The stealing of the SNP
“If voting made a difference they wouldn’t let you do it” is one of many quotes that are regularly misattributed to Mark Twain.
However, the sentiment could very much be used to sum up the current management of the Scottish National Party.
After much debate on the significance of last year’s NEC internal election results it appears that not much has changed. I was aghast to find out recently that in one of its first acts, the new NEC unilaterally approved swingeing changes to its standing orders.
Now, I know that for many people, political parties’ standing orders may not be the most exciting topic you’ve read about on Wings, but they’re a vital set of instructions paramount for the good governance of any internal functioning.
As a universal general principle, no organisational entity can change its own standing orders – to allow it to do so would create the possibility that it could start to act outwith the remit it’s been delegated to carry out.
In the case of the SNP, our supreme decision making body is our National Conference, not the NEC. Changing the standing orders of the party is at the prerogative of party members via the party conference.
Of course, this isn’t normally controversial. In 2015 Angus Robertson proposed changes to the standing orders of the Westminster group. But importantly, the Westminster group didn’t just unilaterally approve the changes they desired, as they knew that to do so would have been ultra vires by the constitution of the party. Media coverage at the time correctly noted that “It will be for delegates at SNP conference to decide whether to adopt the resolutions.”
Now, with no debate or proper process, that principle has seemingly been dumped.
But why does any of this matter? It matters because when a party faces allegations of nearly £600,000 of ring-fenced fundraiser money gone missing, claims that the party’s Chief Executive has perjured himself in front of a parliamentary inquiry (and ordinary members’ subscriptions are paying for the lawyers who are trying to get him out of it), and today’s Sky News exposé alleging serious and malicious corruption amongst senior party officials, ordinary members have to be more certain now than ever that the body we elect to run our party is upholding its duty of scrutiny.
And the simple truth is that it isn’t.
Last night we learned, via social media, that there’s to be an NEC meeting tomorrow to agree a new definition of transphobia. We also learned from social media that this was the first members of the NEC had heard about the meeting itself, never mind that this major new item was to be added to the agenda.
Party standing orders dictate that NEC members must have no less than seven days notice of an agenda, and any late item can only be added to the agenda with the approval of two thirds of the membership.
It doesn’t appear that Kirsten Oswald and Keith Brown sought that approval before issuing a public statement on the matter yesterday.
It has been put to me that the likelihood is that the statement was drafted by Ian McCann, the party’s Corporate Compliance Manager, and the first Kirsten Oswald and Keith Brown would’ve seen of the statement was when they too read it on Twitter. It’s been common practice over the past five years that unelected party staff members have been acting on behalf of the party’s elected officials without their prior knowledge or approval.
Party members have pointed out to me that the NEC simply doesn’t have the authority to agree to a new policy that will be used to take disciplinary action against people who believe in biological sex – that too is supposed to be a matter for conference to decide.
The SNP’s former Westminster depute leader has even told us that this new procedure will be applied retrospectively against party members who have expressed concerns about, or publicly discussed, issues such as the ill-advised gender reform policy.
I’d have thought that if nothing else we would have learned by now in the party that we should not be using retrospective procedures to try to falsely smear and censure people in our own party who have been adjudged in some way “problematic”.
However, what we can be sure about is that anyone who’s said that transwomen are not women, or that women are adult human females, would be censured under this new policy if the NEC approves it – and one of the new unilateral changes to their standing orders is that they’ve given themselves the authority to do so.
And it doesn’t stop there. Readers may recall the farcical voting system deployed to block Joanna Cherry MP from contesting the Edinburgh Central seat, when the old NEC used a SurveyMonkey poll to skew the results of a vote on dual mandates.
(Bizarrely, despite this online tool providing instant results – as anyone that’s ever been on a parent council and voted for the colour of next year’s PE kit will attest to – it reportedly took Mr McCann 45 minutes to “tally” the votes.)
But in yet another change to the standing orders, the Business Convener now has the unilateral power to determine the method and manner of voting. I can find no example of any other organisation where a convener can decide how a vote should be carried out. All other organisations set out exactly how votes should be conducted.
(Basically the NEC should mirror how conference operates, but on an executive scale.)
This is a hugely significant change, made without any reference to the party’s proper decision-making procedures. Imagine for a moment Donald Trump had wanted to use voting systems that were different in Georgia than they were in Florida, based on the system he thought would best suit him? He would’ve won the election with that power.
Kirsten Oswald can now choose, without any sort of oversight or challenge, whether crucial party matters should be decided by STV, FPTP, SurveyMonkey, Greco-Roman wrestling or a quick game of musical chairs.
Considering that there only needs to be a one-third attendance of NEC members for a meeting to proceed, and that meetings are being called at weekends with less than 48 hours’ notice, and that the voting system used is now at the sole discretion of one individual, forgive me if I tell you that with my decade of experience of committees and standing orders, these are moves I do not trust to be an effective means of ensuring transparency and good governance.
Doubtless there will be those who’ll say that internal matters like these should be kept private within the party. But perhaps they should tell that to the Leader, the Depute Leader and the Business Convener of the party, all of whom have taken to social media in the last couple of days to talk about internal party business.
Democracy and fairness demand that those of us that do not agree with them must be able to debate them on the field they have chosen without fear of sanction.
Today it’s about a new definition on “transphobia” that I fear the party leadership wish to use to placate their base, selectively sanction or even expel certain internal rivals, and create a distraction from the elephant in the room that’s being completely ignored by our NEC – the shocking claims that the SNP’s most senior staff have been involved in a criminal conspiracy. Tomorrow, who knows what else it might be used for?
So I urge every member of our National Executive Committee this weekend to uphold our constitution, as they agreed to do when they were elected.
And to those in the party leadership turning a blind eye to behaviour that would’ve made Shakespeare blush when he wrote Hamlet, let me remind you of a quote that Mark Twain actually did say:
“In America we have a privilege other countries don’t have. When a thing gets unbearable people can get rid of it at the ballot box”
We can only hope that remains the case in the SNP.
Christopher McEleny is a SNP councillor and party constitution expert.
Thanks Chris for sharing this. This was why many of us supported and nominated new blood to the NEC. Looks like those of minority narrow gender politics views have a strangle hold on NEC.
It is hoped all new NEC elected members attend, debate these potential changes and vote accordingly.
This lot seem to time travellers, going back in time to change the present and the future.
What a sac of corruption.
Re the probability of a repressive definition of ‘transphobia’, I have contacted members of the NEC reminding them that freedom of expression is enshrined within the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 19) and in Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998. Hopefully Stewart Stevenson will do again what he did before when the NEC (of which over half is Woke due to the presence of affiliated groups not voted in by the membership) and haul in a lawyer to tell them what’s what…. including that each can be individually sued for illegality. The NEC is not a Company Limited by Guarantee. There doesn’t seem to be insurance for members either, provided by the Party.
This reality was thrown in their faces regarding the Wokes’ attempt to secure 50% of List candidacies for BAME hopefuls (BAME = 4% of the population, a target already met within the Scottish Parliament) and Disabled hopefuls (Assessed Disability runs at around 20% of the population although as Nicola Sturgeon supports self-ID for Disability (as stated to the Scottish Parliament in 2019), including the ‘internally disabled’ who are accessing wheelchairs although they can walk, I am sure that percentage can be increased.
My information regarding the Self ID for Disability angle comes from a person with severe visual impairment and mother of a totally blind child who has had to fight for support services and is outraged at the irrational concept of ‘Self ID without any evidence for Trans’ being already imported into the Disability area to reinforce the Scottish Government’s retreat from Enlightenment values of Reason and Evidence.
The way Sturgeon’s coven and the self-serving paid officials are going on, I could well see Boris and the Tories declaring the whole set-up of Scottish devolution, the Scottish government and parliament: “Unfit for pu8rpose,” then shutting it down and imposing direct rule from London.
The way things are going in Edinburgh, he could well get away with it.
It is becoming increasingly clear – the current lot couldnae run a minauge.
I see dark days ahead, once the mainstream media piles in.
Oops, I see that I typed my comment a bit too fast and didn’t check my parentheses and forgot to add a verb at one point. Sorry, Stu.
It has been written on here [and else where] that the NEC battle was won and that things were going to change in the SNP.
Time to find out.
“Even a cornered rat is dangerous.” – Winston Churchill
Sturgeon and her cabal appear to be adopting a scorched earth policy as the clock runs down on their final days in power.
The time is now for the silent majority of SNP MSPs & MPs, who have been behaving like absolute cowards, to finally speak up and end this travesty.
If not, they too will reap the whirlwind.
I’ll need to take this away and stew on it. Thanks a million for the post.
Women are adult human females. There said it. I’m an SNP member and that’s what I believe.
40k have left and they seem hell bent on making it more.
Once we’re independent I will be reviewing my options.
The SNP used to be a party of integrity and the membership, at all levels, abided by the constitution; even if their particular hobbyhorse fell down due to it.
The only people who can restore democracy are the membership.
Raise your voices, people. Organise.
Socrates MacSporran says:
29 January, 2021 at 6:23 pm
QUOTE
“The way Sturgeon’s coven and the self-serving paid officials are going on, I could well see Boris and the Tories declaring the whole set-up of Scottish devolution, the Scottish government and parliament: “Unfit for pu8rpose,” then shutting it down and imposing direct rule from London.
The way things are going in Edinburgh, he could well get away with it.
It is becoming increasingly clear – the current lot couldnae run a minauge.
I see dark days ahead, once the mainstream media piles in.”
I wonder what % of the Scottish population would say “thank fuck” if they did?
I wonder if that is Sturdgeons final game plan/hope??
Complete burnt earth attempt???
I suspect “you” wouldn’t like the answer.
They are going all out to destroy the snp.
This is why the unionist press are budingbtheir time. Sturgeon will be found to have no case to answer from her squwed inquiry, the unionist opposition will cry foul to try and jump to the moral high ground, the HRE in may will have a barrage of corruption allegations against the SNP fro. A hypocritical media. The SNP will not secure a majority and independence will be kicked down the road indefinitely.
All this brought to us by Nicola sturgeon.
Under orders from her handlers to utterly destroy the snp I dy mov.
Well, if successful in pushing through their agenda in a third full NEC at short notice, and voting on it by the Rock, Paper, Scissors method, a purge will probably then begin, if I’m picking this up right, of anyone who said a woman is a female adult, have they learned nothing from the Alex Salmond fiasco, of course the taxpayer will be the one yet again to left with their lawyers bills.
Clicking on the Sky news article, it looks like Mr MacAskill has broken ranks, and who could blame him he’s gotten in there (he should’ve done it earlier)before Sturgeon throws him under (are you watching Socrates McSporran) the proverbial Ferrier train.
Chris, as an ordinary member of the SNP, what can I do to remove the current leadership group and replace them with suitable alternatives?
“Sturgeon and her cabal appear to be adopting a scorched earth policy as the clock runs down on their final days in power.”
Cuphook, I hope your right about the membership taking back the party. But, the eY the current leadership are acting,it could be impossible to do this.
Sturgeon knows her legacy is written. She will look to those who control her for protection.
she was never serious about independence when she got elected and devolution offered her the gravy train.
She is one wicked, nasty piece of work and she is trying to sink the ship before May.
Sky News says…’There’s a WhatsApp group that was called the ‘Vietnam’ group that included SNP staffers and even members of government.”
Does this explain Sturgeon’s ‘1000 yard stare’ lately?
I understand that some of the additional evidence from the Trial (it was requested by the Fabiani Inquiry) has just been handed-over by the Crown Office.
From memory it included the various WhatsApp messages that Peter Murrell denied the existence of.
Hi Chris
“Party leadership wish to use to placate their base”.
I don’t know if you have time to read comments, but if you do, and with your obvious knowledge and understanding of the party’s structures and systems, could you comment on the nature and numbers in this “base”?
Just how big is this?
Thanks.
@Captain Yossarian (6.44) –
Here’s hoping they get it onto their website asap.
Just noticed that the committee has published details of next week’s session. Tuesday. It’s another ‘private’ sitting. Alex Salmond has been offered Feb 9th, still hasn’t responded (so far as I know) so when does that leave for NS? I thought the whole thing was very close to winding-up?
Extensive research into the SNP coffin found that it now is 90% nails and 10% wood; you have to assume that everyone with knowledge of the debacle that is SNP government and does not speak up by next week is in collusion and must be treated as such come the election
Spoiler alert I now know for whom the bell tolls
Or should that be trolls
Great post Chris. There is such a level of anger among members this week at the way the leadership is behaving. Long standing members are leaving the party in sadness and disgust. All elected members, MPs, MSPs and Councillors need to find a backbone, stand up, speak out against this, CONFRONT the cabal and remove them. No-one can claim ignorance though many are in denial. Get up and ACT NOW.
This will be rammed through sadly.
I am at a loss … ?
I know for a fact that people, women mainly, have been leaving the SNP in droves and a significant number of them have now joined us in the ISP. I’ve been talking to some on Twitter.
This unscientifc, against reality, undemocratic farce in the SNP is hollowing it out of experienced members who are strengthening and enriching the ISP.
Please tell that to the high heid yins in the party Chris because it is demonstrably true. Our people are rushed off their feet dealing with the new members, sorting them into branches etc.
@Charles Hodgson
Careful now!
Thanks Chris – keep up the good work. This is leadership.
He (and she) who hesitates is lost.
SNP ordinaries need to start acting extra-ordinary.
No longer in the party but the British state must be licking its lips. The SNP is like the 3 legged stool. One of these legs is Joanna cherry.
Muscleguy says:
29 January, 2021 at 7:02 pm
“I know for a fact that people, women mainly, have been leaving the SNP in droves and a significant number of them have now joined us in the ISP. I’ve been talking to some on Twitter.”
Could some of the purged elected members ind a home in the ISP and stand in the constituencies?
This behaviour is “circling the wagons”. It is narrowing options for others to interfere in anything that needs to be kept hidden. Everything closely controlled to omit any mistakes by an inadvertant word or action.
This cannot survive.
As an ex-Member of 24 hours standing, and feeling pretty good about it thanks, I just feel relief at not being part of them anymore. I thought I’d be regretting leaving but there is no sense of loss whatsoever and now I’ve read this Chris, the feeling of relief is magnified
The Oswald/Brown diktat suggests that if you are a Prince or Princess Woke you have broken Nicola’s heart by leaving stage left in a flouncy manner, and they are desperate for you to get back in touch so they can persuade you back into their arms.
However my understanding, verified by someone on the twitterverse, was that if you resign from the Party you now cannot rejoin for 2 years. So it will be interesting to see if the couple of dozen folk who stomped off in a huff are readmitted within a short time period, while someone who has just resigned and pops in a cheeky membership request (no, not me – just someone who looks like me mebbe) is told to sling their hook
And yes, after all the promise of the “new” NEC this totally un-constitutional meeting will be a test of whether we have a new dawn or just another step in the sad murky demise of what once was the party I was so proud to serve in.
Unless PM was one of the members of the Vietnam group, could it not be argued he was ignorant to it and therefore what he said to the committee was ‘correct’? Playing devil’s advocate here. Should we understand that he was part of it?
I’m also keeping an eye on the chief of staff/Boris story. First thing that came into my mind was this might blow up over the weekend to squirrel proportions. Not sure about that one now though
@Lothianlad A lot of good and talented people in the SNP. Don’t be put off by accusations of bigotry as everything is transphobic; even reality itself. Transwomen are men who talk too much. We know how to deal with bletherskites.
I think Sturgeon does want independence at some point. Just a neoliberal one that doesn’t upset the financial market. A management buyout.
Look at her abandonment of land reform. Look at her support for a ‘solidarity payment’ to Westminster and the need for austerity after independence. The rich and their management class will preserve their wealth and the poor will take on the UK debt. Sound familiar?
I was on Craig Murray’s site and I spotted this quote from Chaplin’s ‘Great Dictator’film referenced by ‘Goose’:
‘To those who can hear me, I say – do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed – the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. …..
Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes – men who despise you – enslave you – who regiment your lives – tell you what to do – what to think and what to feel! Who drill you – diet you – treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men – machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate – the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!’
This speech was also referenced on Paolo Nutini’s 2014 ( note date) recording ‘Iron Sky’…maybe someone could link it?
I heard it at the time and ‘got it’…one of the Paisley man’s best.
Thanks for the Sky News link. I now understand the relevance of the #Vietnam hastag on twitter. Saw it earlier.
@ Captain Yossarian: it does NOT include the Murrell – Ruddick messages. See Craig Murray blog 24.1.21.
Pity tis, tis true.
@Muscleguy,
Joanna Cherry and Kate Forbes may be looking for another political home if this nonsense is passed.
Chris you have been a consistent light during ongoing and increasing dark phases of SNP self and nation harming behaviours. We all applaud your tenacity and honesty – thank you.
That comment by Joan Savage really needs to be published to give us some leverage. Without a name attached if preferable, but the info is crucial in my opinion.
@Wee Child
Too late for candidates now. Been approved. Hustings next month to decide ranking on the List and adopt candidates.
https://www.parliament.scot/HarassmentComplaintsCommittee/General%20documents/20210122ConvenertoDFM.pdf
Swinney NOT disclosing legal advice so Committee can scrutinise Sturgeon on judicial review
Shocking++++
“As set out in my letter of 8 January 2021, I am confident, therefore, that the Committee has access to the necessary information to enable it to fulfil its remit”
@Rev Stuart Campbell 6:39
I can’t honestly say why I love the reference to Downfall. I have seen it many times before in different guises. I guess it’s the bunker mentality. The folly of power.
New to this trans stuff, so new I wouldn’t even know what to call them. Couple of observations.
No one objects to natures decision at birth, you are born, medical exceptions aside with male or female organs.
Later, in order to conclude that nature made a mistake, you have to first identify your dissatisfaction at your nature assigned organs, and that in reality you should have been the opposite. Now you become a gender, because you’re rejecting natures choice but unable other then by appearance to reverse it to the opposite option available at birth.
In short, you have to accept a two sex state in order to declare that you are trans…did I use the right word anyone?
Second observation.
Someone with male genetalia within to live as a woman can never achieve such fully, it will always be an ambition of internal contradictions. You shave, stubble grows, you take drugs to artificially ‘become’.
You surgically remove your genetalia and use cosmetic surgery to look as if you have ‘become’.
It’s always about extending the investigation of self, or as I see it ‘the fantasy of a different self in the image you have of your final self’.
This ‘fantasy’ however can never be complete unless others play along, and that’s what it strikes me gender reform is actually about, trans people demanding that we play along, that regardless of what we think, we pretend to their satisfaction that they are what they want to be, such that they can better enjoy that fantasy.
How any government can pursue a goal where most people aren’t allowed to believe what they beleive because it would upset someone else’s fantasy of themselves is beyond me.
@theSNP: not so much a party, more of a ponzi scheme for TRA’s and the Twitler Youth.
The hubris is awe inspiring. You’d think they’d have learned the danger of restrospective legislation (and why it’s a no-no in just about every Western democracy and beyond) after the ludicrous Scottish Government investigation of Alec Salmond and his ‘conviction’ by a woman (Evans) who confessed in her evidence to the HR Inquiry that she’d never even been a deciding officer in a grievance or disciplinary proceeding before. Someone with no experience whatsoever or judicial training gets to decide on the guilt of a former First Minister of Scotland? There are banana republics with a better semblance of due process.
Not only that but after the highest criminal court in the land came to a diametrically opposite conclusion on the evidence, had the gall to state the both the procedure and internal finding is sound and stands!
Now they are threatening to apply the same retrospectivity to a proposed Salem-style witch hunt of members who understand biological science and won’t be bullied out of that understanding by members of a deluded cult?
I think the 2 issues are coupled in the leadership’s mind since the ludicrous “Ooh look – trans squirrels!” video from the bunker was recorded by Nicola Sturgeon the other night on the day Craig Murray published his affidavits. All I saw through the frantic blink rate was fear and projection of anger.
I can only pray that common sense prevails. Otherwise the Party I’ve supported for nearly 40 years and been a member of for 25 years is definitely not the party for me.
@Sarah – No-one at the moment knows what it contains as it has to be checked-in by the Holyrood form-fillers and procedures folk first.
However, I don’t doubt Craig Murray for an instant. Plenty have in the past to their great dishonor.
Working as a lawyer for Sturgeon must be like working for Don Corleone…or maybe even worse. Don Corleone tended to look after his friends right up until the end.
Hey Wings, what’s the traffic like on your site these days? is it up or down? ?
Respect for writing this Chris ??
With you all the way Chris.
.
The woke are now beyond redemption. Is the party beyond saving ?
.
All the cowardly ( up until now) SNP MPs and MSPs must speak up and stop this nonsense.
There must be a leadership challenger at the next conference if Nicola Sturgeon is still leader. Problem is she isn’t the only one who needs dumped.
There are many (if not most) who will disagree with me, but never have I felt that independence was so remote a possibility AND so undesirable as it is now.
Principally because we do not have governance and leadership in place.
If we are to get to that threashold, we must demonstrate competence in the governing our own affairs. That means in terms of education, social care, diplomacy, economics and fiscal policy, but above all, justice.
The SNP is just a very sh*t party.
I am sorry.
It is both a competence issue and moral matter.
Where are the leading politicians we can respect for their integrity??? Eve if we disagree with them on points of policy?
The SNP is full of councillors with inflated egos and not statesmen/stateswomen/statespeople of variable gender etc.
And as for the ‘opposition’???
Jeepers.
If I did not have an elderly mother, I would do what I did in 1992 and leave the country (on that occasion due to Thatcher).
Wings gives me some hope.
But, for God’s sake, you need to move fast.
Very interesting. Is the SNP now a fully fledged Dictatorship with the Murrells & their Gestapo ignoring the other members to push through their own ideology.
Why arent the new members of the NEC like Neale Hanvey, Joanna Cherry etc asking to suspend those breaking the rules (which seems to be most of them) ?
Incidentally Chris seems to be confused about USA voting. Each state DOES choose itsown voting systems which is why Texas in 2018 refused to use Dominion due to its ability for voter fraud but other states including Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania & Arizona used Dominion. Biden fraudently won using these machines & corrupt officials in major cities using Dominion.
See Project Veritas investigations
https://www.projectveritas.com/investigations/
Sturgeon has turned everything backwards. No work done on a new white paper for independence, no expert economists like Joseph Stiglitz asked to look at plan on currency, SNP government has done nothing noteworthy since she became leader and she has destroyed the SNP.
@ Lochside
Paolo Nutini – Iron Sky
Speech extract is halfway through song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELKbtFljucQ
Was she a plant all along ?
I refer you all to Stu’s article “Moving On”Sept 2016.
It outlines what should have happened rather than where we are with the SNP. This could all have been so different.
The SNP are imploding.
Can someone not make independence a thing of beauty rather than just an emotional hatred of the UK?
I have not heard that articulated at all over the last few years.
@muscle guy, they have extended things re candidates until 31St of January, got an email asking if I was still interested
Thanks. Still nobody on the list for South Scotland? I’m worried Joan will be out after this crap this weekend.
Chris ,
Thank you for this article , I’m finding it difficult to put into words at the moment to express my anger that certain members of the party hierarchy have caused with this situation .
Are they really determined to destroy the party completely and lose the support of many more members .
.
Ps I met you when you toured the branches discussing the plan B option and believed in it then and still do and I’ll never forgive the little * cabal * that booed you at conference . Hopefully most of them have gone this week .
So we enter the final phase, lots of people with lots to hide. This is a clear piece of plotting by some in the SNP leadership and her criminally minded cabal, to ensure a ‘safe pair of hands’ takes over from NS. The very last thing they need is somebody like Joanna Cherry becoming leader, and exposing their truly appalling behaviour.
You know what? If I was still a member of the SNP and intended to vote SNP, I might actually give a toss!
However, given that I am no longer such, and that I have zero faith in the party itself other than for its MPs and MSPs to screw Scotland over with the ineffectual posturing, the corruption and connivance, the Woke agenda, etc. etc. etc. I’m off to watch a film…
The Silence of the Lambs in case you’re wondering. (The guy screaming “It places the lotion in the basket” reminds me of someone. For the moment I can’t think who…).
So I guess Indy will just have to wait – I don’t want to live in Sturgeon’s ‘vision’ of Scotland any more!
You beat me to that exact version, Dan!
SNP have got some sort of Minority Report thing going. Establish a future crime by rewriting rules then prosecute people historically with “aye but it’s a bad thing noo, so tough”.
Sturgeon and her piss-poor bunch of desperadoes can totally F.R.O. as far as I’m concerned now. Bunch of tin-pot criminals and chancers that make a banana republic look like a bastion of democracy. Boris can’t believe his luck, it’s like he’s been challenged to a pissing competition with a midget.
Giesabrek at 732pm,
Indeed. It is hard not to think, she did it all quite intentionally, whilst playing SNP and indy supporters for fools.
I am clear, she has zero intention of pursuing independence. Just recall, in the run up to the last general election, she organised an event in Freedom Square, Glasgow, with speakers and so on. She then posed on stage with an indyref 2 banner. I was there. I stupidly believed her.
Of course we now know, it was just a charade to secure some votes. She still has not even tried to hold indyref2.
Do you know the real problem? The many many SNP MP’s and MSP’s who are standing back and saying and doing nothing (their are a precious few honourable exceptions). Cowards, one and all. They are the enablers of this corruption.
Onnyhoo…
I wonder what would happen, if every SNP member reading this, whether as a lurker or contributor, were to post a simple comment like this:
A woman is a human adult female.
If this retrospective ruling is adopted, would we all be thrown out of the party?
I paraphrase Groucho here:
I don’t want to be a member of an organisation that wouldn’t have me as a member.
On Downfall
I was hoping someone would be tech savvy enough to have done a bunker scene with sturgeon subtitles on people breaking lockdown…
…..celtic did whit?!!
…2 people walked their dug!
…21 people went to a funeral!
Dan @ 7.34…Thanks for that. Paolo’s lyrics and performance at that time were inspirational. But the track and its sentiments were supressed by the radio stations and off course good old Blair Jenkins and the other ‘sleepers’ placed in the ‘Yes’ campaign ignored it as well.
Check out these lyrics..could he have been any more clearer?
‘From which we’ll rise, over love, over hate
Through this iron sky that’s fast becoming our mind
Over fear and into freedom’.
Ha Ian McCann the bloke who allegedly, en I am very reliably informed by a BAME SNP member, intervened on the BAME candidate selection, eh he asked Humza what he thought.
Utter shower, really.
Liz Lloyd deletes a political tweet. My message who elected you?
You could have used the famous scene of the helicopter in Saigon as an alternative to ‘Downfall’ maybe 🙂
Chris & others,
A small but important point.
Loathed as I am to make presumptions, but as we all know words have meanings & they matter.
You don’t “believe” that a Woman is an adult, human female.
You “Understand” that is the case.
Believe – describes things that are not seen, proven or easily quantified.
Understand – know that it has been proved.
Sometimes in conversation have to elaborate that “When I say that I understand science, doesn’t mean I understand all scientific facts/knowledge, but I understand that it is grounded in Facts/Knowledge”
@ Lochside and BDtt
I recall that speech was also kinda used in the David Hayman Scottish Indy vid in 2014.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBOj1xAu2NQ
Many thanks for penning this article Chris as it gives a good insight into just how undemocratic the SNP are becoming. To me independence and democracy go hand-in-hand. To be anti-democratic is to be against independence. The more anti-democratic the SNP becomes, the more the party moves away from achieving independence. And because democracy is defined as governance by majority, it is the trans-lobby who are being used to destroy democracy within the SNP because they can never be democratically in the majority and can only push their agenda by anti-democratic means.
I just hope that the good people like yourself can somehow remain in the eye of the storm and emerge once all the detritus has been swept away.
Thanks Chris. This cabal of mediocrities is aping the structural control and bureaucracy of the Labour Party. Sturgeon is Stalinist and she is schooling her clique with the help of her smug Beria like hubby. I am still a member of the Labour Party but there are many like me who would follow a principled piper into a new party/movement or to take back the current one.
I’ve written to my two NEC reps about the harassment of Joanna Cherry and women overall by the Out For Indy group, the pending definition of transphobia, and the concerns raised in this article. I sent them this article in the very slim chance they haven’t seen it. I expect either no response or to be kicked out of the SNP under this new definition.
If the break the rules they could have Joanna Cherry on their case
I would not like to face Joanna Cherry in court she is a 100% star
It just gets worse. Instead of showing some, any, degree of humility at the mess they have made of governance, and address it, they double down, using the same nepotistic and autocratic tactics as those which have got them in this mess. They are way beyond the pale. Their arrogance and disdain for normal, transparent procedures is a terrible insult to the decent folk who have placed their faith in them.
Retrospective ‘justice’ isn’t justice at all of course. It is old Eastern European style despotism and silencing of internal critics. Joanna Cherry would wipe the floor with all of them when it comes to intellect and commitment to justice. That is what they are scared off. They are disgusting, weak, manipulative frauds who have exploited the party and their positions for personal gain. You could never trust these people with independence, but of course they prefer the status quo where they have absolute power, not to mention very comfy jobs at the generosity of the taxpayer. The current SNP demonstrate everything wrong with a one party state – because that is what we have at the moment, and that is what they intend to keep. For them it is much better than independence, they have all the power and no opposition. We desperately need some principled opposition to these bandwagon jumpers leeching of the Scottish taxpayer with false promises and a ruthless Stalinist purging mentality.
TNS2019
Couple of good points. A lot of this is down to NS simply being the best orator in the chamber. No challenge. The Mooth has come slightly close but she’s not daft enough to take things that seriously. She had her son, realised there was more to life than kidding on she wanted to become first minister and has followed the coin. As a tory (her I mean), you can really see it from that perspective. As for Wee willie winkie and randy Loanhead? Jesus, my granny could could out debate them. And she’s dead.
As for independence should be a positive thing, I kind of get where you’re coming from. Idealistically, I want to think that federalism within the UK would be a good option. We live on the same, fairly small, island as England and wales. NI is quite close by too and shares a lot of links (not all good of course). We speak a common language too. It should work. But of course it doesn’t. We’re just too diverse. Fuck, civil wars have happened all over the world for hundreds of years because of different views on things. It’s just that we like to think we’re more civilised (just more easily influenced more likely). And more susceptible to the coin. Some, anyway. I’m no raging leftie, but I do live in the east end of Glasgow (not a native – from Stirling originally) so I’ve seen my fair share of deprivation and know its an ingrained, decades aged thing where the victims can do often do little about it. And this in the city where Labour lorded it for decades. So while you’re absolutely right that it should be a postive movement, because that’s what we’re aiming for, I think the real problem with that viewpoint is that we’re starting from a real position of subjugation which is pretty plain for most to see. The real issue is that while large portions of the middle class in an independent Scotland would still be middle class, they fear that they’d be on the same rung as them what they once looked down on. The I’m alright union Jack effect if you like, and that’s the real battle.
Good article, Chris.
Personally I’ve never been a member of any party, but as an outsider the SNP always seemed disciplined under Alex Salmond. No doubt any internal issues remained private and were dealt with appropriately. I know people who voted for the party for that reason, many of whom were not bothered about independence one way or the other.
What there is now is a shambles, split in who knows how many cliques and factions, whilst the majority of members wonder what the hell has brought the party to it’s current state.
When a Party becomes a Cult, as the SNP have done, the membership become followers nothing else.
As Jontoscots20 said above, this is so like bad-old-days Labour.
I have limited money, I’m happy that I stopped supporting them a year ago. ISTR the ‘weaved’ fund includes some from me. People can suggest the Party needs moderate, sensible members, so we should stay. It sounds reasonable and logical, but it’s not for me. What I can spare I’ll use elsewhere.
All throughout Big Eck’s leadership the SNP strived to be above corruption and sleaze, they had to be seen as better than the (unionist) opposition, and they seemed so until Sturgeon took power. Since then they’ve tried to imprison an innocent man for the REST OF HIS LIFE!!! And change party rules to prevent threats from other members, collude with a corript procurator procurator to try to silence pro-indy bloggers, refuse to give evidence to a parliamentary inquiry and perjur themselves in said enquiry.
I honestly don’t think any of the unionist parties ever conducted so much immoral behaviour in 50 years, never mind the 5 years Sturgeon has been in charge. It’s di bad the party may need to be burned to th ed ground and a new party (or newly created ISP) created to take its place, that the party is so riddled with rot.
I’m pretty sure I read on Wings long ago warning that an unchallenged party holding onto power for so long could become corrupt but never in my wildest nightmares would I have thought it’d become the monster that it has.
@BDTT (7.53) –
Ha!
Having a member (or not) or being able to accept it (or not) is surely at the root of all this zany pranksterism msaquerading as ‘politics’.
If Scotland’s indy dream dies once and for good, not because of The British State, but a bunch of escapees from a Spike Milligan show?
Not on our watch sah!
They shall not pass!
😉
Neil in Glasgow, please for the love of whatever god you worship, if any, DON’T mention the F (federalism) word. It’s almost as bad as we currently have, what with Westminster being in control of defence, demanding payments for common services, etc. Ireland is not in any federal arrangement with the UK, nor ever will be, and is perfectly happy being so, and so should an independent Scotland be.
@Ian Mac (8.21) –
Hear hear.
Hope you don’t mind, but I C&Ped a quote from your comment and tweeted it along with link to this post.
😉
This stuck out from the Sky piece.
“Ms Sturgeon replied: “There are no messages that are relevant to this committee.”
Not, ‘no there weren’t any other messages (related to the conspiracy)’.
Sheppard & Wedderburn do very nicely from the civic purse already.
Establishment to a man/woman. Integrity, optional.
TNS2019 @ 7:37 pm
Can someone not make independence a thing of beauty rather than just an emotional hatred of the UK?
I have not heard that articulated
Without wanting to sound too halcyon, it was a thing of beauty when Salmond was in charge, especially on the run-up to the referendum. It’s all been documented before, but no harm in giving it another nostalgic blast: there was a great flourishing of talent, creativity and positivity, and Scotland was a beautiful, quasi-independent country under these conditions – it was very much Scotland’s Summer of Love.
Want to know why things are so dark now? No, it wasn’t the ‘No’ vote – that was easily on its way to being steamrollered – it was Nicola Sturgeon.
All the impure and dark, all the cancers and hatred, all the phoneys, the greedy, the corrupt, the self-serving and the rancid, stink of a country’s slow demise from Summer of Love to twisted and broken rogue state – Sturgeon made that.
If people tend to lean heavily against the uk, it’s in most part deserved because the uk is already a rogue state (England does us no favours), but also because Scots – in need of directing their ire and frustration due to at an easily avoided predicament – are directing it just a little bit more because – and this is the crux – they’re wondering why the SNP have dumped Scotland. Many Sturgeon cheer leaders are in the deepest denial: “It’s London!” “It’s Boris!” – it’s never ‘Nicola’ with these dunces.
You rarely, if ever, see folk on this blog crit the uk now – we know Scotland’s mess has bugger-all to do with London. 90% of this site’s justified anger is reserved for Sturgeon and her rat-pack.
We had it in our hands and Sturgeon whacked it out of our grasp – she will go down in Scots history as the person who mortally damaged the country as it approached its finest moment.
The other day I paraphrased G Butler’s character from Law Abiding Citizen, saying I hoped someone would “bring the whole f***in’ diseased, corrupt temple down”.
I’ll confess I didn’t figure on Sturgeon being the ‘someone’.
@Ian Mac 8.21 Indeed. Very well said.
The NS cabal needs cleared out if the SNP is to be saved. It needs done soon or they will drag the whole thing down, and possibly Indy with it. Are we in their end game, are we going to let them kill our dream. NO, but we need to get to a vote, and with something good and honest to vote for.
Seems a tad unjust that if you’ve been written out of existence according to the tablets of SNP history, you still exist enough to be taken to court…
https://twitter.com/ScotsWumman/status/1355183036795662340
What Scottish history is to be rewritten next…
Archie GemmelNicola Sturgeon dribbles the baw past a few defenders and slots it past the keeper as Scotland score against Holland in 1978.An incisive article, Chris. Well done.
Jontoscots20 is right about the similarities with Labour.
The main aim of Corbyn’s followers was to take control of the organisation and impose their will. They were not interested in making it electable.
They achieved a historic defeat.
#vietnam trending on Twitter, accompanied by some interesting photoshopped pics…
Kenny
In addition to my post, you have a fair point. I know of no one who wants independence because they hate England. The only people who espouse that point of view are yoons on twitter. I would hazard a guess that a lot of people, if not most, have English relatives of some sort. For me, my brother in law is English (having said that I do suspect my sister and he are in the we’re alright union Jack brigade I described earlier!) and my granny’s sister married an actual cockney and had a good sized family who I’ve met and have no aversion to).
All this shit that’s going on has just accelerated, or cemented, my view that we need change. I was previously of the opinion that NS did want independence but wanted to play the slow game, which in the immediate aftermath of 2014 might have been understandable. But so much has happened since then (regardless of the salmond stuff) that proves to me she’s just an opportunist looking for her next move to what she sees as bigger and better things. Talk about missing open goals. And to be fair it’s the rev and everyone here that’s made that clear.
N.b. Was good to see Craig refer to stu with his correct title in his affidavit 🙂
Craig Sheridan @ 6.30pm
I am still an SNP member – just! But like you, I believe that a woman is an adult female human and I’ll raise you – trans women are NOT women. A man will always have an ‘X’ and a ‘Y’ chromosome.
So ‘if this attempt to circumnavigate democrarcy succeeds, I’ll wait for my letter from the SNP expelling me from the party. Bring on the ISP.
I was a member of the standing orders committee for my Union for many years and I have never heard of such behaviour as has been described above.
Even Trump didn’t change things in his favour this much!
Definitely Joanna Cherry in the SNP crosshair now. (Metaphorically speaking – of course!)
Dan @ 9.10 -just tried to open your twitter link but got the message that this tweet is not available to you.
A Vietnam group in the SNP trashing the party and indy plans?
A Jockalypse Now.
Regarding Swinney clinging to the ‘remit’.
Surely all the committee should do is to surmise in their report, or threaten to, that the legal advice (i still think it’s the key) wasn’t favourable to the subsequent decision to proceed, and his non compliance can have no other intention than that of concealing ‘unfavourable’ documentation from public view.
Changes to the procedure to allow third party reporting to Polis Scotland & the cooperative COPFS is my second best bet for the killer blow.
The ‘ordinary’ people will start to see the depths they went to, to get Eck.
That’s a keeper kapelmeister.
Hat tip.
🙂
Lochside / Dan
Also enjoyed Paolo’s performance and the quote from Chaplin’s ‘Great Dictator’.
That, and reflecting on the many ‘high status’ establishment people involved in the ongoing Sturgeon Affair reminded me a little of Cesaire’s ‘Discourse on Colonialism’ and his analysis of the role of “the bourgeoisie (which) is condemned to take responsibility for all the barbarism of history, the torture of the Middle Ages and the Inquisition, warmongering and the appeal of the raison d’Etat, racism and slavery, in short everything against which it protested in unforgettable terms at the time when, as the attacking class, it was the incarnation of human progress. There is a law of progressive dehuminization in accordance with which henceforth on the agenda of the bourgeoisie there is – there can be – nothing but violence, corruption and barbarism. I almost forgot hatred, lying, conceit.”
This is the class of people who aye seek to govern, if we let them.
I think this throws a whole new light on 2014 and the ‘NO’.
Nicola is obviously as bent as you get and she was in place well before 2014. She is now in the end game doing as much damage as possible before detonating.
Jeezo Nicola must have been privy to all the pre-2014 strategizing and plans.
For me I think seeing Nicola’s unbelievable ‘leadership’ post 2014 just proves what I thought at the time. They cheated 2014. Just like they cheated us the last 6 years with a rat ‘leader’.
Do you really think they are just going to let us ‘democracy’ our way out of their talons.
Every time we get close playing it fair they just cheat.
Times like this, can’t help wondering what it’s like in a newspaper office.
Friday night, you’re surely discussing what the Sunday is looking like…
How the fuck can anyone reach an ‘editorial’ decision – on the basis of what we know *right now* – to ignore what’s happening?
Not plausible.
So, they have to take a position. What will it be?
We’ve been kind of ‘studying’ this stuff for years here, by thinking about it so much. And we’re good, generally, at identifying shitery when we see it.
However, predicting the Sunday headlines has long-since ceased to be a popular topic of conversation, well, not since ???_name!?:! used to post the link for the covers of the papers as soon as they were released, normally the back of 11.
We all know the script. We know how it ‘should’ unfold tomorrow and Sunday.
So, imagine if it doesn’t?
Then we’ll know if the End is Nigh right enough.
😉
@ Meg merrilees
That happens sometimes, just try refreshing the linked page with that “not available to you” message, or try opening the link again.
Miss aye gone?
Of course,
Ride of the Valkyrie’s would be the notification tune.
Ahh. the smell of used lubricants in the morning.
Dan
Like your post. I remember the game well and the aftermath.
It’s my understanding that SAS erased Alex from the SNP web? Shocking. NS going to fall hard I hope.
Why doesn’t Sturgeon change the name of the SNP to TIP the Trans Independence Party then we will all know what we are really voting for.
Bloody heck. The SNP have taken their whole History page down. Surely that cannot be coincidence. I tried to get to it via the link in Dan’s post at 9:10pm then went via the SNP home page. Nothing else appears to be down. So what are they re-writing? Plenty of photos of NS on the home page so I assume she’s not getting ready to resign.
I suppose they could just be updating it but on a Friday night?
”
Dan says:
29 January, 2021 at 9:10 pm
Seems a tad unjust that if you’ve been written out of existence according to the tablets of SNP history, you still exist enough to be taken to court…
https://twitter.com/ScotsWumman/status/1355183036795662340
What Scottish history is to be rewritten next…”
Page now returning a 404
Well well. Shades of Joe Stalin.
It seems that some people at the head of the SNP are prepared to burn the party to the ground, and are splashing petrol in all directions as a first step.
Perhaps it would be better for Scotland if it were done asap?
“ A Jockalypse Now.”
???
Ach , I’m so glad I’m old and don’t have to put up with this shite for much longer
“A Jockalypse Now.”
LOL
Sorry editor didn’t seem to do the emoji!
Mc Duff says:
29 January, 2021 at 9:46 pm
Why doesn’t Sturgeon change the name of the SNP to TIP the Trans Independence Party then we will all know what we are really voting for.
There’s no “I” about any of that mob, the Trans Party would suffice
Still no verdict on Craig Murray?
A lot of people on here have talked about how the independence movement is not the SNP. But many are still clinging onto the SNP’s corpse (myself included a teeny bit).
I personally think it would be absolutely liberating for the Independence movement to electorally burn this rotten party to the ground.
To see it in ashes like Labour in Scotalnd and then realize we are all still here. Nothing changed except we cleaned out a rats nest. Because the Independence movement really is not the SNP!
To reverse the six years of well planned sabotage that Team Nicola has done is almost impossible without another six years (minimum) playing by the same rules.
They had a plan, they hit the ground running, and they have done an enormous amount of damage to the SNP. It is now riddled.
It is far quicker for us to now burn the house down to clean out the infestation and simply rebuild.
We are only burning down the SNP remember.
Without all that dead rotten wood blocking the Independence movement the new shoots will come up fast.
“Still no verdict on Craig Murray?”
Likely to be 2-3 weeks.
Mac, Popeye Doyle would call it “Pest Control”!
That’s enough for me. Resigned tonight. I won’t accept that “THING” Lawrence anywhere near the party decisions on any basis.
Fuck you too Smith and Wishart
Went to New York when I was 16 with my folks (and my suspected yoon sister and her then boyfriend – that’s a story for another time!). One of the highlights was the actual miss saigon on Broadway. Didn’t have a clue what was going on but they had an actual helicopter lower down onto the stage to do the final airlift. Was amazing! The only other time I’d been to the theatre was with the school to see the crucible. It was shite and I told the teacher so. She didn’t disagree. I’ve not been back to the theatre since NYC. Please stop with the miss aye gone jokes. You’re ruining my childhood. Unless you can shoehorn the crucible in there as well. That’ll be fine
“I personally think it would be absolutely liberating for the Independence movement to electorally burn this rotten party to the ground.”
Pretty much my feeling now.
Due diligence required the seeking of legal advice, and procedure required taking that advice into consideration, amongst other issues, like the accusers wishes, when deciding what action was to be taken.
Being told by your brief that it was doomed to failure, on the role played by McKinnon alone, if nothing else, and then carrying on regardless is nothing less than criminal.
If that’s what happened.
Show us the advice, or be damned.
“Win the war”
Tick tock.
Well, Neil in Glasgow, the Vietnam Group was all about a witch hunt.
Is Positive Discrimination legal,
can you put quotas on employment,
can you say you want `x` amount of minorities working for you or does the law state that all employment must go to those that deserve it.
Stu, am I right I thinking lady dorrian presided over both the original trial and Craig’s? Do you think was deliberate, albeit with additional judges in place the other day?
Q for those still inside the tent, what’s the procedure for calling an EGM?
WHO?
@Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
29 January, 2021 at 9:59 pm
“Still no verdict on Craig Murray?”
Likely to be 2-3 weeks.
Thanks Rev so tabloids have another 2 – 3 weeks for compiling there big splashes across the front pages, meanwhile they’ll just tread water giving the wee tit bit now and again. I wonder if Nicola is a nail biter!
“Stu, am I right I thinking lady dorrian presided over both the original trial and Craig’s? “
Yes. It pretty much has to be that way, because it’s the original judge who gets to decide whether her court was held in contempt or not.
cynicalHighlander says:
“I wonder if Nicola is a nail biter!”
blinking right she is
With your permission Rev…
AOUB (Twitter) Poll for List voting intentions
https://twitter.com/auobalba/status/1355246498406162434?s=21
Skip
I see what you did there 🙂
My uncle was also a sports writer and editor for years. Retired a few years ago because they basically ended up having to write stuff up and publish in half an hour because if they waited any longer sky sports news had jumped on it and they were out of date by the time they went to physical press. Couldn’t be arsed doing half a story but he loved a pun headline like that 🙂
The press clearly isn’t what it used to be and I think a lot of it is to do with deadlines and producing x amount of content, which is why so much is rubbish. I’ve watched so many stories about stuff I genuinely know about, like industries I’ve worked in, where the reporter clearly hasn’t a clue and is on to the next thing by the time you’re watching/reading it. Journalism at its worst. While I’m on my high horse though, I was also at school with a prominent reporter on stv news right now. Just actually reporting the news at the minute to be fair which is refreshing, but it I’ll hold court. I suspect yoon leanings but we can but hope.
Anyway, the word play was great!
Now i have to wonder if the judge can find the crown in contempt – you know for having the power to charge pre trial but waiting till post trial.. lady Dorrain is no fool
@Ayrshire Bob,
It gets you in the end. Dkesnt sound as if they will care anyway.
I just wish sturgeon and her dopey bairns would fuck off. Stupid, venal and idiotic.
Stewart McDonald saying that RT (read: Alex Salmond) is not compatible with SNP values. I am laughing here, genuinely laughing.
https://mobile.twitter.com/StewartMcDonald
SNP history being re-edited then. Looks like someone at COPFS is also working late on Friday nicht.
https://twitter.com/COPFS/status/1355219889007570944
@ AYRSHIRE ROB
My mate also left today, and I’ve recently expired with no intention to renew or campaign in near future unless something major happens with the trajectory of the Party.
We live in an area where in a chess stylée it may be a necessary sacrifice to lose the constituency to a unionist as the only way to break the vice like grip some appear to have in the Party.
Very disappointing that it has come to this as we both took on roles in our local branches, and I put in a great deal of time over several elections, but being relatively normal practical decent blokes we were clearly not what the Party wanted.
In hindsight we really should have been far more noisy and obnoxious, dyed our hair pink and green and claimed we were oppressed dolphins angry at society forcing us to live out of water. If we’d done that we’d probably both be in Holyrood by now! 🙂
As things stand we’ll be ISP with list votes though, as will probably all our family, friends and acquaintances.
I may join ISP but really need to crack on with finishing the house renovation which has taken a back seat since the material change in circumstances came about in 2016.
It didn’t have to be like this. But it is. Shameful.
The people of Scotland are sovereign.
Putting all the eggs in one basket led to rotten eggs and basket cases hijacking the campaign for Scotland’s independence for their own corrupt purposes.
Aye Dan
Am pretty much scunnered wae it. It’s a sad when the supposed main party for indy pander to a few.
Thousands of older people haven’t a clue about all the nonsense with these men wanting to be women just cos they say they are. If they want to be women cut aff the tackle then. But nae chance they’ll do that cos their fucking lying scum and know they’re men.
Sorry…
That’s the AUOB Poll
https://twitter.com/auobalba/status/1355246498406162434?s=21
I get a bit lysdexic late in the evening.
do these people not realise operating outwith the consitution of the organisation could expose them to considerable legal jeopardy!
do these people not realise operating outwith the consitution of the organisation could expose them to considerable personal legal jeopardy!
Gerard McGhee says:
29 January, 2021 at 10:53 pm
do these people not realise operating outwith the consitution of the organisation could expose them to considerable legal jeopardy!
————————-
My impression is they are getting so desperate that they countenance such blatant rigging
MEANWHILE IN THE REAL WORLD You know Pandemic life and death..
Quote:-
“A Downing Street spokesperson said: “The UK government is urgently seeking an explanation from the European Commission about the statements issued by the EU today.
The UK has legally-binding agreements with vaccine suppliers and it would not expect the EU, as a friend and ally, to do anything to disrupt the fulfilment of these contracts.
The UK government has reiterated the importance of preserving the benefits of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement and the commitments that have been made to the two communities.
The prime minister spoke with Taoiseach Micheal Martin on Friday night and stressed the need for the EU to clarify its intentions.
An Irish government spokesman said Mr Martin was currently in discussions with European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen to express Dublin’s concerns.”
So how will the first meenister pander to the EU who play with the lives of those Irish people, of whatever faith, in this disgusting act? Fuck the EU.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55864442?fbclid=IwAR3RW4zUMqKsetJIe0xfNPiUAZjKvB3eq4zFM1fD1C9MFf0WBblYeVbhgXU
Rev stu
I did think that to be the case but thank you for clarifying. From what I’ve read (I couldn’t listen in) she did seem to make good points to the prosecution which they accepted so hopefully common sense will prevail.
One thing that is bugging me though, and possibly this is a question for a lawyer to answer if anyone of that standing wishes to chip in (it could be the hand grenade that breaks the damn if you like), but if Craig is to be found not guilty of the charges laid, does that mean that his evidence is accepted in full by a member of the judiciary without doubt? Or could he be challenged on the peripheral points? I’m hopeful you can see where I’m going here
@AYRSHIRE ROB (10.52) –
We may not agree on all things but I admire your style.
Scot Finlayson this is the issue a lot of people outside Islington have with the BBC. Positive discrimination isn’t optional. Have you seen any TV adverts recently? Even animated ads seem obliged to have a white mother, black dad, and an (obviously therefore) mixed race kid. This is the way of the woke. The core aim is noble, but tokenism (as with SNP shortlists) is the bigotry of low expectations, and assumes that minorities can’t achieve anything without useful idiots (Rosa/Rhiannon etc) trying to shoehorn them into roles.
Malia Mum says:
29 January, 2021 at 7:14 pm
That comment by Joan Savage really needs to be published to give us some leverage.
I’ve quoted Joan on Twitter ?
https://twitter.com/IndyLassie/status/1355289513946472451?s=19
AYRSHIRE ROB -10.52
Best thing you’ve ever posted.
Well said.
“Tainted by apparent bias”
It should have ended there.
All else is malice, lies and cover up.
Surely the ultra vires rule changes, suspensions etc. would be struck down if a Judicial Review was sought. If so, Jo Cherry is the last person to take on unless any decisions taken are watertight. Better get the debit card out for more legal crowdfunders folks.
robertknight
“List voting intentions” does not seem to offer all the available choices or disclose what these options really mean aside from ‘pro indy’.
For instance it does not mention that only two list parties propose to use May’s election as a plebiscite on independence in their manifesto’s – ISP and Solidarity. And the latter are not included in the survey
Greens and SNP may appear ‘pro indy but are really ‘gradualist nationalist’, which means more colonialism.
looks like we’ll all need to wait a couple of weeks until the 12th of February and the JC Tet offensive..
@ Dan: sorry to hear how you feel. They are grinding us down alright.
But it’s the hope that kills you – every time Craig Murray or the Rev or Gordon Dangerfield, Ian Lawson, Barrhead boy etc print some evidence and analysis I think, right this is it – now the guilty will fold and the blind adherents will see… but they haven’t yet.
If only that clean fresh Yes party with the decent SNP/exSNP MPs in existed there would be some real hope. I’m so tired and depressed. One person is holding our country in servitude and they are criminal to boot.
RobertKnight
List for me ISP (I’m banned from twitter so couldn’t take part in the poll)
Aye Ian , get yi.
Years ago when I noticed this on telly on documentaries wae some genuine folk who we in a dilemma with their sex hether in be Male to female or vice versa I used to watch with a lot of sympathy but this lot of chancers, naw.
Was gonnae say they haven’t got the baws tae dae it, but they have- literally,the baws. Just do and geez aw peace eh Leeze!
Whether it be male to female that should be. Bloody phone.
Don’t know why Joanna Cherry doesn’t just run away, with the last of the sane parliamentarians, and form her own party. She could call it the Scottish Nationalist Party, as a bit of pleasant irony, a bit of a fuck-you to Nicola-stuck-up-her-own-arse-Sturgeon, and a bit of thorn in the side of Boris who’d then have to be careful with his nationals and nationalists.
Sounds like the SNP is a goner, it’s so riddled, and that’s with the support of the heid yins, it seems impossible that it could ever be sorted – or that I could ever trust it ever again. My grandad must be turning in his grave.
If Nicola Sturgeon is left in charge of the SNP a moment longer, it’s quickly going to degenerate into the cesspit of all parties. She’s going to ruin Scotland as badly, any longer in charge and she’ll usher in a new era of Scotland as a haven for sex offenders, a Bankok on the Forth, a tax haven, a smugglers haven. She might just be Maggie Thatcher reborn: just as right wing, just as enthusiastic for neoliberalism, and just as bonkers.
If the party split, it would make life much easier – we wouldn’t need to second guess the motivations of candidates; those ones probably okay would immediately go over to Joanna Cherry. She could just steal the majority of the SNP policies and structure – reinstate the old structure that sounds like it was pretty good from a democratic point of view. Maybe it’s too late to register a new party for the May election?
Sturgeon knows the game is up.
So she is now planning to eliminate genuine Indie folks like Cherry, McAlpine, MacAskill etc. in a last desperate attempt to ensure a Robertson, or God help us, a Daddy Smith succession – or some other reliably cabalistic insider.
Decent long-term members are resigning in droves – when in fact they should be staying on to fight – at least until all hope is lost!
Scorched Earth right enough.
At best, completely lost sight of party purpose; at worst the most effective fifth-column operation against a once-radical party ever mounted by perfidious Albion.
She must be brought down.
Apologies all, it took the EU 34 minutes [if reporting times are accurate] to about turn.
They have however left a clause in saying it is up to respective countries to deny vaccine to NI…..so STILL, FUCK the EU.
Call Gerry Fisher.
Tried several times to articulate a view on here but struggle to get it to make sense even to myself as to get it all down would have to write a novel
The SNP was a phenomenon in political terms seen as a fringe idea at the start that forced it’s way into the hearts and minds of people pushing the established labour and cons out to near nonexistence .It’s grip on the country and its place as the only voice for independence was it’s strength and also it’s Achilles heel as it happens .When vain and self serving are left unchecked is result is what we have here.
The choices ar
Limited
Well, the new party could be called the Scottish Civic Nationalists for Justice and Parity Party, that would give everyone a fun time marker-penning in all the extra letters of the acronym as they reuse (in the interests of sustainability and recycling) all their old SNP-branded paraphernalia, and make the name more distinct, but keeping a bit of the fingers up to NS and Boris still.
As Samuel Langhorne Clemens said,
“Loyalty to country ALWAYS.
Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”
From my last post
The choices are limited
A war from within to rebuild the SNP And cleanse it of the scum this will be messy lengthy and damaging
Start again with ISP again lenghty and difficult how to you tell an electorate that the ideas still fine but you were let down last time please vote for it again we got it right this time.in the wake of all that’s to come that seems a hard ask especially with your enemy’s not able to fire its ammo at you all at once as it has so much
How to get the Indy movement all behind something when many will be confused angry and let down can someone please tell me if they are a way forward
Gamestop seemed to work because the players didn’t play by the short sellers version of the rules.
We have the technology.
And the numbers, and the will.
And the makings of a single issue vote.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-snp-manifesto-2021/
Take out SNP, add title of campaign, Peoples vote, List plebiscite, Vote2Freedom, whatever.
With the troops available, getting the concept into the zeitgeist is doable.
Making it plain that 50% +1, with or without SNP buy in, is the sovereign will of the Scottish people, and boycotting is to be viewed as an abstention.
Nawbag? Vote Tory. Simples, you’ll have had your say.
Wheeshter? And you actually want Independence, but you’re going to vote for the dropping’s on the list, like Spear!
Sorry Chris it’s too late mate. Resignation went in at the beginning of the weekend. She has turned in to a tyrant. She gave the yoons something to control her with when she started on Alex Salmond. From then it was only a matter of time til the crap hit the fan. As soon as she goes I will rejoin. Til then I don’t even know if I can stomach giving you my first vote never mind my second.
Is there something wrong with the Wings twitter page ?
My pearl of wisdom is defining “transphobia” in a way that lands you in the shit if you disagree with me. But,but,but many transgender people think that harms them terribly!
Who the fuck asked these cunts or lack thereof?
But I thought you wished to make their lives better?
Terfs ,cis ,transrights etc who gives a shite so long as we are in charge
Once again for God’s sake – Is there something wrong with the Wings twitter page ?
Does anyone think nicola has begun her exit plan
Anyone offering odds on the first alphabet women to claim immunity and turn Queens evidence
The most upsetting thing about this is the wasted opportunity
What should have happened was the SNP in power used to run a economic sound honest and fair society that could prove that look your better of governed by your peers give us independence and we will take a equal part in running of the island we live on bringing all Scottish people together
Instead a one party want to be police state were opposition is not allowed ,left field ideas are to be adopted .Biological facts are ignored and the sole main aim at the party’s very core ignored .Yet still the deal for Indy was growing ON that was until the truth came out SEE YOu IN A DECADE
Aunties witching hour news.
“1 in 35 Londoner’s have the virus”
Quick mental exercise arithmetic gives a near 3,000/100,000 rate! ?
10 x ish Scotland’s.
The main news page?
No link to the previously omni present daily updates.
Why is this appearing when I scroll back up to the twitter page – https://twitter.com/ScotPolWatch
Indyisnigh
What’s your exact issue with getting on the twitter page? If you can explain we might be able to help you?
Is there any truth in the rumours that NS has a Bookbarn Premium account?
Simple when I scroll back up and click the twitter link I get this – https://twitter.com/ScotPolWatch
Hugh
More like the Richard and Judy book club. Anything for promo
sorry, should have been a coma after simple
If anyone can scroll back up and get the standard Wings twitter page please let me know
Indyisnigh
OK. Wings over Scotland isn’t actually on twitter. But that link you posted looks to have several accounts where you can get good opinions – Chris McEleny, the original author of this post; grousebeater; forwomen.scot; Mark Hirst, and iain brotherhood (who’s replied above) all good places to look.
Neil, Thanks, fully aware of the history but anytime I clicked the link it took me to Friends of Wings twitter account – this account is right out of the blue – never heard of it before. What is it and who controls it ? – don’t think it’s Wings
Indyisnigh
All I’ll say is you better not be a yoon spammer or I’ll be on to you quicker than The Rev and those I mentioned will be onto me. OK ? If my boss knew how long I spent on twitter at the moment I’d be on furlough
Not a problem Neil – simple question is there anyone out there, that when clicked on the Wings twitter account got taken to this page – https://twitter.com/ScotPolWatch
I got taken to Friends of Wings
I had my mind made up not to vote for the SNP first vote (constituency) but if Sturgeon has been a plant in there since 2014 to destroy the SNP and therefore the indie chances then the obvious thing to do is give them the biggest vote we can and deal with the scum in no uncertain terms afterwards. Or alternatively if Alex is prepared to provide all documents to inquiry and be prepared for the consequences, well surely that would blow the whole lot down including the Lord advocate and just imagine the total outcry and anger if they jailed him for telling the truth.Easy for me to say ofcoarse.
As I said, wings isn’t actually on twitter. If you click the link at the top of the page it takes you to the friends of wings account. This isn’t wings page, but mainly links to the articles you’ll find here and the odd comment or retweet on things that would potentially be discussed here. If you want wings actual opinion, best thing to do is just check the blog throughout the day. And there’s lots to check right now.
Best regards
Tried it again on my mobile and get taken to – https://twitter.com/ScotPolWatch instead of Friendsofwings !!!!!
From The Times;
“In his submission Mr Salmond said: “During November 2018 we became concerned about the possibility of the government attempting to sist (delay) the judicial review and (mindful of their likely loss in court) seek to emphasise instead the police investigation.
“We have a witness precognition (statement) which recounts that in late November 2018 a special adviser told the witness that the government knew they would lose the judicial review but that they would ‘get him’ in the criminal case.”
The 11-page document, which has been sent to MSPs on the cross-party committee, gives an indication of the tone Mr Salmond will adopt if he gives evidence in person. He is due to attend on February 9 with final details of his appearance still being negotiated.
“The behaviour of the government was, in my view, a disgrace. But actions have consequences,” Mr Salmond added in the submission. “Accountability is at the heart of the Scottish parliament. The rule of law requires that those who have acted illegally are held to account.””
https://archive.is/OmSnT
Sorry Neil, when I scroll back up on my computer to Wings twitter I get this – https://twitter.com/ScotPolWatch
Never, ever happened before. If I’m wrong can any other Wingers confirm
The SNP can fuck right off. I have nothing more to say than I have no idea how I’m supposed to express my democratic rights in May, with nobody to vote for. Scotland’s democracy is dying before birth.
I had so much hope for what an independent Scotland would look like, but the apparently-only means of helping us achieve it has done no work on independence and has become obsessed with identity. It’s an expression of Sturgeon’s own hubristic obsession with her own cult of personality. I could weep.
Indyisnigh
I’ve just tried myself and you’re right, but don’t worry too much. Stu has obviously decided to redirect the link to something else more relevant. To be fair it looks quite diverse and takes in a range of different accounts which are all very valid and engaging. Wings was previously on twitter but isn’t anymore which is where the original link would have gone, so is now a portal to relevant reading.
@indyisnigh
Wings doesn’t have a twitter page, he was permanently barred after the wokeraty piled up a load of unfounded complaints.
Thanks Neil – but we’re in the endgame and who knows what’s happening now and in all my years following Wings never seen this – changing your link to another link. Has he done this before ?
How Doo, Was just wondering if the Twitter link at the top Is now suppose to be linking to Scottish politics watch instead of friends of wings ?
“How to get the Indy movement all behind something when many will be confused angry and let down can someone please tell me if they are a way forward.”
Yup. You hold your nose and vote SNP. Bottom line is between may and next election a SNP administration means some businesses might not go under as they would with labour or the tories in charge, and crap laws can always be unmade later.
If I was to be more positive then Id say there would be the slight possibility of securing a referendum in the next 4 years and the Salmond/Sturgeon debacle resolved and justice served. More realistically however, all I can say for sure is this will be the very last time I ever vote SNP.
Hi Bob W – totally aware, have been a follower for as long as most but usually read BTL and make judgements then click on Wings twitter account to be taken to FriendsofWings and when I go tonight I’m taken to – https://twitter.com/ScotPolWatch
never seen that ever
Ah, i see others have already mentioned this, Should have read more of the comments, Apologies.
Sorry Guys – Something not right here. Don’t think the Rev would re-link another site without mentioning – or someone else mentioning. Think !! – Is everything happy in la la land
How dictatorships begin:
Create a crisis
Demonise opponents
Declare an emergency
Undermine elections
Make the law irrelevant
Rule by executive order
@Indyisnigh
No problem. I bookmarked Friends and didn’t realise Stu had change the link to ScotPol.
Indy is nigh
There is no Wings page nor has there been for some time.
Wings got kicked off Twitter a year or so back. Friends Of Wings is the semi-official conduit.
I dunno if you are extracting the urine or what, but NOT knowiing that makes a bit of a mockery of your handle. Maybe you are just trolling, who knows?
Sturgeon adviser accused of wanting to ‘get’ Salmond
“We have a witness precognition (statement) which recounts that in late November 2018 a special adviser told the witness that the government knew they would lose the judicial review but that they would ‘get him’ in the criminal case.”
https://archive.is/OmSnT#selection-907.0-907.234
McCanny
Judith M
Sue from marketing
Evans the fish wife.
Which advisor will it be?
…..
kapelmeister says:
at 9:32 pm
“A Vietnam group in the SNP trashing the party and indy plans?
A Jockalypse Now.”
Praise again sir.
John King, are you watching ?
A pockle lips now ?
Would anybody care to make a (realistic) prediction about what will actually happen next? Are we all just whistling into the wind here, or do folk think there will be a change and Sturgeon will go?
I can’t help but think the tide is turning, but with all the speed and flexibility of a big car trying to turn around in a tight street and consequently doing an eleven-point turn!
A Person: “ Would anybody care to make a (realistic) prediction about what will actually happen next? ”
Well, I’m not sure how familiar you are with what happened at Chernobyl in 1986, but I think what we are about to see will be the sort of outcome they’d have had there if things had gone really badly.
From 2014:
‘These appearances are, arguably, evidence of an emerging Cult Of Nicola in which she, not the party, becomes the focus of the faithful. Certainly, the decision to sell Sturgeon-branded merchandise has raised eyebrows. Hubristic or pure gallus? “Neither, actually, because it wasn’t my decision,” she replies. “Let’s just say I’m tholing the T-shirts.”
Quite good with the tholing (suffering/putting up with), eh?
https://peterross.scot/articles/nicola-sturgeon-on-the-brink/
Actually, sorry, should have included the next paragraph from the piece above, as well, cos it’s pretty prophetic:
‘But the figures which interest her more are in a recent poll suggesting that if a referendum were held again now, a majority – 52 per cent – of Scots would vote Yes. Sturgeon says she will decide in the latter part of next year whether there will be a commitment to another referendum in the 2016 manifesto. She would like to deliver independence as First Minister, but says she would be content – “if that’s how it pans out” – to govern as best she can without it.’
Funny that last sentence, eh? 😉
https://peterross.scot/articles/nicola-sturgeon-on-the-brink/
Worldwide,2.1m people have been attributed to have succumbed to this nasty virus.
Many more, on the qt probably.
More to come, defo.
For every One of the 2.1m people who have died, 3700 ish were left on planet Earth.
Quadruple for eventual total, and your looking at around 0.1% of humanity lost,and millions left with lasting disability, economic chaos projecting into the next generation, social & societal disintegration, massive upwards shifts in wealth distribution, effectively a health system collapse, and a generation of children who will be lucky if they remain unscathed, as some of the side effects.
0.1%
One in a thousand.
What’s the flu mortality rate in a particularly bad year?
Only an observation,I’m not qualified to judge what the fuck is going on.
https://www.parliament.scot/HarassmentComplaintsCommittee/General%20documents/20210129DFMtoConvener.pdf
1. Swinneys letter above sent and disclosed yesterday to Fabiani is not declaring the historical external Counsel legal advice to protect Evans from having to resign as it will surely advise the case was likely to fall. It will also surely make Sturgeons position very untenable
2. Evans relys on evidence to Committee repeatedly saying in weasel words that Scot Gov had a “stateable case”. The problem with that level of proof is that a “stateable case” can be “a hopeless case” !!
See below, for example, from Court of Session, Lord Boyd.
https://www.scottishlegal.com/article/solicitor-held-liable-for-expenses-over-inadequate-conduct-of-case-ahead-of-aborted-proof
“For these reasons I am not prepared to hold that the defence was an abuse of process and that either the third defender or her solicitor maintained a defence which they knew to be factually misconceived. It may have been pretty hopeless but it was stateable.”
3. So Swinney declares to Committee only the later legal advice that supports the late Sturgeon/Evans decision of throwing in of the towel. Not declaring historical Counsel legal advice that would show the case was:
a) likely unwinnable,
b) and importantly, probably various different grounds as to why it was unwinnable.
(The complaints procedure has bias towards favouring complainants)
c) potentially earlier versions/iterations of external Counsel being unhappy with the Scot Gov position on continuing to pursue an unwinnable case against Salmond
4) Worth remembering that Lloyd, Evans and Sturgeon were all at meetings with Counsel. On one occasion all together.
Swinney is protecting them all from legitimate scrutiny of their decision making and role in it. It’s anti democratic. And worse a deliberate distortion by Swinney and Sturgeons government by cherry picking what legal advice to declare and what to deliberately conceal.
Swinney making shady decisions?
Really?
You mean a man that that thinks it’s a good idea to embed pornography into the school curriculum is a bit dubious?
A man who thinks your 12 year old daughter needs to learn that a bit light bondage and a ten inch cock up her arse is all part of the growing up process?
There was a time not not so long ago when sexual deviancy and even so much as a whiff of mental health issues would automatically bar someone from running for office.
In the SNP it’s a fast track to a ministerial position.
Indyisnigh
Away ya fecking eegit. You’re at it. Yoon.
WhoRattledYourCage says:
30 January, 2021 at 3:03 am
And further down the page
“One long-served SNP councillor who has known Sturgeon for many years goes further. “Whatever she wants, she gets. They don’t call her Nasty Nicky for nothing. Don’t stand in her way or you’ll regret it. You have to come round to Nicola’s way of thinking.”
And if you don’t? “Your career would be finished. If you were up for reselection, she would make sure you weren’t.”
Hugh Jarse,
Sure, if the look at the raw numbers then they’re not that high however you miss the point entirely. Pandemics, not just this one, need some kind of response as they destabilize society. There are significant consequences to just letting this slosh around in the population:
1. Imagine you get to the age of 65 and now your chance of dying starts increasing very rapidly. Well that would make me reassess my priorities. What’s the point of working your ass off for 40 years just croak with no benefits. Yes, that used to be the situation but expectations are a lot higher now.
2. You have a government which basically says f** you to the older generation – the one that votes. That has a negative effect on everything, not just elections. Excuse the hyperbole but that’s along the lines of having state sanctioned euthanasia for the older members of society.
3. The emotional cost and in a lot of cases the economical cost is high. Here in Portugal, society could not function without grandparents picking the kids up from school. Take that out of the equation and either the state has to provide childcare or wages need to up a lot so people can pay for it.
4. You’d be putting doctors in an impossible position as they’d have to choose who to treat unless of course you decided to throw infinite amount of money at healthcare. Alternatively, what would you think about a medical profession that did nothing. Medicine is mostly about trust with a bit of science and some voodoo thrown in. Once that was destroyed all kinds of medical problems start becoming serious.
5. You can rest assured the rich will be paying for prevention. That would further widen the gap that is already huge. That might be just enough to trigger some serious restitution and god knows where that would lead.
So, I could go on and on. This is not like a bad year of road accidents. No response would have to be deliberate decision by the government. That in turn would make a strong statement about the society that was considered to be a priority. I for one would be up in arms about that. After all what would I have to lose.
Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
“I personally think it would be absolutely liberating for the Independence movement to electorally burn this rotten party to the ground.”
Pretty much my feeling now.
Had hoped a thorough delousing would suffice but the pathogen seems to have spread to every last interstices of the apparatus.
Nothing else for it.
A Person
I would have thought we would be seeing some signs of change by now but I think that’s just impatience on our part and a desire for this to come to some kind of end. Your big car analogy is perfect except I’d replace it with a truck and throw in a leaner driver for good measure.
The outcome of today’s NEC meeting will, in a sense, be decisive. If the Woke reassert themselves without a massive fight from the new members then any chance of change before May is slim to none.
The fact that none of the MPs or MSPs, except Chris McEleny and Kenny MacAskill are keeping quiet speaks volumes. That shows they all expect Sturgeon to still be in power and so in a position to have them booted out if they open their mouths. Or it could mean they’re all just spineless. Either way the result is the same.
So we have a situation where saying anything is fatal and all the while the rules are being rewritten to keep Sturgeon in power. The outcomes of the inquiries will simply be ignored. The opposition will go along with it because they hope it will eventually be fatal to her support and that will their chance for a comeback. They know for sure they’d lose now as the general public has not gotten too much exposure to the corruption. That will definitely change in the next year. So the tide is probably turning in their favour – or at least they hope it is.
This is not a situation that is easily fixable. I’m more of the mind that this is just a comedy of errors that has gotten out of control rather than a systematic plot to destroy the SNP and independence with it. However the outcome is essentially the same.
Having said all that, here in the stables the picture is a lot more bleak than back outside where the air is a lot cleaner. There’s a lot of work to get this turned around and every day that job gets a little more difficult.
@kapelmeister 9.32: that and some of your previous comments show thou art verily the Prince of Paronomasia.
Thanks for cheering me up in these dire times.
I wish the last helicopter would just whisk Nicky and her Crue off the HR roof to oblivion and we could all get back to Indy business.
Stuart MacKay
We know how the msm will present this if a dozen or so SNP and ‘SNP’ ScotGov heid ane’s end up in the dock, as appears ever more likely. Which means it will probably be the end of the SNP, much as Rev Stu kind of implies.
Disnae maiter to those of us who intend to vote for parties using the May election as a plebiscite on independence, such as Solidarity and ISP and probably others to commit o that.
I like the Wee Blue Book, it has everything there that anyone needs to know why scotland should be independent.
Its a good reference point to send any no voter to, it gives the facts and figures from all sorts of people whether they be for independence or not, so its a very balanced piece of work.
I use it quite regularly as its as relevant now as it was in 2014, and always will be well into the future, in fact its a well researched little book that any country wanting its independence from another bigger neighbour would do well to take heed of
The Independence movement will never die, another party under a different name could be the answer that draws everyone into it, when the voters realise that the new party has got us back to our roots they will flock there like pigeons coming home to roost.
I was never a fan of that name SNP, it only gives you rivals every opportunity to call you nationalists which they corrupt with their lies and assertions.
Nation alist, patriot, etc etc etc, they all mean the same thing, but the english government always use the term the scottish nationalists as if its an evil thing, they know fine well what they are doing, they corrupt the english language for their own ends.
That is why I seldom use big words, it only confuses people who don’t have a decent size vocabulary, as a voracious reader I come across this all the time, for example get Stephen Fry on a stage and he goes into intellectual mode, for goodness sake the guy has even written a book about mythology, what kind of dafty thinks the world needs another book about FA
Anyway, english is a simple language when spoken or written, its not a language to feck about with, woke, first time I have used that word, what does it actually mean, it means FA to me or anyone else with better things to be getting on with
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
That’s what “SNP 1&2” brings about, folks.
The rubberstamping by plebiscite of the cabal of sociopaths that have stolen a party from humans to pursue their thirst for power.
For Fuck Sake, stop them ASAP or we are fucked with a sandpaper dildo, no lube and not even a kiss on the neck.
Paranomasia, just another everyday word that you can hear everywhere you go lol
Anyone without looking it up, what Does Ophthalmology mean ?
Right enough, Wings Twitter link does redirect to ScotPol.
Ultimately it’s The Rev’s prerogative what it links to – though it is a bit unusual not to be mentioned.
Maybe FoW has issues, or the Rev has issues with FoW.
No big deal – it’s not difficult to find their Twitter feed.
David Caledonia @ 10:55
“I like the Wee Blue Book, it has everything there that anyone needs to know why scotland should be independent.”
I like the wee Blue Book an aw, the basis of which is economic exploitation of the Scottish people and the alternative policies an indy Scotland might pursue, post independence.
However, we first need to have a realisation that it is colonialism and its associated oppressions that is universally the primary reason for any ‘people’ seeking independence.
Postcolonial literature also explains why most peoples in self-determination conflict are divided linguistically and hence culturally and ethnically.
These are essentially behavioural factors reflecting the nature of independence and the importance of ‘national consciousness’, for which fortunately there is a book on: See ‘Doun-Hauden’.
Alf, you attribute Scotland’s plight and all the ills of the Scottish people to the dilution of culture and language. But you surely know that many societies with more robust cultures and rigid language systems were colonised and often wiped out.
What we call culture in Scotland and most other advanced countries is no more than a sort of hobby. Cultural traits here are a matter of choice, not habit or nature.
I’d be willing to accept that culture exists and is a factor in much less advanced countries, amongst certain tribes in South America, the Philippines, etc., where it’s more habitual and less contrived. But it’s hard to see how it offers those less advanced societies any sort of protection. In fact, given the small number of those sort of societies in existence, it would seem to leave them pretty vulnerable.
Technology is the biggest destroyer of culture in history, not colonialism per se. It’s often the case that the colonisers bring the technology, but anyone who has ever actually worked a field with a horse drawn plough rather than a tractor isn’t like to complain about that.
And that’s essentially the problem you have as a culturalist. Those patterns of behaviour you yearn for were left behind for sound technological reasons, replaced with new patterns that can largely be explained by new technologies, more efficient ways of doing things, and whole new industries that simply didn’t exist before.
The same dialectics and evolutionary theory explains the demise and prominence of languages. Nobody anywhere ever conspired to replace say Gaelic with English. Cortez didn’t turn up in Mexico looking to promote Portuguese – he was there for gold.
Language is every bit as much a technology as a plough is, and naturally it’s subject to the same historical forces. There’s no conspiracy. In the future our kids will probably need to learn Cantonese, and Cantonese words will enter into our lexicon. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s progress. Convenience.
Hatuey, Alf Baird,
In my time out on the west coast of the USA, the scots engineers were always praised because when given a job to do they rolled up their sleeves and got on with it. No whining, no complaining, etc. That’s a good a definition of Scottishness that I can think of.
It’s the ingredients (people and environment) that are important to a culture not necessarily how it’s expressed.
@ WhoRattledYourCage at 3:00 am
Rather than the last sentence of the article,I thought this part midway down far more accurate regarding Sturgeon
I deliberately left off the last 10 or 12 words
“Sturgeon is, no doubt, a ruthless political operator who has fought and schemed to get to the top, and of course she is at the centre of a spin machine designed to keep her there”
@ Wee Chid at 8:39 am
The “long-served SNP councillor” comment, I had to think who that was? I got down to one of two
As for who “acted on orders” ? I think there were about 8 of them All in now comfy positions
If Councillor,MSPs and MPs are being duplicitous toward their electorate , they are clearly guilty fraudulent misrepresentation,
It’ll always continue until enough stand up
Stuart: “ when given a job to do they rolled up their sleeves and got on with it. No whining, no complaining, etc. That’s a good a definition of Scottishness that I can think of.”
It’s also a pretty good definition of a slave which I believe Alf is keen to transcend.
Hatuey
Thanks for that, though with respect it seems that you have never read much about culture (or colonialism), and more specifically theory relating to its many elements such as: cultural imperialism, cultural colonialism, cultural assimilation, cultural hegemony, cultural inferiorisation, dislocated culture, clandestine culture, enculturation, national culture, or perhaps the cultural cringe and its relationship to Appropriated Racial Oppression (internalized racism).
Culture is at the very forefront of colonialism and the desire for independence. As Fanon noted: “To fight for national culture means in the first place to fight for the liberation of the nation”. In other words, Scots are only fighting for independence because of our culture. Where there is no national culture, not even its dregs, there is no reason for independence.
Thanks for the concern, Alf, but I’m afraid your assumptions about what I haven’t read are quite wrong. I choose not to rely on quotes and the words of others, preferring instead to form and express my own views, which I think people find more accessible.
Your definition of culture and its importance is, in my opinion, both exaggerated and simplistic. And you couldn’t possibly have spent much time reading about this stuff without noticing that others put much more emphasis on things like economics and technology.
Moreover, everything you say about cultural imperialism between states can and has been said about cultural imperialism within them. Of course, that’s of no use to you because you want to play the “exceptional” card.
What you’re really nostalgic for is pre-industrialism. If that’s not clear, it’s because your grasp of history isn’t clear. The same processes you attribute to English imperialism in Scottish history, can be found all over the industrialising world in the 18th and 19th centuries, where the English were not present.
The telltale signs and proof can be found in the European countries that were slow to industrialise, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, etc. As you’d expect, those countries managed to retain their pre-industrial traits and modes of behaviour, what you confuse for culture, right into the 20th century.
A man who spends 6 hours driving a horse and cart full of apples into the village isn’t culturally superior or purer than the man who puts them in the back of a van and completes the job by lunchtime. He’s just a man that lacks a van and that isn’t something to celebrate.
Hatuey
I can assure you that I am no stranger to analysis of industries, economics and technology globally.
However, people do not fight for independence and hence for their national culture for any of these reasons.
Then you’ll appreciate, Alf, that’s it’s very difficult to distinguish between what you call culture and what others might call old fashioned ways of doing things.
Hatuey states:
‘anywhere ever conspired to replace say Gaelic with English. Cortez didn’t turn up in Mexico looking to promote Portuguese – he was there for gold.’
If you are so uneducated about Imperialism, I suggest that you don’t display it so blatantly with ignorant statements such as the above. Gaelic was ruthlessly suppressed along with bagpipe playing, highland dress by the English Imperialist invaders post 1745. The simple objective being to destroy the indigenous culture and identity of the native population.They followed up that up with this further by the ‘Clearances’ aided and abetted by the tr*itorous highland chiefs. The latter who adopted anglicised cultural norms and language.
A lowland clearance took place with the ‘plantation’ of Ulster. Lowland Scottish presbyterians were ‘encouraged’ to suppress Irish and Catholic identity i.e. cultural norms..again by Anglicised rulers. This same group of Scottish settlers were reduced to the level of ‘dissenters’ and the alien act of 1705. Why? because culturally it ensured and sustained Scots’ subordination to the Episcopalian ascendancy to such an extent many either emigrated to the US or fought with Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen against it.
In my lifetime Scots language was punished in schools by belting. The middle class in Scotland for three centuries have aped English speech and manners and thus have become alienated from themselves and their identity. They are the irate writers in the yellow press who criticise bitterly any ‘Scotticisms’. They are also the same false consciousness deluded no voters that think of themselves as ‘British’. They are the living example of cognitive dissonance that Imperialism produces…divide and rule..similarly the ragged arse orange mob that follow follow.
Your concept of economic consciousness as the prime influence on national differences or development is trade union consciousness..the same old bilge that SLAB have pumped out for years i.e. a Liverpool docker is the same as a Clydeside ship worker. No it is not. People associate their identity with their nationality, cultural icons and local customs. This is why international socialism has failed. It never recognised National cultural identity always trumps economic identification.
Hatuey
My reference to the importance of culture here is in relation to self-determination and independence. I can appreciate it may be expedient and less onerous in terms of effort for you “preferring instead to form and express my own views”. But if these views are based on limited knowledge and hence understanding then any perspective will inevitably be limited.
Of course some people may not value the importance of culture (or language) if it is an aspect they know little about. People might also believe the msm and political perspectives on motivations for voting Yes/No, such as having a few more/or less pennies in one’s pocket. That is clearly a narrow and simplistic methodology to base any quest for national liberation upon.
You think you know a great deal about industry and technology, but do you? And is any peoples’ quest for independence really solely about ‘industry and technology’? Or is it, as most nations seeking independence would say, to rid a people of their longstanding colonial oppression which include in Scotland’s case a ‘Cultural Division of Labour’ (Hechter 1998).
I’m just catching up on this thread and was going to comment on this historically ignorant comment by Hatuey but Lochside has beaten me to it and shown why it is bullshit:
“Nobody anywhere ever conspired to replace say Gaelic with English.”
And so I pass on to this: “Language is every bit as much a technology as a plough is, and naturally it’s subject to the same historical forces.”
Is it because they are simply superior to Scottish culture or could it be because, since 1707, neither Gaelic, Scots or Scottish history have been systematically taught in Scottish schools, and only very recently in our universities?
The obvious consequence of this is that few Scots have a balanced and proper view of their own culture and often feel it is somehow inferior or feeble when compared with the perpetually-vaunted British cultural values, relentlessly pushed by the BBC and the MSM and reinforced by the university system.
Language is intrinsic to culture because it is the way a country’s culture is sustained and transmitted and any attempt to isolate it as some mere materialistic factor, as you have done, is both ignorant and simplistic.
My only quibble with Alf Baird re his argument in “Doun-Hauden” is that it largely ignores the Gaelic element in Scottish culture, although his arguments about colonialism and the perspectives from Frantz Fanon are obviously well-founded. My impression of Gaelic culture now is that it is perhaps even more disposed to independence than those who count Scots as their language or the rest, who are mainly derived from the Scottish Cringe middle-classes.
In redrafting, I omitted this after paragraph three of my comment:
“If this is so, why are English and French culture, for example, not subject to these same historical forces and therefore in the dire state that our own complex Scottish culture is?”
The Education (Scotland) Act 1872 made primary education in English compulsory in Scotland.
‘“Deprive the people of their national consciousness treat them as a tribe and not a nation, dilute their national pride, do not teach their history, propagate their language as inferior imply they have a cultural void, emphasise their customs are primitive, and dismiss independence as a barbaric anomaly.” Reinhard Heidrich
Tinto Chiel / Lochside
It remains that culture and language, as you acknowledge, are not given the level of political importance due in Scotland’s independence debate. And as we see here in Hatuey’s remarks, though I expect that may itself be due to cultural influence.
Subconsciously I expect many Scots do appreciate the culture and language significance however. They form the first two main headings and chapters in Doun-Hauden’s socio-political theoretical framework for good reason and, based on that analysis, they clearly constitute major determinants of Scottish independence.
I think this quote from Fanon is rather well put and emphasizes the critical connections between national culture, colonialism and the desire for national independence:
“The poverty of the people, national oppression and the inhibition of culture are one and the same thing. After a century of colonial domination we find a culture which is rigid in the extreme, or rather what we find are the dregs of culture, its mineral strata. The withering away of the reality of the nation and the death-pangs of the national culture are linked to each other in mutual dependence.”
Lochside, I would just like to echo Tinto Chiel, your comment at 7:25 pm is excellent.
@Ron: yes, it’s a teaker of a quotation from Heydrich and almost too good to be true when it comes to our own situation. My German isn’t really good enough to go searching for it in the original, although I know Capella, once of this parish, tried valiantly.
As you rightly say, 1872 was a very bad year for our culture.
@Alf: your quotation is of course relevant for us in Scotland, although there is resistance here to acknowledge it in any way. I found your bibliography in Doun-Hauden very useful and, in my wanderings therefrom, have almost finished “Orientalism” by Edward Said, where the same brute forces of colonialism are described.
BTW, I often read Lorimer’s New Testament, not from any religious conviction, but to enjoy his beautiful use of the Scots language and to reflect on what has been lost from the simple inabilty in times past to provide us with a Scots bible instead of the King James version.
After that, God truly was an Englishman, and with devastating cultural consequences.
Ron Maclean
Yes, many do not appear to be aware that German occupation of numerous countries during and prior to WWII was also colonialism, using age old methods of oppression, and new ones also. In some territories the local flag may have still been permitted to be hoisted, as in Denmark, yet they were still effectively colonies.
Cesaire’s ‘Disourse on Colonialism’ refers to that period to remind the European bourgeoisie that they can be just as barbaric to their own race/people as to others, and that the German leadership was big on spreading its ‘superior’ culture.
“Meg merrilees says:
29 January, 2021 at 9:29 pm
Craig Sheridan @ 6.30pm
I am still an SNP member – just! But like you, I believe that a woman is an adult female human and I’ll raise you – trans women are NOT women. A man will always have an ‘X’ and a ‘Y’ chromosome.
..”
Hmm, with respect that’s close (true, sufficient and necessary, in the vast majority of cases) but not quite all.
I agree that science is science, facts are facts, and biology is biology..
And that a woman is an adult human female whose reproductive organs have developed towards the production of ova; a man is an adult human male whose reproductive organs have developed towards the production of spermatozoa. There is no third sex.
Of course some individuals are sterile. And regardless, all of us need understanding and kindness.
But it is not as simple as XX=female and XY=male.
Development is female by default unless switched to male by presence of a specific gene on the Y chromosome, the SRY gene (Sex-determining Region Y). There can be differences of development wherein the sex chromosomes are not XX but X, or XXX, etc, who will develop as female; or XYY, XXY, etc who will develop as male.
Further, the critical SRY gene can occasionally have been lost from the Y chromosome, thereby resulting in female development despite presence of a Y-chromosome; or SRY may transfer to an X or another chromosome, resulting in male development but without a Y chromosome.
But separately, even without SRY issues, an XY individual may have androgen-insensitivity syndrome (either total, or to a degree) meaning their body does not respond normally to the hormonal signal to develop as a male and depending on degree may develop as female (though without uterus and ovaries), have mixed characteristics, or develop as male (but with undescended testes, and be infertile).
I think I have that right.
Human differences of sexual development are a complex area. But it does not mean there are sexes other than female and male, and has little to do with the contentious trans topic, though it is co-opted as ‘evidence’.
In a study of 300 trans individuals, if I recall correctly, only about 3 had any such a difference; the vast majority (99%) were all straightforwardly XX or XY.
The Paradox Institute has a series of videos on YouTube that usefully cover the subject and debunk misinformation,
eg. Why Sex Matters, Why Sex Is Binary, and so on.
And there are medical articles online on various differences of development (DODs).
My point about Gaelic is being deliberately misconstrued. Nobody turned up in Scotland with that as a primary goal. Cortez didn’t cross the atlantic to teach people how to speak Portuguese. They had other motivations, other ends. If it served as a means in one place to smother local culture, it served as a means in others to encourage local cultures.
For all that many of you talk about culture, I’ve yet to meet anyone who can define it in any specific way.
If you weren’t all so openly Scottish, it might be possible to have a reasoned debate on this.
Hatuey
“If you weren’t all so openly Scottish”
My apologies for my identity. Perhaps I should discard it? Then I can become…..?
I take it you are not Scottish then?
Lochside, everything you say about the clearances etc., is indisputably true. I’ve read extensively on the subject. Everybody has.
But you forget an essential element that complicates your narrative to the extent that it is rendered hopelessly inappropriate; many Scottish people supported all that, supported the Union, took part in the imperial project, took part in slavery, took part in the clearances, celebrated the Union, etc.
I’m not saying for a minute that the majority of Scottish people were in favour of the Union, but a significant number were. And I point that out to underline the wider and more important argument; that Scotland was not a straight forward colony, as Alf would have us believe.
Now, I understand that cooptation and division goes hand in hand with colonialism, with one social group favoured above others, etc., selling out their countrymen by helping the invaders, etc., etc., and causing all sorts of ugly divisions and animosities, but in Scotland it went well beyond that.
Hatuey
The bourgeoisie are the bourgeoisie whether in Anglo-Scotland or Franco-Algeria.
And a colonial power only need place a gun and a few francs in the hands of a native and he will do his bidding. We don’t have to look far for the evidence.
Tinto Chiel
Gaelic language is not in my framework analysis a determinant of Scottish independence, not in the way the Scots language is. Linguicide and displacement means Gaelic speakers are few (50,000) whilst Scots speakers are many despite a lack of language tuition (1.5 million according to the last census, which arguably excludes those Scots who don’t even know they speak a Scots language). Yet the Scots language remains oppressed, whereas Gaelic has its Act, TV station and Degree, and £50m per annum – largely because it is not such a political risk as a Scots language Act would be – given language and culture is the basis of our identity. Gaelic also seems to have rather been grasped by the bourgeoisie as a statement of superior Scottish culture in after dinner discourse, hence its aficionados are perhaps more unionist than some think. It might not have been given status of an Act otherwise.
Far too many student idealogues are making decisions in the SNP. Retrospective legislation makes it easy to pick off your political enemies within the Party.
Transgender ism is a distraction from Leadership criminality. Also tyranny issue is a UN directive an assault on the normal family unit.
Nicola Sturgeon is a creature of the United Nations Clinton Foundation Globalist criminal class. They despise Nationalism. That is the motivation behind the attacks on Alec Salmond. Salmond is an actual Nationalist while Sturgeon is an Internationalist flying on Blairite Airways. She wishes to join the hallowed billionaires in their rarified lifestyle while the rest of us are sentenced to a sort of covid communism with a third world economy surrounded ironically with a self imposed Iron Curtain.
@Alf Baird: yes, I’m aware of those arguments from your book. For my part I see Gaelic and Scots as the two vital parts of our cultural identity and ordinary Gaels (as opposed to any middle-class ones) seem just as keen on independence as Scots speakers.
I do agree, though, that one probable reason Scots has not received financial support or legal protection is that by numbers of speakers alone it is regarded as much more a danger to the English-language juggernaut.