its 29+ Scottish distilleries, they remain strictly Scottish goods.”
Where in the UK accounts is this itemised specifically?
Is the 20% VAT charged within the UK on this Scottish commodity allocated to Scotland’s account?
Perhaps you could put me in touch with the auditors as I would like to know what mechanism is employed for VAT allocation within the larger supermarket chains
Oneliner
Confused’s confused statement incorrectly referred to Diageo exports being counted as English, as did my reply giving the correct information.
Any simple internet search, including the Scottish government website, will confirm this for you.
Most of it leaves via English ports, and is therefore classed as English exports.
There. sorted that for ye.
Some clarity.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
factchecker! Ha ha!
£7.1 billion quid for the UK Treasury – well done Scots whisky!
Dated but germane Scott Minto article on Wings (July 27, 2014)
THE CASE OF THE MISSING BILLIONS
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Something else that’s a bitch, Fearghas. The lack of a time machine to go back to when an article like that one might have been true.
Because it sure as hell isn’t true now.
Aye, that was a serious misrepresentation by the BBC in 2014 telling us Scots our exports were only worth £16bn when they were really £100bn.
Plus ignoring the fact England-as-UK has a chronic trade deficit and excessive debt, whilst Scotland’s economic position is precisely the opposite, i.e. a trade surplus and no debt.
Coincidentally Scotland will shortly have another new export worth circa £100 billion a year gleefully plundered by our debt-ridden colonial oppressor:
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
“Scotland’s economic position is precisely the opposite … no debt”
Good God Alf!
I don’t know how you’re managing to do this, but you’re making Professor Arday look like a genius.
Even if you’re prepared to make common cause with the “and with one bound, Scotland was free” fantasists, you can’t ignore the portion of the EU divorce settlement that it’s up to Scotland to find.
Or do you really expect that the EU is gonna write off that money when we’re Independent cos “we wis dragged oot agin oor will”?
Jeezo, Alf. Just what do they teach people at uni these days?
Site Prick treading water, noo. LOL.
Canny answer; proved wrang so starts vomiting up the usual unionist *shite*.
ChatGPT estimates that the total value of electricity generated in the U.K. is in the region of £80-£100bn, with the U.K. consuming around 320twh. Scotland exported around 17TWH of electric in 2025. So in Alf’s view, that 5% should be worth between 100/120% of the entire value of the remaining 95%.
Another day in the fantasy world of made up numbers.
Wee W*llie W*nkie still saying his first word after all these years:
“Prick”.
Awwww! Sweet!
Please tell us his maw’s still no pitting him doon in his baby box between feeds and changes.
Although if she is, much would be explained.
@ Aidan says: 31 August, 2026 at 7:30 pm
“Another day in the fantasy world of made up numbers”
Scotland’s “renewable energy bonanza” relies on hundreds of billions of pounds worth of new infrastructure, 90% of which will be paid for (eventually) by the billpayers of England and Wales.
The billpayers of Scotland are on the hook for the remaining 10%.
It’s more fantasy economics, plus fantasy politics, to believe that if Scotland becomes Independent, England and Wales will just write that debt off as a gesture of good will.
Along with all the other debts!
Or that the “international community” will excuse us defaulting on our debts on the grounds that we’re colonised, they hate the English, and we all look good in tartan and kilts.
Jeezo. It’s hard work sometimes. It’s like some cant brainwashed the usual suspects into believing that reality doesn’t apply in Scotland and they’ve yet to twig they were lied to.
I’m convinced that having an imaginary animal (the unicorn) as our national symbol, and a pudding (haggis) as our national dish, has had effects on our national psyche that have still to be fully investigated and understood.
Finance is clearly not your strong suit Alf but……….what is?
Surprised that Fanny and Mummi have nothing to say about the subject. Maybe that is a ‘treat’ we can all look forward to?
Then again, maybe not!
Emm..
link to georank.org
“Ireland’s GDP per capita is $131,592, ranking 4 / 197 compared, to $57,602 in the United Kingdom, ranking 21 /197. Adjusted for purchasing power (GDP per capita PPP), Ireland ranks 4th at $133,437, the United Kingdom ranks 32nd at $62,009.”
Government debt per person Ireland
$43,334
2025
$58,936 England
2025
Shirley Knott
And sam’s right in there to demonstrate one of two things:
He really doesn’t understand the debate that has already covered this today.
Or he’s determined that if the only way to win an argument is to lie, then lie he will.
I have to say that after dealing with the likes of sam and some of the other regulars on here, I begin to understand the perspective of the SNP apparatchiks who have been systematically excluding the party rank and file for years.
When or if a new Indy party forms, it will have to follow exactly the same path if it is ever to achieve anything. And if its office bearers and politicians are to retain their sanity.
Sam is well aware that Ireland’s GDP is not a reflection of the output of the country, but chooses to ignore that fact because it’s inconvenient to his worldview.
James says re my explanation that Scotch whisky exports count as Scottish exports no matter which UK port they leave from
31 August, 2026 at 5:01 pm
“Most of it leaves via English ports, and is therefore classed as English exports.
There. sorted that for ye.”
Thanks for your efforts, James, but you are plain 100% wrong. Not correct. In error. Telling a porkie. Committing an untruth. Perpetuating a myth.
Exports of Scotch whisky exported from English ports are classed as Scottish exports.
This from the Scottish Government website: “Scottish goods exported from ports in other regions of the UK are counted as Scottish exports. In ESS, we measure the destination of goods exported from Scotland regardless of the port from which they leave the UK. All data sources used in ESS focus on the destination of the product rather than where it leaves the UK. For example, a sale by a Scottish business to a customer in Paris is counted as a Scottish export to France even if it leaves the UK from Dover. “.
link to gov.scot
This is surely a simple enough explanation for the simplest reader direct from the Scottish Government.
“surely a simple enough explanation for the simplest reader”
Ah, c’moan noo, FC.
Wally was finished with his education long before the class got onto the simple stuff.
Yes, no it isn’t James.
Alcohol duty is not levied on exports, so there isn’t a specific duty to accrue in respect of exported whisky. No matter through which port it is exported.
If Whisky is produced in Scotland and sold for consumption in London, the VAT and alcohol duty accrues to London, which is correct because as with every sales tax the liability for the duty accrues at the point of sale. It would be the same for Japanese whisky, or Irish whisky.
I’m in Boston at the moment, the bar I’m at sells Scottish whisky. The sales tax and alcohol tax accrues to the state of Massachusetts, not to Edinburgh. It’s no different.
What does not happen is that the economic activity associated with Whisky gets reassigned to London rather than Scotland.
I doubt you’ll understand that, but others will.
Ah. “…Naw it isnae….”
The usual.
Dan kindly provided the relevant liknk.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Read it, and weep, Yoon.
Median Ireland income in 2026 Ireland 44,196 Euros England 39,039 Euros
Approximate net salary Ireland 38,000 Euros, England 32,000 Euros
Purchasing power ratio Ireland 635.5, England 540.5 . Ireland typically offers more residual income after costs in 2026.
Unemployment rate Ireland 5.1%, England 4.3% in 2026
Infant mortality rates per 1000 live births Ireland 1.73 and England and Wales 3.9
World happiness scores in 2026 This represents factors such as social support, community trust and overall quality of life.
Ireland is ranked 15th and England 29th.
Longer life expectancy for men in Ireland. 3 years more than England.
link to bbc.co.uk
“The Republic of Ireland’s economy grew strongly in 2023, official figures suggest.
The headline measure, gross national income (GNI), expanded by 5% according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
Most countries use gross domestic product (GDP) as the key measure of economic performance but Irish GDP is badly distorted by the activities of multinational companies.
GNI, which has been used since 2017, strips out the most distorting effects to give a more accurate picture of the real economy.
It involves subtracting the retained profits of some firms which have Irish HQs and making adjustments for some foreign-owned assets which are located in Ireland.
In contrast to the increase in GNI, there was a 5.5% fall in GDP due to reduced goods exports by multinational companies.”
In constant prices, real GNI has increased by 4.7% in the year 2025.
England’s GDP increased by 1.3% in 2025
Took you a while, sam, but you’ve belatedly discovered GNI. Well done you.
The night is yet young. See if you can’t get a handle on GNI per capita before beddy byes.
Then for all stats, strip out the minority ethnic components to get a true picture of what’s really going on.
After all, who would want to look at income stats skewed by the inclusion of tens of millions of impoverished, unskilled migrants?
Who would want to compare life expectancy figures skewed by the inclusion of tens of million of unvaccinated people with exotic pre-existing health conditions and past exposure to endemic infectious diseases?
Only a liar or a nutter, isn’t that so, sam?
As for happiness scores, I wonder if being part of a great multi-culti experiment, involving rampant crime, no go areas, terrorist incidents, the shutting down of free speech, and the de facto turning of women into second-class citizens, has any effect on the numbers.
Naw. I can’t see it. What about all the fast food outlets and deliveroo boys? Don’t they more than compensate?
“One death is a tragedy a million deaths is a statistic”
‘Alcohol-specific deaths refer to fatalities from conditions entirely caused by alcohol, such as alcohol-related liver disease and alcohol poisoning. Alcohol-related deaths include these but also cover deaths from conditions where alcohol is a contributing factor, such as certain cancers and heart disease.[1]
In 2024, there were 1,185 alcohol-specific deaths registered in Scotland, a decrease of 7% (92 deaths) compared with 2023.
This is the lowest number of alcohol-specific deaths registered in any year since 2019.
After adjusting for age, there were 20.9 alcohol-specific deaths per 100,000 people in Scotland in 2024, a decrease compared with 2023 (22.5 per 100,000). This was not a statistically significant decrease in rate.
Male deaths continued to account for around two thirds of alcohol-specific deaths. Both male and female deaths decreased in the past year.
The age profile of alcohol-specific deaths has become older over time, with the average age increasing in the last decade.
After adjusting for age, Glasgow City, Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire, West Dunbartonshire and Dundee City had higher alcohol-specific mortality rates than the Scottish average in the period 2020-2024.
Alcohol-specific mortality rates were 4.5 times as high in the most deprived areas of Scotland compared to the least deprived areas in 2024. In contrast, for all causes of death, people in the most deprived areas are around twice as likely to die as those in the least deprived areas.
In 2023, Scotland continued to have the highest rate of alcohol-specific deaths of the UK constituent countries, though the difference has narrowed over time. Data for 2023 is the latest year that data is available across the UK.’
A billion or two deaths is WW3 once it really gets going.
So far, it has just been warming up.
A question:
Is Scotland a prisoner (rhetorically) of the United Kingdom unless Westminster allows the Scots the opportunity to reclaim their country’s independence and their nation’s sovereignty by giving them permission to hold a referendum on the matter approved by the UK Government via a Section 30 order?
Here’s the answer:
But internationally?
A peaceful democratic act of self-determination is:
It is democratic self-determination… and the UN Charter explicitly protects it.
To summarise:
Scotland has several democratic mechanisms it can use to bypass Westminster legally any of which would be acceptable to the international community:
This being the constitutional reality some might wonder why the SNP hasn’t pursued any of those “democratic legitimacy” mechanisms given its stated mission as being “Scottish Independence”.
Maybe you could start one of the ‘democratic legitimacy’ processes yourself! I am sure we will all be right behind you!
Go for it.
“Maybe you could start one of the ‘democratic legitimacy’ processes yourself!”
20,000 sovereign Scots already have:
link to liberation.scot
“This being the constitutional reality some might wonder why the SNP hasn’t pursued any of those “democratic legitimacy” mechanisms”
Only the “some” who are in denial about the lack of a majority in favour of Indy.
The rest, the clear majority of observers, who can immediately see that the SNP are hamstrung by that lack of a majority in favour of Indy, don’t have to wonder at all.
“Scotland cannot be held “prisoner” by Westminster if it produces a peaceful democratic mandate recognised internationally”
Agreed. Which is why a plebiscitary party and campaign is needed. A sustained majority vote in favour, maintained across HR and WM elections, will permit Westminster’s objections to be over-ruled.
Finally, good to see you breaking free from your culturally colonised condition and spelling words correctly with ‘s’, not ‘z’.
The majority of the rabid kind of nationalist on Wings is prepared to accept and believe any statistic presented by a fellow rabid nationalist, as long as it fits his/her/it’s warped mind.
Facts are irrelevant and when presented with any, which do not coincide with it’s distorted view, they are immediately dismissed.
And often with a load of abuse heaped in, along with Grrr Bloody English racism.
The Siol nan Gaidheal members reveal themselves all too easily.
So say the English Nationalists.
Fuck off.
QED, Exhibit A.
Naw, Spartan.
Exhibit W.
O/T
I was in Edinburgh last week for a few days and walking down South St Davids Street (off Princes St) noticed something that would have Confused chewing the corner of the carpet in incandescent rage: a restaurant called ‘Happy Lamb HOT POT’ advertised with a 20ft high poster in its window, emblazoned with the words HOT POT, screaming its colonial domination into the street: the HOT POT take-over has begun!
The place was packed, the allure too much for the colonised minds of the Scots, and obviously as an Englishman I dashed in there to get my fix, happy indeed to be at last eating some proper food!
NB: the place was actually Chinese 🙂
That’s the Spandau gonna be well and truly cocked now!
it’s gotten beyond that, I’m afraid – something to complete the ensemble
link to ebay.co.uk
main – you’ve humped a lot of legs today
– you’re a good boy; how many do you need to do before they give you your winalot?
BTW that old labrador, half blind, got out the garden one day and tried to hump a moving car … maybe it’s how he would have wanted it. Quite a sight so I was told – a smashed up old doggie, broken by automotive violence, dead as flares and tanktops, still with a massive dog-erection.
Sorry to hear you missed the bloody and arousing episode, Confused, with all its gore and erotic beastiality.
That could have furnished you a lasting and inspiring memory to help keep you up in your declining years.
I guess the mags alone won’t be able to do it for you forever.
SB
I don’t knock hot pot, or food from the slow cooker.
Tasty, and be honest now; it’s not really an English only thing. The French gave pot au feu and the Scots had the cauldron simmering over the fire since – for ever!
I do however draw the line at pie and mash with jellied eels.
Boak..
YL
Hot pot is indeed probably a pretty universal concept.
Pie and mash is my manor as it were, growing up in East London. It’s basic meat pie and potato fare and quite nice really, maybe it is the parsley sauce ‘liquor’ that is off-putting. Jellied eels was also a poor man’s food at one time and I agree is unpleasant. Mind you I do like the equally chewy whelks (pepper and vinegar essential), that they used to sell round the pubs to have with your pint.
An acquired taste I would suggest SB!
🙂
you aren’t the worst of these pricks southern man, so, if I have time, I might write you up the full hotpot story
A forced marriage is, by its very nature, illegitimate, because it is entered into without the free consent of one or both parties. So it is with the Union. The passing of time does not alter that illegitimacy.
In a world of perfect karma, somebody would film you earnestly telling the 6 foot 2, 16 stone offspring of a forced marriage that he’s always gonna be illegitimate, him and his children, for evermore.
“passage of time” and that.
Posted online, we could all laugh (unkindly) as he forcibly re-arranged your world view.
Quite possibly for evermore!
I was referring to the lack of free consent in a forced marriage, not making any judgement about the legitimacy of children born from it. Your straw-man argument, coupled with your glorification of violence, serves only to distract from the core point and contributes nothing to the discussion.
Your core point is twaddle.
Whatever else it may be, a political and economic union is not a marriage in any literal sense. You freely chose to adopt a ludicrous analogy in order to make your point.
Don’t be surprised that you failed to do so and attracted some gentle mockery along the way.
As for the UK being “illegitimate”, it has been a substantially stable political entity for more than 300 years. Longer than most of the countries recognised by the UN.
“it has been a substantially stable political entity for more than 300 years”
I suppose that’s one way of looking at massive military occupation, a ‘garrison state’, wars of independence, then mass population displacement and a lot more besides; aye, awfully polite an aw that, Hatey:
link to decolonise.scot
My central point is that the Union was illegitimate at its inception, and the passing of time does not alter that fact. Time does not turn a wrong into a right; on the contrary, it often exacerbates it. Xaracen explains this much more eloquently on another thread (“Anything But That”): ex injuria jus non oritur.
And the use of violent imagery wishing harm on a fellow commentator is not “gentle mockery”.
My central point is that your analogy is a ludicrous one.
“A forced marriage is, by its very nature, illegitimate, because it is entered into without the free consent of one or both parties”
That’s an entirely one-sided, culturally biased POV. In those cultures where forced, or arranged, marriages are the norm, your condescending disapproval would be as baffling as it would be offensive.
“Time does not turn a wrong into a right; on the contrary, it often exacerbates it”
Time eventually renders every wrong practically irrelevant. You arbitrarily choose a single event at a single time and allocate all problems and injustices to that because it suits your purposes. You imply that prior to that event, there were no wrongs to be righted. In your example, that both kingdoms existed in states of faultless perfection prior to 1707.
Yet Scotland was the result of extermination of the former Pictish kingdoms.
And England was a harried wasteland after the Norman Conquest.
To give but two examples of all the “wrongs” and “illegitimacies” that accumulate through history ad infinitum.
You are like so many of the regulars on here – in your comfort zone, wringing your hands over the unchangeable past, because that’s so much easier than acknowledging that we are where we are, and the real issue is how do we make things better now.
As for “wishing harm on a fellow commentator”, I outlined a possible scenario that would ensue if you chose to tell somebody that in your personal judgement, they’re illegitimate.
Far from wishing harm on you, that could be as easily construed as a friendly warning of the consequences, should you be so unwise as to subject your analogy to the stresses and frictions of the real world.
If I wished you harm, I’d be encouraging you to go out and about on your local High Street, and every time you see a family group that you suspect likely arose from a forced marriage, however many generations back, start telling the kids they’re bastards.
And that the passage of time can never fix it.
“… a political and economic union is not a marriage in any literal sense.”
But such a union could certainly be considered a ‘marriage’ in a figurative sense.
Saffron Robe’s analogy is a moral one, not a literal one – they use lack of consent, power imbalance, and coercion as a metaphor for the 1707 Union.
It’s not a perfect analogy, but it’s rhetorically valid: analogies are meant to illuminate, not replicate.
The response – routinely seen in this place – is “Threat Rhetoric”; a modern term for the more ancient rhetorical term “Appeal to Fear” – disguised as humour.
It uses violent imagery, physical intimidation, mockery, and hypermasculine posturing to undermine Saffron Robe’s analogy.
This is classic threat rhetoric, even though it’s wrapped in ‘banter.’
It implies:
“If you said this to a big, strong man, he’d beat you up.”
This is not an argument… it’s an appeal to fear.
It’s also a rhetorical retreat — they can’t dismantle Saffron Robe’s analogy intellectually, so they try to intimidate them socially.
The deeper rhetorical failure in the response to Saffron Robe’s analogy is the changing of the subject.
Saffron Robe’s core point – consent, legitimacy, coercion, historical grievance – is never engaged.
Instead, the reply shifts to cultural relativism, ancient history, “everyone has wrongs”, “the past doesn’t matter”, and personal mockery.
This is what rhetoricians call a “Deflection Cascade” — a series of rhetorical moves designed to avoid the central argument.
“hypermasculine posturing”
Cheers, Northy, but with great respect, you’d be better sticking with Trump for now.
“classic threat rhetoric”
Jeezo. You had better lock and bar your door, just incase.
“If you said this to a big, strong man, he’d beat you up”
And, TBQH, plenty of scrawny, wee nyaffs would too. Few much care to be told their line is illegitimate for ever more, because of some “irregularity” in their ancestor’s past.
“Saffron Robe’s core point – consent, legitimacy, coercion, historical grievance – is never engaged”
It was though. The Union was legit under every metric that applied in 1707. Whether it was “popular” is another issue entirely.
And it’s completely irrelevant. Sane, rational people wishing to pursue Indy in 2026 need to start with the reasons that the Union is unpopular in 2026 and move on from there. Sane, rational people don’t concern themselves overmuch with the shenanigans of three centuries ago, forever nursing their “historical grievance” to keep it warm.
And yes, Northy. That’s an appeal to sanity and rationality, and an exhortation to live in the real world. You should give them a try.
“personal mockery”
What? On Wings BTL? Somebody ought to do something! Fa’s the UN?
The Two separate Constitutions and differences of Law of England and Scotland in sixteen and Seventeen hundreds after the Act of Settlement passed by the parliament of England was the actual reason that debate on Wether Scots should get to vote and Englands people were not considered..
And although unionist ignore the fact, the union mediators did discuss wether Scots should vote to join the union, as is a pecularirty from any discussion held for England,
That question debated on wether Scots get a vote un that timeline, can be fact checked.
Which is an oddity when the statement in the Westminster parliament boast they discussed it and were to Scared to broach that subject as the Scots would probably Vote against the Union with a Resounding NO.
The reason given in Westminster for not asking Scots content to the union.
Looking at that recorded history and debate one Wonders and ponders why when the Scottish parliament supposedly said yes,
they then had to latterly debate wether they should ask the Scots entirely serarate to join the Union,
Perhaps it was because in the Scottish Constitution the Crown and government were not Sovereign… the Scots were Sovereign, ..
And that debate was held as recorded and still is boasted about today in Westminster,
along side Westminsters boast that it is one of the oldest parliament in the World.
But as a Great Britain parliament only began in 1707 if the treaty of union is to is to be believed.
Either way, the Westminster parliament are Stating openly that there was no consent from the Scots to the treaty,
The Westminster parliament are stating that the Crown of Scotland along with the parliament of Scotland were a separate entity to be asked in that debate, from the Sovereignty of the Scots and their realm,
These details matter to the Scots,
Looking on the other side of the coin as to wether the Scots are held via a treaty with England as a reality,
Then the treaty has to be held as a reality, has to be seen and acted upon as if it were not a hoax or a made up story,
Then the terms and conditions must be applicable along with the articles themselves today to legally hold Scots in present day.
The Bank of England would be responsible for all National Debt, as there is no longer a bank of Scotland and no Scottish Mint behind Scotland any longer,
The Bank of England is not registered as the same bank of Scotland, Ireland or Wales, plus England,
Just England.
“no longer a bank of Scotland”
Feck!
The hole-in-the-wall just spewed out £50 of fakes and now I see my account has been debited too.
What the hell. I’m gonna offload them in Tesco before the word gets around.
If the treaty of union is not a hoax, and holds a reality.
Then the articles of that 1707 treaty that is stated as unalterable by the new parliament of Great Britain must be obeyed and enforced in present times for it remain a agreed treaty still in force.
One of those Unalterable articles is,
” The Private Rights of the people WITHIN Scotland ” .
A article and subject that cannot be amended or altered by the Great Britain parliament, for the treaty to be still be binding, to either party.