The Stupidity Of Vanity
The reality-TV let’s say “personality” Kelly Given – who Wings readers previously met on a trip to New York for Tartan Week with a raft of SNP let’s say “celebrities” a couple of months ago – has been off on another nice holiday.
Last night she told both the viewers of BBC Scotland’s “Seven Days” that she’d just spent three weeks on an island in Greece, where apparently she was quite shocked to discover that the Mediterranean nation was hot in July.
Greece is a country which has a summer heatwave with temperatures around the 40s almost every year, but Given conveyed near-astonishment as she explained that she’d spent one of the three weeks shut in her hotel room with the air conditioning on full, which is roughly as helpful to the environment as if she’d passed the whole time sitting in a double-decker bus with the engine running, spraying aerosols out of the window non-stop onto to a big pile of burning tyres filled with toxic waste.
She then proceeded, with no detectable irony, to take a rare break from jetting across the globe burning out aircon units to bemoan climate change.
But some echo-brained twit who’s torched more hydrocarbons in the last three months than Wings has in the last 30 years wittering on about having more green policies is just comic relief. The wider point is that the UK, and in particular Scotland, is in the grip of a mania for “Net Zero” which is the cause of more harm than even all the aviation fuel being expended on Ms Given’s behalf.
As noted by Iain Macwhirter in an excellent and measured Sunday Times column yesterday, Net Zero is – from a British or Scottish perspective – nothing more than pointless, pious virtue-signalling vanity. These tiny islands contribute less than 1% of greenhouse gases, a veritable drop of spilled oil in the ocean, and any reductions that could conceivably be made – even if the mythical Zero were achieved – are instantly dwarfed by the increases from the big-four polluters: China, India, the US and Russia.
Even if you graph the UK’s output against just one of them, the result is farcical. And of course, if you’re talking about Scotland alone you can divide that already-meaningless figure by 10, putting it to all intents and purposes on the graph’s X axis, ie already as close to zero as makes no odds.
The debate about whether man-made climate change is happening at all (and as far as we can tell the evidence that it is is pretty well beyond argument) is a red herring, because to anyone in this country it simply doesn’t matter. It’s not our business. Climate change will, or won’t, happen regardless of anything our piddly little country does, so we may as well burn everything we can get our hands on.
Scotland and the UK are complete and utter insignificances in the matter, making fools of themselves trying to look important in front of the big boys and girls on the world stage just like Ms Given did on the BBC Scotland sofa.
So we can safely chuckle at our old tapes of Frankie Boyle, the one time enfant terrible turned rich-woke-kapo, who used to have a funny routine about the pathetic futility of recycling your jam jars while China builds eight new coal-fired power stations a second but is now to be found urging the government to ban development of new oil fields in the North Sea and bitterly bemoaning the greed of oil companies from on top of a nice big comfortable pile of money.
(Frankie doesn’t have to to worry about the runaway price of food, paying LEZ fines in Glasgow just to get to his work because he can’t afford a cleaner new van, or being hit with a £15,000 bill to replace his gas boiler with an inefficient, ineffectual heat pump.)
But it’s less funny to watch our government being so desperate for more selfies with an unimpressed-looking Greta Thunberg that it’s laying waste to the Scottish economy and the cost of living for hard-pressed normal people, with a series of cretinous and costly policy disasters led by the idiot Greens and gormlessly waved through by the hapless collection of simpering, pliant brainfarts assembled by Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf as a cabinet of ministers.
The Scottish Government’s crippling ineptitude has already cost the country’s future billions of pounds via the criminal fire sale that was the Scotwind auction, and tens of millions already in the abysmally botched Deposit Return Scheme, with the prospect of hundreds of millions more as angry producers sue the government over wasted costs.
For Scotland to thrive as an independent nation (not that there appears to be any credible prospect of that any time soon), it would need to make the maximum use of all the resources available to it, including those under the ocean, and if that means telling the Greens and Just Stop Oil to get back to their lentils and button their yaps, then the sooner it’s done the better.
Wings could not be more in favour of renewable energy. It’s a good thing in its own right, and the more renewable energy projects there are in Scotland the more we like it. (We’re apparently a minority opinion on this, but we find windfarms a heartwarming sight, the bigger the better.) As a nation we’re enormously blessed in wave and wind and tide potential, just as we were with oil in the 80s, and this time we should try to make the most of it.
But Scotland attempting to solve climate change with renewables and harebrained policy initiatives is like a toddler trying to put out a house fire by crying on it – it won’t work, it’s embarrassing to watch and you’ll likely end up with a charred kid as well as a burnt-down house.
Readers can decide whether the independence movement or the Scottish people as a whole are the charred kid in this anology, but either way it’s long past time to hoof the vacuous “influencer” dimwits out of the room and call in some grown-ups.
Well said sense talking Rev.
As for Harvie and let’s tax all us heating our homes with oil and gas boilers to be taxed more, let’s have him and Slater deselected as MSPs for reckless incompetence and causing a debt of millions over the barking deposit return scheme.
They have no idea of true green methods or ways.
This is in one of the richest countries generating renewables in the world.
Yes and no. One of the reasons China creates so much C02 compared to us, and rising while we fall, is it manufactures all our stuff, i.e. we have off-shored and outsourced our manufacturing to the other side of the world. As well as developing cleaner energy, we should (re)develop our clean manufacturing (and repairing).
Yup! That covers it.
The SNP/Green Cult and their assortment of nearly celeb cretins have turned the Indy Movement into self promotion business.
They could not be further removed from the voters if it was their official policy ( perhaps it is!)
It’s a distraction.
It’s to look busy while achieving absolutely nothing.
Well said Stu, I did not actually know about the ScotWind fire sale, absolutely unbelievable. How do these clowns think we would be able to trust them running out country wholly independent when it’s just scandal after scandal?
Saying that, I know that an IndyScot would have an immediate election to choose the government of the day, but all politicians and institutions as of late seem to be completely inept of any competency or integrity whatsoever.
How are we gonna find out way out of this mess?
Where did that photo come from, Has she been Sainted now? or is that just wishful thinking that she had passed & the error had been made who the sainthood had to go to?
How many Private jets do the Thunbergs have? 270 that they rent out?
Drill drill drill. 100 new oil and gas licenses for Scotland in Scotland’s waters. To support Scotland’s future prosperity and the borrowing powers of a new Independent Scottish central bank with a new currency.
Hands off our Independence Oil. English politicians. Independence now.
Acht don’t worry folks .Lorna S and that other thing from the black lagoon will be along soon with their new flagship policy-
“The Horse and Cart”. Slater and Chaps.
W
Acht don’t worry folks .Lorna S and that other thing from the black lagoon will be along soon with their new flagship policy-
“The Horse and Cart”. Slater and Chaps.
We’ll all live the dream like the “Quaqkers”
It’s Scotland’s oil. In Scottish waters. For scottish prosperity. We want party. Equal rights. Independence and freedom.
We want the benefits of Independence. We want the Independent Scottish state. We don’t want to fund England anymore.
Time to cut all ties with them and the bank of England. We’re paying them nothing. England owes Scotland. They are thieves.
Lord Willie Haughey, the Labour lord, is quoted in Telegraph today explaining to the SNP that heat pumps (as manufactured and supplied by his very own company) won’t work in Scottish weather given the state of the aging housing stock. He also said they are so noisey that half a dozen of them in a terrace would “rattle the windows”. There it is if not from the horse’s mouth then from the Haughey’s mouth.
Ian McCubbin @ 14.39
I’m not sure what, if any, deselection process is available for List MSPs under the rotten D’Hondt closed list system with which messrs Blair & Dewar landed Scotland, Ian.
Come to that, I’m not even sure whether there is a recall system in place for genuinely elected MSPs.
Democratic process ? Aye, I’m sure I’ve read about that in books.
I could have had a career as a spokesmodel but I was no good at applying my makeup.
Aussie Windmills – link to fb.watch
We all know that the Green fight in the UK is so that people with no discernible talent can sound important and try to control our lives.
In Scotland, it also seems to be a cover for perverts who want access to women, children and the vulnerable.
But I’m still gonna recycle those jam jars (actually, it’s mostly beer bottles).
Ian McCubbin @ 14.39
I don’t believe there is a deselection process for List MSPs, Ian. So, the Greens are with us for the duration of this sitting at Holyrood.
We have to tear up the ScotWind SNP give away bonanza. And renegotiate the terms. Our future isn’t for auctioning away.
Never mind Solar, wind or Tidal they have sussed the perfect power generator for a Scots July
link to independent.co.uk
IndyRef2 net zero project, a solitary success of the Scottish National Party.
Indy mandates buried in a cavernous hole, waiting to be filled in by carbon capture hot air! As fully endorsed by Tory bosses.
The Scottish electorate.. Green behind the ears!
Leaving aside the bizarre tendency of Green parties worldwide to be infiltrated by deeply weird and unsavoury people, what strikes me most about them is that what passes for a belief system in them is not, in fact, environmentalism at all.
It’s closer to Neo-Ludditism. In other words, they just hate modernity, and they don’t much like people. Except weird ones.
For example, while there is significant mileage in solar, wind and wave power, with Scotland being particularly well placed in the latter two, the one available energy source with the smallest carbon footprint is nuclear. It certainly has its issues, but a bit like deaths in plane accidents, they are wildly over-presented in statistical terms of risk. Relatively speaking, nuclear, even the current type, is safe.
And Greens loathe it, and always have. An available and ‘practically’ endless energy system that would eliminate carbon missed emissions.
And Greens hate it.
Because they are not ‘pro-environment’. They are anti-modernity. They are anti-society. They are anti-people.
They hark back to a golden age, almost certainly pre-humanity, where the world is wilded and the nasty artificiality of civilisation doesn’t exist. All to a soundtrack, somehow provided without human intervention, of Greensleeves.
I happen to agree with Hobbes that in its ‘natural state, life is nasty, brutish and short. And the Greens would applaud it. and the sooner their strain of misanthropic hatred of society is placed in permentant landfill the better.
Well said rev, the fact that in 2019 alone, China produced over one billion tonnes of steel, something that it had previously taken the UK almost 150 years to do should really drive home your message about were the real damage is being done.
Zakynthos is another name for the greek party Island of Zante. 3 weeks? Jeaso…
Was she doing a season out there like the SNP holiday rep, and pretend British ambassador Stuart Mcdonald? With the leaked emails?
Lets ban all cars, lorries and buses but ignore this:
link to theguardian.com
I wonder how many of the environment protestors go home to one of these heavy polluters?
The Green Party are for the most part just another species of political grifter exploiting our natural tendency to ‘want to do good’. They are all fund raising for charities and initiatives that pay their salaries first, followed by their marketing budget to hunt for more money.
The environment never sees a penny of it.
Because naturally it’s someone else’s job to do something about it and someone else’s coin that has to pay for it. Their job is simply to point to the problem and place blame whilst polishing their halos.
I’ve yet to meet one of these middle class do-gooder tyrants that doesn’t go on long haul ‘eco’ holidays or have less than the average number of cars and more than the average number of wood burners.
This is the argument I’ve been making for years. I’ll recycle until the cows come home, but you wonder what the point is when no actual pressure is being applied to the BRIC countries.
The only reason Herself got into bed with Harvie, Slater and the rest of the Green weirdos was to try and boost her green credentials once she’d left office. Purely self serving and all she’s done is make a right fuckin mess of the whole thing and is going to be lucky to get a job in Gregg’s at this rate (no offence meant to anyone working in Gregg’s but it’s not the UN)
I agree with the entirety of this article, but with two observations:
1. Scottish oil and gas is comparatively expensive to extract compared with other sources of supply, and therefore the big producers will not be so interested in doing so if they can get oil and gas from elsewhere in the world with less production cost. That’s just a business decision. Even the new licences granted yesterday are only time-limited. It’s not a long-term proposition.
2. Scotland has fantastic resources for renewables. But so does every other nation around the North Sea, and Ireland as well. The west coast of France also. So who is Scotland going to sell the power to? At best, Scottish renewable energy is a means of reducing domestic and industrial bills. It’s not by itself a game-changer.
I agree with what you say apart from one thing, I used to be happy to see wind turbines if it meant our electricity would become cheaper but we are now faced with the eyesores all over our beautiful land and the benefit goes one way, to the U.K. coffers, because we don’t have a government who can fight for a fair return on our renewable energy.
My husband has a question which should be asked of those fighting for net zero, when being interviewed, the first question should always be “how did you get here? Jet, train, car (gas guzzler or mini). Did you walk, cycle, car-share?” Greta Thunberg and all the rest of the stop oil protestors should also be obliged to answer this question too. What carbon footprint do they have?
According to the Britnat propaganda station Radio Scotland based in Glasgow, 80% of oil stolen by Westminster from Scots is sold off to the highest bidders abroad.
I’d say its too late to stop global warming, the Earth does heat up and cool down naturally however we are speeding that process up, and once the huge amounts of methane trapped in the frozen Tundra and below the oceans finds its way into our atmosphere the process will move even faster.
World governments and captains of industry are leaving future generations with tough decisions over the climate.
The fire sale of our wind resources was the biggest blow to Independence in the 21st century.
The economic realities advanced by Stu are just that and therefore unarguable and beyond debate.
Oil was the economic foundation of the SNP argument right up to the 2014 Referendum- remember the £1200 pa each Scot would see as a result of the “ oil bonanza”?
The SNP bemoaned the licensing of the North Sea to the Oil Giants- “ we would have been like Norway “was the claim.
Then fuck me they go ahead & do the very same.
They have sold us out.
Rather than delay the introduction of Wind infrastructure until such time as we geared up to do most of it ourselves- which probably would have taken a 5 year joined up plan – they rushed in to “ lead the way” & virtue signal at the Environmental junckets they love to attend.
It was an act of greed- greed for fame and righteousness and all that goes with it in the alternative “woke” society which our politicians- of every hue- seem to live in or aspire to.
I know it’s a serious subject, Rev, but I chortled my way through this piece. You have the knack of producing the bon mot. The virtue-signalling is off the wall with climate change here in Scotland and the chattering middle-classes just don’t get the irony. Glad your graph tells the real story.
Is that the same Kelly Given who believes that women should just give up their safe spaces to men in pink, above-the-knee crimplene numbers and lippy in a matching shade? Hmmm… figures. Maybe someone could interview her in thirty years’ time and ask her how it has all panned out?
The depth and breadth and width of stupidity among our elected representatives and self-appointed, kindergarten prophets of doom shocks on a daily basis now. That Lammy person who thought that men got a cervix when they got their penis inverted needs to go back to school to learn first year biology. I suppose he also believes that they give the women (‘transmen’) a prostate, all the better to appreciate anal sex.
The only answer must be that both the politicians and the media types, plus their researchers and advisers are as mad as March hares or they are so ill-informed that they really do not know what they are wittering on about most of the time – or a mix of both?
Yes, we all need to do what we can to bring in ‘green’ energy, and, yes, Scotland is uniquely endowed with natural resources (fat lot of good it has done us thus far) and we look set to be selling off our renewables at the penny a pop stand at the showies, but if I hear or read about one more wee scrote who thinks that the ‘boomers’ stole their future…!
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I had four (not all at the same time) pairs of footwear as a child: school shoes and gym shoes, never worn except at school; sandals for summer; and wellingtons for winter; two sets of clothes – one for school (sometimes second-hand) and one for home time, and very rarely, something nice for parties/weddings, etc., usually a hand-me-down; I never had a holiday that I can recall until after I married. We did not have a car unless my dad borrowed one for short trips – to hospital in the city, for example. No computers. No mobile phones. Money was tight. It’s tight now. I cannot recall melting down and spending the gold reserves which should have been conserved for the next generation.
What should we ‘boomers’ do, especially the females, to satisfy the contempt of the young for us: volunteer ourselves for slaughter, our flesh turned into dog food and our bones turned into biodegradable, organic and sustainable fertilizer? At least, we would be out of the way and not using up precious resources and breathing out carbon dioxide to enlarge the hole in the ozone layer and overheat the planet, and our bodies could provide nourishment for sustainable, organic plants. Hmmm… musn’t give them ideas.
While windfarms are welcomed the gigantic 55 meter tall pylons planned to take our electricity down to England are not.
Unless these pylons are stopped the SNP will lose votes across the country. Put them underground like Denmark does.
When I see the likes of Alan Brown MP fighting on behalf of the greedy energy companies who want to despoil our landscape and communities, I find it hard to believe that this is the party I used to vote for in every election.
link to sundaypost.com
I hate to agree with the likes of McWhirter, but on this occasion I do, 100%! And nobody had to coax me to reach that conclusion. If the Greens went after the polluters who dump sewage into our waterways, I might begin paying some attention to them.
Lorna Campbell,
which country is Scotland going to sell renewable energy to? All of Scotland’s neighbours for 500 miles in every direction have just the same resources of wind and tide, and those south of Scotland have more solar.
You can’t transmit it over 500 miles unless at eye-watering cost, and it’s then likely to be more expensive than being generated locally.
I will still be recycling my cardboard and my beer cans but as Rev Stu points out, it’s pointless.
30 seconds research tells you that coal consumption has continued to increase, after we blew up most of our power stations, and it reached a new world record high in the past year, with forecasts suggesting it will grow further.
What blew my mind was the claim I read just last week that China is ramping up coal-fueled electricity generation to meet the air conditioning demand caused by this summer’s heatwave conditions! You could not make it up.
And all while China is chopping down its trees at a rate that outstrips the Amazonian deforestation we have all been taught to agonise over.
We need to transition to renewables, but we need to do it in such a way that we do not beggar ourselves. Whoever can square that circle will get my vote.
I don’t trust the Greens with this at all. They have had their chance, and the only solution they have come up with is to surgically screw up human sexual characteristics to such an extent that nobody can breed anymore.
It’s easy to blame China for global warming emissions. But of course the rest of the world buy everything from China. We need to buy Scottish.
If we’re bringing back the oil, why not Scottish steel?
Time to bring back manufacturing to the British Isles. The rest of the world have had it their own way for too long.
I’m with you, quite partial to the majestic sight of a windfarm too.
As for the weather, well it’s all cyclical and while man has impacted the environment greatly in recent history, we are surely smart enough by now to find a solution that doesn’t involve these nut grazers in our parliaments. Can’t we replaced them with AI or summit? 😉
BTW was in Corfu in 1988 (or was it 89) and in old school temps it was over 100F nearly every day and no-one had air conditioning back them either. Even with temps in the hi 30’s low 40s (new school C) the crisis back then wasn’t global warming it was the hole in the ozone, did they ever fix that?
We need to Bring back Alex Salmond. Along with the oil to lead our new Independence oil bonanza. 100 oil and gas sites strong.
50,000 jobs. Carbon capture of course. Drill drill drill the black gold.
Ted – All agreed on heat pumps. Another thing the chap said that because they cannot heat water to above 60’C, then bacteria begin to grow in the pipework. They work in some climates, just not ours. By the way, water in your hot pipes is at 60’C but your radiators need water at 80’C and so you can begin to see how ineffective they are. The article above about the £86m wasted in the DRS will be greatly damage the SNP vote in the Highlands. This will be portrayed as money that could have been spent duelling the A90. Margaret Thatcher spent more on duelling the A90 than the SNP have and I suspect some of the SNP vote will go to the Tories.
” But Scotland attempting to solve climate change with renewables and harebrained policy initiatives is like a toddler trying to put out a house fire by crying on it ” .
ahahahahaha . brilliant , Stu . A perfect analogy
Totally agree with everything you say here – even re windfarms , which lack only some Green Party * trans * Knights of Dole-bound Countenance ” ( Donna Quixotes ) on donkeys , tilting at them , to emphasise to their twirling majesty .
I commented the other day that many of the actions that could help reduce our human contribution to C.C are worthwhile in their own right – broadly …..consume less of everything .
Of course we all want clean , green energy – ideally produced locally . Not only for the benefit of the environment , also to ( hopefully ) end the relentless violence generated by those who seek dominance of existing carbon-based energy sources .
Does anyone think the Middle East would have been subjected to so much * outside interference * had it not possessed such an abundance of oil ? Ditto Scotland , albeit to a much less destructive extent . Damaging political interference nonetheless
One thing is certain , absolutely certain . Whatever any of us think . whether pro or anti , every last drop of oil will be extracted from the North Sea – who is going to prevent that happening , Sunak ? Starmer ? the Yousaf Harvie n Slater comedy trio ? L.O.L
No one . The only question is …cui bono ?
Actually that question is redundant , we know who will benefit , the same people who always benefit .
So the real question is pretty basic . To what – if any – degree will Scotland AS A NATION benefit ?
One look at flight radar or the oceanic equivalent shows what little bloody difference our not burning coal or gas is going to make. I’m keeping my multi fuel stove and they can stick their air source pump up the chimney.
Margaret Wilson says:
Yes questions questions
Since you exhale around 2.5 pounds of CO2 every day what are you doing to reduce this personal pollutant.
Margaret Wilson says:
Yes questions questions
Since you exhale around 2.5 pounds of CO2 every day what are you doing to reduce this personal pollutant.
Net Zero carbon will kill everyone on the planet, plants cannot grow without carbon the food chain would collapse and everyone and everything would die
At one point the Greens were actual eco-socialists but a broad church of different opinions to solve the problem of climate change so you’d have people perfectly fine with nuclear power if it meant less carbon being taken out the ground and burnt.
We should be able to bring emissions and clean the air as a country by using fact based solutions while using intelligent solutions to bring the bulk of people with us rather than instantly leap for 15 grand fines and mock them for not having a new car. We’re a country brimming with renewable options yet the Scottish government has failed to capitalise on them, and yes, there are of course problems with Westminster (did anyone expect the Tories to be enacting green policies for more than a few years?) but Holyrood could do so much more.
Instead tens of millions are wasted on schemes which aren’t even half-baked and have only consulted the people the Scottish Government pay to tell them what they want to hear. We’re also still not any nearer to meaningful land reform as Green issues now are either complete rubbish in regards to the environment or Trans issues. Neither does anyone any good bar a small number of people with power and far too much influence.
The problem is of course these people aren’t good at making solutions because the one thing about being activists is you’re trying to get other people to make those solutions for you. When you put activists into power they act, well, like the Greens and a chunk of the SNP are.
With you almost 100% apart from the wind turbines. They don’t seem to have a long life span nor are their components recyclable as far as I understand. Always a bit worried about the fact that our recycling/greater use of electricity is often at the expense of people in poorer countries where rare elements are mined. Virtue signalling seems to have become a national pastime.
Well said. Thank goondess folk are starting to speak up on this madness.
Honestly, this business of low emission zones, one minute described as to help fight global warming, then the next in near hysteria to stop children ‘dying from asthma’. Having lived in London for many years, perhaps there can be an argument for a lez in very central London, to an extent, but most certainly NOT in Glasgow Dundee or Edinburgh.
Look at Glasgow, imposing a silly LEZ, with the busiest motorway running right through it city centre. Just what is the freaking point? Besides air quality in Glasgow has never been better. Take a trip back in history and you find the likes of the largest chemical works in the world at St. Rollox. Nope right now all the lez in Glasgow does is inconvenience ordinary folk, and ruin businesses srill recovering from the covid lockdown and the effect of brexit. Rich people can run out and buy a brand new TESLA or whatever, that they can plug in to charge in their driveway or garage in Newton Mearns. Poor folk can’t.
Again, there is Edinburgh, whose entire road network is systematically being completely buggered up by one pro cycling zealot, councillor Scott Arthur, whose personal anti car obsession is driving policy. Road after road just closed, or turned into a useless ‘play park’ in Corstorphine, bollards everywhere, wholly against residents wishes.
If you are unable to cycle, then tough, according to councilor Scott Arthur. And here’s the real killer, Edinburgh has the best air quality of any city in the UK. But Edinburgh council thinks that because pollution levels marginally breached UN limits by a fraction of a percentage on some days (mainly caused by buses in Nicholson Street), then it is time for a silly LEZ.
If I am rich, I can just buy a new Porsche which is compliant, or even an S-class mercedes which is compliant. No impact on the rich, but for ordinary people replacing a family car on a whim is a serious business. But idiots like councillor Scott Arthur might say, just get a second hand car which is compliant – a good idea yes? No. Because evidence from Auto trader shows that prices of compliant second hand cars have jumped in price in cities where a LEZ is introduced.
Anyway, Edinburgh has no need for a LEZ. It is nonsense, driven by anti car dogma, by a man who is a cycling obsessive.
Then there is Dundee, a relatively compact city, where much of the centre is pedestrianised, and many streets restricted to buses only. The LEZ in Dundee will cover just that area. It is absolutely the ultimate example of stupdity and me-too environmental virtue signalling. A waste of taxpayers freaking money.
None of the lez zones in Scotland will appreciably alter air quality, and as pointed out in the article above, combined, they will have the square root of bugger-all impact on global warming.
I agree we need to better look after our world, but it requires global change in how unfettered capitalism works, and the rush to keep consumers consuming. Telly after telly, mobile phone after mobile phone, ALL manufactured with built – in product redundancy.
Such change requires global leaders to agree. Until that happens, Scotland and its loopy councils are just pissing in the wind.
Stu.
A really good well written piece on the stupidity of those the virtue signal while using jets for holidays,
I had a laugh at John Kerry in America yesterday on the climate Change nonsenses.
In the questions put to him he was asked, did he not own a private jet?
He adamantly said No.
After a few more stern grilling questions.
He admitted his wife does.
These ideologists on net are restricting us while not believing in it for themselves.
Do as we tell you, not as WE actively do every day.
Funny how there haven’t been any chaired televised debates between both believers and skeptics from the scientific community – and there are eminent skeptics, if you care to do a modicum of research – over the question of man-made climate change.
If the evidence is as incontrovertible as the believers say you would think they would be clamouring for such debates. No?
A Scot Abroad.
I agree that the energy market is limited but that’s far from the main potential benefit.
If the predictions for unlimited renewable electricity are correct ( and I accept that’s a big if) then beyond the cost of upkeep of infrastructure & other operating costs would a non profit National Energy Company not lead to thousands of pounds being left in the pockets of users – not only for domestic use but for car charging & even Industry?
How much energy could free energy create?
David Hannah – All of the others, from all of the other parties, are small potatoes compared to Alex Salmond. He needs to be resurrected somehow and that won’t be easy because many dim-wits have decided they don’t like him, but he is an undoubted leader and he is what Holyrood needs just now, because it is dying in front of us.
You don’t have to burn oil to exploit it – hydrocarbons are used as feedstock for most of the household chemicals we use today, and more importantly in the Pharmaceutical industry. Even if you are against having more plastic (I generally am), not many people would argue for us having fewer medicines…
So – use the oil just don’t use it as fuel. Given the renewable resources Scotland has in wind and waves for electricity generation, and the (over) plentiful supply of water, hydrogen is a better option anyway.
Robert. I know a man that lives in Townhead in Glasgow, the housing estate next to the college. Working class. He’s being charged £6 a day to get to his work because of the LEZ.
They’ve already made 180,000 in fines from the poorest.
The Glasgow night bus is about to be cancelled.
The train service has been cut since nationalisation without the benefits and record, SNP rail ticket hike.
Planning permission by Susan Aitken of the corrupt SNP Glasgow City Council now wants to literally turn glasgow into rubble. By demolishing the Buchanan galleries and St Enoch’s centre.
This fat, ugly horrible woman a fat cat, in rat city wants to destroy our way our life. Get her out.
£60 per day fine, Glasgow lez. * Harvie wants to punish everyone with a gas boiler. Now Willie Haughey says his heat pumps don’t work.
The tens of millions of pounds on the bottle recycling plan.
Humza’s in bed with Lorna Slater. He can’t see the destruction they are causing to all of us.
Mostly agree but a bit disingenuous to only compare CN UK CO2 output on absolute basis rather than per head. We each do bear some responsibility.
you canny beat good patter…
“But Scotland attempting to solve climate change with renewables and harebrained policy initiatives is like a toddler trying to put out a house fire by crying on it”
that’s top trolling…
debate over!
patter 100: bam’s zero
Penvelope at 527pm,
England currently imports electricity from France, Scotland and the Isle of Man. It doesn’t bother paying for the electricity it steals from Scotland (like our oil it also steals), but actually pays commercial rates for the others. So, there is a clear need in England for electricity. If Scotland were independent right now, we could be charging England commercial rates for power generated here in Scotland from renewables.
David at 535pm,
Aye, cannot believe they are going to demolish the Galleries. What a terrible waste. I mean, what is wrong with it? Are they going to knock it down and replace it with a big bronze turd like they did with St. James centre in Edinburgh? The plans for St. Enoch are a mess, and again hard to believe. But hey, that thudding sound of big fat stuffed brown envelopes in Glasgow city chambers always has the desired effect.
Stu, you have had a habit of saying exactly what I’ve been thinking over the years and you have went and done it again.
The climate activism in this country is all getting a wee bit chicken oriental isn’t it.
They want to cancel the poorest from commuting into and out of Glasgow City centre. That they want to demolish. And they also want to put young men and women at risk after a night out with First Bus to cancel all night buses in Glasgow.
Susan Aitken out. Stop the demolition of our city. She sickens me.
Climate change theoretical modelling = theoretically remodelling taxation.
But not for the elites just you and I.
Excellent article. I agree with every word.
As Karen @2.49pm says China is now the (cheap) manufacturing plant of the world. I imagine this must cost a fair bit in the carbon stakes.
Subsidize production here with extremely cheap, renewable energy. And a subsidized workforce (I favour a negative tax scheme). That way the money goes directly to the workers (and thus the economy).
And thus reducing China’s need for coal burning, CO2 emissions, and container ships.
A good, green and economically sound policy. It won’t happen though as it will reduce the number of jobs for the boys. And Humza won’t allow that.
The reason for China’s rapid rise in emissions is that almost everybody subcontracts their manufacturing to there. The only way that they’re going to be reduced is by us not buying stuff that we don’t need.
A new car every year – or every 3 years – is a good example. The lifespan of a car is far longer than that but people are conditioned (right word?) into a mindset that’s susceptible to advertising and so on. We used to buy new things when the old thing broke or was not repairable; now things are manufactured with the intent that they aren’t repairable. That’s wasteful.
It’s depressing how little we can do in the grand scheme of things.
Excellent article Stu , though it’s a Given when I seen and heard her last night the telly got a shoeing.
Love that rant!
On the subject of Frankie Boyle – is there a more demoralising sight than a careerist comedian?
I wish we could stop them Robert. I wish. You ask any Glaswegian and they are horrified at the plans and the way the city is being run. They pine for the rare auld times.
The Greens in Scotland aren’t green at all. Harvie jumped on the Green Gravybus because green policies are seen as ‘progressive’, and he touts his Gender ‘Ideology’ as progressive too.
The’green’part of it is purely to add credibility to his twisted aims. They’re not green, they’re just ill….
Robert Louis, at 5:41pm,
Scotland doesn’t generate electricity. It’s not Scottish electricity. It’s electricity generated by privately owned companies in Scotland. It’s paid for at commercial rates, just the same as with French or Belgian electricity.
Electricity is also sent to Scotland from England and Northern Ireland over the year, depending upon demand. Overall, it’s quite a fair balance, near 50:50. Your entire rant is without foundation.
No wonder Indy’s going nowhere when there are more fools without intelligence than wise people on the Indy side.
I can only conclude that people that thick are the products of several generations of inbreeding. The kind of inbreeding common amongst US MAGA Republicans and Green Wokists alike. I fear we will never be free.
@ ASA
Cough.
“Transfers
To offset the difference between England’s electricity generation and demand, net positive transfers were
received from Scotland and Wales, as well as from continental Europe via the France, Netherlands, Belgium,
and Norway interconnectors (the Norway interconnector came online in October 2021). During 2021, these
sources provided 20.0 per cent of England’s total electricity consumption, up 2.7 percentage points from 2020.
In 2021, Scotland exported 33 per cent of its generation in net transfers to England and Northern Ireland,
down from the record level of 37 per cent in 2020.This was in line with lower generation in Scotland (due to
lower renewable output), though Scotland’s electricity demand also decreased (down 1.7 per cent). Wales
exported 13 per cent of its generation in net transfers to England, up 10.2 percentage points from the 2020
value which was the lowest proportion in the time series. Total generation in Wales has fallen 35 per cent
since its peak in the time series in 2016, predominantly due to the reduction of coal and gas fired-fired
generation.”
From page 3 of 13
link to assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
And on the odd occasion Scotland does receive a small amount of electricity from England, you have to take into account that they are most likely generating that electricity in combined cycle gas turbines and will be using some gas from Scotland’s geographic area.
Live data showing GB leccy grid currently producing 27% of demand with gas.
link to gridwatch.templar.co.uk
Live data showing gas flows. (newly “upgraded” page is shite as has removed the bar graphs to better illustrate comparative flows)
link to data.nationalgas.com
Hi Mar Vickers.
RE: Nuclear power.
You should read Peter May’s latest novel, “A Winter Grave.”
It is set in 2051. The back story is that in the 2030s, the independent Scottish government’s Energy Minister commissioned a feasibility study into deep underground storage (0.5km) of nuclear waste from the proposed Ballachulish A nuclear power station. The study said that, although there was little chance of tectonic shifts in the Great Glen actually happening, it remained a possibility. The report was kept secret, to allow the building of the power station.
In 2050/51 it happens. A relatively small surface earthquake caused by the tectonic plates on either side of the glen sliding against each other (barely noticeable) causes fractures in the bedrock where the waste is stored, resulting in a massive underground radiation leak, penetrating the surface, which is also hushed up by the Scottish government, whose Prime Minister, Sally Jack, is the Energy Minister from the 2030s and is facing an imminent general election.
A rather good read and makes you wonder what we’re not being told currently.
So the usual BS from the English governments PM when he issued over 100 new oil and gas licences in the North sea, the BS comes in the form of the unproven carbon capture technology, and not only that some believe it cannot be done, whilst power stations are bemoaning that it will cost hundreds of millions to fit out the power stations to cope with the unproven carbon capture technology.
The English government and their propaganda news outlets in Scotland are claiming tens of thousands of jobs will be created with carbon capture in Scotland, when twice before the English government promised a carbon capture facility north of the border. if you ask me this carbon capture announcement is all in aid to turn heads away from the 100 new oil and gas licences issued by this foreign government.
Of course we were lied to in 2014 the foreign government and its MSM said that North sea oil and gas was running out, yet here we are nearly a decade later and the foreign government is still issuing oil and gas licences.
English governments have been stealing from Scottish waters for decades now, and of late Sturgeon the Judas via the Great Scotwind giveaway sold us out again.
The Claim of Right outlines that the English government CANNOT take Scottish assets, that these assets are for the benefit of our own people. Yet not one Scottish politician has ever tried to enforce the Claim of Right, most shy away from it, they prefer to pretend that parliamentary sovereignty in Scotland supercedes popular sovereignty it doesn’t.
Red Tory House Jock speaks on the bedroom tax.
“A senior Scottish Labour MSP has said that the party cannot commit to scrapping the bedroom tax.
The party’s economy spokesperson Daniel Johnson said Labour “can’t make uncosted pledges ahead of the election because we don’t know the economy that we will get.””
Meanwhile billions will be spent on renewing Trident, and funding 404.
Most folks seem to buy into the ‘cock up’ theory of Government.
Not at all. Our elected morons are controlled.
The UN Agenda21 report set it all out in 1992. – Smart cities, sustainable development, rewilding and the rest.
Achieve compliance with international treaties sponsored by the UN and Bobs yer uncle.
preach, rev, preach – targets hit … 100%
that vid – wummin says some incredibly dumb crap, no one pulls her up for it – is like the exact opposite of this
link to youtube.com
Scotland should hand out 100 fracking licenses for SE England, including under Trinity College, Cambridge and wentworth golf course, plus Chelsea/Knightsbridge/Mayfair and take bids for a new nuclear waste disposal site in Henley
– what? equal partners in a union, eh! Has anyone mined for gold in the new forest? – why not give it a go, think of all the jobs and investment and GDP growth
(r4pes your wife in front of you, asks why you aren’t cracking one off yourself … get in on this mate, better together)
Scotland’s needs a “Don McLogan” for its leader
link to youtube.com
– this shite is too much to take …
pump the oil, you cunt
you wanta pump me facken wife, you kebab smear on a toilet wall
touch one drop of that good blackstuff ahll cut yir fuckin ands orf
Scotland has the oppertunity for literally thousands of small privately owned hydro turbines and micro wind turbines all adding to the grid but the feed in tarriff was ended in 2019.
Now they offer the small export guarantee which all utility companies with over 150,000 customers must sign up to. Hilariously they get to set the tariff they pay for buying your elctricity and the only pressure on them is that they must GUARANTEE it will be more than nothing.
I pay EDF 30 odd pence per kWh yet they are allowed to pay me 3p per kWh.
Net zero is not about saving the planet. We are the carbon they want to eliminate.
Robert Louis says:
31 July, 2023 at 5:41 pm
Penvelope at 527pm,
England currently imports electricity from France, Scotland and the Isle of Man. It doesn’t bother paying for the electricity it steals from Scotland (like our oil it also steals), but actually pays commercial rates for the others. So, there is a clear need in England for electricity. If Scotland were independent right now, we could be charging England commercial rates for power generated here in Scotland from renewables.
———————————-
What utter rubbish…
Same rate across the uk and if scotland had to pay the subsidy by themselves electric unit price would go up 10 fold.
RoS,
the Claim of Right (which is now entirely meaningless in terms of sovereignty and governance, but let that pass) makes no mention whatsoever about England and Scottish assets.
Why lie when the text is a matter of record?
As for the “bedroom tax”, I’d far rather that my tax money went to supporting both Trident and Ukraine than to some benefits grifters in Glasgow.
Republicofscotland says:
31 July, 2023 at 7:07 pm
The Claim of Right
——————————
Do you shout at the moon also?
Brian here’s a list with dumped weapons and chemicals.
link to nonproliferation.org
Not to mention the vast amount of nuclear weapons and god knows what else that’s stored at the RNAD Coulport.
link to secretscotland.org.uk
Brian I meant to add this as well, even China stopped taking UK trash, but in Westminster’s eyes Scotland is an ideal dumping ground.
link to theferret.scot
@Republicofscotland says:31 July, 2023 at 7:12 pm
Meanwhile billions will be spent on renewing Trident, and funding 404
[sigh]
Well, seens as how you returned to this again, like a salivating dog to a great steaming mound of rancid vomit:
Medvedev was once again nuclear sabre rattling, a little over 13 hours ago, in fact.
Ah dinnah think it wise tae unilaterally disarm while that eejit is oot there threatening us with annihilation.
So, billions well spent in ma humble opinion.
I learned long ago that joined up thinking isn’t your strong suit RoS, but have you ever stopped to think about the future of an iScotland where the bulk of her wealth generating assets are out of sight, below the horizon, far out on the ocean? Have you ever stopped to consider that if we cannot functionally protect those assets against all takers, that we will be comprehensively fucked as a nation, economy, and functioning state?
Brian.
Scotland the dump.
I’ll finish off with these couple of links, in one the UKAEA has been dumping radioactive materials from Douneray in the sea for over 40 years!
link to heraldscotland.com
The MoD has multiple secret sites that are contaminated with Radium but refuses to clean any of them up. Dalgety bay being a well known one.
link to theguardian.com
The MoD has been poisoning the Gareloch/Loch Fyne with Chlorine which is deadly to marine wildlife, along with dumping Tritium as well, even SEPA spoke out against this one.
link to theferret.scot
Thank you for underlining so succinctly the risible nature of the virtue signalling of so many of our political leaders.
The problem faced by so many of our poorer fellow citizens in coping with “net zero” can be seen as an analogy for the world as a whole.
To put it simply, nine tenths of the world, including China and India are still dreaming of attaining even a fraction of the wealth the West generates and consumes.
For them, the choice is between a world which is cold and materially poor, or hot and materially rich.
Which world do we think they will choose?
@Republicofscotland says:31 July, 2023 at 7:07 pm
The Claim of Right outlines that the English government CANNOT take Scottish assets, that these assets are for the benefit of our own people. Yet not one Scottish politician has ever tried to enforce the Claim of Right
I’m kinda thinking this proves that our Scottish politicians are not quite so daft as they are frequently made out to be on here.
We are, after all, talking about assets maybes hundreds of miles offshore and hundreds of metres below the sea bed. Which is an idea the people who drew up the Claim of Right would never had had in mind.
Would never, in fact, have been able even to comprehend.
A bit like somebody styling themselves Republic of Scotland. In a nation where everybody believed in the Divine Right of Kings, your bowels would have been in a red-hot brazier and your head off your shoulders faster than you could have said “haud oan there noo – let me jist explain”.
Not thinking the Claim of Right counts for much hundreds of metres beneath the offshore Continental Shelf, RoS, soz.
@Republicofscotland says:31 July, 2023 at 8:44 pm
Tritium occurs naturally in all water sources throughout the world.
It has a (geologically speaking) trivial half-life, but remains at steady state concentrations in nature as it is constantly being manufactured by cosmic rays striking the earth’s atmosphere.
Any reader worried about tritium can sleep soundly tonight!
What Scotland desperately needs in net resilience. Bike lanes are lovely but bikes run on calories. Our calories are at the end of a long supply chain..
@Lewis Moonie says:31 July, 2023 at 8:50 pm
Which world do we think they will choose?
As you write, the hot and materially rich one.
On the subject of virtue signalling, all those grifters telling us we are historically responsible for climate change damage in the third world can be redirected to China, India, etc.
After all, back in the days of our industrial revolution, we had no idea it would end like this. Our ancestors were innocent. Those countries now piling on the coal (literally and figuratively) know exactly what they are doing.
Main.
Pay attention read the articles, then engage your brain.
“The Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament pointed out that Faslane’s submarines discharged radioactive tritium.”
As for your 9.04pm comment.
The CoR was hidden for a long, long time, only now is it coming to the fore, and sticking in the minds of people, this will only increase as time goes on.
“In just a year we have seen the relevance of the Claim of Right Act 1689 go from, ‘Eh? What’s that when it’s at home?’, to becoming a chant at independence marches, from ‘it’s no longer law because it’s gone into desuetude’ to the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates asserting that no one ever argued it is not still law, only that we cannot say what it means. (Oh, I think we can say what it means!) Sovereignty of the people now trips off the tongue of every pro-indy politician, though most still manage to convince themselves it is perfectly compatible with elected politicians assuming our sovereignty at the ballot box. (Canon Kenyon Wright must have been wrong when he said that either the Parliament is sovereign or the people; it cannot be both.) ”
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
Remember, “Net Zero” is what you get when you add up all the emissions and all the carbon captured with the total being, well, zero. So, take for example, all that lovely moorland. If it soaked up a billion tons of carbon each year (assuming we stopped burning it), we could happily emit a billion tons of carbon and we’d achieve Net Zero in which case Our Lady of the Environment, Greta Thunberg could erect a statue in our honour.
Net Zero, Hydrogen Economy, Circular Economy, etc. It’s all feel-good bullshit from a bunch of clowns who’d be challenged to count the fingers on one hand. All of it is based on wishful thinking and driven by wanting to appear virtuous. Most of it is aimed at keeping things exactly the same as they are today. Very little of it will make any difference.
Scotland actually could make a difference globally. Restore all, and I mean ALL of the peatland. Get rid of the f**king Sitka Spruce, stop heather burning so a bunch of fat cats can bag a few grouse. The amount of carbon pulled out of the air by peat is quite substantial. We could then present an invoice for a suitably large amount to our partners in Europe. The good folks in Kamchatka can to the same and send Beijing the bill.
RoS,
the Claim of Right says absolutely nothing about the English and Scottish assets.
It’s strange that you try to state that it does, when the full text is published.
“Any reader worried about tritium can sleep soundly tonight!”
“Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. It emits beta radiation, which can be very dangerous if inhaled. Like other forms of ionizing radiation, tritium can cause cancer, genetic mutations and birth defects, and assorted other adverse health effects.”
Net zero, year zero. Same old same old. Neither ends well.
“the Claim of Right says absolutely nothing about the English and Scottish assets.”
No but it sets out the rights of Scots as they are sovereign.
I’m pretty sure this impinges on those rights, which can be found here.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
“while in a political and economic Union it was never in a territorial Union. This is crucial as it means Westminster has NEVER had the right to own Scotland’s oil and gas or our seabeds. Westminster has always known this but has engaged in a huge, illegal deception and fraud to our detriment. ”
“You cannot treat or sell off assets you don’t own in the first place. Those assets have always been owned by the Scottish people in the form of the Common Good, no Parliament or Monarch ever owned them so they could never be transferred legally to Westminster, the King or Queen, or anybody else.”
All Scots should read this and you as well ASA whatever you are.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
Brian Doonthetoon,
Anyone who buries, or even thinks of burying, nuclear waste anywhere near a major geological fault such as the Highland Boundary Fault or the Great Glen should be incarcerated for life in a mental ‘hospital’.
Just bought a couple of tickets to Alex Salmond’s show.
I see he’s got lots of guests such as Mike Lynch, Kate Forbes and Joanna Cherry.
Brilliant stuff. Play it again First Minister, Rt Honourable Alex Salmond.
Got to laugh at all of the people that think that CO2 is bad for this planet forgetting what they have been taught at school etc that CO2 is PLANT food and the less CO2 on the planet means less plants, trees, plankton etc to put out the OXYGEN that everything else on this planet needs to survive. COS is actually ONLY 0.45% of all of the gasses in the atmosphere – yep only half of one percent of all gases. Some experts such as ex-Greenpeace CEO Dr Patrick Moore in the video A Dearth of Carbon on Youtube have exposed that CO2 was falling to the detriment of this planet until humans activity re the industrial age started putting out more helping to make the planet GREENER and CLEANER.
Also as I have said before there is NO problem with air pollution in the UK even in London and certainly NOT in Scotland. Go watch the two ULEZ Air Quality videos on the Brown Car Guy channel on Youtube re him testing the quality of the air at different places in London and there is no problem there – the places that did have high but not unsafe reading was up outside the underground stations and rail stations.
These MAFIAS that run our governments etc really are laughing at how easily it is to sucker the dumb people who believe all of this drivel and everything else they are doing as part of their agenda to bring in their Digital Currency, Digital Passport, 15/20 Minute Cities with NO travelling outside your area and NO ownership of anything as per The World Economic Forum – the 500 million people that will be left by 2050 that is as per UN Agenda 21/UN Agenda 2030 as was shown on the Georgia Guidestones – that’s right the Net Zero they want is rid of is most of the people on this planet and NOTHING to do with CO2. Don’t forget we are all CARBON.
The even biggest laugh is that there are Volcanoes going off on this planet all over the place putting out far more CO2 and pollution than man has since the start of the industrial revolution and these MAFIAS, behind this Global Warming changed to Climate Change SCAM since the planet has actually been COOLING for decades at least now, are actually hiding the FREE clean energy discovered by Nikola Tesla and the FACT that all internal combustion engines can run on tanks of WATER with just a splitter in the engine compartment to split off and burn hydrogen with NO pollution with the rest of the waste as WATER VAPOUR as per Stanley Meyer and others and lots of other clean advanced technology etc that they are hiding.
All vehicles on the road just now are legal and fit for driving on the road and no council or government has the right to stop you driving anywhere because it is all FRAUD they are involved in and they are NOT doing it for the benefit of the people or on behalf of the people they and every political party is following the orders of the MAFIA puppet UN and WEF etc that have NOTHING to do with the people of this country or any other country as you never voted for them and you have no CONTRACT with them and they are getting away with all of this because the masses are too lazy to use their brains to research any of this just like they got suckered by the SCAMDEMIC and this DELIBERATE Cost Of Living SCAM etc as well all part of that same agenda.
“At best, Scottish renewable energy is a means of reducing domestic and industrial bills.”
Sounds good to me!
@Republicofscotland says:31 July, 2023 at 9:39 pm
Any reader worried about tritium can sleep soundly tonight
Tritium exists mostly as hydrogen that makes up water molecules and it is also contained in water vapour in the atmosphere, rainwater, sea water and tap water.
[sigh]
Every breathe you take, every cup of coffee you drink, every piss up against a wall, contains tritium.
This stuff is not really rocket science RoS.
Sure, if you fill a kettle with concentrated tritium, boil it, make a cuppa and drink it, while inhaling the steam, it won’t do you any good.
But nobody is at any risk of doing that.
If you can’t find any empirical data to scare the bejeezus out of people,to get them to do what you want,
it is necessary to call in the mathematical modellers such as Neil Ferguson with his (several) pandemics
or Michael Mann with his climate stories,
to create fictional tales of horror.
Politicians are putty.
RoS,
the Claim of Right is utterly meaningless now. Been meaningless since 1707. Not law, never passed by any properly democratic convention. It’s complete shite, even when Gordon Brown and some other fools tried to rewrite it 25 years ago, it still wasn’t taken into law. It’s got about as much heft behind it as a third rate TV advertisement for Fairy Liquid. It’s just for fools.
Great piece rev and this article should be read by everyone in Scotland. The Greens are a meaningless bunch of cretins and for them climate change is just a fashion statement as is independence.
@Billy Carlin says:31 July, 2023 at 10:16 pm
the FACT that all internal combustion engines can run on tanks of WATER with just a splitter in the engine compartment to split off and burn hydrogen with NO pollution with the rest of the waste as WATER VAPOUR
Sure, but the water splitting takes as much energy as the energy you get back when you recombine the hydrogen with oxygen to make water again.
So what drives the water splitter?
I heard Willie Haughie having his Gerry Ratner (of the jewelry shop chain fame) moment on radio short breed tonight.
Heat pumps are useless in Scotland it is to cold, but they use them in Norway in 80 percent of homes
But they are useless
But you sell them are you saying they are useless. Not the ones we sell we only sell to big businesses domestic ones are useless.
What’s the difference
Silence
Oh dear I don’t know who set him up for this one.
Bombs not people, then? Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
Whenever I hear this vapid airhead manhater Daughter Of Nicola talking, all I hear is somebody sitting in a puddle and farting repeatedly. It’s that coherent and interesting.
John Main 10:48pm
Showing how wrong you are as it does NOT take as much energy to split the water as the energy you get back and what are you going on about as you are NOT recombining the hydrogen and oxygen to make water again – the water is being split to burn the hydrogen and by doing this it is far safer than carrying a tank of water around than a tank of hydrogen. Stanley Meyer was doing this no problem as were many others – their videos used to be taken down by Youtube so don’t know if anyone has put any of them back on there but Check The Evidence website had videos on there re this such as Infinite Energy But Not For The Masses. There is also a guy in Iran running ICE vehicles re the Stanley Meyer splitter method but I cannot remember his name off hand – the splitter is electrical run off a normal car battery from what I remember as well – I have the diagram showing all of this stored on one of the drives on my computer that I downloaded many years ago.
Billy Carlin,
Did a quick read, Well said, good post.
The enlightenment time may come yet to those that think dumping any waste in the sea good, especially if its away from us symdrone.
The sea is in constant motion, it does not stay in one place.
Dump it in and around Scotland and it will move away either further north or down south,
It ain’t gonna say I don’t like Scots so I may hang around Scotland for a few years, we are a island surround by this constantly moving fluid that gives life or kills it.
Everyone in the UK should be angry from as far up north to as far down south depending on gulf streams and winter storms,
Am all right Jack cos I con’t live there may be for you, be very temporary security. Until the tice moves the sea,
Has anyone informed King Chucky the Claim of Right is obsolete nonsense & not a condition of the treaty of union anymore?
No. Thought not.
Cause sane people don’t reject the evidence of their eyes and ears.
Good news for indy tho. If that’s obsolete now then so is the union.
Revstu assumes that the only global effect of having an environmental policy is the direct impact on energy consumption/pollution itself. In other words, the measly 1%. Seems short sighted especially for a political blogger.
This place is as enjoyably mental as always.
We’ve now got people saying the Claim of Right is something important. It isn’t, it’s totally irrelevant.
We’ve also got people doing pseudo-science on chemistry.
Absolutely bonkers.
Long may it last.
Titan, a moon of Mars, is rich in hydrocarbons.
Did it have organic sedimentation?
Why are some oil deposits found in the crystalline basement, below sedimentary deposits?
Oil can be made using marble, water and pressure.
Do oil wells refill?
Fletcher Prouty claimed that the oil industry was more of a geopolitical weapon than science.
Wow! Some people seem to work long hours on this site and are early risers too!
BDTT, thanks for the Peter May recommendation – I like his writing.
A Scot Abroad said;
“RoS, the Claim of Right is utterly meaningless now. Been meaningless since 1707. Not law, never passed by any properly democratic convention. It’s complete shite, even when Gordon Brown and some other fools tried to rewrite it 25 years ago, it still wasn’t taken into law. It’s got about as much heft behind it as a third rate TV advertisement for Fairy Liquid. It’s just for fools.”
The Claim of Right is built into Scots law, it is built into the Scottish constitution, and it is built into the Treaty.
The complete shite is all in your head!
BP and HSBC profits being detailed on radio right now.
How much longer are we going to tolerate this?
The bit you’re missing, ASA, is that the Claim of Right didn’t make new law, it didn’t need to. It only cited existing law, and then the Convention used existing law to sack the king.
The fact the guy who stood to profit massively from the SNP’s misguided heat pump policy has done the decent thing and said they are a bad idea for Scotland reveals yet again the staggering stupidity of the SNP/Green co-abomination. How did they not know this FFS? (We all know why.)
When they are not finding new ways to nonce up your kids Sturgeon’s Nonce Party are vividly demonstrating how astonishingly uneducated and ignorant they are.
And even if the Heat pumps did work look at the mental costs… this is massive vote loser.
Another massive vote loser is the LEZ. That is three thousand people right there who will now have a burning hatred of the SNP.
Lorna Slater really is the poster girl, someone so dumb she is dangerous. The damage these clowns are doing to Scotland is huge.
Who in their right mind would want to invest or move to Scotland with these business hating neo-marxist arseholes in charge. In fact I’d be looking to get the fuck out.
I predict by the time the next general election opportunity arises the SNP are going to be widely hated. All the mad shit they are doing and the grotesque incompetence and corruption is really starting to add up and we have hardly started…
Xaracen,
The bit that you are missing is that the Claim of Right is utterly, totally, completely, and entirely irrelevant in modern times. It’s not part of UK law, and Scotland is merely a region of the UK under our law, apart from devolved matters.
You need better arguments, rather than ancient and irrelevant guff. And for Christ’s sake, don’t start James Che on this, because he will drone on and on and on if he gets the chance.
The Telegraph article about Heat Pumps and Haugheys opinion is biased and politically motivated. Heat pumps work very well in cold climates, as example Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia and much of Europe where weather can be extreme are effective heating solutions. Modern Heat pumps work well down to -25 deg and some even colder this due to gas compression. Haughey should know this coming from a refrigeration background. Heat pumps are also less noisy than most gas boilers especially when you consider they are outside and not inside the house. less than 50 decibels operating noise. Heat pumps temperature ranges are designed to accommodate a decontamination cycle to defeat Legionella. Some modern HP do attain temperatures of 70 deg.As far as I can ascertain he is now in to Facility management and not into HP installation. His motivation and basis is firstly down to his political allegiance and secondly he is invested into a £1 billion home building project in Scotland. Why would he fit HP’s if he can avoid it by creating bad media. The costs of installing HP would hit his profit, it really is that simple.
@Billy Carlin says:31 July, 2023 at 11:28 pm
Infinite Energy But Not For The Masses
Who for then?
Is there a secret sect somewhere enjoying infinite energy? How do they stop the secret leaking out?
Have you converted your own car? How does it get through the MOT? I hope you have told your insurers, cos otherwise, your policy could be invalid!
Google is your friend, Billy. Type:
How much energy is required for water splitting?
The answer is:
commercial electrolysis requires around 53 kWh of electricity to produce one kg of hydrogen, which holds 33.6 kWh of energy
You can see you need to put in half as much energy again as you get out, due to the fundamental inefficiencies in any process like this.
Anyhoo, this is all good news in a way, cos if you really could run a car (or anything else) on water, all those umpty gazillion pounds invested in oil, gas, coal, wind, tidal, solar, nuclear, etc would have been a complete and utter waste.
A time when some of us still had faith in Blackford and the SNP.
“The claim of right acknowledges the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of government best suited to their need, and the obligation of elected representatives, in all their actions and deliberations, to ensure that the interests of the people of Scotland are paramount. The claim of right is not simply an historical document but a fundamental principle that underpins the democracy and constitutional framework of Scotland. The 1989 claim functions as a declaration of intent regarding the sovereignty of the Scottish people.”
link to hansard.parliament.uk
No wonder the they are having a slow uptake on heat pumps installs . I applied to Scottish gas to start the process of heat pump installation (they are offering to navigate the £5k grant process for you) Step 1 .Without anyone coming to my house I am advised my property does not meet the current energy performance standards to get the £5k government grant on offer. I ask how do you know this? Answer : with my post code they are using the last home report for my property carried out in 2013. ((Wtf) If I wish continue I need to get a new updated report showing any energy performance enhancements which have been carried out, a new energy report is approx £300 . I also need a clear area of 1 meter wide in a suitable location on my property perimeter as the cabinets containing the pumps need space. They (snp/greens) want to make illegal to sell a house with a gas boiler in the very near future . They are not making this an easy transition and btw How the fuck are they going to do they do this in apartment buildings ?
As the foreign owned media continues to crucify Margaret Ferrier, the same media tows the line with regards to England’s PM.
“The Prime Minister’s visit to Aberdeenshire saw just 15 minutes pre-allocated to speak to the media – five minutes to BBC Scotland and 10 to print publications.
And the 10 minutes he had allocated to print media came with strict rules, including a ban on reporting anything that happened until 10.30pm on Monday evening – nearly 12 hours later.
Members of the print media had been given less than 24 hours notice of where Sunak would be visiting beyond the “north east of Scotland” on Monday “morning”, with No 10 asking for sign ups to accreditation without revealing any more about the time or location.
Those members of the print media who were able to make the trip to St Fergus, near Peterhead, were ultimately given 13 minutes with the Prime Minister. ”
Meanwhile the English PM couldn’t name even a few of his Holyrood puppet MSPs, I suppose he doesn’t need to know the names of those insignificant fifth columnists at Holyrood, as long as their loyalties lie in the right place, that’s all that matters.
“RISHI Sunak had to be rescued by Alister Jack as he failed to name even one Scottish Tory frontbench MSP, other than group leader Douglas Ross.
In a moment that will leave the Scots Tories at Holyrood red-faced, their boss squirmed when he was asked to name four of them.
The moment came after the Prime Minister said he was due to meet with Scottish Tory group leader Douglas Ross during his visit north of the Border.
Asked by journalists if he could name four other MSPs on the Scottish Tory frontbench, which is the second largest party in Holyrood, Sunak pointedly could not.”
link to spiked-online.com
Stan Meyer claimed to split water using very little electricity (using platinum alloy catalysts?)
He was poisoned during a meeting with some ‘Belgian businessmen.
Patent control is an important industry.
One of the things I like about this site is that you can never tell on any day where it is going to lead.
Here’s a wee excerpt from Wiki on Stan Meyer:
“Meyer’s patents have expired. His inventions are now in the public domain, available for all to use without restriction or royalty payment.[13] No engine or vehicle manufacturer has incorporated Meyer’s work.[14][15]”
Sounds like a perfect task for Dan. Fill your boots, Dan, and strike a blow for Scottish Freedom & Prosperity that will see your name living forever alongside those of Wallace and Bruce.
I’d do it myself, only I’m too busy right now.
Ring any bells?
“In the early 1950s, the Anglo–Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), or BP as it is now known, was run from London and owned jointly by the British government and private citizens. It controlled Iran’s main source of income, oil, and by 1951 had become, according to one British official, “in effect an imperium in imperio [an empire within an empire] in Persia”.
Iranian nationalists objected to the fact that the AIOC’s revenues from oil were greater than the Iranian government’s.
Britain’s ambassador in Tehran, Sir Francis Shepherd, had a typically colonialist take on the situation. The declassified files show his writing: “It is so important to prevent the Persians from destroying their main source of revenue…by trying to run it themselves”
He added: “The need for Persia is not to run the oil industry for herself (which she cannot do) but to profit from the technical ability of the West.”
Of course Iran was perfectly capable of running its own oil industry. In March 1951 the Iranian parliament voted to nationalise oil operations, take control of the AIOC and expropriate its assets. ”
link to declassifieduk.org
When a tractor Scot wants to stop you talking about Claim of right, the treaty of union, and wether Charlie is king of Scots you know that these things irk him as a unionist that is determined that nothing in Scotland has any teeth,
You heard from the Colonial master yourselves
All this ancient legal guff as he calls it, has no meaning or binding ties for Scots or.Scotland,.
For once I might agree with him,
Lets walk away and leave this ancient guff with no meaning behind,
While not arguing with Stu’s facts, I disagree that UK need do nothing with regard to Climate Change.
1. If all small countries reduced their footprint it would add up (money a mickle maks a muckle).
2. Local effects e.g. on health are desirable.
3. Setting a good example, without virtue signaling or green washing, can have an effect.
4. See Categorical imperative, by Immanuel Kant, and Moral imperative both on wikipedia.
Geri,
He was crowned king Charles of England and Wales,
He was not Crown king of Scots due to the Claim of right, holding Scots Sovereignty.
He is therefore not king of one kingdom known as the united kingdoms of Great Britain,
Geri,
Not being king of one united kingdoms plays havoc with the treaty of union articles.
what a lot of horse shit.
James Che,
I don’t want you to stop talking about the Claim of Right. Quite the reverse. I want you to keep droning on and on and on about it. As well as your thoughts on the treaties, coronations and so on. At great length, with at least 30 repetitive BTL posts per article. It’s what you are known for.
And it’s damaging to Indy, because bypassers can see that Indy is only supported by mentalists.
Charlie came for cuppie o tea in Scotland,
No one in Scotland saw him Crowned king of Scots,
Then he went home.
I’m applying to patent my idea for ‘desiccated water’
ASA translation: only British resources are worth billions. Scottish resources aren’t worth anything.
Main translation: bombs and stuff are only dangerous if they’re not dumped in Scotland by England.
There,sorted. If only they’d told us sooner? let’s all go home and wave our onion jacks.
Who do you think you are kidding Mr T.
prj – Heat pumps which are ground sourced can work in any temperatures, but they cannot be installed in most locations in Scotland. 50dB is loud. A petrol lawnmower operates at 70dB and a chainsaw at 110dB. You don’t start one of these up in the middle of the night, do you? Also, the effect is cumulative, so that of 4 or 5 of your neighbours have these running, the noise can be unbearable. Is 70’C sufficient for radiators? Maybe better at 80’C? What you say about a cycle to kill-off bacteria in the pipework is interesting though and I didn’t know about that.
Anybody with a modicum of sense, (I know that excludes certain people, and we all know who), can find a variety of water powered engines online, and frequently see they’re running with home made components.
That this can be done is beyond debate, and interestingly too, if you adapt the fuel delivery system, you could theoretically adapt most existing combustion engines to run on the hydrogen, so you wouldn’t need to scrap the same number of vehicles. Just imagine how popular that would be with the motor industry… a whole new life for your clapped out old banger as an eco-friendly runabout!
There is an issue over systemic corrosion too… You’d be introducing water with enhanced conductivity into your engine and fuel system…
There is one big caveat however, and that is your “water” needs a top secret additive to raise it’s efficiency as an electrolyte, and it is this additive that means you can’t just fill your fuel tank with H2O from the tap.
But don’t panic. While I don’t actually know what the added agent is, (though Hydrogen Peroxide springs to mind), and that itself burns to zero emissions. It’s not some miraculous, radioactive concoction.
Efficiency and output? I don’t know, but there are a couple of similar videos showing a petrol engined generator adapted to run on water, and producing enough juice to create it’s own electrolysis for fuel and run a conventional power tool quite normally as load. Looks fairly encouraging to me, but I’d guess you’re going to lag behind Petrol / Diesel for efficiency once you deduct your onboard fuel synthesis.
So why aren’t we all running about in water driven cars? Good question, and I suspect the answer is the same for Tesla’s communal electricity supply. The manufacturers of cars and fuel would have no control over the resource, so couldn’t make any money from the deal. (See why they’re so keen on batteries?)
So maybe don’t be in such a rush to convert to an electric car, and maybe plan on keeping your classic vehicles a little longer…
Electric cars aren’t the swindle, but questions need asked why water vehicles aren’t on our roads already.
prj – Dan is the expert on this subject and I will not cut across him. What he recommends for every house is electric heating. Obviously we would require a Nationalized energy company to set tariffs which properly reflect the abundance of cheap electricity we should have access to. But that is another different argument.
Stu,
There are people in Scotland, England and around the world recognising that Climate Change theoretical Ideology as a transgression on Common sense,
You have more support for your post than against,
Breeks,
if there was any real world value in “water powered engines”, they’d be mainstream.
They aren’t. So there isn’t.
The Scottish claim of right of 1689 is as relevant as the treaty of union, the English bill of rights of 1689, or, indeed, the English Magna Carta.
For reference;
The effect of the Claim of Right was to “bolster the position of parliament within the Scottish constitution at the expense of the royal prerogative”.[5] It was affirmed by an Act of the Scottish Parliament of 1703 (Act Ratifieing the turning of the Meeting of the Estates in the year 1689, into a Parliament c. 3).[6] The Act was retained by the Parliament of the United Kingdom after the Acts of Union 1707.
Source link to en.wikipedia.org
Given that the acceptance and continuation of the terms of the Scottish claim of right is set as a pre-condition (and in the pre-amble) to the ACTUAL Scottish act of union by the Scots Parliament agreeing to the articles of the 1707 union treaty, I cannot see how it is no longer relevant.
Indeed, considering it was incorporated into Scots law by the Scots parliament in 1703 (prior to the union), and was explicitly preserved by Westminster following the 1707 union treaty, I cannot understand why anybody on here would legitimately try to suggest it is no longer applicable or relevant in constitutional terms.
My guess is, that those on here suggesting the Scottish claim of right is irrelevant are either pig-ignorant, or just lying
‘british‘English unionists. Probably both, IMHO.Billy Carlin,
How do you burn Hydrogen without using oxygen and so creating water?
@ Stuart Mackay at 1.17pm:
Billy Carlin doesn’t have the understanding of chemistry expected of a first-year high school pupil. Either that or he believes in magic. Actually, that seems quite a strong possibility!
Robert Louis,
the Claim of Right is entirely theoretical. We are all now citizens of the U.K. There’s no mechanism – deliberately – for the Claim to be exercised. It doesn’t even define who’s a Scot and who’s not. It was bullshit even before 1707.
It’s junk history. Irrelevant. Not exercisable. Total waste of time getting worked up about it.
@Breeks says:1 August, 2023 at 12:02 pm
questions need asked why water vehicles aren’t on our roads already
Oh but they are, Breeks, they already are. Have you never speculated about the badges on the cars in front of you at the lights? GTD, TSi, E-whatever? What do they all mean? There’s one that identifies a water-powered vehicle to those in the know, but like the secret additive, I can’t divulge it on here.
can find a variety of water powered engines online, and frequently see they’re running with home made components
Thanks for the heads-up, Breeks. I’ll have a word in the right circles and we’ll get this sorted.
James Che @ 11:09 am
“No one in Scotland saw him Crowned king of Scots”
And he did that trick in broad daylight too, and before an audience of ‘proud Scots, but’. They thought they were attending an historically important event, not merely a deceit which confirmed their own condemnation as Imperial Chairlie rin awa wi oor Scottis soveranety.
Sunak did another trick yesterday, chorayin Scotland’s stuff in broad daylight, again thanks to the ‘proud Scots, but’ lackeys and their craving for dependence.
As Cesaire put it, the colonialist “takes refuge in a hypocrisy which is all the more odious because it is less and less likely to deceive: psychoanalysis embellished with existentialism, it gives astonishing results; and, as if by magic, the moon is turned into green cheese”.
@Stuart MacKay says:1 August, 2023 at 1:17 pm
How do you burn Hydrogen without using oxygen and so creating water?
If you take a conventional internal combustion engine cylinder and piston arrangement and provide a pure hydrogen “atmosphere”. Then if you inject a measured amount of oxygen and ignite the mixture you will get a power stroke due to expansion.
Hook it all up to the usual crankshaft, input/output valves, etc and arrange for a steady supply of hydrogen atmosphere and oxygen fuel and you get a working motor which can be used for all sorts of applications.
Providing you get the stoichiometry of the hydrogen/oxygen mix spot on, the only exhaust product is a completely harmless gas that engineers call maets. This condenses at normal ambient temperatures into a liquid called retaw, which is equally harmless and can be disposed of to the environment.
John Main says:
1 August, 2023 at 2:00 pm
@Stuart MacKay says:1 August, 2023 at 1:17 pm
How do you burn Hydrogen without using oxygen and so creating water?
If you take a conventional internal combustion engine cylinder and piston arrangement and provide a pure hydrogen “atmosphere”. Then if you inject a measured amount of oxygen and ignite the mixture you will get a power stroke due to expansion.
Hook it all up to the usual crankshaft, input/output valves, etc and arrange for a steady supply of hydrogen atmosphere and oxygen fuel and you get a working motor which can be used for all sorts of applications.
Providing you get the stoichiometry of the hydrogen/oxygen mix spot on, the only exhaust product is a completely harmless gas that engineers call maets. This condenses at normal ambient temperatures into a liquid called retaw, which is equally harmless and can be disposed of to the environment.
———–
Aye nae bother. So wid that b ok in ma auld vx polo then?
Gee wiz J
Robbo
Do not attempt to run your polo with VX.
Robert Louis,
The Scots ” Claim of right ” is still extant not just because Westminster preserves it, it or because it is a Reserved to Westminster.
It is the law of Scotland and as part the Scottish constitution pre union.
As the “bill of rights” is the law of England pre- union.
However Scotland even in a union cannot claim the english bill of rights as Scotlands domestic legislation or laws, it cannot Claim that it owns the Magna Carta either,
The English Westminster parliament like wise cannot acquire the Scots pre-union domestic law legislation as a part of English laws.
They can alter or share those pre- union laws. They just agreed to acknowledge each others laws as separate laws that would be in the treaty of union.
Under the, Law Reform ( Scotland ) act, however we see the discussions held at Westminster discussion their own alternative interpretation of the Scots Claim of Right,
Englands Westminster parliaments version, ( for that is What it is when after the union it changes , re-interprets and reforms Scots law, separately from Englands)
That the new Westminster interpretation does not mean the “Scots Claim of Right” , but the Claim of right had restriction and actually just meant the Barons and other parliament Scottish parliament members,
This of course is Englands presumptuios interpretation of Scots law under the new (Scotland) act. From Westminster.
And this presumption and interpretation is copied in Wikipedia,
The “Claim of right” covers Scots Sovereignty as of ancient times the Claim of Right re kindled in 1689 does not specify whom or which Scots are exempt to use the Claim of Right as Westminster restricts its usage.
Most people in Scotland have not researched Westminsters interpretation of the Scots law of “Claim of right”
It would be recommended to do so,
However unaltered and with no reinventing of a new interpretation of the “Claim of right”it includes all Scots.
For without it the Scots are not in the treaty of union,
The answer is directly below our eyes, snotter powered engines.
James Che.
This is an older comment from a Mr Ingram on the matter in a newspaper.
“The Scottish Parliament was not abolished in 1707, it merely stopped sitting. Since the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320, sovereignty has resided with the people and the recall of the (fully empowered) Scottish Parliament is solely a decision for the Scottish people.
The recall of the Scottish Parliament in compliance with the wishes of the Scottish people is constitutionally correct and its legitimacy is unchallengeable in any court in the land. Nor do the terms of the Treaty of Union indicate anywhere that the recall of the Scottish Parliament has to be organised or sanctioned by Westminster.
Scotland’s right to self-determination is upheld by Scottish constitutional law and supported by international law. Scotland does not require permission, from any organisation outside our own country, to recall our parliament. Nor do we need another referendum, for the will of the people has been adequately expressed in multiple mandates.
Westminster does not have the constitutional authority to counter the expressed will of the Scottish people. There was no union of the national parliaments of Scotland and England under the Acts in 1706 and the 1707 Treaty of Union.”
RoS,
the problem that you’ve got is that to Claim the Right, you have to have a democratic event, such as a referendum. After all, a few thousand saltire waving lions gathered in George Square doesn’t represent Scotland.
And there isn’t any appetite in Holyrood to do that, nor set in motion the public servants to have such a democratic event, count the votes, etc
Then there’s the matter that under the U.K. unwritten constitution (clever, eh?) the Scots constitution no longer exists.
It ain’t happening. It’s ancient nonsense. It’s only believed in by fools.
A interesting read on sovereignty and how one man’s writings A.V Dicey on parliamentary sovereignty is undoubtably wrong.
“Parliamentary sovereignty is based on the views of Dicey and not on statute law.”
link to ukconstitutionallaw.org
Carwyn Jones is the ex-Welsh FM who pointed that Brexit cut clear across Scottish sovereignty (Brexit vote) and that he was more than surprised that our FM at the time Nicola Sturgeon did absolutely nothing about that.
“Then there’s the matter that under the U.K. unwritten constitution”
Oh but it is written, (English Constitution) its just not codified, which allows whatever English government of the day to interpret it (sections) in whatever fashion it wants to, to further whatever agenda is on the table at the time.
A outline of Scotland’s constitution.
link to salvo.scot
Anyone who wants to Just Stop Oil can do just that. Just stop using oil, and gas.
If it really is the majority that the fake polls keep mentioning, then that would be an immediate 50% reduction. No need to wait for 2030.
Sorted.
The rest of us can give it at least 10 or 15 years before looking around to see how the rest of the world is doing and deciding to jump on the bus or not.
RoS,
that’s not a written down Constitution, it’s just what those fruitloops at Salvo have decided to put on a sketchy website.
There ain’t no Scottish Constitution.
Bear in mind that not only are we going about ruinously expensive renewables, there is a whole world of environmental legislation that makes it even more expensive. Multiple regulatory bodies examine every scheme on multiple layered zoning, legislation, protection and conservation issues.
For example, the Pentland Firth Floating wind farm needs to have tunnels dug to protect he nearshore environment, bringing the cables ashore. This exact same part of the environment was ripped up 40 years ago to drag a new nuclear reactor up to the adjoining test site. If it recovered then, why can it not recover now? If it never recovered then why is it worth protecting now, other than to keep armies of civil servants employed writing reports.
James Che and Republicofscotland.
Good posts. The simple fact is that the union treaty in no way undermines the Scottish claim of right. Indeed it strengthens it, as it is a pre-condition of the union. It is just as relevant, if not more so, now than ever.
It is interesting that the usual yoons on here, merely assert opinions rather than backing them up with verified sources.
We cannot on the one hand say, Westminster controls Scotland, as per the union, and then on the other hand assert that those key points within the Scottish act of said union do not matter anymore.
There is no provision whatsoever for Westminster to retrospectively re-write the articles of union, or indeed change their relevance. Such is the nature of international treaties, which the union of 1707 is.
For example, imagine a treaty between France and Germany, which allows Germany to purchase French wine at a massive 30% discount. The treaty could be ratified by acts of both parliaments in France and Germany. In such circumstances France cannot some years later unilaterally decide that it will unfairly change the terms of the treaty, unless it wishes to see Germany decide to withdraw entirely – which it could.
So it is with the treaty between Scotland and England of 1707. Their is NO provision whatsoever within the articles or acts of union for Westminster at any stage to re-write or amend any of the articles of the treaty.
Where the yoons in England get themselves confused, is that they indulge in good old fashioned English exceptionalism. ‘It’s what is said in England that REALLY matters’, in their minds. It is in many ways a sad carry over of their colonial mindset, where they viewed any culture or language, no matter how sophisticated, as ‘inferior’ to English and England.
They foolishly assert that the English bill of rights of 1689 IS important, but the Scottish claim of right, also of 1689, is somehow, quite magically, not. English exceptionalism and arrogance, writ large.
But that really is England’s problem. There is not one reason why following a democratic decision in Scotland by Scots, that Scotland cannot unilaterally end the treaty of union. From that second onwards, England becomes a foreign country, and has no say in the matter. That is why they have been usurping Scottish democracy to prevent a referendum in any way they can.
Such is the English way…’perfidious Albion’ indeed. Or, as somebody on here likes to put it, ‘never trust a unionist’.
The only document which provides for English control of Scotland and Scottish affairs is the union treaty, nothing else. Scotland can and should unilaterally end the treaty ASAP. It is not about declaring independence, for that suggests we really are just a region of England. We just need to decide to end the union. AND WE CAN.
*We’ve now got people saying the Claim of Right is something important. It isn’t, it’s totally irrelevant.*
It was a condition of the treaty of Union.
You absolute roaster.
But if you believe it’s nonsense today then why did chucky swear his oath to uphold it when his Mam popped her clogs?
It seems you’re in the wrong forum. Try a Royalist one & spit to them what nonsense & outdated pish it all is. Let us know how you get on..
Chucky being king with a devine right to rule is outdated for a modern country – you fail to realise that even Scots never accepted that pish even in 1707 so who are you arguing with here? Who has sovereignty? Both do.
Scotland exercised popular sovereignty, the King didn’t have God given rights to rule Scots & they could sack him if they wanted.
Sovereignty lay with the ppl of Scotland.
English sovereignty lay with their monarchs parliament.
Two completely incompatible world views.
That was an accepted non negotiable part of the treaty of Union which is very much alive today & if it isn’t – yay! We’re an independent country already & the treaty of Union is terminated, thanks!!
Scots sovereignty lay with its ppl. It’s crown institution IS the ppl.
Chucky being sovereign over Scots? Nope.
That’s why he has no pomp & ceremony here & he only comes for private viewing at the Scots sovereignty & a cuppa
to admire the Scots Crown. He’d be run out of town minus a head if he ever dared wear it…
The BBC pish, *it’s too wee* lol! Keeps the deceit up to roasters like you. A Royal jeweler could’ve fixed that for him – IF IT WAS HIS to wear. It isn’t.
When Scotland returns to being an independent country we shall maintain popular sovereignty, not through a monarch, a new parliament or a politician – but by its citizens as it always was.
ASA:
“…. no….no….NO”! [stamps foot]
“You can’t…you CAN’T! England rules. We’re shite….” etc etc ad infinitum.
Pity that during the dash for gas we all got told diesel power was the future for our cars… rather than using the significantly cleaner burning autogas (propane)…
It’s so much cleaner burning that the engine oil stays clean and golden due to the much reduced carbon and particulate emissions and contamination created during the combustion process.
A simple catalyst in the exhaust to further reduce emissions and you have a very clean burning engine.
Apparently they could put a man in a fancy rocket and land him on the moon decades before, but naebody could harness the massive amount of naturally occurring energy from the wind or tides to create leccy.
“People used to dream about the future.
They thought there was no limit to progress.
They dreamed of a clean, bright future,
where science would make everything possible,
and everybody better off…
Somewhere along the line that future got cancelled…”
And along those lines of continuing bad engineering practices and shitty designs which extort cash from the plebs, a heads up for Ford owners with engines running a wet timing belt. Blocked oil pump pickup pipe strainer issues await you, as the timing belt degrades and fibres choke the gauze.
Regular oil changes don’t really help the situation as the accumulation occurs at the pickup strainer in the sump which is before the oil pump and filter.
Republicofscotland.
You are more or less saying the same as myself.
The problem is it does not lie with us, it Should,
It is the presumption of Westminster parliament Colonising the treaty of union itself, if it exist as contractual at all,
On the supposition that there is a treaty of political parliamentary union,
It is not up to Westminster to re- interpret Scots Laws pre- union that is supposed to be part of the treaty,
The Scotland reform bill does this in many instances, that involved them at the time re-inventing what the Scots “Claim of Right” meant from to say from their point of view in Westminster, not Scotlands,
Personally I do not find any evidence of continuity that converted a promise of a two parliament union when one of those parliaments was extinguished from the treaty of the union, by the other / Westminster, whist the other continued under the old English parliament triennial act until 1708, with the same members of the old english parliament transferring into the new named parliament at Westminster of a united kingdom, with out any elections taken place.
It also is a boat rocker for the treaty of the unions validity, that was meant to evolve into one king… dom? still requiring two separate ceremonies, in two separate Countries at no synchronised time dates.
These two acts of ceremony inacted this way indicates two kingdoms in Britain, not One.
One is within the Crountry and territory of Scotland,
One is within the Country and territory of England.
And the ceremonies themselves for crowning the monarch in each Country is entirely different.
This is not a monarch of a united kingdom, all under one Crown under the sameoaths and priviledges,
The present monarchs situtation is not dissimilar to king James pre union.
Except he did not get crowned king of Scots in Scotland,and there are no pictures of him wearing the Scottish crown or regalia.
But Westminster and Charles like his mother before them for some reason not fathomable to us yet
In Scotland have continued two separate ceremonies as if there is still two kingdoms in Great Britain.
And under the Sovereign Scots “Claim of Right” we discover this is true,
As the new king of England cannot automatically be king of Scots and Scotland and never gets allowed to wear that crown even although they have to come to Scotlands kingdom separately and fake it behind closed doors,
King of one kingdom in union called Great Britain,?
A Scot Abroad said;
“Xaracen, the bit that you are missing is that the Claim of Right is utterly, totally, completely, and entirely irrelevant in modern times. It’s not part of UK law, and Scotland is merely a region of the UK under our law, apart from devolved matters.
There is no UK law, there is only English law and Scottish law. There is no such thing as the ‘UK constitution’ either, because there are two constitutions, and Scotland’s is under permanent guarantee by the Treaty, and that guarantee was ratified by both parliaments as part of the Treaty itself. I note that there was no such guarantee made for the permanence of England’s constitution.
“You need better arguments, rather than ancient and irrelevant guff.”
The ancient guff you piss all over IS the argument precisely because despite your desperately idiotic and baseless blustering, it IS current and relevant. The Treaty cites it and obliges its permanence within the Union, and the Scottish Oath of Accession cites it (much to KC III’s distaste), obliging him to respect it or relinquish his claim on the throne.
The relevance of the Claim of Right in modern times was solidly established by no less a personage than King Charles himself, and it was all over the telly, too, and not just here, but all over the world.
And I don’t need ‘better’ arguments; you’ve never managed to refute even one.
You need to take your meds.
Robert Louis,
Republicofscotland,
Geri.
The Colonialism of Scotland by down south is not doubted much here in Scotland anymore.
Colonialism over the treaty of the union by down south is looking more and more a reality too.
But here is a Colonial question I have not enquired about myself until recently.
If the monarch of the supposed ” entity” called one united kingdom of Great Britain is abiding to the articles of the treaty of union, and is upholding the Scots Claim of Right in 2023 as his mother did before him,
Does this not separate the Crown in two,between the two Countries? As of pre- union era.
If there are still two crowns, with separate ceremonies, with separate oaths, the allegiences differ.
This splits the Crown of one united kingdom into two, Yes?
Pjk… heat pump to 70deg? I think you are mistaking what is called a scrub cycle which uses the immersion once a week to heat up stored hot water to kill bugs. Heat pumps may be quieter inside than an internal gas boiler but man are they loud outside and at an annoying frequency. Another important consideration is that if you don’t have your home really well insulated you have just installed a really big kettle that stays on. Funny how the lekky companies are promoting them…….
BBC Radio Scotland has just now announced there will be Recall election in Rutherglen, on its 5 PM DriveTime news program.
The SNP should be utterly ashamed of themselves.
MP Ferrier was treated appallingly by the Party.
However, I am bitterly disappointed this petition has succeeded.
I was hoping it wouldn’t.
And it is clear English MPs acted against her because she was a pro Independence MP.
Had this been a tory, Labour or Lib MP, they would not have been treated so harshly.
Obviously, I hope it goes back to a pro Independence MP, but as I say, SNP has been a disgrace, but I’d rather one of them got in, but not because I prefer SNP these days, I just don’t want any more pro Union MPs in this country.
By-election triggered alert.
I see the mainstream press along with Farty Baillie have got what they wanted in the removal of Margaret Ferrier. The bastards at the SNP should be in hiding, disgraceful.
Xaracen,
about 99% of the laws passed since 1707 are U.K. laws. It’s only since devolution that some of the noddy little councils have been able to pass their own laws.
Scotland doesn’t have a constitution. Get used to it. Given the dwarves that inhabit Holyrood, it wouldn’t be able to operate it effectively even if there was one. They can’t even build a fucking ferry properly, and some of them are under police investigation.
Scientists will soon discover that the huge amounts of electrical energy required to power all the computer equipment and servers people use to argue on the internet about climate change, the merits of installing heatpumps on badly insulated properties, and fitting solar PV arrays on the north facing roofs of buildings above a certain latitude in the northern hemisphere, is actually more harmful to the environment than us all running supercharged V8 HumVees and hanging our arses out the window farting polystyrene packing beads into the atmosphere, and huffing on imported Chinese disposable vapes whilst we drive.
You know when you got told to take out those 100 watt light bulbs and fit “low energy” 10 watt LED ones instead to save the planet. Well your room temp just got colder by losing many watts of heat from that oldskool #DualPurposeBulb which these days in Scotland would most likely be powered by leccy generated through renewables. And to make up for that shortfall in heating you just burnt more oil/gas/coal/wood/leccy heat sources to make up for it. Plus you blew a load more of your carbon credits due to causing the usage of huge amounts of energy used in mining the resources and powering the energy intensive manufacturing processes to make all those new planet saving bulbs.
Oh dear, someone’s triggered.
😀 😀
Brilliant, get this shared far and wide. Time to oust these green idiots. As for Frankie, WTAF, surely not. Has he been carbon captured by the wokeratti?!! Love the charred child line.. ?
Gordon, so snp MP’s are anti union.
Not seeing much evidence of that tbh.
John Main @2:00pm
So, no dihydrogen monoxide then? What amazing times we live in.
@Dan Getting rid of incandescent bulbs triggering greater demand for heating oil has already been “observed” in Finland. So many variables, so few fingers, sigh.
Incidentally how are heat pumps installed in flats? Presumably you can just hang them out of the window like air conditioner units. Then again, that likely never occurred to the leafy suburb dwellers either.
Dan – I wish you would take life more seriously.
What an utter bunch of snakes the SNP are. They conspired with unionists to get their MP Margaret Ferrier removed from her seat. I hope in the coming by election, that the SNP get utterly humped.
Do people like Humza useless imagine folk cannot see what back stabbing b******* the SNP now are? Do they think this will make the public like them??
The SNP, the party of back-stabbers and lying sh*tes.
Perhaps Margaret Ferrier should stand as an independent candidate, or even as an ALBA candidate at the next holyrood election, and see them all in Holyrood, and look every last one of the back-stabbers hard in the eye (assuming ANY of them actually get re-elected).
What an utter shit show the SNP have become. Instead of supporting her, they stabbed her in the back, and the front for good measure.
Meanwhile, on here, I see the chief unionist clown is somewhat losing the rag, when confronted by the realities of such things as Scots law, the Scottish constitution, and the claim of right. Reality Vs. English imperialism and exceptionalism. Quite funny to watch..
Let’s face it, Ruthergleners may think that Labour have a good possibility of forming the next UK gov. So why wouldn’t you want a Labour MP? Might have been different if the snp had been knocking the ball out of the park, but none of them have been, not fucking one.
And as for the fat fucking embarrassment we have here on Skye…..
Ventured onto you tube to listen to the song Arielle Free objected to(thought she called it my boys my rules tbh) and this popped up straight after – devil’s Scottish apparently, hence the reported behaviour in Rutherglen no doubt 🙂
link to youtube.com
Better yet, perhaps, was another wee gem that looked to hold potential relevance to couple of the conversations upthread (turning compressed air into serious power (look like 5:1 powergain at 40psi no less(4KW out for 1HP in?))).
link to youtube.com
(Apologies for double post/bad link ref)
The SNP are completely captured.
Why does no one believe it?
The SNP is now unionist. We seen that confirmed during the Leadership contest.
The SNP will now work with Labour.
New best friends forever courtesy of the UK government.
Look for the Greens rising as a good Yoon vote to fck up Holyrood completely. Their ultimate aim is for it to close through public disgust – not by them (UK gov) No Sirrrree..
It was the Scots wot did it. They’d to step in & take it back..
Jeez, wish I’d put a 100 quid on Bissetts NO vote prediction.. I’d be cashing in thousands right now & emigrating..
@Dan says:1 August, 2023 at 4:32 pm
cleaner burning autogas (propane)…
It’s so much cleaner burning that the engine oil stays clean and golden
You can’t get cleaner than water, Dan. Run the engine on water.
Pulling one set of statistics to suit an argument is one of the things Wings once railed against. It’s unfortunate that you’ve decided too use such a tactic yourself.
This doesn’t give a fair picture at all, you have to employ other metrics, freely available, to get a fuller picture ie.
the breakdown per head of population/pollution per capita
their manufacturing sector (ie, do they actually make stuff that is worthwhile)
possibly even breakdown according to wealth. is helpful.
While China are opening new coal plants, they are also the biggest manufacturer and user of renewable energies. Indeed, China’s economy is nearly 30% manufacturing, and remember, a degree of that is Western countries ‘offsetting’ their production bases overseas to China. US manufacturing is around 15% of its economy, I believe the UK is about 10%.
So with this in mind, the approx. breakdowns for the last few years per person are :
China @6 metric tonnes per person
UK @ 5 metric tonnes per person
The big ones:
US@15 metric tonnes per person ( and they have a relatively small manufacturing sector for its size)
Qatar@32, Bahrain@22,Kuwait@21,Saudi Arabia@14, Australia@15, Canada @14, Russia@11
Essentially the big fossil fuel countries are the worst polluters.
So in this context your argument may hold some weight, our fossil fuel production is minuscule to these huge producers, however, it’s still relevant to our own profile and our commitments made to hit specific targets by certain dates.
Our pollution emissions are low in the UK because we have employed renewables, but also because our manufacturing sector has disappeared. While China actually makes stuff that is useful (solar PV’s, turbines etc) we have our young people sitting in call centres making harassing phone calls to old people trying to con them into buying stuff they don’t need – we are an 80% service economy. In other words, we are good at sitting on chairs.
Worth reminding people, making renewable technology is carbon intensive, so you have to ask yourself, would I rather have some pollution created by people actually making stuff that, in the long run, will reduce emissions or have people sitting in offices doing what ? call centre harassers , bankers playing casino games, insurance scamming, bloated think tanks coming up with more anti-climate change drivel
Furthermore, what you fail to do, is put forward a coherent argument as to why we should be allowed to drain our seas of fossil fuels, but everyone else should cut back ?
What makes us so ‘special’ that we are beyond our pledges ? that we shouldn’t be held to our word ?
Furthermore, how do you then present that in a rational coherent way to the next climate summit, the UN or indeed the next G7 or G20 without being laughed out the room ?
‘Hey Saudi/Bahrain/Qatar etc, please cut back your old production drastically because we have to reduce carbon pollution, by the way, we’re not’
Another factor you fail to mention, is the importance of the City of London, one of the few true centres where all major banks and fossil fuel companies still have a presence. That in itself is precisely why protests should happen here.
Finally, remember, our obligation, as major polluters over the last 150 years is that we have a bigger obligation to reduce emissions faster, to allow other nations to develop. This is the idea that over a century and a half, we have gained our comfortable lifestyles at the expense of the environment, and colonisation of many of the countries now regarded as undeveloped.
The idea that somehow the targets for this should be Just stop oil or other protesters, is ridiculous, and this statement is just sad:
‘Climate change will, or won’t, happen regardless of anything our piddly little country does, so we may as well burn everything we can get our hands on.’
You demonstrate aptly the shift seen in the last few years of climate change deniers, to that of ‘delayers’. Now that it’s finally accepted that man made climate change is very real and accelerating fast, the no longer denier has morphed into the delayer ,
‘hey ok, man made climate change is real, I accept that, but these net zero targets are silly, they’ll destroy jobs/the economy etc’
Of course, the reason that will happen is because we didn’t transition early enough to greener technologies. Once, a reduction of 2% globally in carbon emissions would have sent on us on the right path, but we didn’t take the situation seriously enough. Why ? Oh that’s right, the climate change deniers lobby.
Now we have to hit targets of 5% a year or more, and the longer we delay, the steeper the hill gets.
But in your world, it’s Just stop Oil, the ‘lentil eaters’, that are the problem. They should be told to ‘shut their yaps’.
Of course, we all know where the real blame lies, at the feet of governments and industries with vested interests in continuing oil production.
Anyone looking for stats, they are freely available via internet searches for ‘Climate pollution breakdowns per capita’ or similar and the data comes from sources like the World bank, Statista, the UN etc
Republicofscotland says:
31 July, 2023 at 9:26 pm
Dean of the Faculty of Advocates
———————————
You do know he was taking the mick?
New readers will have been fascinated at the interleaving of posts today.
From one group, constant posts about the Claim of Right, about how the politicians work for us, not the other way around, and about how the Claim of Right will allow us Sovereign Scots to sack the bastids if they displease us.
From another group (with some crossover – go figure) wailing and gnashing of teeth over the humongous unfairness of an MSP who has been told in no uncertain terms that she mightily displeases us Sovereign Scots, and thus she has been sacked.
Long term readers will see just another example of cognitive dissonance writ large on Wings BTL, as per usual.
Ho hum. It’s a bonny nicht and I’ve got a litre of Highland Spring. Gonna top up the car and go for a drive.
“our obligation, as major polluters over the last 150 years is that we have a bigger obligation to reduce emissions faster, to allow other nations to develop”
Nah.
Back in the day nobody knew anything about CO2 and climate change. I won’t accept any guilt for that. None of us should.
Nowadays, we all know what is happening, and the biggest “third-world” culprits, China and India, are in an all-out stampede to burn every barrel of oil and ton of coal they can get their hands on.
Go preach to them.
The people of Rutherglen and Hamilton West now have the power to bring independence back on track. Pro-indy supporters should abstain and let the SNP vote crash and burn thereby making Yousaf’s position as leader of the SNP untenable.
Hi stuart mctavish.
“The Devil Went Doon Tae Forfar” lang afore he wahndird in Glasgow’s direction!
link to youtube.com
John Main – Talking about cognitive dissonance, Highland Spring’s owned by the Arabs – did you know that? They sell it all over the place in Riyadh. So, it’s no better than oil really and you’ll have to buy it back off the Arabs if you want to use it to run your Volkswagen. I stand to be corrected of course, but I don’t think a Volkswagen will run off water because water’s neutral and won’t burn.
@ Stuart MacKay at 6:45 pm
#VizTopTips
The cheapest way to heat your flat is to heavily insulate your own flat’s walls and ceiling, but teach everybody that lives in the flats below you that insulation is a total scam and a waste of money. 😉
Welcome to Convection Club.
The first rule of Convection Club is: You do not talk about Convection Club.
The second rule of Convection Club is: YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT CONVECTION CLUB!
I think that Ms Ferrier should stand again, either as an Independent, or as an ALBA candidate. She has her record to back her up and, if she stood as Alba, then you can be sure that there would be a lot of canvassers treading the pavies on her behalf.
TBH lentil munchers in Scotland are a problem for the environment because we don’t grow lentils in Scotland, and therefore they have to be imported from far flung lands with all the carbon footprint that entails.
Plus the significant amount of greenhouse gas flatulence emissions lentils induce post ingestion compounds the issue.
**From one group, constant posts about the Claim of Right, about how the politicians work for us**
They don’t work for us. They swear an allegiance to a UK government sitting in a UK parliament.
& That will continue until the barstewards are put right, to exercise OUR powers & not those to a foreign King acting like sheeple that perpetuates the myth a foreign parliament holds all the powers. It does not.
John Main,
The negative effects of Carbon were first discovered by John Tyndall in 1861 if I remember correctly. The first proposal that I know of for large scale solar power was the American ‘New Town’ of Levittown which was a post war construction beginning in 1947 but was stopped by fossil fuel companies potentially losing out on profits.
It’s now public knowledge that many Global Oil companies, like Shell, have internal reports going back to the 1960’s to 1980’s that show the harm of carbon pollution to the environment.
The idea that climate change was not known about is fanciful.
As for the idea that ‘Western countries’ have to reduce faster to allow developing nations a chance to develop, that is a plan implemented at global levels through the UN, the IPCC, the G20 etc, – It’s not my idea.
As for India, their per head of carbon emissions is 2 metric tonnes. I remind you that ours in the UK is roughly 5.
And just for transparency, the BRICS countries again have vastly lower emissions per capita than say the G20.
Here’s a useful link to get you started:
link to data.worldbank.org
Xaracen: of course there is UK law, and it is the law that overlaps both jurisdictions. Most traffic offences are UK law. The 2010 Equality Act is UK law. The Gender Recognition Act is UK law. Many other examples exist.
“These tiny islands contribute less than 1% of greenhouse gases, a veritable drop of spilled oil in the ocean, and any reductions that could conceivably be made – even if the mythical Zero were achieved – are instantly dwarfed by the increases from the big-four polluters: China, India, the US and Russia.”
The increases in China is mainly FOR “these tiny islands” and other rich western countries.
China is a polluter FOR the west.
That said, IMHO, these tiny islands are run by extremely corrupt, selfish, incompetent puppets of the secret rulers of the world.
They do not care about the people of these tiny islands. They impose the policies ordered to them by their masters.
To Stu. and all readers of, and BTL posters on Wings:
Tonight’s full moon is known as a ‘Sturgeon Full Moon’.
Look it up if you don’t believe me.
Use your imagination to see what this conjures up.
As I said many year’s ago now on this forum Hydrogen is indeed a very viable energy store for sustainably produced electricity and yes it could satisfy the petrol heads by being burned in an ICE and thus making the macho vroom vroom sound they crave but you get twice the mileage if you use the same amount in a Hydrogen Fuel Cell powered EV.
Hydrogen will be required for long haul flights, a possibility proven by the Russians way back in the 80s. More costly than aviation fuel but doable.
The French are converting an Airbus to run on Hydrogen.
Advances like Lithium Sulphur batteries will provide the range for medium haul electric flights but speed limited. Basically some domestic flights and taxi services.
Hydrogen can also be used for home heating and cooking accept our ever clever UK elite decided to scrap the old gas storage systems unlike most other countries. How lucky we are to have them, must be the public school education system.
When/if wholesale production of Hydrogen does take off maybe they will get around to looking at old Methane wells for Hydrogen storage rather than CO2 capture.
Main issue I have with CO2 capture is that you are also sequestrating 2 Oxygen atoms from eventual return to the atmosphere for every Carbon atom.
I am having difficulty in deciding what is the most important to the vast swathes of Scots, old and young.
Is it the 300 year old guff?
Maybe it is the Colonialism effect?
What about the Claim of Shite which everybody is talking about in the streets, pubs and clubs throughout the land?
Or possibly most people are concerned about rising prices and their own personal reduction in spending power?
I know which horse I would back.
Merganser@8:40pm
That is interesting. A Sturgeon Moon is the name for the full moon in August, because at the North American Great Lakes that is when sturgeon can be most easily caught.
There could be a joke there.
Signing an MP recall petition can be done by post or proxy instead of going to a signing station. Can it be divulged how many postal and proxy signings there were in Margaret Ferrier’s recall? I don’t trust either Labour or the SNP an inch.
A Scot Abroad: did I say we would be selling to anyone? Don’t think so. With investment, it could keep us going here in Scotland. This is going to happen anyway: every country will be looking to protect its own energy needs, and the closer they are to you, the less of a carbon footprint there is.
The problem for Scotland is that we have no independence in order to invest in our own future. England is massive in comparison, and what England wants, the rest of us have to supply. Almost every recent energy initiative takes our resources and sends them south. England is determined not to be left without energy or having to pay huge costs.
What will happen in the coming decades is that all countries will be seeking to at least partially close their borders, to becoming energy efficient in their own right and go backwards in the sense of enforcing public use of public travel, cutting down on flights and so on, by making them unaffordable to most. If cars are not allowed in the city centres or are heavily fined for polluting, people will be forced on to trains and buses (albeit, these are hardly anything to write home about at the moment, here in the UK. The building of new roads will also be cut back, and even electric cars will be so expensive, that the part of the population that is not comfortably middle-class will be forced to give theirs up through sheer attrition.
It is either that or we go full-blown nuclear. We might find that the woke, brattish middle-class (notably the Greens) which is berating us all at the moment will become rabidly pro nuclear when the thought of having to forego its comfortable middle-class lifestyle hits home.
A great deal could be achieved if the UK stopped posturing on the world stage and accepted that it is a paltry wee pimple on the backside of world politics. Whatever is decided, it will never be Scotland’s choice until Scotland takes the bull by the horns and creates its own independent future. In practical terms as opposed to sentimental ones, we simply cannot afford not to be independent, but neither can we afford, once independent, not to be insular. Bye, bye woke, hello devil take the hindmost. The middle-class, left, right and centre, always, but always, looks after itself first and last and always betrays the working-class.
Chas says:
1 August, 2023 at 8:51 pm
I am having difficulty in deciding what is the most important to the vast swathes of Scots, old and young.
————-
You’re shit at the gg’s
Good article Stu. But the fundamental question is the UK energy market dysfunction. You cannot allow the energy market to be linked to the price of gas. So we have wind turbines not needed on Grid at a point in time getting money for nothing. Some communities benefit but the majority do not. Years ago proposals to make domestic houses energy independent were suggested. The daft SNP want to rip out gas boilers before households have the time to react. It’s all leading to a fcykfest. Another 3 years to the next Scottish Election.
@Chic McGregor says:1 August, 2023 at 8:42 pm
The French are converting an Airbus to run on Hydrogen
Air France-KLM intend to run their fleets on synthetic kerosene.
Nothing needs to be converted at all.
Synthetic petrol, diesel and kero is the future. The battery people got in quick and captured the dialogue, but retention of the entire land, sea and air vehicle inventory and re-fuelling infrastructure is by far the most environmentally friendly solution.
No charging points needed, no range anxiety, no humongous purchase costs, no lithium mining, no child slaves.
Some people are waking up to the enormous con of the so-called electric vehicle revolution.
Formula One will be on synthetic fuels by 2026. By then, ordinary people will have noticed and will be asking why they need to get rid of their conventional petrol or diesel car at all.
JM
A 20 sec search produced this, it ignores the fact that the Russians already proved the concept by converting two Tupolev airlines decades ago and flew them for two years all over Europe but that’s par for the course.
link to aerospacetestinginternational.com
It will be interesting to see what happens in the Rutherglen by-election.
My instinct is that the SNP vote will fall, and Labour get in. But it’s the amount of SNP fall that will be interesting. Not getting over 40% of their previous vote share indicates that the nationalist loons are going to be splitting their own vote across Scotland, and therefore will
be an irrelevance in both Westminster and Holyrood. So can the SNP still cling on to over 40%?
And if they do, iScotland isnt going to happen.
Good result, either way.
Are progressives pushing multiculturalism and pro-migration policies killing the planet through increased emissions? – Discuss
All these people moving about the planet on a one off journey by sail ship – good 🙂 , airplane – bad 🙁 , is one thing.
But it’s quite another when they settle somewhere then won’t eat the local, seasonal indigenous scran, and instead require exotic foodstuffs to be continually shipped around the planet to sustain themselves.
I mean, if you want to eat avocados and quinoa seeds in Scotland, you’re part of the problem. Go move to Avocadoland ya freak, coz we eat neeps and tatties here, and it’s like racist not to as you’re dissing my land’s historical culture developed over hunners of years, (though you may get like a medical dispensation if you have like an issue with neep and tattie carbs, or like an allergy or whatevs)
What came first, The rice or the foreigner? I only got Battle of Hastings shiz in history at school, so what’s the story with Devon excelling in rice pudding production. Was A Scot Abroad’s great great granda being big on rice importing a factor or a just a symptom in all this.
TBF his ships were probably sail powered back then so a wee bit of green points kudos for not using fossil fuels.
Test
Has anyone in the SNP highlighted Sunak using Scottish wind and oil to rebuild England’s economy.
Did I miss Humza calling it out and possibly mention the oil should have finished in the 1980s.
Sould I hold my breath.
@ A Scot Abroad 9:58pm
All bye elections lead to strange results. I don’t know what the result will be. Margaret Ferrier made a huge mistake as a human being but I have understanding.
I am not of that constituency that wants to punish her. I don’t know if she intends to stand, I hope not. Labour will win in any event.
Shug
Only discernable silver lining –
The monstrous ugliness of the modern architecture which past Scottish oil revenue has paid for in London does provide a warning to the rest of the World regarding the dangers of frivolous spending of easy money, especially when it is OPs.
I notice someone has vandalised a Scottish historical site in Cambuskenneth
I have a memory of visiting the site during 2014 and it was clearly a unionist bastion, Ladyneuk street was painted with orange lodge union jacks
The usual irony àppalies as Margaret who shares to tomb was English
did you think we were stealing more oil?
we are …
did you think that was all?
ah ha ha – ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?
any Scots caught breathing will be sued for stealing company profits
pooing and shiting …
A Scot Abroad says:
1 August, 2023 at 9:58 pm
It will be interesting to see what happens in the Rutherglen by-election.
Indeed it will – this is Humza’s chance to show that he is
the true leader of Scotland. Stand and lose (he had the chutzpah to try), stand and win, the new Mel Gibson. Do not stand and he is indeed Useless.
John Main 9:27am
As I have said before you really do sound like one of those paid shills or TREASONOUS 77th Brigade scum whoring away against their family, friends and humanity on behalf of the MAFIAS that own and control most of this planet. As do some of the other clowns that have answered me as well with their DRIVEL.
You asked “is there some secret sect somewhere enjoying infinite energy” – YES the very same MAFIAS that used the Directed Energy Weapons to turn the SEVEN buildings of the Twin Towers Complex mostly to DUST on 9/11 that used FREE ENERGY as totally exposed in Dr Judy Woods court cases against the US Government (NIST) and over 20 US Companies for putting out LIES with regard to 9/11 – two of those companies were Directed Energy Weapons MANUFACTURERS who were “helping” the US Government “investigate” the “collapse” of the Twin Towers. Of course intelligent people – unlike you – would be asking what collapsing buildings have to do with Directed Energy Weapons MANUFACTURERS. Dr Judy Wood’s EVIDENCE on her website and in her excellent book WHERE DID THE TOWERS GO? expose why they were helping the US Government – because they were both involved. Excellent videos on the Math Easy Solutions Youtube channel totally exposing all of this as well.
The mainstream media were totally SILENT all the time that Dr Judy Wood’s cases were going through the courts right up to the Supreme Court because they only put out what these MAFIAS behind everything want out as part of THEIR narrative and agenda.
You say “Google is your best friend” – NO it is NOT. Google was set up by DARPA, The Pentagon and Military Industrial Complex on behalf of these MAFIAS to control what information that the masses can get. It only lets you find what THEY want you to find hence why it is all of THEIR mainstream media and websites and info that fills up their search engine with anything that goes against their narrative etc is away at the end of thousands+ searches and hard to find or shadow banned. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc were also set up by them to do the same re what information the masses are allowed to see hence all of the banning and shadow banning and “fact” checking on all of these.
It is the same with regard to Wikipedia – it is only the DUMB and UNEDUCATED BRAINWASHED idiots that use Wikipedia etc for “information” or the “truth”. Larry Sanger the Wikipedia co-founder has been exposing for years and on the video “I No Longer Trust The Website I Created” on the UNHERD Youtube channel and website that you cannot trust Wikipedia especially as it is being changed and used by the secret services and drug companies etc to demonize people, doctors etc exposing the TRUTH about what our corrupt governments are up to, and the massive harm being caused by the drug companies and their cover up of cancer cures etc and to cover up the FREE ENERGY etc. George Orwell was warning you all in his book 1984 about all of this manipulation of information and TRUTH and rewriting history and CENSORSHIP etc.
You say “If we could run our cars on water umpteen gazillions of pounds invested in oil, gas, coal, wind, tidal, solar, nuclear etc would have been a complete and utter waste” – really showing how dumb you are with this one as well because all of these are set up and controlled by the very MAFIAS that own and control most of this planet and who have been ripping the people off with all of these and which has made them the richest people on the planet and they do NOT want anything that will wipe out all of these massive profit making SCAMS against the people hence why they shut down anything that will be a threat to all of these and this includes KILLING anyone that will not back down with their inventions etc – someone has already commented about what happened to Stanley Meyer. The banker JP Morgan who was bankrolling Nikola Tesla in his research made sure that Tesla could not work again to shut down his FREE UN-METERABLE ELECTRICTY in favour of what he and other bankers etc backed electricity that we are ripped off via meters today – that same Nikola Tesla FREE ENERGY that was used as per Dr Judy Wood and 9/11 above as a weapon to turn the SEVEN buildings on 9/11 to DUST instead of for the benefit of the people of this planet.
@ Confused
Aye, funny that, but not particularly unexpected as the Scotwind giveaway was for approximately ten times out current generation capacity. Plus nae danger Scots can afford Teslas so what use would all that leccy be to us. England being close enough for Ohm’s law not to be an issue was ever so handy… for them.
And odds on we’ll still be running diesel trains in Scotland coz the track hasn’t been electrified by then…
I’d have some sympathy for Margaret Ferrier if she had done something to stand up for logic and human rights over emotion when laws were passed without serious consideration.
Or she had pointed out the absurdity after she got caught, rather than apologise.
But since she didn’t, it is hard to believe the country is losing much with her gone.
She should have use the bin lorry driver defense that she was just too damn stupid for normal laws to apply to her.
Billy Carlin 11.47pm
More and more are realising what some of us have known for a wee while,,,Main and his many “names” are the site R Soles, ,best avoided if at all possible.
Which names are those Ron?
So we’ll all know who to look out for..
Alba must stand in Rutherglen!
That’s all.
Margaret Ferrier..
Imagine if we Scots had the balls & grit of the past they would’ve told Westminster to go royally fuck itself & the Scots are legally entitled to do it.
Their parliament has no sovereignty over Scots or her constitution, or her MPs. None whatsoever. Diddly squat. Nothing. Zilch.
Because it is NOT an English parliament. It’s the parliament of Great Britain & NI.
If England wants a sovereign parliament then they should fck off & build one.
The SNP could’ve walked out & never went back until a full house sitting was conducted to recognise Scotland & her sovereignty within the Union because the farce will just continue. Call it a renewing of vows LOL!!
But sheeple they don’t even know their own rights so they pander like eejits & doff their caps like sychophants hoping to kop off or pick up some London nightlife later.
ENGLAND has parliamentary sovereignty over England. That’s it.
It’s a pity it doesn’t have a parliament eh? It’s squatting in a GB one.
The reason ppl are trying to point this out.
…but as usual, we’ve spammers & bores on here who greet & whinge they’re bored & can’t wait to tell everyone they’re bored. Zzzzz
Scots sovereignty would be like the Swiss have now..what’s not to like!
FFS!
Is the Royals a banned topic?
Jesus..
Dan,
I’m currently growing avocados here in Norfolk. Inside in a sunny room off the back of the kitchen, and only a few of them. But it’s working well enough. It is just an experiment.
No food miles there.
@Brian Doonthetoon
Brilliant!
led me on to a timely reminder for any newscots* hoping to fill MFs shoes and manage in to work despite getting that hoarse – never leave home without yer wellies!
link to youtube.com
*hard to believe 12000 people that refused to leave safe spaces in case they caught a dose of flu would (or even could) suddenly gain the courage to put their name to a petition blaming Scotland’s best MP for the shambles, let alone think them Scottish in the traditional sense! Since the law must require the petition to remain available for inspection in the constituency (despite not yet being available on line), and since the word of the BBC & the Commons Speaker is, at best, still insufficient to tick the trust and verify checkbox, it will hopefully also be made fully available to everyone soon enough. Detailed study of these folks’ motivation, circumstance, demographic (even medical histories in these godforsaken days) is invaluable for a whole host of reasons – and could even be urgent in event the poor souls were incited into a demented state of mind (hate, blame, jealousy, etc) by accident.
Dan
The energy-efficiency certification system for houses here in Portugal definitely knows about convection club and I think that blocks of flats in Germany which have communal heating take convection club into account when dividing up the bills.
As for insulation in general, I think the cost of bringing the housing stock in Scotland up to a basic standard was in the order of £3.5 billion, but since the bulk of that would be for council housing that’s one expense too many for government. Much better and cheaper to sell everyone on the idea of installing heat pumps in their detached and semi-detached houses and let the poor freeze.
Anyone have any idea of what the energy savings would be if Scotland’s housing was brought up to a basic or even a high standard?
Alf Baird,
Interesting events in central Africa where Mali has just abandoned French as the official language. Burkina Faso and Mali standing in solidarity with Mali saying that any military intervention there would be treated as a declaration of war against all three is pretty strong stuff. We’re stuck here on the top of Europe but I wonder if the contagion of freedom will reach this far.
God am I sick of hearing about how we need to ‘solve climate change’ or how dangerous and deadly Co2 is. Even the canny Rev seems to have swallowed the basic premise of an anthropological climate issue, if not crisis, that means we should broadly welcome the ‘bat chomping, bird slicing, eco-crucifixes’ (J.Delingpole) that blight our landscape along probably with solar panels, and God help us, ‘electric’ (actually powered by fossil fuels, often coal at source of generation.
This shows the almost unfathomable depth of the brainwashing. It doesn’t even take that long (though I’ve spent 10 years researching and writing about this subject) to find out that no one, repeat no one, has ever established a link between rising Co2 levels and rising temperatures. In addition, the actual amount of global warming of the planet (and remember there is nothing inherently unnatural in the world heating up a bit now and then, it would be unnatural if it didn’t) is so small as to be within the margin of error, and is practically zero in the last twenty five years. And that’s if you put any faith in the allegedly skewed (in Greta’s favour) official figures produced by international bodies with a clear vested interest in prolonging the climate change scam.
Renewables don’t work. I feel like I ought to spray paint that in orange on every public building in the land. That might get some attention. Apart from being hugely expensive (massive government subsidies disguise this) they are intermittent meaning half the time they won’t produce any power at all. And they aren’t even green. Wind turbines require hundreds of tonnes of concrete for their bases and steel for their towers and blades, none of which can be produced without fossil fuels. Ditto solar panels, which require copious amounts of rare earths dug out of the ground by their bare hands by wee kids in obscure African countries (Greta doesn’t like to talk about that). And to cap it all off the turbines and panels degrade and wear out pretty quickly and need to be junked in landfill. Oh, almost forgot, wind farms need massive acreages of land, meaning cutting down forests and clearing natural habitats. They are absolutely, utterly, frigging, useless – unless you’re making money out of them, of course.
And while I’m here wild fires (often caused by arson or poor forest management) are not becoming more frequent, the supposedly terrifying recent temperatures in Europe were achieved by fiddling the figures (using ground rather than atmospheric readings), antarctic sea ice is at the same level it was at 40 years’ ago, polar bears are thriving, as are whales and penguins and the supposedly moribund (‘We’re all going to die!’) great barrier reef is flourishing according to an official audit conducted last year.
It’s all bullshit. I know after decades of eco-propaganda that’s a lot to process and your first reaction is to yell ‘climate denier’ and label me a nutcase and demand my immediate cancellation/silencing/arrest. But if you don’t put much faith in me (and why should you?) at least invest a tiny amount of your time in checking out the World Climate Declaration, a movement of now 1500 of some the world’s most distinguished scientists and researchers, including Nobel laureates, who have co-signed a declaration stressing that man’s effect on the climate is tiny, in many ways beneficial (Co2 is a good thing, we’d die without enough of it) and attempts to cut emissions such as the insane ‘net zero’ are ridiculous and highly dangerous. Read what they have to say, consider who’s saying it, consider if they have any alternative motive (they don’t) and then start looking at the supposed evidence for this ‘climate crisis’. There isn’t any. You won’t have heard of the WCD because it gets zero coverage on mainstream media, but it can, for now, be accessed online.
Long post, sorry, but it can be pithily summarized in the immortal words of Chuck D: ‘Don’t believe the hype’.
@Ian Smith
Exactly ! Amidst all the welter of outrage ( some of it justified ..eg..the pusillanimous response of her * colleagues * in the snP ) neither MF herself or any the other head-nodders have the independence of mind to question the whole Lockdown debacle
” Rules are rules ” , aye , but what if the rules were a load of UNSCIENTIFIC bollocks ?
They were , demonstrably so . Masks , ” Social Distancing ” , the locking down ( up ) of perfectly healthy people , inc children and young people , closing schools etc , followed by the State-sanctioned emotional blackmail of untested vaccine drug-pushing , all total , counter-productive, socio-economic folly .
Not one critical voice raised by any of our so-called representatives . Even Alex Salmond agreed . ” A serious mistake ” . Really , Alex ? Getting on a train with a cold – hang her !
Presumably everyone on that train – including MF – would have been wearing masks , were these not supposed to be effective in preventing infection ?
I´m afraid NONE of our current politicians have the necessary balls to step out of line and point at the naked emperors .
Until one or more of them does , we´re fucked , going nowhere , other than down
Just discovered MF will not be standing (travesty imo) so best scenario for unionists might be if large chunks of the alleged 12,000 complainants turn out to have broken curfew to honour Stevie Gerard (and whole town knows it)
Best scenario for indy might be if nobody really knows who they are yet, or the affiliations closest to their heart, and a Craig Murray campaign manages to name and shame the lot.
Stuart Mackay @ 06.37
Most estimates I’ve seen suggest that only 5-10% of the population even speak French, which although adopted as official language in 1960, remained a second language. If those figures are anywhere near accurate I guess dropping the “official classification” just recognises the true position.
@Robert Hughes (8.29) –
Hear hear.
The hypocrisy is so dense you need a shovel to get through it.
stuart
Wouldn’t it be interesting if Alex ediced to stand?
The film “Idiocracy” really is prophetic. But reality is starting to make it look tame in comparison. Not even in that were they putting violent rapists into women’s prisons.
Lorna Slater actually makes President Camacho look semi-competent. That is not a word of a lie.
Look at these brain dead bubble heads like Kelly Given all over the media. Pig ignorant morons who think they know it all.
We are drowning in horrific woke muppets promoted into jobs they are totally unable to do. This is Sturgeon’s legacy, the woke legacy. And there is so much more of it to manifest…
Scotland is fast becoming a dystopian state, a real life living Idiocracy.
2014 is the pivotal year. Sturgeon ruined everything. That was her job and she did it very well.
Plaid Cymru’s new leader Rhun ap Iorweth says there is no timetable for an independence referendum. He also wanted to say that you don’t have to believe in Welsh independence to support Plaid.
All sounds drearily familiar to us on Scotland.
@ Stuart McTavish
Yes , Stuart , I wonder about that 1200 too , who are they , what is the process for verifying their addresses ie their eligibility to sign the petition ?
Not that any of this matters a great deal , for the reasons referred to above .
Still , it will be some kind of consolation if/when the self-righteous cowardice of the SNP blows-up in their faces with the loss of this seat to Labour .
Maybe last night’s Sturgeon Moon heralded the passing of peak madness. Let’s hope so.
Alba need a recognised name for the Rutherglen by-election. Salmond standing would be great, but if he doesn’t want to then Chris McEleny would also be a good choice.
Chris is West of Scotland, so fine for Rutherglen. He’s a good communicator, as evidenced by his previous guest articles here on Wings. He likes to confront and speak out so would certainly not run an anodyne campaign.
I have explained the utter futility Scotland destroying its own (highly strategic) industries to Green / SNP dimwits a few times.
Even if the entire UK went to zero CO2 emissions tomorrow, that entire reduction is consumed within months by the growth of China and others…
But they ignore this or come out with sophistry in response, every time, without fail.
So my conclusion was and is that this is really all about destroying these industries and fuck all to do with saving the planet.
The Greens and the Wokies are nothing more than modern day Bolsheviks hoping to inflict their ‘revenge’, their own own brand of terror on us, with their incredibly dangerous central planning, condemning entire industries (farms, oils and gas) to the dustbin at the stroke of their pen.
And that is before you get to the little matter of them constantly noncing up our kids.
Self-destructive, self-hating, poisonous, perverted, incompetents.
The time for being able to distance oneself from the SNP is rapidly diminishing. That window of opportunity closes a little more with every day and soon it will be completely gone. And then will be sucked down with that ship.
Stuart MacKay @ 6:37 am
“Interesting events in central Africa where Mali has just abandoned French as the official language.”
Thanks Stuart. Just goes to show the colonial divide is always cultural and linguistic and us Scots arnae ony unalike. The Irish figured this oot a while back; some Scots are slower on the uptake, still confusing the ‘union’ hoax as a ‘partnership’ instead of a ‘paternalistic trusteeship’ that obscures our economic plunder and cultural domination.
Upo naitional leeberation aw doun-hauden fowk hiv tae gresp thair ain roustit mither tongue – for only then does the colonizer’s privileged position disappear.
@Chic McGregor
Absolutely – especially if he gets an endorsement from MF (in private or public whichever works best).
I was thinking of Craig because I’d love to see someone get in about the system over the treatment given to Julian Assange in the name of dieu et mon droit (FFS!) but Alex has been similarly wronged, is equally tenacious, and is perhaps even more capable of getting the wider publicity any judicious abuse of his parliamentary privilege would deserve – provided the first hurdle (the by election) is prevented from becoming another trap.
ie could become even more interesting if SNP follows MFs example and stands its candidate aside at last minute – or even, if not, changes its candidate to give voters the honour of being allowed to vote for Nicola Sturgeon (or Humza hisself) as replacement for the MP it chose to help vilify.
Mac “The Greens and the Wokies are nothing more than modern day Bolsheviks hoping to inflict their ‘revenge’, their own own brand of terror on us, with their incredibly dangerous central planning, …”
If the green bolsheviks have shown anything, it’s that central planning is beyond them. Anyone with a basic knowledge of 20th century history should know that.
Flagging Marxists’ inherent incompetence in order to disparage fundamental green principles is to be expected of tories.
The right to be excepted from energy restraints whilst expecting others to buckle under would be a good example of white supremacy or imperial arrogance, or both, if the respective groups were a different colour/race/level of income
Nonce-calling is a far fight tactic too
With Margaret Ferrier’s constituency in mind Jackie Baillie of the Scottish branch office of London Labour, is desperately trying to tell Scots that its the branch office of London Labour in Scotland that’s running the by-election and not London Labour, aye right.
“JACKIE Baillie has insisted that Scottish Labour are running the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election campaign during a heated exchange with a BBC presenter.It comes after the statement on the upcoming by-election was released by UK Labour’s press team – not Scottish Labour.”
Remember Baillie’s boss in London the millionaire knight of the realm Sir Kier Starmer is all for sending millions in aid and weapons to 404 but he’s dug his heels in on removing the two child benefit cap if he becomes PM, back here in Scotland and the rest of the UK.
A vote for Labour in the Rutherglen by-election is a vote for the Red Tories, Margaret Ferrier made a mistake and was punished for it, apparently from what I’ve read Ferrier does care about her constituency, for the Red and Blue Tories it will be just another feather in their caps and nothing more.
Vote Alba or Ferrier if both stand in the by-election.
Sven @9:03am
Thanks. I guess that the French speakers are concentrated in the cities and government.
In addition, Niger apparently announced that it will no longer supply Uranium to France/Europe*. It’s the largest supplier with 25% share (in front of Kazakhstan and Russia with +/- 20%). So the whole region appears to be giving a massive two-fingered salute to the West.
*still, it’s likely a negotiating tactic since what else are they going to do with it and it must bring in a large amount of money.
I was watching France24 last night and the tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth was intense. They almost came out and said “who the f**k, do they think they are” Fun times.
less than 5% of total energy use is renewable
Any new info on,
` SNP holiday rep and MP, Stewart McDonald tells the BBC his emails have been stolen by a group linked to Russian intelligence`
Alf Baird says:
2 August, 2023 at 10:30 am
the colonial divide
—————————–
“Legal advisory notice: Scotland is not, in fact or in law, a colony. That was conclusively decided in the recent UKSC case.”
link to twitter.com
@beauvais 09:39 Chris McElheny for Alba in Rutherglen.? you having a laugh ? do some research ffs.he’s looking at a conviction for domestic assault. He’s up on 2 charges at Greenock Sherrif court. Labour will have a field day if he’s selected.
Typo in my post @10.42
Nonce calling is, of course, a standard tactic of far Right (English) nationalists.
Highlander
From our neighbours perspective.
The English parliament has zero control over Scotland or her sovereignty.
Stuart MacKay @ 10.53
It is interesting to see these nations on the African sub continent flexing their muscles a wee bit and starting to play the western countries economic games.
I so hope it doesn’t make me a terrible person that I really enjoyed your update on just how much Niger has vexed the French. Quite made my day you have, thanks muchly.
Merganser, they might as well all be mooning at us for all the good they are doing.
P.S, I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to have Glasgow hosting the World Cycling Championships – there appears to be no road unturned or upturned on its behalf.
As Mac said, every single month China’s CO2 output rises faster than the output of the entire Scottish economy.
The 10s of thousands they want you to spend on your house, the extra grand a year on your heating bill, the restrictions and additional charges they are planning for your cars.
The thousands of other control freak plans they have, filling your garden with an entire rainbow of different coloured recycling bins, banning peat from whisky, only serving bugs in schools and hospitals, the armies of new civil servants and gestapo to police it all, whatever else they dream up.
All utterly pointless. About as useful as Nicola sawing the bottoms of classroom doors.
Sven @ 9:03 am
“Most estimates I’ve seen suggest that only 5-10% of the population even speak French, which although adopted as official language in 1960, remained a second language.”
An important factor in colonial societies is that it is native elites who generally speak the language and assimilate into the culture of the colonizer. Most of the business of colonialism is done in the colonizer’s language. What did you think private (i.e. colonial) schools are for?
Stuart @10.53.
Apparently the French are preparing an invasion force to make sure the uranium (France has many nuclear power stations) and the gold keeps flowing towards French coffers, the French exploited Mali in the same way for resources for a long time.
The only way it could ever be “Scotland’s oil” would be if the Scottish government were to raise tens or hundreds of billions of Pounds/Dollars to pay the up front costs of seismic exploration, wildcat drilling, production test wells, production platforms and/or subsea completions, and flowlines to tap into the pre-existing export pipelines such as Forties, Brent and Piper/Claymore.
With the Barnett Billions walked away from ,where the hell would those tens or hundreds of billions come from?
There is the open money market of course, but the market players are not stupid. They would instantly recognise the blithering incompetence of the Scottish government in running something as simple as a ferry service or a shipyard or building a straightforward children’s hospital or a railway or running an education system. They would demand a colossal premium on the loans. The cost of servicing those debts would be catastrophic.
It is quite certain that the SNumPties would fuck things up in their usual way. They would saddle Scottish ‘taxpayers’ with debts which could never be paid off in a dozen generations.
There is no “Scottish oil”. Never has been. Never will be.
The Noggies did things very differently. No incompetence there.
When Norway split from their Union with Sweden the Norwegian economy sank like a stone for a century in comparison to Sweden. It wasn’t until Ekofisk started to sell oil in 1973 that Norway started to become richer than Sweden and since then they’ve never looked back.
Norway now has two hugely well funded sovereign wealth funds. Every man, woman and child in Norway is a Kroner millionaire in their share of those funds.
Shetland Islands Council has a tiny miniature equivalent of such a fund, but that’s only because they’ve never had any truck with the incompetent nincompoops of the SNumPty party.
The “It’s Scotland’s oil” slogan was a fantasy of the separatista onanists.
Ian Smith
“The 10s of thousands they want you to spend on your house,
link to en.wikipedia.org
“…the extra grand a year on your heating bill, …”
It’s more than that and it turns up as oil company profits
“…the restrictions and additional charges they are planning for your cars.”
Cars have faced ever more restrictions and additional charges forever – certainly since I got my licence in the early seventies.
“The thousands of other control freak plans they have, filling your garden with an entire rainbow of different coloured recycling bins, banning peat from whisky, only serving bugs in schools and hospitals, the armies of new civil servants and gestapo to police it all, whatever else they dream up.”
You’re a bit gullible – background in the nuclear industry perhaps, “electricity too cheap to meter”!
Got some plastering to do (so welding and grinding sparks don’t set fire to polystyrene insulation in the garage)
An independent country with its own central bank can achieve anything it likes.
Oil underpinning that as future revenues & the sky’s the limit.
Being told that it’s too expensive to drill, fine, find another site elsewhere is the usual answer to that ransom note.
How can ppl peddle such nonsense & expect it’d be believed.
Compare…
reuters.com/business/energy/cost-edfs-new-uk-nuclear-project-soars-40-bln-2023-02-20/
…and contrast.
twitter.com/JohnArnoldFndtn/status/1686355137323749377
We pay $40bn for one. The Chinese can build 6 for $17bn.
Fruitell the hun,
The Greens are no longer a green party,
Their into chasing down innocent children and and damaging their innocent minds and bodies for usage and getting their protective mums demonised to make way for human trafficking.
They are miles away in the opposite direction about green agendas.
Not where in site protesting the Wars that blow up the planet, kill and destroy nature, enviroments, and obliterate humans and animals alike, and fill the oceans and sky’s with weapons of destruction of our planet,
They are as far away from chasing down all the politicians owning and using big jets every day.
They never mention that politicians have the biggest guzzling cars and entourages, the amount of wastage of food and imported chefs and staff they use for their big meetings.
You would not get me turning myself the colour of peodo green, attacking the weaker members of society
The Greens are as false as the day is long,
The Greens like the modern day justice system they manipulate, are suppressing the ordinary people,
Whilst they voluntary ignore the bigger, much larger corporated Criminals and war mongers.
Or give a genuine reason for the re-wilding and killing of animals in their natural habitat for a global experiment ideology is the right thing.
The Every day people are Easy targets, just like children and women,
You even bend and alter the truth regards climate change being our fault.
Perhaps if you came clean to everyone here and mentioned all the Cloud seeding projects and antics plus every alternative name related to that title that started as early as the 1950s you might have a modicum of authenticity.
At present I find your preaching to the minions hard to digest.
scroggie – you are clearly a connoisseur of the glue – what were you on this morning
UHU or EVO STIK
do tell us of the subtle nuances which dance upon the nostrils
do property rights not exist anymore
everything in scotland belongs to the scots
england has no assets
england makes nothing
it steals from scotland and skims/launders in the city
the southern english live off the trickle down and think themselves industrious
then they retire to scotland to buy out scotland from under the scots with the cashed in gains from stolen wealth
Goebbels in 1941, “Churchill’s Lie Factory”
The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.
– the notorious nazi propaganda techniques were modelled on the British, in particular Hitler was dismayed at how thoroughly Germany was trounced in the information war in WW1 – atrocity stories, often outlandish, playing very well (babies on bayonets, prisoners being crucified, babies in incubators murdered and 40 minutes to armageddon, poison gas … remind you of anything?)
COME ON THE 77TH! – JTRIG are trouncing you
“An independent country with its own central bank can achieve anything it likes.”
Zimbabwe, which resulted from UDI, shows that to be true or false.
Geri,
you are even more mental than usual if you want to peg iScotland’s future on the oil price.
Independence needs serious economic forecasting, and oil, particularly expensive to extract oil, isn’t going to pay the bills.
highlander @ 11:01 am
“Scotland is not, in fact or in law, a colony”
As the advocate implies, colonialism is always supported by a very solid organization, namely: “a government and judicial system fed and renewed by the colonizer’s historic, economic and cultural needs” (Albert Memmi).
Yes, of course, the colonizer has his own laws and forces which are there to protect his plunder and privileges within other peoples’ territories. However, this does not alter the fact that colonialism exists and, according to the UN, is a crime and should be ended.
Any reasoned analysis of Scotland’s ‘condition’ would reach the conclusion that Scotland is a colony. And not least because independence, which is demanded by most Scots, means decolonization.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
Scroggie;
So who’s oil is it right now, ya weapon? Britain’s?
It’s the revenues, stoopid.
And who pockets the lot as we speak? Certainly not Scotland.
For the uninformed unionists posting here.
The oil reserves within Scottish territorial waters would indeed become Scotland’s oil, upon Scottish independence. That is not even disputed by Westminster.
I mean seriously, who else would it belong to? Australia? Brazil? Or, in a true case of English exceptionalism, would it magically belong to ‘England’ or whatever it calls itself following the end of the union (and UK) with Scotland???
Honestly, such nonsense by unionists. The same old ill-informed guff we all heard in 2014.
ASA
Oil is a bonus.
It was described as such during the last indyref. (Which, incidentally, were hidden by Cameron into unknown regions) any bonus was being put into a fund, you know, like other countries do…
We aren’t pinning our hopes on oil, either then or now.
There is a plethora of independent countries who survive with no oil at all.
You lot seem to forget, even with the skulduggery of the UK government over Scotland’s resources – We still pay in more than we get back.
Stop trying to punt yer dead donkey drivel here & refrain from gaslighting people too.
Stu – why are things being eaten by mod?
Confused
Well said.
I’m outta here. I’m being eaten by gremlins. It’d be handy if it worked on the 77th in here..
Alf Baird says:
2 August, 2023 at 12:59 pm
highlander @ 11:01 am
“Scotland is not, in fact or in law, a colony”
————————————-
Take it to court alf if you think you have a case….but you won’t…
Still we will have a de-facto referendum on indy this october……
A Scot Abroad says:
2 August, 2023 at 12:49 pm
Independence needs serious economic forecasting, and oil, particularly expensive to extract oil, isn’t going to pay the bills.
Better tell Sunak then, ya tube
James says:
2 August, 2023 at 1:10 pm
And who pockets the lot as we speak? Certainly not Scotland.
————————
scotland was about £200bn up in 2014…..
Lorna Campbell said;
“Xaracen: of course there is UK law, and it is the law that overlaps both jurisdictions. Most traffic offences are UK law. The 2010 Equality Act is UK law. The Gender Recognition Act is UK law. Many other examples exist.”
Thanks for that, of course you are right. I had been thinking of something I’d read elsewhere that a major purpose of the Scottish office was to transcribe UK-made law into something that properly conformed with the requirements of Scots law. I took that further than it could support.
The actual hoax treaty of the union has been colonised in favour of one Country, Westminsters England.
We have no crown monarch in Scotland now,
That means we have no Crown in our Justice System in Scotland.
That relates to NO legal jurisdiction position held under or by the Crown in Scotland dictating that we must use the Supreme Court of Great Britain under one kingdom,
Highlander;
That right, aye?
China has a quarter of the worlds population so its going to produce, consume and polute more than anyone else. Its the per capita number that matters.
@Billy Carlin says:1 August, 2023 at 11:47 pm
you really do sound like one of those paid shills or TREASONOUS 77th Brigade scum whoring away against their family, friends and humanity on behalf of the MAFIAS that own and control most of this planet
Whoring, eh? I might put that on my CV.
Ever heard of the “hearts and minds” concept, Billy?
You could Google it I suppose, but then …
Oh well, never mind.
James Che
In not a member of the Scottish Green Party or any other party. I think what the SGP have done to environmental ideas and policies – parked them in favour of zombie communism – is tragic. However most of what people complain about is not their work, it’s greewnwash thought necessary by neo-liberal alliances to spout at election times to an electorate who do care about the environment in many different ways. Then in power they back it with neither cash nor talent.
I pray for people who believe there are coordinated unified hidden forces organising the deliberate and secret tech destruction of all they think holy because, as as atheist, I don’t recognise either a god or a devil. My prayers are short.
@Geri says:2 August, 2023 at 1:23 pm
I’m outta here. I’m being eaten by gremlins. It’d be handy if it worked on the 77th in here..
It does, Geri.
It works a treat.
In the UK sector of the North Sea the oil belongs to the operator of the field.
Often the field is shared between several oil companies, but only one of them is designated as “the operator”.
Of course there is Petroleum Revenue Tax, but it raises surprisingly little revenue for the Exchequer because the oil companies have negotiated so many loopholes and deductibles and have taken on so many senior civil servants in lucrative sinecures.
Anyway, the North Sea is almost clapped out. The remaining proven reserves are probably worth a bit less that the future cost of decommissioning the platforms and pipelines and subsea manifolds etc. There will be no more monster fields such as Brent and Forties and Ekofisk to be discovered. Seismic studies have shown that already.
The oil does not belong to England or Rutland or Shetland or any cluster of counties within the UK. It belongs to the oil companies who spend and risk very large fortunes to find and drill and sell their oil.
Things are wee bit different in the Noggie sector because they have a state owned oil company, formerly Statoil now called Equinor, which owns and operates some of the fields.
Britain used to have a national oil company, Glasgow-based BNOC, but it was a bureaucratic monster and a financial disaster. The head office was stuffed full of three thousand non-productive seat polishers who all had elaborate job classification names and did very little actual productive work.
Can you imagine the SNumPty government trying to run an oil company? Lorna Slater as CEO? Abu Humza Useless as Chairman? The bozos of the Leith Numptorium trying to administer the thing?
The 600 pages of gobshite signed off by Wee Eck in his “once in a lifetime” IndyRef in 2014 fantasised about an oil price of $113 (at 2013 values of currency) and vacuously imagined that they could do to the international oil companies what the Iranians did in 1952 and somehow avoid the consequences that the Iranians suffered in 1953.
@Alf Baird says:2 August, 2023 at 11:32 am
An important factor in colonial societies is that it is native elites who generally speak the language and assimilate into the culture of the colonizer. Most of the business of colonialism is done in the colonizer’s language
I guess the irony of you posting in the King’s English is lost on you.
Here’s what I think you should do, Alf.
Henceforth, post only in Scots. Respond only to posters who themselves use only Scots.
Show us the Scots language!
Put your money where your mouth is (or should that be “Pit yer bawbees fir yer mooth is”)?.
I predict that you will have next to nobody prepared or able to take you up on this, but feel free to prove me wrong.
And, as this is an Indy site, I predict that nobody is going to be prepared to support Indy if it means they will have to ditch their first language (English) and write Scots instead.
Feel free to prove me wrong on that one too.
ScotsRenewables,
oil isn’t going to pay for a future iScotland, as it’s more expensive to get out of the earth than almost anywhere else on the earth, and so will be dropped quicker than those other places as demand shrinks. Business 101.
Renewables aren’t going to do it for Scotland, either. There may be a lot of it, but there’s no export market, so all it can do is to lower the cost of production and consumption in Scotland. And given that Scotland doesn’t produce much that the world wants, apart from whisky, which is a low energy process, renewables are hardly moving the needle.
Don’t be a tube all of your life.
Ebenezer Scroggie says:
2 August, 2023 at 2:14 pm
In the UK sector of the North Sea the oil belongs to the operator of the field.
—————
No it doesn’t you absolute LEMON.
Where oil is/found belongs to the state or nation where it is= the territory.
Oil companies must obtain licenses b4 the can extract one litre!
Shut up and get out of the Yoon Orange club or the old English cricket pavilion where some fucking lemon told you that yarn!
A simple goggle search would tell your pee brain that. The yarns yoons make up are laughable.
@Ebenezer Scroggie says:2 August, 2023 at 2:14 pm
Great post.
There are very few organisations in the world that have the ability to travel hundreds of miles out to sea, dive hundreds of meters to the sea bed, then drill thousands of meters into the rock to safely extract and transport the oil and gas they find there.
The oil and gas belongs to these organisations. Just as the wind blowing across the sea belongs to anybody who can build the billions of pounds worth of infrastructure that is needed to harness it.
Governments can sell these multinational organisations licenses, but make them too expensive, or make the taxes too high, and these multinationals will go elsewhere where they will be welcomed with open arms.
There is one other thing to add. No organisation will make these levels of offshore investment without believable guarantees that their structures and personnel can be defended against malign, hostile, aggressive players.
If an iScotland hasn’t got a functioning military capability including a navy and air force on Day 1, the oil and gas and wind operators will be either looking to run down and close their operations, or align with a government that can defend them.
The rUK would be an obvious choice.
Starve England of energy? iScotland will have to promise to maintain supplies exactly as they are now in return for protection by the RN and the RAF.
People really do need to start getting a firmer grip on reality and the geopolitics of 2023.
link to twitter.com
Bought and Sold for English Gold. What have they done to US
“I mean seriously, who else would it belong to? Australia? Brazil? Or, in a true case of English exceptionalism, would it magically belong to ‘England’ or whatever it calls itself following the end of the union (and UK) with Scotland???”
Robert.
In 1999, Westminster moved the maritime border between Scotland and England to steal 6,000sq miles of Scottish waters that incorporated oil/gas wells.
link to oilofscotland.org
The UK entity of one united kingdom is faux,
There is one kingdom of England and Wales that Crowned their monarch in that Country, but then realises the kingdom of England hasn’t united with Scotland as all under the one kingdom banner.
Because Scotland ” Claim of Right” requires different oaths, different Sovereignty, different fealty and different allegiances in Scotland from rest of supposed United under one kingdom.
So days and weeks later they send Charlie of England and Wales up to Scotland to hold a “second” but entirely different ceremony from the crowning of the kingdom of England and Wales.
This is not one united kingdom of Great Britain with only one coronation,
It means there are two active kingdoms still extant in Britain.
The Colonisation of Scotland goes much further than that of the hoax treaty of union, the hoax has been perpetuated into making Scots believe that their is one monarch and one set of crown monarchy rules the same throughout all of GB,
As we witnessed this year in Scotland, Charlie did not get Crowned king of Scots and never was king of Scotland,
Quick token lip service to a Scots ceremony and a cuppie o tea, and off he goes as if under starters orders.
Scotland has no monarch.
Scotland has no justice system, but that one under a English Crown.
Indeed it would appear that Scotland is a Colony of Westminsters England, under a fallacious treaty and a hoax united one kingdom.scenario.
The
It would be good if commenters understood, and acknowledge that:
(1). It’s private companies that extract oil and gas. Not Scotland itself.
(2). If you tax those companies too much, they will go elsewhere.
(3). Scottish oil and gas are among the most expensive to extract in the world. The difficulty is on a par with Siberia, but more expensive per barrel or cubic foot as there higher wages to pay.
The UK government cannot sell the oil which does not own. It can only sell a licence for oil companies to exploit at their cost and risk.
Things were different for Norway which was able to award licences to their own wholly owned oil company.
Wedgie Benn tried to set up a British nationally owned oil company circa 1975, but it was a flop. Thistle had been part-owned by Dennis Thatcher’s Burmah and was gifted to BNOC by the taxpayer.
At the time we installed the jacket in that long hot summer of ’76 it was the biggest jacket in the world and I think it was in the deepest water for a fixed jacket. Tomorrow’s World filmed us and did an hour long special showing how we did it.
Actually, Thistle was a fuckup from beginning to end. The first lost time injury was of the safety Officer when a fire extinguisher blew up in his face while he was putting out a minor fire in his own waste paper basket.
We were six months late in launching the wretched thing because in those days the trade unions had the Labour government in their pocket. The welders in the shipyard went on strike because they knew that when they finished building it they would all be out of a job.
They had tack welded umpteen scaffold poles onto the legs during construction and nobody bothered to remove them before float-out. Dissimilar grades of steel in immediate contact in salt water is an ideal way to cause very serious and rapid corrosion. A decade later I witnessed a diver inspection of the resultant corrosion of the legs. The diver was able to put his entire head and shoulders through one corrosion hole.
When the Micoperi crane barge was lowering the first module onto the jacket its crane engine room caught fire and got stuck with the base of the 800 tonne module slamming onto the upper cross beam of the platform in the ever-present swell of the Northern North Sea, doing untold damage to the structural integrity of the whole thing.
A couple of years ago the platform had to be abandoned because of its severely weakened state. I doubt very much that whatever oil reserves still remain in that field will be economically recoverable.
It’s an example of how most governments are totally useless at running an oilfield.
The SNumPties would be conspicuously catastrophic if they tried to establish and run a modern oilfield. They can’t even build a couple of rather mundane ferries or a children’s hospital without fucking things up to an eyewatering extent.
Ebenezer Scroggie – It is clear to me from reading your two posts above that you know what you are talking about. Whether people on this site like it or not, you are presenting facts and very, very few visitors to this site manage to do that. They say that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and so keep going. I try my level best to avoid most of the contributors here but I will look-out for you in future because this is definitely worth reading.
@ASA
Like Paris?
Big enough straw and France could become the Euro Zone’s Saudi Arabia – assuming Vinci can get there before the Norwegian banks are raided (ie for not having excavated the gold or made the paper and ink themselves) and their millionaire pension funds need to give Macron a better offer to avoid Tromso opening the door to Russia when the foot stamping starts.
link to hdi.fr
John Main @ 2:23 pm
“I guess the irony of you posting in the King’s English is lost on you.”
Aye, its not easy for an oppressed people in a colonial environment to reconcile with the ‘torture of colonial bilingualism’. And as you demonstrate, deneeal haes a muckle pairt tae play.
James says:
2 August, 2023 at 2:07 pm
Highlander;
That right, aye?
——————
That’s the snp run scots gov figure from 2014, funny how the snp haven’t updated it….
also around $80 a barrel today but costs over $100 a barrel to produce, guess who takes the hit? it’s not scotland.
Ebenezer Scroggie @ 3:52 pm
“The UK government cannot sell the oil which does not own.”
Get a grip. Suppose you tell us where Scotland’s oil & gas royalties are then, in addition to annual fees? We all know where Norway’s are, and other oil producing nations. Yet Scotland has nothing to show for all that production over the last half a century. And it will be the same for our renewable energy if colonial plunder is allowed to continue.
Maritime international median lines are NEVER a single line of Latitude or of Longitude. That’s not at all how it works.
The agreed median line starts off as a string of datapoints denoting locations which are equidistant from each of two coastlines. Of course such a dataset would have an infinite number of datapoints, so the two countries appoint geodesists and hydrographers to agree a simplified line and break it down to distances of a dozen miles or whatever distance they agree upon.
These median lines are very sharply defined and agreed upon a common spheroid and geodetic datum. For example, there are some oilfields which straddle the Noggie/Brit median line and the tax revenues have to be apportioned quite precisely because such large sums of money are at stake.
Another example is pipelines which cross the median. ROV support ships and rockdumpers etc have crews who pay income tax to either country depending on how many days/hours they spend on each side f the line. A Surveyor determines exactly where the pipeline intersects the median line and makes a careful note in the logbook of exactly when the centre of the ship passes from one side of the median line to the other. With Noggie income tax being significantly higher than UK taxes, it makes a difference when you have three or four dozen highly paid guys and gals. Also VAT is zero-rated when in the other country’s waters, but not when in home waters.
The reason why the median line between the English and Scottish counties (for that is all they are, not “Countries”) goes half way up abeam the Fife coastline is simply because of the shape of the respective coastlines.
The rather bizarre East/West line, which may be of constant Latitude or perhaps an East/West Great Circle, is of no relevance to anything and would never be recognised or accepted in any international discussion by any UN member country because it’s not a median line.
Things can get quite heated when dealing with international boundary lines. Take a look how seriously the two parts of Korea take that Panmunjon place. Just one soldier putting one foot a foot of distance too far would cause a major international imcident.
I worked on the international boundary definition between Israel and Egypt on the edge of Eilat and was astonished how seriously each side took the boundary markers to the centimetre and how eagerly each side tried to cheat.
An amputated Scotland could afford to be somewhat laid back as the borders between the English and Scottish counties are pretty well defined and the Mean Low Water Springs tideline is very well mapped by both the OS and the UK Hydrographic Office.
Alf,
“Scotland” does not have royalties.
The income from the United Kingdom sector of the North Sea goes to the United Kingdom, just as you should expect, not to Rutland or Clackmannanshire or Auchtermuchty or any other cluster of counties. I guess you could say that we get a few bawbees thanks to the immense munificence of the Barnett Billions, but that’s not North Sea dependent.
Shetland does have some direct income from Sullom Voe, but that’s business rates which were cleverly negotiated by SIC in the early 1970s. It’s not from the oilfields directly.
Alf – I’ll let Ebenezer reply, but his principal point was that when BNOC was formed, I think it was in the early 80’s and their office was at the motorway end of St Vincent Street, it was set-up by the then Scotland Office and it was a failure. It was a failure because no-one there knew what they were doing.
Nowadays with Scotgov in charge, it is many, many times worse than that. He gave the examples of the ferries and Edinburgh Sick Kids Hospital, which were both shameful episodes hidden from public view by Scotgov and their lawyers.
Scotgov probably don’t have the intellectual horsepower to do anything right and until they sort that out, they would be best keeping to hell out of the way of engineers. There are many examples of that, aren’t there. When you get in the way of engineers, it can cost a hell of a lot of money to fix the mess.
On the matter of oilfield and international boundaries and directional drilling, I’m reminded of what caused the Iraq invasion of Kuwait.
For years the Kuwaitis had been driving directionally drilled wells deep into Iraqi territory and pinching Iraq’s oil. Understandably the Iraqis were very severely pissed off with the al Sabah kleptocracy and rattled the sabre more than somewhat.
At a meeting with the American Ambassador April Glaspie, Saddam Hussein was told that the United States “does not have a position on boundary disputes”. President Hussein completely misunderstood what she meant and wrongly took it as a signal that he could go and sort out the thieving Sabahs once and for all and return Kuwait to its Ottoman status as the 19th province of Iraq.
It’s just one more example of how boundary disputes can get out of hand so easily.
‘SNP given borrowing boost.’
link to heraldscotland.com
What could possibly go wrong?
I think it was quite clear what Britoil was doing.
They left their offices each morning to fly to London to receive instruction.
minderbinder
Now, what degree does Lorna Slater have, I wonder?
What’s the chances Westminster delay the Rutherglen by-election until after Humza’s conference to spare him embarrassment and keep their preferred candidate in place for the general election.
So when I click the link to the wings Twitter account all the posts are years old 2017 etc.
What the fuck is the point of Twitter. I joined as musk was pro free speech but it is a really shit platform. Total dogs dinner. Can’t make sense of it and why one tweet is shown and others not.
It is crap. I deleted my account after a week only to reactivate after you could not see tweets at all without an account.
Now I am deleting it again because I fucking hate it. I don’t want to see what someone posted years ago so why show this shit. Garbage.
Musk is making an arse of it.
I think Ebenezer has just accused ASA of gangsterism.
Yoon friendly fire.
Just like Operation Granby.
Alf,
The Noggies played an initially poor hand of cards quite brilliantly, unlike the bumbling Brits.
Norway immediately invested large amounts into their technical colleges and universities to turn out well educated engineers and technicians to work in the oilpatch and learn practical stuff from the Americans and the Brits.
They made clear to the foreign oil companies that full Norwegian participation in every project was a non-negotiable requirement.
State-owned companies such as Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk were given huge amounts of R&D capital which enabled them to become world leaders in hi-tech stuff such as Simrad’s Dynamic Positioning and high precision acoustic navigation equipment such as HPR.
The Norwegians pretty much invented the work-life balance concept. In the Brit sector we slogged away two weeks on & two weeks off. In the Noggie sector it was two weeks on & three weeks off and then two weeks on & four weeks off.
In the 1970s I don’t remember seeing a woman anywhere in the UK sector. On the Noggie side it was entirely normal for women to work offshore. I can remember being astonished to see, as a passenger on an SK61 helicopter, that both of the pilots were women. I’d never seen a woman commercial pilot anywhere. I remember being similarly gobsmacked to see a woman diver.
The Norwegian offshore technology is astonishingly advanced. The American oilfield technology is still back in the sledgehammer era. Primitive, despite having virtually created the oil industry.
Britain never did develop a pipelay barge industry. The Dutch did. The French did. Even the otherwise scatty Italians did.
I, personally, enjoyed the best decades of the offshore oil industry. More than four dozen countries in more than four decades, but none of that was thanks to the UK government.
I’m a huge admirer of the Norwegian way of doing things and at one point I very nearly took up Noggie nationality.
If a SNumPty government ever came into existence, they’d fuck up everything they touch. The North Sea oil industry in particular.
What’s the chances Westminster delay the Rutherglen by-election till after Humza’s conference to avoid embarrassing their preferred leader for the SNP in the coming general election
Alf Baird says:
2 August, 2023 at 5:08 pm
Aye, its not easy for an oppressed people in a colonial environment to reconcile with the ‘torture of colonial bilingualism’. And as you demonstrate,
———————
alf why won’t you take your case to court? You can wear your thomas rawlinson………………
John Main @ 2:23 pm:
“‘An important factor in colonial societies is that it is native elites who generally speak the language and assimilate into the culture of the colonizer. Most of the business of colonialism is done in the colonizer’s language…'”Show us the Scots language!
Here:
qn importqnt faktqr in kqlowneeql sqsyqtiz qz dhqt it iz naetiv aeleets huw dzhenerqli speek dhq langgwidzh qnd qsimilaet intae dhq kultshqr qv dhq kolonaizqr. mowst qv dhq bizbis qv kolowneeqlizm iz dun in dhq kolonaizqrz langgwidzh.
Demotic Scots.
@Derek Rogers says:2 August, 2023 at 7:42 pm
Thanks for that, Derek.
Finally, a post we can all agree with and get behind.
Let’s see lots more in the same vein.
Keep em coming!
Ebenezer Scroggie @ 6:13 pm
““Scotland” does not have royalties”
That’s precisely what makes Scotland a plundered colony, Sherlock. Because if we were independent then we would have royalties from our resources.
@Alf Baird says:2 August, 2023 at 5:08 pm
Thanks for your reply.
300+ posts on this thread so far, and no more than a handful using Scots.
I was serious earlier. Ask Rev Stu nicely for a Scots language thread, and start posting, the only rule being that all posts must be in Scots.
Sure, there are uncountable gum bumping posts about “linguistic colonisation” on here, just as there are uncountable gum bumping posts about everything under the sun. But when the chips are down does anybody care?
Start posting in Scots. See if anybody else is interested. If it is possible to get a dialogue or debate going, it will be innarestin to read and learn new stuff.
You want to undo generations of “colonialism” and get us all back speaking and writing in Scots. Lets see if that can ever work. Among fans of Indy, that should be a shoo-in, so lets put it to the test.
If it doesn’t work here, it aint ever gonna work elsewhere.
Xaracen: nae problem. Wasn’t trying to be a smartie pants. Many people leapt to the assumption that Westminster (via Jack) had no right to intervene i the GRRB, but, since any change to the existing legislation would have affected England and Wales, as well as Scotland, and, perhaps NI, too (I’m not sure, but I’d imagine so) it is not difficult to see why he stepped in, in this instance. It is utterly hypocritical for the SNP and Holyrood to moan about the intervention when they are never done moaning about Westminster legislation affecting Scotland. Holyrood certainly had the competency to change Scottish legislation alone, but did not have such for UK law. The SNP group at Westminster should have made a bid to have the law changed, not the SNP/Green MSPs in Holyrood – not that I support that insanity of a GRRB. They are going to get their bahookies handed to them on a plate in court if they continue with their ludicrous challenge, and at the polls if they keep on insisting the population is gasping for this bilge water to become law. Like everything the SNP/Green coalition has touched, this, too, will turn to dust.
@Alf Baird says:2 August, 2023 at 8:05 pm
“if we were independent then we would have royalties from our resources”
Let me just fix that one for you:
If we were to vote for our independence by internationally acceptable democratic processes, had reached an amicable and mutually agreed dissolution settlement with rUK, had seen that settlement ratified by the relevant international mediation groups, and had both the national capability and the national will to defend and police our far-flung offshore oil, gas and renewable energy infrastructure, then we would have royalties from our resources.
The devil is in the detail, eh Alf?
John Main,
Further to your post:
Else, we would be halfway between Rhodesia and Zimbabwe.
ie fucked.
John Main @ 8:11 pm
Its not difficult learning bairns in schuils a wee bit aboot thair ain indigenous Scots language as well as an ‘administrative’ language. Many former colonies seem to do it without much of a problem.
This helps reduce the incidence of a ‘colonial mindset’ (e.g. internalized racism etc) which most sensible observers agree is a good thing and ensures folks are no longer confused about their national identity aince thay ken a bit aboot thair ain mither tongue.
I see that Lorna Slater has a Degree in Electircal and Mechanical Engineering Design from the Uni of British Colombia. Go figure. Must be a Wokist kind of thing. I know one Tory Yoon Cllr that has a Degree in Gender Studies. Go figure Huh! Wokists even in the Yoon Tory party who would have thunk it?
I cant rmember who asked the question about Slater and what Degree she had. I just had to wiki it
Robin Harper has resigned from his life membership of the Green Party.
His scarf was unavailable for comment.
link to bbc.co.uk
@Lorna Campbell 8:17 pm
Good post I have always supported your stance on GRRB. You have been brave and true. Just remember some of us guys are on your side.
John Main @ 2 August, 2023 at 7:58 pm:
“A post we can all agree with and get behind.”
guwd! hwit diz it sae?
John Main @ 2 August, 2023 at 8:11 pm
“linguistic colonisation”: when the chips are down does anybody care?
Yes.
The “indigenous Scots language” mentioned appears to be nothing of the sort. It’s phonetic English. English spoken with an accent and written as it sounds. The Welsh, Cornish, Geordies and Brummies don’t do that and claim it’s a separate, indigenous language. Why is no one talking about Gaelic?
Alf Baird 9.26pm
“Its not difficult learning bairns in schuils a wee bit aboot thair ain indigenous Scots language as well as an ‘administrative’ language”.
Exactly.
Why has this not been happening all this time? Easy to do and would be rewarding for students and teachers. It’s colourful to speak and would feed the imagination, deepen our grasp of history, keep the continuity. Above all, it would nurture a love for the land of our birth.
What a missed opportunity.
I’ve always believed that Scots and English derived from the same Germanic(?) language, well over 1,000 years ago, hence the similarities.
Of course, accents have a role to play but that doesn’t negate the premise of a common root.
James Jones, it’s not phonetic English. It has words all of its own.
Justin has left his wife after only 18 years. Pray for Canada. I had an offer to emigrate to Canada and didn’t take it up. An auntie who met an Canadian serviceman during the War2 in Edzell. She made the most of her opportunities. I constantly receive calls from Canada about family history. One of the 3 Community nurses in our family leaves for NZ.
Eh’m fair ferfochen at a’ the conflict over language BTL.
Kin wi no’ just agree ti disagree?
Brian Doonthetoon @ 10:34 pm
“I’ve always believed that Scots and English derived from the same Germanic(?) language, well over 1,000 years ago, hence the similarities.”
Yes Brian, all ‘Germanic’, and there are rather more similarities between Scots and other Nordic languages, than with English.
WTAF does this mean?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Police Scotland’s chief constable has said the sooner the investigation into the SNP’s finances is concluded the better for everyone involved.
Sir Iain Livingstone said he hoped it would clarify “evidence and facts” instead of “rumours and innuendo”.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
link to archive.is
Typo correction to my intro sentence:
“Dictionaries of *the* Scots Language”
Talking scots..
Knocked out of us at school. Made to feel inferior by our colonial masters. That’s why you hardly ever heard any Scots on telly (unless they were a mad stereotype) or continually made fun off we need a translator. We’re forbidden from having our own TV channels & broadcasting – we may do the unthinkable & learn our own History & hear different voices when we should be listening to the posh bloke off the telly from the BBC tell us everything in Scotland is still shite.
As Alf has stated before – the nationalist party always ends up an elite bunch who makes pacts with the coloniser.
If no one likes Alf references (cause they’re satanic or something to unionist) then I suggest Animal Farm, where the pigs end up changing the commandments as they go until they’re no longer any different to what the farmer was at the beginning .
With that in mind, they’ll not change the carriculum or shout for broadcasting rights cause they’re too star struck & want to follow like sheep for their own advancement even to the point of mocking yer fellow Scots (Ruth Davidson – lock up yer silver)
So much opportunity missed by SNP with not only missed open goals on indy but on Land reform too. It went to shit with Sturgeon. She didn’t have a single policy to call hers or any vision at all to advance – cause she was batting for the other side since day one.
56 MPs was instant withdrawal. Brexit was the double. Holyrood election was the treble..
But they all sat down ffs..
The piddling little countries need to stop importing as much as possible from these countries that could make a difference to the planet.
If we buy the products that comes with the pollution they won’t stop.
ScotsRenewables says:
2 August, 2023 at 11:33 pm
WTAF does this mean?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
” Police Scotland’s chief constable has said the sooner the investigation into the SNP’s finances is concluded the better for everyone involved.”
What it ( most likely ) means is that they´ve finally found a bucket large enough to contain all the whitewash necessary to restore the cruelly maligned reputation of that latter day saint and towering political colossus ( great isn´t it how she can – in the eyes of her devotees – be simultaneously this incredibly astute politician and a kind of ingenue who knew nothing about any of the shenanigans going on round about her – amazing ) – Dame Sturgeon of Dregston .
Ol´ Pete – the soon to be ditched merkin – may yet feel the full wrath of the Scottish Rainbow Police by having his teddy bears confiscated and sent to his room FOR A WHOLE WEEK ! ( though he should be out in time for Perv Month )
Colin Beattie – Colin who ? Yes , exactly .
Nickers S , however , will be borne aloft by her flock on a golden , flower-bedecked litter , paraded through the streets of Govanhill before being delivered to an airport of her choice en route to her new role as U.N Special Envoy of Fucking Things Up ( rumour has it China will her first target ) .
All that nasty speculation – fuelled by vile transhomoracistbigotry – will disappear * as if by magic * , and the serious business of eradicating all traces of divisive Separatism can continue undisturbed .
We are so lucky to live in this Nu Scottish Progtopia in these days of ” miracle and wonder ” , ain´t we ?
Brian Doonthetoon @ 2 August, 2023 at 11:11 pm:
Kin wi no’ just agree ti disagree?
[kin wi now dzhust qgree ti disqgree?]
no reeli, nae if indipendqns iz gowin enihwer. qn independqnt *skotlqnd needs its aen langidzh, sow wi duw need tae tawk qt thruw.
Not really, not if independence is going anywhere. An independent Scotland needs its own language, so we do need to talk it through.
So if you are not logged into a twitter account it just throws up tweets that are years old and in random order. What a load of shite, might as well just go back to not being allowed to see any tweets without an account.
But anyway the tweet on The Butcher of Louth… wow. What a monster that woman is. A modern day woke incarnation of Joseph Mengele.
How much money has she made mutilating all these kids/ people? It is so disgusting it is hard to believe. I hope she ends up bankrupt and drowning in litigation for eternity. Every one of her patients/victims is a ticking lawsuit in the making. These are people who were/are suffering mental health issues. She is the doctor and should know better but instead she is exploiting them. She should be disbarred and in jail IMHO. Shocking.
James Jones. Northern Anglian was different from southern Saxon from the start. Northern Anglian developed into Scots, absorbing Gaelic, Dutch, Scandanavian and French (at different times than English). It would be as accurate to say that English was a form of Scots than vice versa.
Robert Hughes @ 8:05 am
“U.N Special Envoy”
Such a high level imperial metropolitan capital sanctioned reward for any ‘nationalist’ (never mind the ‘leader’) would appear to confirm the ‘compromised’ reality, based on postcolonial theory: i.e. the repeated taking the people ‘up blind alleys’, the ‘rupture’ of the independence movement, the party’s ‘mystification’ policies, its coercive laws, its co-operation with the colonial power (e.g. Tory Freeports, no land reform, monarchy, supreme court, offshore energy sell-off,’continuity’) and its leaderships attacks on other pro-independence ‘radicals’ blocking any innovative initiatives to secure independence. Confirming that colonialism is always ‘a co-operative arrangement’ with native elites, including the sickening realisation this includes those within the dominant national party itself who ‘are pensioned off at high price’.
Keech, Bum, Toaly, Fart all went up the public park.
Keech said he couldnae swim,
So they aw pushed him in.
Why were the bakers fingers brown?
He needed a jobby.
Glad to see you lookin reasonably at this.
It’s worth highlighting that of the earth’s atmosphere, 0.04% is CO2. Of that 0.04%, ~18% is generated by humans.
* kneaded
Just wondering what the “mother tongue” of our new, 21st century, multicultural Scotland would be.
On a recent amble to our local minimart, down our High St and on to the Supermarket I encountered;
The Pakistani owner of the wee minimarket, chatting happily on his mobile to his Scots born wife in his native language (as he does with the many Scots born ethnic Pakistanis who live locally and pop in for a blether and our small daily needs).
On the High St three or four of the Turkish barbers (we have several Turkish barbers in our small town) standing outside their shoos, smoking heavily and shouting good naturedly across to each other in what I can only guess was Turkish and chatting in the same, or similar, language on smart ‘phones.
The usual group of East Europeans bunched outside one of the two remaining banks at the auto teller beside their own woman, with a child, selling the Big Issue. The group of anywhere from 5-10 are all young men, chatting in their own European tongue.
And a gent I believe is of Somali origin loudly admonishing the lady walking behind him in their native language.
Popped into the Supermarket, where a Chinese gent was addressing his wife (Assumption on my part) and two children in, I’ll chance, Cantonese.
I don’t live in a particularly exotic or large town and this is just a typical morning on our streets, where the lingua franca (see what I did there) or market language is everyday English.
When it comes to attempting to teach these new Scots an entirely different dialest, assuring them that this is their genuine ‘mother tongue’ , does seem to me to be both a pointless and futile task.
Oops, my bad, forgot the rare sight of a Poileas Alba marked vehicle passing. Seems that our devolved administration is spending a fair bit of our dosh on pushing a different ‘mother tongue’.
Derek Rogers @2nd Aug 7:42pm
This is an extract from an essay by Roderick Watson on the use of the demotic voice in Scots literature:
It’s a short essay, around 6000 words, but it’s an interesting read.
If someone walks into a doctors surgery and requests that healthy, functioning parts of their body be surgically removed or mutilated then there should be a red flag put on their file indicating they are a danger to themselves and that no doctor should comply with their requests.
The desire to cut off or mutilate healthy parts of your body for no medical need is a clear symptom of mental illness of some form.
That person should be protected from themselves and any medical practitioner found to have instead cashed in on their mental illness should at a minimum not be allowed to practice medicine anymore.
And these are kids as well man… it so out of order chopping them up after filling their heads with your woke gender indoctrination shite. Absolute 100% child abuse.
Which plan will Westminster implement:
Delay the Rutherglen by-election till after Humza’s conference to avoid embarrassing their preferred leader for the SNP in the coming general election
Arrest one or both of the Murrels the week of the by-elections
Conservatives and libs will run a paper candidate and tell everyone to vote labour.
Inflate the postal votes for labour
Alf Baird @ 10.02
Indeed , Alf . As I´ve said previously …..everything you´ve said and quoted on the subject of Colonialism – how it * works * , how it * plays out * has been – with a remarkable degree of precision – evident in the trajectory of the post-Salmond SNP .
It´s as if they were given a road map on how to sabotage any/all routes to national liberation and told ” Follow these co-ordinates ” . Instructions which they´ve obeyed to the letter .
As I´m sure you´re aware , you so clearly describing this process and it´s application to Scotland is the reason why you come in for * special attention * from the drones on here and elsewhere . The captives can´t be allowed to know the true nature of their captivity .
Now we´re being told the oil that resides within our maritime borders is not REALLY ours .
Our native languages are not REALLY languages .
The land that comprises the area named Scotland is not REALLY our land , and can sold off to anyone from anywhere , to do whatever they want with ( more or less ; eg Kenmore )
And see that Treaty , y´know the one that created the Union , well , turns-out it wasn´t REALLY a treaty eg a document agreed by equal signatories , naw . man . whatever gave you that idea ?
Naw , one of those * equal * signatories was much more * equal * than the other and can dictate , well , just about everything of significance relating to the running of this fantastic Union .
Yip , it can even deny the lesser party to it´s signing the right to determine it´s own future .
I guess that´s why it´s referred-to as ” precious “
Scotland is governed by people it never voted for – and I don’t mean the Tories this time, but the Greens. And look what a mess they made. They too are to blame for the downfall of the SNP, but what is worse: they started a war against normal Scots. Ms Slater may very afford a heat pump to heat her home – her salary will see to that – but most people don’t. Does she care? No. Extremists never care. Stalin didn’t, Pol Pot didn’t, and the Green Khmer don’t.
The oil within our maritime borders (eg UK sector of the North Sea) is British. It doesn’t belong to any one county or cluster of counties.
The SNP is going to split this year.
It is going to split down constitutional lines, very, very, very spoon.
Humza is twisted narcissist just like Nicola Sturgeon. He acts like a child. Because he’s been so entitled his entire life that he’s never had to grow up.
He is as thick as plank. He campaigned to get rid of Margaret Ferrier one of his own. How bitter, twisted and unforgiving can you get?
He’s gone down ever further in my estimation.
I’m glad this Chris Hanlon wants to run against him.
I’m glad Angus McNeil has left and said they are not for Independence.
Humza lies. We know he lies. He’s been caught lying. No wonder Nicola picked hi.. The ability lie with ease is a rare quality only associated with the Murrells,
Sue Ruddick etc. The new corrupt party cheif.
The ability to lie fluently and shamelessly as a matter of routine is also shared by Swinney the Poo.
Where’s the men in the grey kilts to take Humza away? In a straight jacket preferably. Humza’s aff his heid. They all are!
Are the SNP men in the grey kilts all wearing skirts these days and going by the name of kirsty blackman? Chromosomes XY.
Time to take Humza away!
I feel so bad for this Margaret Ferrier. She’s been given the David Goodwillie treatment. She crossed Sturgeon. And Sturgeon is a psychopath with imposter syndrome.
Humza is her puppet on strings. He’s got him dancing to her tune.
He even campaigned to get rid of Margaret Ferrier. But was a no show at Indy marches.
Humza has proven that he can’t be trusted to stand up for his own men. He’ll throw you to the dogs.
Well Humza. Your time is up. You’re going to go down as the worst and shortest lived False Minister in Scotland’s history.
P
You’re about to be turfed out. You have failed upwards. Away and lie down on the ground with just stop oil and Lorna Slater. He’s a low as they come.
How can Humza be trusted to stand up for Scotland when he can’t even stand up for his own nationalist MPs?
No loyalty. A swine. A dishonest twisted lying swine that can’t do his job.
You saw the sweat dripping off his face when asked about the oil.
Humza wants low wages and high taxes and unemployed oil rig workers.
Just Stop SNP.
«EBENEZER SCROGGIE»
For your enlightenment.
«The UK oil and gas industry straddles both the Scots law and English law jurisdictions. The practice of investigation is the same, with inspectors using the same powers, guidance and techniques. They will gather evidence, take statements, seek specialist advice and prepare a report. The report will be assessed in line with the HSE Enforcement Policy (EPS) and use the Enforcement Management Model (EMM) to reach a decision on proportionate enforcement. However, there are significant differences in process and procedures between Scotland and England that have a material impact on the way the law is enforced. In Scotland, the Inspector submits his report to the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) following an incident. COPFS makes the final decision on whether it is in the public interest to prosecute and they conduct the prosecution. However, in England and Wales, the HSE is the prosecuting authority and decides whether to prosecute and then conducts the prosecution. In Scotland there is also a requirement for evidence to be corroborated before a conviction can be obtained but this does not apply in England and Wales»
extract from Oil and gas regulation in the UK: overview
by Philip Mace, David Leckie, Lesley Gray, David Blumenthal, Isabelle Desgranges, David Anthony and James Day, Clyde & Co LLP
What is in Scottish waters «belongs» in the domain of Scots Law.
Yoon central on here for a while now, eh?
What on earth could they all be so worried aboot??
Looks like they’re running double shifts, hoping for readership of their utter bollocks….. (‘…it’s England’s oil…’ etc etc).
And guess what, the thieves at Westminster haven’t made a penny off of it in 50 years – aye, it’s true, ‘some arsehole’ said it earlier. Oh, and the arms dumped in Scotland are completely harmless – honest!
The only thing the SNP want to extract these days is as adrenalchrome.
TURABDIN,
When a fatal accident occurs offshore the police force which is closest to the scene of the accident is the one which investigates.
If it’s on the Scottish side of the equidistant median line then it’s Police Scotland who investigate and they send a Report to the Procurator Fiscal who may or may not decide to set up a Fatal Accident Inquiry.
On the other side of the median line it’s slightly different because they have their Coroner’s Court.
That median line does *NOT* confer ownership of the oil companies’ oil onto the counties, either individually or severally, closest to the oilfields.
Robert Hughes post on Alf Baird 10.02.
I totally agree.
Alfs post colonial theory analysis of Scottish politics and events is incredibly accurate, because in general he is correct, Scotland is a poltically controlled and economically exploited colony of England.
His analysis of who the SNP are and their motivations for their de facto unionist policies, is especially enlightening and welcoming. He has run rings around all of the English pro imperialist half wits on the site. A massive thank you to Mr Baird for his enlightening, useful and much appreciated contributions.
Hamish Murphy
Scroggie;
IT’S THE REVENUES, STOOPID!
I agree that if Scotland were to achieve Net Zero, the overall effect that would have on the climate would be negligible, but you can’t ask other economies to change their ‘carbon footprint’ while making no changes yourself. I don’t think the schemes being perused by the SNP and Greens are viable but other schemes need to be looked at. Some serious means of storing wind and wave generated power for times of need, carbon capture programmes, reducing our demand for ‘cheap imports’ from the developing countries, amongst others. We can show how it can be done and encourage others to follow suit. That would have a much greater impact on climate change.
“BROADCASTER Jeremy Vine has suggested firing people who talk about Scottish independence at work.
During a segment on his Channel 5 show, Vine and his guests were discussing politics at work.”
I can’t say I’m shocked at Vine’s remark.
@ Es are good , Es are good , he´s Ebenezer ( Scotland´s nae ) Goode
” The oil within our maritime borders (eg UK sector of the North Sea) is British. It doesn’t belong to any one county or cluster of counties. ”
Is that right Ebzzy ? Funny then that only one country ( the cluster of counties named England ) has the power to dish-out licences , get the lions share – the hairy mammoth´s share – of the receipts and decides what is done with these ( vast ) receipts .
” Ah ” I hear you say , ” it´s not England´s oil , it´s Britain´s ” . 10/10 for sophistry old boy .
To all intents n purposes when England says ” Britain ” its nothing more than a synonym for , you guessed it ….England .
* Technically * what you say is correct ; as long as the Union exists . WHEN it ceases to , that technicality will be ” looked at ”
As it happens , personally I couldn´t really give a fuck about the oil – whatever the arguments re it´s extraction n provenance , it´s finite , it will eventually be gone . Scotland won´t .
“THE Bank of England has raised UK interest rates to a fresh 15-year high – from 5% to 5.25%.
The Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) lifted the base rate by 0.25 percentage points on Thursday, taking it to 5.25%.
The last time it stood at 5.25% was in March 2008.
It is also the 14th consecutive rise in interest rates.”
Earlier today a guest boffin on LBC said that the UK has one of the highest interest rates in Europe. the boffin then went on to say that Brexit had been an absolute disaster for the UK, and that it had caused widespread economic damage to the UK’s economy.
Another guest boffin said that the UK would have to change its import standards from that of the EU’s now that it was a member of the WTO, the change to lower standards on food imports was expected after Brexit on the expectations of a trade deal with the USA, which hasn’t materialised yet.
Iain More 2 August @9:33pm
Refreshing stuff.
Background like that she should maybe be transport minister, (or even Scotland united candidate for Rutherglen!) on simple basis she’s likely to have enough understanding of partial differential equations to get Alf Baird’s Ozzie pal back to the table – and maybe even the technical wizardry to negotiate retrofitting a dozen axial flux motors to each prop shaft (or persuade the purser to subsidise facilities to build bigger & better than mercedes is currently advertising) in order to provide CMal with its non negotiable sleeping quarters at even more embarrassingly good value than hitherto offered.
James Murphy @ 1:26 pm
“post colonial theory analysis of Scottish politics and events is incredibly accurate”
Much appreciated. Indeed, the well-trod decolonization template exists so we might as well use it, especially to help predict what is still to come as well as what has been done to a people.
A further illustration of complicit colonial plunder noted here:
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
An interesting article from an ex-SGP leader.
“Robin Harper, a former leader of the Scottish Greens, has quit the party, saying it has “lost the plot”.
Harper, the first Green UK parliamentarian, raised concerns about the party’s pro-independence stance and its position on trans rights in a letter to co-leader Patrick Harvie.
Harper, 82, served as a Lothians MSP between 1999 and 2011 and was co-convener of the party from 2004-2008.”
link to holyrood.com
Another interesting article from the Holyrood magazine.
“Independence Minister Jamie Hepburn has said he would “never seek to influence” the civil service after Rishi Sunak backed a probe into Scottish Government spending on independence.”
We know he wouldn’t.
But then.
“John-Paul Marks, Scotland’s most senior civil servant, has defended the role of officials in supporting the Scottish Government to build its case for a Yes vote.”
Which is very surprising, but then all is revealed.
“However, Case told members of the House of Lords it would be “worrying” if public money is being used to support ministers who want to break up the UK.”
In the run up to the 2014 indyref the Civil Service actively worked AGAINST Scotland leaving the union, later admitted by the then head of the Civil Service Sir Nicolas MacPherson, who went on to work for Sturgeon the Judas, in hindsight we shouldn’t be surprised by that appointment.
link to holyrood.com
Ebenezer Scroggie says:
3 August, 2023 at 12:13 pm
The oil within our maritime borders (eg UK sector of the North Sea) is British. It doesn’t belong to any one county or cluster of counties.
————
You’ve got more than enough of yer ain oil ya tight git, why do you need ours?
ON THE “ISLE OF SHITE”
Oil was found to be economical in 2016 and yer still pissing in the wind over licensing. But granting licenses in our territory is fine eh!
Beat it!
Aye, and apparently approx 219 mln barrels. That’s around 4 times what’s came out of Scotland.
Who’s subbin who!
Do we get extra commenting points for writing (very badly) in a cos approximation of the Scots language?
Looking at you, Baird. You are a serial offender. You are fucking dreadful, and pretentious, with that pretence.
Robert Hughes.
11:53am.
Well said.
The Colonisers of Scotland on this site are as active today as they ever were.
They still think they run Scotland,
teach the natives what is, And is not ours, instil their laws and abolish Scots laws, take the resources from this Country, demonise are languages, and monopolise our land and sea,
Because we signed a guff treaty long ago that means nothing, it ancient history, but it still keeps us anchored to England, and therefore we the Scots need permission from England to leave the guff treaty that keeps us in the United kingdom.
1: We (Scots) did not sign the treaty of union, and were not asked to deliberately.
2: Scotland left the treaty of Union in 1707. The Scottish parliament was extinguished from it by Westminster.
3 : The English parliament continued, and simply changed its name.
4: The one united kingdom does not exist, due to the Scots “claim of right” requiring and enforcing
Two different Crown promises and allegiances to be kept in two different Countries in the Isle of Britain.
5: There are two separate individual Countries each side of one of the oldest borders in the world still maintained and used in politics, that divide the two kingdoms.
6: Two separate kingdoms do not make a United one kingdom of Great Britain as Westminster suggest as evidenced from Where and whom holds that sovereignty in the two countries.
Westminster has assumed a Colony position over Scotland with out Sovereign Scots being in a treaty at all,
It had also assumed a Colonial position over the Crown and where its kingdom/s are,
Westminster has been misinformed or deliberately ignored that the two kingdoms are still in existence, and not acting united as one governance of Britain.
For in Scotland the monarch and thus the Crown in law is not Sovereign if the hoax treaty articles are to be adherred to.
So two Crowns in British Iles, one with sovereignty in England,
And one without Sovereignty in Scotland.
Not a working united kingdom at all.
Robert Hughes,
“only one country ( the cluster of counties named England ) has the power to dish-out licences”.
The licences within the UK sector of the North Sea (and the other bits on the other side of the coast) are dished out by the UK.
Not, repeat *NOT*, by a cluster of counties.
There’s a bit of a clue in the name of “the UK sector”, dontcha think?
The UK sector is internationally recognised by every UN member country in the world.
The only challenged bit is the bit around Rockall which the Irish covet, but they can just fuck off because we claim it as ours because it is closer to the UK than it is to Oirland.
Mebbe the Faroese imagine they can challenge us on that one too, but they’d have a very weak case.
Getting bored of language and sovereignty? This will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. It’s also very entertaining in the way that only Australians can manage.
Runaway 500 EV meltdown on cargo ship: Proof our cities aren’t ready for full EV deployment, youtube.com/watch?v=GZ9-mW-cmdE
As the guy says, EV fires are extreme events, but roll the dice often enough and it will happen.
Even if you don’t want to watch it, because fearmongering, if you ever come across a fire where lithium might be involved, get the hell out of the way and under no circumstances breathe in any smoke.
What Donald Trump being charged again. It’s embarrassing from the United States.
A desperate last minute attempt from the deep state to stop him winning.
The military, NATO and big pharmacy United against him.
Hopefully Stu will produce a new article soon – the tinfoil helmet density BTL here is becoming alarming . . .
@ Stuart MacKay
Ach, just plant a few trees to offset the industrial level EV cargo ship fire carnage and everything will be fine…
There will be no brave running in to help rescue damsels in distress in EVs fires now. Hotties will become smoking hotties! And they will have to egress the vehicle themselves, leaving their own smouldering carbon footprints as they depart the scene.
Jeremy Vine is always bringing up Scottish independence to ridicule and rubbish it during his work so he should logically sack himself.
Hope his brother doesn’t suffer from it if he is doing his usual standup in the Fringe.
Chic McGregor,
Jeremy Vines position in his comments, It racist and Colonialist towards Scots and Scotland as a nation, and a Country.
If we were black, he would be sacked,
enslavement of a nation is however still regarded Colonialist.
It is startling that these so called Scotsmen can come on to WOS and expect anyone to be convinced by their repetitive shite, eben scrote gives us a whole dissertation of how he single handedly discovered and operated every oilfield in Scotland’s maritime waters, he explainerises that it is uk’s oil and nothing to do with Scotland
He and his ever eager troop of Scots Buts then go on to ridicule and demean the capability of the current Scots government to do anything positive or creative to operate the oil industry, they even bring up the unchallenged incompetence and downright stupidity and corruption of the previously state owned and operated brit oil
All the current and previous operations of our oil industry which deservedly has earned the ridicule and degredation from others from across the world is being used as an example by these Scots Buts to show how Scotland is incapable of running a proper oil industry, totally missing out the FACT that it has been the uk engerland that is RESPONSIBLE for the total clusterfuck of the oil industry, do these Scots Buts have cognitive problems or are they just so desperate to be thought of as english
Everyone on here KNOWS how incompetent and corrupt the current Scottish administration and their unionist partners in HR are but they are NOT Scotland they are a SMALL group of betrayers doing the work of WM,and no amount of diversionary tactics by collaborators changes the fact that WM is more incompetent and corrupt than a Scottish Parliament could ever be
Dan
The obvious solution – all cars must be more like planes, with drop-down oxygen masks and hazmat suits under the seats.
Not sure what owners of enclosed spaces are going to do. It’s one thing to ban the occasional vehicle powered by natural gas, quite another to ban them all. Once the Just Transition is complete the only choices will be to install high capacity air extraction that doesn’t actually asphyxiate everyone – except where are you going to vent the smoke, or close. I’m sure the insurance companies and the lawyers have a firm grip on the situation.
It’s all very well making fun of the unintended consequences but after years of doing nothing, everyone is rushing to go with whatever solution that brings the least amount of disruption to our comfy lives. It’s situations like this, where the skills of the Lorna Slaters among us, really begin to, err, shine.
Jeremy Vine is just a State “weapon”. So much so that he had no issue hanging out with arms dealers.
link to caat.org.uk
One thing even mechanical electrical engineering graduates wont need partial differential equations for is to count up to 9..
(Which rather begs the question as to what the other(?) 11 991 outraged residents were doing that was so much more important given that, were they otherwise employed in a job they loved, they’d presumably have been far less likely to shit on the previous MP for thinking she might need an extra packet of tissues at work one day).
link to twitter.com
«EBENEZER SCROGGIE»
That as may be, however it does not alter the reality that Scots Law applies in the offshore sectors considered to be territorially part of the Scottish continental shelf and has a legal bearing on the process of exploitation of anything found there.
There are, by the way, no longer any administrative «counties» in Scotland.
Maybe Jeremy Vine could do a segment on his show about HMRC. Might get to the bottom of why their tax self-assesment service for self-employed is suspended till September the 4th. Are there only two staff and they are away on holiday for a month…
And also why the HMRC call handling system is so monumentally fucking useless. Earlier this week had 8 x 7 minute long attempts to call and go through what should be the most simple process of getting a tax return form sent out. All attempts failed to achieve the reason for calling.
I need to call in because the form I use SA200 which must be extremely common, isn’t available to download.
They sent two letter at the end of March / early April stating my tax return is now due. Well yeah, it’s the end of the tax year so that’s a given, but why not just send one fucking letter with the tax return form for me to fill in, instead of two that are of no use. Hardly efficient use of resources…
Every year it’s the same fucking hassle and grief. A couple of years back they sent out letters to what must have been hundreds of folk stating their tax returns were overdue, but they weren’t, the forms were sent in on time but HMRC just hadn’t got round to processing them yet. So some dullard chose the wrong filter to send out overdue letters, causing no end of grief and hours of time as a huge amount of folk had to deal with the stress of thinking their returns had gone missing and contacting HMRC through their shit call handling system…
So go on Jeremy, do a segment highlighting how utterly pish your beloved “country” runs things.
A Scot Abroad @ 3:17 pm
Thon ‘union’ charade wis fund tae be aw blaflum an skit. (thats Scots for ‘hoax’ and ‘trick’ by the wey).
In other words, ‘the colonial hoax’ (Memmi) keeping Scotland in its box has been fund oot.
Alf Baird.
There is more and more evidence that Scotland is A Colony. And many of us that thought something was amiss between Scotland and Englands positions regards a supposed union treaty are being enlightened by yours post on Colonialism. And the links you provide.
Every time I make an attempt at explaining this from ” that” angle, I make a mess of it, so please keep posting,
Meanwhile I will restrict myself to researching and commenting further the oddities and records that do not synchronise to maintain the position there is or ever was a union other than political one,
And that did not have the signiture of Sovereign Scots,
Nor did it have representatives of Scots in the treaty of political union,
Nor does the Crown in Britain fit two heads to make a united kingdom regarding where Sovereignty lies under the “Claim of right” in laws of Scotland and compared to where it rests in England law,
The two are not Compatible in the articles of the political union, relating to Crown law in Scotland,
Dan @5.41pm.
Good find Dan.
“Britain’s largest arms company, BAE Systems, has a special status at DSEI. No private British company garners as much government support as BAE. The Department for International Trade has a whole taxpayer-funded unit to promote the British arms industry around the world. In reality, this means mainly BAE.”
This was at the 2021 DSEI in London the largest arms fair in the world, held in the half a million sq foot ExCel London owned by Abu Dhabi, a repressive Gulf emirate.
BAE spies on CAAT.
“The company hired spymasters Paul Mercer and Evelyn Le Chêne to infiltrate and illegally spy on the Campaign Against Arms Trade, allegedly for £120,000/year, and was at one point receiving daily reports about CAAT”
An outline of BAE crimes.
link to wikispooks.com
link to declassifieduk.org
Baird,
no, you are still batshit mad, you can’t write Scots, and when you try to, it’s embarrassing to you. You are just a pretender. And not a very good one.
Not very good with maritime logistics, either. Typical “academic”.
@Stuart MacKay says:3 August, 2023 at 4:21 pm
As the guy says, EV fires are extreme events, but roll the dice often enough and it will happen.
Even if you don’t want to watch it, because fearmongering, if you ever come across a fire where lithium might be involved, get the hell out of the way and under no circumstances breathe in any smoke.
Yet another reason for running your car (or van or truck) on water.
“Tur Abdin”
– is that ottomanboi sneaking back in??
lack of <>
“mountain of the servants of God”
@stuart mctavish says:3 August, 2023 at 5:44 pm
Your post is a smidge too convoluted for easy comprehension but I am going to take a punt and guess you are irked at a bunch of Sovereign Scots deciding their elected representative has let them down big time.
Therefore, I suggest you make sure you get your voice heard the next time the Claim of Right rears its head on here. As I understand it, a key part of the Claim of Right is that we Sovereign Scots get to bin our elected representative(s) every time we feel she/he has let us down big time.
Just maybes though, it might be dawning on some alert readers why the Claim of Right is unworkable, and hence why no mainstream political group will touch it with a bargepole.
@Sven says:3 August, 2023 at 10:19 am
When it comes to attempting to teach these new Scots an entirely different dialect, assuring them that this is their genuine ‘mother tongue’ , does seem to me to be both a pointless and futile task
An excellent observation.
As a Sovereign Scot who really would prefer not to have to experience my local town centre being turned into a Tower of Babel, I am in favour of ScotGov stipulating that all prospective New Scots must display full literacy in spoken and written Scots.
That would put the kybosh on Yousaf’s latest plan to get a million or so New Scots in!
Of course he might take it too far, and make it mandatory for all ScotGov employees, Sovereign and New.
Whoops, the majority of posters of employable age on here would be on the brew!
@ John Main
Is Evian the equivalent of super-unleaded? I ask coz it’s inevitable that Highland Spring Scottish water will be the wrong type…
Reason I ask is I need the high octane, anti-knock properties for a few of my engines.
Don’t be running sparkling water though, coz that fizzyness is due to carbon dioxide which sort of defeats the purpose of reducing CO2 output. Best leave it trapped in the bottle.
James Che at 6:14 pm:
“ Every time I make an attempt at explaining (that Scotland is a colony)… I make a mess of it,”
Easily done when it’s just nonsense.
In other news, I watched Rab C Nesbit without subtitles and it turns out I can understand the ‘Scots language’. Mind you, I also understand my East Anglian and Geordie friends so I must be a gifted linguist. Or maybe the idea that it’s a separate language is just silly? Sprinkling in a few colloquialisms, some dropped ‘g’s and using phonetics doth not a language make. Still, it all helps to pretend the Union never happened, eh?
@Dan says:3 August, 2023 at 6:56 pm
Highland Spring Scottish water will be the wrong type
Haha, you would think so, but actually it’s fine.
defeats the purpose of reducing CO2 output
Doo wot? The purpose is saving money!
Check out the story in the DM online:
“Driver is left stranded 80 miles from home after her brand new £22,000 Renault Captur was ‘written off’ when Sheffield hotel car park flooded in heavy rain”
No sympathy from me. If she had bought the right car, she could have been quids in with a free tank full of the good stuff.
Turabdin,
Scots “Law” does not confer any rights to pinch the oil from the oil companies on either side of the equidistant median lines of the counties (or administrative council areas or whatever euphemism you want to use) on either side of the median line who bust their balls at enormous financial and reputational risk to get that oil flowing to the export terminals such as Sullom Voe and Flotta and Hound Point and the various FPSOs et al.
The rights of the UK sector of the North Sea belong to the UK and that’s that.
This is not 1952 and we are not Iran. We are the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and don’t you, or anyone else, forget it!
Dan,
Doesn’t the Perthshire hillside and all its “Highland Spring” water belong to some Emirati Sheikh who doesn’t want Scottish hillwalkers or Scottish sheep to walk upon ‘his’ watershed?
John Main, the Claim of Right gets aired here 35 times a day by James Che.
It means fuck all, but he’ll say it anyway. And again, and again, and again..z
link to dailymail.co.uk
MrT,
Does it annoy you that Scots have a Constitution attached to the “Claim of right” which in turn has a affect on a dual crown position in Britain that has aafter shock regard the Crown position with laws in Scotland.
Here is something else to agitate you.
Have you heard of the £ million’s back Scottish bank note,
link to telegraph.co.uk
link to dailymail.co.uk
link to scottishdailyexpress.co.uk
link to scottishdailyexpress.co.uk
link to dailyrecord.co.uk
link to libdemvoice.org
link to independent.co.uk
Careful Ted, you’ll wake Father Jack.
Too late!
I read that block posting of random links is a device to push into oblivion topics which the block-poster doesn’t like but has no rational counter-argument for. Consequently I make a point of reading that which went before Ron Clark’s rubbish.
Not yours, James Che.
Wings you are not that bloody clever. Donald J Trump is using the defence that you criticised Kezia Dugdale for ; simply put”I am so thick and stupid I could not have had the mens rea to have acted illegally”.
Seriously folks ,my dream will never die but it is momentarily in the ICU!
The people pushing Net-Zero are the same people pushing everything else that’s bad for us and purposely keeping us all in a state of fear.
How many times since the Club of Rome came up with the idea has it been rebranded because the imminent threat fails to appear?
Why do the elites singing this tune keep buying beach front property? Why do the banks still allow mortgages in areas that were gong to be under water 20 years ago?
I don’t see the US military as the number 1 single polluter slowing down and they’re not going to because we’re all being distracted by ‘carbon’ while it’s man made toxins that are the cause of virtually all our woes today.
(Michael) Blood and (Al) Gore have made a killing out of scaring the masses with this crap for the last 20 years and wait until enough people figure out the production of the renewables is just as damaging to the environment as what we’re told are ‘fossil’ fuels and there’s likely more slave labour involved as an added bonus.
“He who controls the weather, controls the world”, maybe if more people would look up for a while instead of down at screens all the time they might actually figure out wtf is actually going on to give the impression the weather is on the fritz because of your small house and car. The UN now calls it ‘Solar Radiation Modification’ as they pretend it’s something new to combat ‘Climate Change’ – it is not new but it has been the cause for a very long time.
When they say net zero they really mean net zero useless eaters, they’re barely hiding it now…
Ebenezer Scroggie – Whoever you are, I have enjoyed your posts these past few days. In relation to Highland Spring, yes it’s the Arabs that own it and you can buy it all over the joint in the Middle-East.
Is sturgeon trying to stage a come back?
Talk about brass neck.
or has she been told no charges so a come back might be possible.
Famous15 says:
3 August, 2023 at 9:33 pm…
(sings) “…three Lawrie Reillys, there’s only three Lawrie Reillys…”
@John Main
Not quite
Since the privy council thought best to terrify the late Queen over seasonal flu then presumably nobody (other than me) will object to nuscots identifying as sovereign despite being scared to catch cold
Similarly, whilst HM Queen showed great dignity at her husband’s funeral regardless, Scots had already failed to get triggered by an outlander series that put a homosexual spin on highland clearance wargraves so presumably nobody (other than me) will object to nuscots identifying as sovereign despite a perceived absence of dignity or respect (ie bullying & hypocrisy)
Accordingly I’m simply adapting your show me the money philosophy/ crystalisation of the national stereotype to assert that sovereign scots could hardly be true scots without demanding the receipts which, in this case, means: please explain* why the most exciting hate fueled political event in Scottish history currently looks as well attended as the inauguration of the, ahem, most popular US president in history..
*cunning plan to have the hareem running around enough doors to look great in jodpurs and thigh length wellies in time for reopening of bute house being about most sensible reason I can think of (not least for its potential to mitigate fears of more woke stuff in the long run)
Shug at 10:20 pm
“Is sturgeon trying to stage a come back? Talk about brass neck, or has she been told no charges so a come back might be possible?”/
Please give generously again, nationalist fools.
the boss is talking –
link to youtube.com
– shills fuckoff
press like and subscribe, it helps the algorithm
lexo details the intricacies of the shaped charge with lessons from giap, mao, che, kitson and even lawrence “seven pillars of wisdom”, the irgun and stern
also mistakes you can make when trying to use those old recipes from kurt saxon survivalist literature
england is a gangmaster and has locked our passport in a drawer
Now folks wheest…listen to ASA….i am the Epiphany.. the font of all knowledge…bow down before it, for in its mind it’s all knowing….got me…hahaha, yeah GIRUY x
Hey ASA who gives a fuck what you dribble on about….you don’t have a vote anyway seeing as you are on the wrong side of the border…..shame
Heard it all in 2014…was shit then and have to feel sorry for those that regurgitate it now…get a life dude
ASA diddums…you peeved son, no matter what you ain’t got a vote? but hey whatever keep at it, haha……I’M STILL A SCOT…so fucking whatdude… like we care
Let’s say we …..Scotland…..are 8% of the Uk….ok, so we own that of the navy?airforce…properties abroad/ airfields and diplomatic houses……so also gold reserves are ours…plus every single pound is backed up by Scotland bank etc.. we have huge natural resources and a wee bit of oil…mmm it’s doable i reckon
SHIT…..things may be put down by UNIONISTS… but hey ho
mind you this may all be fantasy stuff….waiting on what ASA the dick thinks….don’t laugh…this is important shit man….
The Claim of Right, just like its contemporary Bill of Rights elsewhere in the nascent United Kingdom, was an anti-Catholic diatribe, a piece of Protestant bigotry.
I think it’s significant that the Septics incorporated, somewhat belatedly in the first batch of Amendments, several cut’n’ paste jobs from the Bill of Rights, but none of the Jockanese crap.
Smithie,
What’s our share of the National Debt?
What’s our share of the unfunded debt obligations of the National Pension scheme?
What’s our share of the cleanup costs of the North Sea oil installations decommissioning?
Alf Baird wrote about freeports over at lawson, worth a read.
people should start referring to freeports as “pirate havens”, also the city of london is a pirate haven; it’s all about “our own laws” or none at all, and most crucially, not having to tell anyone else what you are doing, and not having to pay taxes, or kick back very much to “upstairs”. It does little for anyone and drains revenues away from lawful authorities; ironically, the royal navy wiped out all these pirate havens in the caribbean (as they didn’t like the competition).
– the english started out as pirates, it is still embedded in their heads; all the “explorers” the english historians will tell you of, they were pirates; it was a big part of the economic policy. The famous tale they tell of the Spanish Armada – that was actually an attempt at a “policing” operation, at “shutting down a pirate haven” (england) – but no anglo historian will ever frame it in those terms; the spanish attacked england for no reason, just because.
“wherever wood floats, you will find an englishman, stealing all he can”
Imagine what would happen if an indy Scotland setup freeports on, say, old oil rigs just outside english waters, or on an old oil tanker cruising up and down the channel – the english would be furious.
– there is a slight frisson of danger and excitement with the idea of freeports; imagine scooting out past the 12 mile limit on your jetski to load up with ? … panama red, handguns, chinese fireworks, and a spare kidney if you need it. Much more fun than driving the estate round to ASDA.
Smithie,
In what way do you believe that the Pound is backed, in any way, by any “Scottish” bank?
What do you believe is meant by the promise on any Scottish banknote to pay the bearer on demand the sum of Five/Ten/Twenty etc Pounds. So many pounds of what? Gold? Silver? Peat? Sand?
For centuries the Pound Sterling was able to get away with that crap because the Pound really meant something within the Sterling Area and some other places.
Sterling came off the silver standard over a hundred years ago to pay for the war to end all wars.
The dollar came off the gold standard early in the 1970s to enable Nixon to pay for The American War in Vietnam.
All fiat currency is doomed to return to its true value: Zero.
Inflation is right bugger.
When I first became economically active in 1971 a Pound was worth $2.40 or a 1/15th of an ounce if gold.
Now it’s worth 1/1,500th of an ounce of gold.
That more than 99% devaluation in terms of real money, through Inflation, within my own adult lifetime. A little over 50 years.
How long do you think it’s going to take the bastards to inflate away the other 1%?
Confused,
Some of the greatest privateers/pirates/Captains of the British Empire were Scotsmen.
Just one example is Vice-Admiral Samuel Grieg from Inverkeithing.
A brilliant career of privateering and Empire-building and piracy.
He went on to create and develop the Russian Navy, y’know.
Confused,
There are so many examples of Scotsmen who built the British Empire. The history of Hong Kong is replete with such examples.
Alexander Dalrymple of East Lothian was a pioneer of The East India Company. He became their principal hydrographer and returned to the UK an immensely wealthy man through his sales of his own nautical charts to the world’s sea Captains. He later became the first Hydrographer of The Admiralty.
He rose up through The Royal Society and was the man who commissioned Captain Cook to voyage around the world more than once.
He promoted John Harrison’s seagoing clock as an innovative way of measuring Longitude. He was the first to coin the word Chronometer in an academic paper and I have his long-case clock, which he commissioned from the finest clockmaker in Falkirk, in my study just behind where I’m sitting right now.
Don’t put the Scotsmen of the British Empire down, please. They were the leaders in the creation of the British Empire.
Interesting approach.
Imperialism was good because some Scot-brits with no morals made money in piracy, drug running,, spying, theft with menaces and fraud.
@stuart mctavish says:3 August, 2023 at 10:42 pm
please explain* why the most exciting hate fueled political event in Scottish history currently looks as well attended as the inauguration of the, ahem, most popular US president in history.
First, thanks for your response.
Having to fess up and say I am struggling to explain. Actually, I am struggling to understand the question.
To parapharase Tarantino, you’ve gone Da Vinci Code on ma ass.
Anyhoo, I’ll give it a try. In characteristic Sovereign Scot style, the good people of Rutherglen etc. have enjoyed giving somebody they perceive as an entitled, “don’t do as I do, do as I say”, overpaid, drone a right royal kicking.
Now that she is down and out, faced with the expenditure of a small amount of time and effort to sort through the possible replacements, they are saying “fuck that, my holidays are coming up, and besides, it’s the world cup (laydees variant) on the box”. Or maybes just the perennial favourite “ach, they’re all the same”.
After a record, low turnout, her replacement will be given a decent time to settle in (one month tops) before in stereotypical Scottish fashion, the sniping about being entitled, overpaid, useless, etc will start again.
Maybes aided and encouraged by some of us on here. And why not, isn’t this a hobby in it’s own right?
@Ebenezer Scroggie says:4 August, 2023 at 1:48 am
Don’t put the Scotsmen of the British Empire down, please. They were the leaders in the creation of the British Empire.
Of course.
We can still chart their progress today by finding and identifying on the map the Scottish names they gave their new settlements.
Not just in obvious places like New Zealand, Australia, Canada, USA, southern Africa, South America, but on Caribbean islands too.
Back in the day, we Scots didn’t sit about on our flabby, pimply asses bleating ineffectually for somebody to “show us the money”. We got out there and took the money for ourselves. And we were proud of that.
Nowadays, the descendants of those who stayed at home want to pretend that some big, English, racist, colonialist slavers made us do it and then they ran away.
Quizzers like imperialism.
The Empire is gone.
Ebenezer Scroggie said;
“The rights of the UK sector of the North Sea belong to the UK and that’s that.
This is not 1952 and we are not Iran. We are the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and don’t you, or anyone else, forget it!”
But the UK is only a single entity as viewed from the outside, by the other nations of the world. Internally, it is two kingdoms sharing joint governance in a shared parliament. Their territories did not merge, their laws did not merge, their constitutions did not merge, their sovereignties did not merge or vanish, and their monarchies did not merge any more than they had in 1603.
Scotland’s territories, both on-shore and off, still belong to Scotland, and that means to Scotland’s people.
The UK’s off-shore territory expanded enormously when its EEZ was established, but it didn’t just expand the UK’s waters, it expanded Scotland’s and England’s too. Westminster doesn’t get to pretend that the new territory wasn’t added to either Scotland or England, but only to the UK as some kind of third kingdom, given the posh name of ‘extra regio territories’, the Royal Kingdom of Extra.
The argument is simple; if Scotland’s people decide that they have been royally shafted of their expectation to enjoy the benefits of their territorial resources, and choose to end the Union, all that EEZ territory north of the Berwick estuary will be Scotland’s, beyond any reasonable doubt.
England’s establishment knows that fine well, and in effect they’ve already conceded Scotland’s ownership of that EEZ sector, at least in principle, and the fact that the area comes under the writ of Scots law confirms it. More confirmation comes from Tony Blair’s dodgy deal to angle the West-to-East borderline across that EEZ upwards to put more of that EEZ into the English part, just so it could redesignate some decent oil fields as being in English territory rather than Scottish territory. If the EEZ really was a separate single UK territory, there would have been no border to shift!
And that is the real basis of the entire stooshie in the first place; Oil, and the prospect that Scotland would discover just how wealthy it really was and is, and leave the union that was deliberately beggaring it, and take the vast bulk of that oil with it.
Correction, the empire is almost gone.
It still exists in a fashion, as the grifters from the East India and South Africa Company franchises still function. – supported by the quizzers on here.
In 2015 the tax payer just finished paying off the debt. Incurred in the slave owner compensation scheme of 1835.
To continue the entertaining game of shooting the renewable energy fish in the net zero barrel…
Expanding energy transmission infrastructure ‘vital’ to meet net zero, Holyrood Magazine, link to archive.ph
Not a serious source I know.
So who is going to pay for all this infrastructure upgrades. We already know from the privatised water companies that the leccy companies are going to be adverse in the extreme to pouring in the the billions needed.
From UK energy secretary, Grant Shapps:
“We will give your recommendations full consideration in the action plan but I can be clear now that the direction of the package is broadly in line with the approach being taken by government.”
They should change the marketing driven slogan “Just Transition” to “Just Stop” and let the adults take over before something gets broken or someone gets hurt.
@Xaracen says:4 August, 2023 at 9:01 am
That’s a great post and I can’t find very much to argue with in it.
But …
It’s very much a glass half full / half empty thingy. The crux of the matter was, is and will always be this:
the prospect that Scotland would discover just how wealthy it really was and is
How wealthy is “Scotland” then? I put Scotland in inverted commas, not because I don’t believe Scotland exists, but because I don’t believe countries are wealthy entities.
It’s the citizens of any country that may be wealthy. So let’s rephrase the question:
How wealthy will a Sovereign Scot be in iScotland?
You obviously believe the answer is “immensely wealthy”. Is it right that when politely asked to show us the money, you can’t? “Have faith” you may say, or “it stands to reason”.
So there we have it. Faith against reality. Reality supported by evidence – Brexit (AKA UK Indy) has made us all poorer.
Reality supported by real life experience – all the resources that could potentially make us Sovereign Scots wealthy are already nailed down – present ownership secure and ratified by every known legal process.
So how do we prise the cold, dead hands of the current legal owners off our “Scottish” wealth, post-Indy, so that it can be siphoned into our pockets.
Show us the fucking money.
It’s a simple request, Xaracen, so far fumbled by every poster I have addressed it to on here. See if you can do better.
Alert readers might well wonder why, after 20 years of time to sort this out, the plausible, evidenced and economically sound answer doesn’t just trip off the tongue of every Sovereign Scot.
Believe me, if it did, we would have been independent in 2014.
The man who destroyed his own, and his party’s credibility in Scotland, questions a former leader of the SGP’s credibility.
“SCOTTISH Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie hit back at Robin Harper, the party’s first MSP, after his resignation was sent to “right-wing” media before party leadership.
In a leaked internal message seen by The National, Harvie said that Harper, who quit the Greens citing the party’s stance on independence and trans rights, was arguing a position with “very little credibility”.
Harvie said the former MSP’s intervention had come “after several years of detachment from the party’s activism” – and questioned the key points from his resignation letter.”
«EBENEZER SCROGGIE/JOHN MAIN
Indeed British imperialism made colonial exploiters, racist warriors, drug pushers and dealers- the opium wars, out of many Scots who knew a good thing when they saw it….meanwhile back in Scotland people were encouraged to leave in herded droves to get a share of that illusory new Unionist dispensation, but never actually finding it for themselves. That illusion of Unionist nirvâna still endures among so many to their enduring psychological cost as pawns in a great game of lies.
Imperialism is the «soma» of the weak as is the contemporary lethal opiate globalism.
In the squalor and degradation of the new old order the soma addicts see only a fairy tale virtual reality.
Those «soma free» see something else.
John Main
Sadly there’s no account sitting in the Bank of England titled “Profits from Scotland” that can simply be wire transferred on independence.
It’s better to to think of Scotland as a “fixer-upper”. The idea being that we get a chance to make it a dream home or we fuck it up. But in either case the decisions are made by the people who will live in the house and emphatically not by people who have their own interests at heart not ours.
I understand your point but you’re asking the priests just how marvelous Heaven will be. Nobody here can give you an answer so it’s rather pointless and somewhat disingenuous for you to keep asking since you know this already.
The profits are unknowable but you can look at the basic resources and conclude that there is a lot to work with. It’s not an unreasonable conclusion that given the inputs AND competent use of them that indeed things would be a lot better. Indeed all our neighbours with either similar resources or populations are doing very nicely it’s not unreasonable that we’d be in that position as well.
So ask “show me the money” til your blue in the face. If you really want that answer then you should really go somewhere else where the clientele are better equipped to give you what you seek.
Then again, why not lead by example, and show everyone here how much better off Scotland off is by being in the Union. You’ve got 317 years of hard data to work with. It should be a simple task.
@John Main
Good effort*, might even be bang on the money
*consider it seen and much appreciated – unlike details of the 12000 petitioners that might need help getting back, or CBT, for the reason you state.
@TURABDIN says:4 August, 2023 at 10:02 am
back in Scotland people were encouraged to leave in herded droves to get a share of that illusory new Unionist dispensation, but never actually finding it for themselves
Oh FFS, you need to get out and about more.
I’ve visited some of these colonial outposts, spoken to some of the descendants of the Scottish diaspora (how often have total strangers picked up on my accent, so that they can tell me how their great granda came from Tobermory or Arbroath?).
If the descendants of the colonists regretted it so much, they would be all flooding back here.
Heck, as recently as my grandparents day, one of their family contemporaries went to New York to get rich. She did too.
Anyhoo, sorry the colonialist adventure didn’t work out for you. I see successful colonists every time I walk my local High Street. New Scots, making new lives, in many cases doing well, on the property ladder, driving flash cars, sending remittances home to their impoverished parents back in the dear old shithole.
I’m guessing our modern day New Scots colonisers have no more intention of going back than our colonising Scottish ancestors did.
I should issue a corrective to Ebenezer Scroggie’s nonsense on the England/Scotland maritime border.
I personally negotiated the majority of the UK’s maritime boundaries. They are all characterised as “modified median lines” and the approach he describes, with hydographers squabbling over points on the coast from which to measure median lines, is absolutely correct.
It is even more complicated than he says. You have to determine whether a sandbank, for example, is land all year round or disappears at certain times of the year. That can be a dispute of fact. You may agree to give such marginal points – which might be miles out from the mainland and make a huge difference to the boundary – half effect, for example, in which case the basepoint would be in the sea halfway between the disputed point and the nearest undisputed point.
That is just one example. These are bilateral negotiations and you can agree any approach between the two countrie that you wish. It is why the UK uses the term “modified” median line to indicate it is not a precise science.
But the most crucial point the Scroggie misses is that you are entitled to draw straight baselines to close off heavily indented coastlines. This is specified explicitly in the Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Where your coastline is affected by deep estuaries, bays or fjords, you are entitled to draw baselines across their mouths to close them off. You can then site your base points for calculating the median line anywhere on the baseline, ie in the water. The waters behing the baseline become internal waters.
Scotland’s East Coast is heavily indented by estuaries. The Forth Estuary in particular has the effect of sending the “median line” promulgated by New Labour right up North of Carnoustie at its Eastern end.
This is precisely because they – deliberately – did not close off the Forth Estuary with a baseline, to benefit England.
There is a massive contrast with the treatment of the West Coast, where the UK drew extremely ambitious baselines around the Isles and closing off all the lochs, making everything inside the Hebrides internal waters.
I was personally involved. It hugely affected the border with Ireland, in negotiating which I was also involved and I was there at the signing in Dublin Castle.
I was not involved in the failure to take a similar approach on Scotland#s East Coast, which was done four years after I left as Head of the Maritime Section of the FCO.
The difference in approach is explained by the fact the baselines in the West have no effect on the border with England (because of Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man).
That is why Scotland has massive baselines on its West coast – some of the most ambitious reach in the World – and none on its East. Because the latter affect England.
An Independent Scotland would draw those baselines and renegotiate this ludicrous boundary.
Finally, the median line approach is only one lawful approach sanctioned by the Convention on the Law of the Sea. There are others, including traditional rights and practices. The international courts would therefore give very serious consideration to the straigh East West line, which had stood far longer in determining legal jurisdiction.
@Stuart MacKay says:4 August, 2023 at 10:22 am
That’s a good reply, thanks. I kinda get the impression that you would be sympathetic to an honest slogan like:
“It could be Scotland’s oil – let me show you how it could one day be done”.
And that still fits on a T-shirt.
why not lead by example, and show everyone here how much better off Scotland off is by being in the Union. You’ve got 317 years of hard data to work with.
Sure, let’s take EU membership. The UK, and the hated Thatcher, got a great deal, far better than other countries got, due to the UK’s economic and geopolitical heft. Scotland got her proportionate share of these benefits.
When the UK voted to leave, our Scottish politicos realised that as Scotland could not hope to retain EU membership on such advantageous T’s & C’s, there was no point in even trying.
I’m not sure that we are on entirely opposite sides here. I voted for Brexit having made an assessment of how much that would cost me – financial loss for UK Indy. The majority of Scots, if they thought that far, decided they weren’t prepared to risk their dosh, so voted to Remain. Project Fear it was called.
I may vote for Indy next time around, having made the same assessment of financial risk. The majority of Scots, if they think that far, will make the same assessment. Project Fear again.
If we choose to see that for most Scots, who are not ideologically driven, Indy is purely a fiscal matter, we can agree that showing us the money is indeed key to Indy success.
Just as not showing us the money may well result in another No vote.
I see the national museum of Scotland plan to run an exhibition on the massacre of glencoe.
It is always interesting to see how establishment organisations describe such an event, the national trust preferring to refer to the Campbell’s killing Macdonald’s etc.
The words tell you how they want you to think of the event.
Will I ever see the day it is described as the British army marched into the glen and carried out their orders from London to kill everyone. Some low level British soldiers could see the wickedness of their actions and warned their victims. others carried out their orders to the letter.
London ordered and the British army disgraced itself.
If a Scottish organisation fails to accurately report a historic event it tells you a great deal.
Unionists must face up to the facts of the history and recognise that even today there is a risk that Westminster might use the army against the people of scotland.
oh hi 77 brigade crowd nice to see you as usual.
I forgot to add notes to – Mr Main , ASA, SROGGIE, and thon CHAS WAN
IS THIS ANCIENT GUFF OR WHAT- WE, the people of Scotland want to know if there is a new abundance of wealth coming our way????
Never ever mention the bible…?
So i will,
The wicked flourish like a “green” bay,and thier children dance with
joy in the streets!…
and the contempt for what passes itself off as a politician these day’s rises by the hour…not the day…that last bit was me not the bible…
The eyes wide shut in Scotland is becoming sickening, beyond anything i’ve seen before…almost anywhere!
The electorate has a simple decision to make.. keep backing politicians and get nowhere or sue the Scottish Parliament, for lack of process and resolution by court sanction of a referendum.
Current politicians won’t be in office, when legally enforced referendum. Court action against our own parliament, an act of no confidence. Enforcement of an indy plebiscite, accelerates an extraordinary general election. Qualified indy representatives elected from that process.
Joanna Cherry sows doubt, double speak. Agreed a neutral body could conduct referendum bypassing Scotland Act, then evades question of which body should do so. Suggests the Law can’t rule on independence, when not the problem. Law obviously rules on PROCESS!
POLITICS HAS FAILED.
John Main
Indy is ONLY a fiscal matter – better decisions that reflect the local situation are always going result in money better spent with greater effect than when done remotely, where the facts on the ground may be poorly understood.
There is a moral / aspirational aspect but that’s only because there are fewer steps between the decision makers and the people affected. That means the facts on the ground are more likely to reach the ears of the decision makers.
Could you get the same in the UK? Absolutely, except that’s not how humans work. If you devolved all decision making out to the regions then the national parliament would only be there to ensure the playing field was as level as a snooker table for the entire length and breadth of the realm. The only problem is that there’s no money in that, so the kleptocratic and authoritarian classes are never going to allow that to happen.
You just have to look at the scale of various countries so see the quality of the decisions made. Organisations need some scale to organise efficiently but the trade-off is that the larger the organisation, the larger the pot of available money and the larger the level of corruption. Smallish nations are better able to function and tend to be more innovative simply because of the number of people needed to persuade a given idea is good is smaller. Also the number of vested interests increase with scale. So a smaller Scotland is better able to function than a larger England – all assuming the government is not full of dunderheids, which right now is admittedly a problem. You only have to look at the USA to see where a lack of accountability ends up. Even apparently super-organised and efficient Germany is beset by corruption.
I expect everybody here wants the same thing – as few morons in charge as possible and the greatest level of accountability possible. That’s never going to be possible in the UK unless you burnt it to the ground and started over. Independence could deliver that, though there’d need to be a certain amount of spring cleaning first.
Expecting to be able to see all the fine print before signing is unrealistic, no matter how demanding the skeptics are or how accommodating the proponents are.
So, after wandering around the subject a bit we’re sort of back to “some faith required” as a proposition for independence. That’s why I want to see a pro personal freedom, pro entrepreneurship, pro fiscal responsibility, pro independence party emerge. It’s only when people of all political persuasions feel they have a stake in the future will there be any real movement because only then will people feel that all interests will be represented and there will be accountability.
Good question.
Could our quizzer friends describe the sunlit uplands they forsee as Scotland’s destiny by remaining in the UK?
Shug @ 11:00 am
“If a Scottish organisation fails to accurately report a historic event it tells you a great deal.”
Yes Shug, and of course in a colonial society all institutions are colonial in nature and in terms of the values they consider significant, which are the values of the oppressor; in this environment the colonized’s history is rewritten for him by the colonizer. As Albert Memmi explained:
“All effectiveness and social dynamics… seem monopolized by the colonizer’s institutions. Colonized society is a diseased society in which internal dynamics no longer succeed in creating new structures. Not being master of its destiny, not being its own legislator, not controlling its organization, colonial society can no longer adapt its institutions to its grievous needs.”
A’ve bin oot n aboot exprimentin’.
And the results are interesting.
Whenever I’ve been in conversation with strangers whilst going about everyday business I’ve purposefully and deliberately dropped a few Scots phrases and more Scots words into the conversation and paid careful attention to their reactions.
Well, as soon as I do the atmosphere quickly changes. It becomes a wee bit warmer and friendlier and folk respond in kind and soon enough we’re speaking to each other in a more Scottish kind of way – not in proper Scots (because wiv aw hid it ‘beaten’ oot us ane wey or anither), but using a few more Scots words and slightly broader Scots accents. Generally the change is subtle, but very noticeable nonetheless.
Sometimes, though, folk really open up and seem delighted at speaking to a fellow Scot in a much more Scottish way.
I notice the change because I’m looking for it, but I suspect it’s a sub-conscious reaction in the folk I’m speaking with.
It’s hard to explain, but it’s as if folk are more comfortable when speaking more like Scots naturally should.
It’s as if some kind of invisible barrier comes down and we’re the more natural and ourselves for it.
Of course I only do this when speaking with other Scots. Though it might be interesting to observe the reactions of those folk who aren’t indigenous Scots if I try the same thing on them.
So far my results are anecdotal, but it would be interesting if there were some proper scientific methodology of quantifying and analysing the results.
I wonder if Craig Murray can give us an extant example of an international median line being projected East or West or North or South of a point on a coastline.
In forty years of working as a hydrographer and a geodesist in the waters of more than four dozen countries around the world I don’t remember seeing one.
Yes, median lines can be complicated because the coastline in these matters is usually defined as Mean Low Water Springs. This means that very shallow gradients, especially varying ones, can make a big difference between the datum and the high tide line which is usually depicted in terrestrial mapping in atlases.
Th hydrographers commissioned to conduct such studies and negotiations usually find a way to agree on a final simplified median line which then becomes the internationally recognised boundary.
That is the case in the equidistant median line which emanates from the somewhat quirky terrestrial border between Scotland and England. Due to the nature of the bathymetry around those coasts it was a fairly straightforward matter of plotting equidistant points from a clearly defined set of datapoints along the MLWS line.
I presume the matter was settled by technical discussions between The UK Hydrographic Office and the Ordnance Survey, both of which are headquartered in England but are both pan-UK institutions which are held in high regard when it comes to geodesy and hydrography.
In the event that a lot more than 38% of the Scottish electorate had voted Yes in the once in a lifetime referendum, I see no reason why that equidistant line could not have been revisited by the relevant surveyors and be ratified by both sides. Sadly for the separatistas, the people of Scotland voted against the self-harm that separation would have involved.
AFAIK the equidistant line is currently only used for such matters as fishery protection and local jurisdiction in matters of crime or fatal accidents. There is no relevance to the oil/gas resources within the UK sector of the North Sea.
Xaracen
Great post.
As usual Mr Main comes back with the “How long is a piece of string” scenario, basically meaning the spin. His under studies Ebenezer and ASA will add their absolute tosh soon with even more bizarre spin theories.
They forget all this stuff was discussed at length many years ago before they dragged their sorry arses out of retirement and found something to pass their time.
The Westmonster establishment has conceded most of it will be Scotland’s apart from that little bit area where Blair stole to get at least some oil fields as back up.
Really though they shouldn’t need that backup now because apparently they discovered or perhaps made an assumption that oil lies around the ting wee island off the coast of their beloved England. The question is WHY don’t they pursue this wealth they have found- why do they need ours ?
They haven’t responded to it because they’re too busy draining every last drop on Scottish territory before suddenly a new abundance of wealth is pursued to fill their coffers for London and south . How much of that wealth goes up north of Salisbury is anyone’s guess? I suspect ZERO.
No licenses to date have been granted- WHY?
The citizens of Isle of Wight are waiting sirs!
Even google has a pun naming the Isle itself. lol
The latest – link to archive.is
The story itself is from 2016 – a long yarn.
link to archive.is
Sorry about the BBC links- but credit where credit due eh! – IT’S A BIG DREAM!
THE LOCALS AIN’T HAVING IT- “SHOW US THE MONEY THEY CRY!!!!!!!!!!
IS IT SAFE? THEY CRY!
NOTE:
This should have been b4 my last post- but didn’t work.
Doesn’t J dOES
Doesn’t John Main say “show us the money “ALOT”- Just like the good old Donald J Trump?
I do.
so what scroggie – are you telling us all some scots were unionists who sold out their country and did very well out of being tractors … change your moniker to captain obvious while you are at it; but even here you are engaging in diversions – if the union was a rock band, the “prominent Scots” were merely the bassplayer, never the singer/lead or songwriter. They went along with it and filled their pockets – no one is actually proud of these people.
– in the post you refer, I mention the armada and piracy of that era, something which happened a long time before the union; this was all english, and it goes back further still. Elizabeth handed out contracts – licenses to steal – to her “explorers” to fill her coffers.
All you have shown is that when influenced by the english, some scots took to their ways, i.e. piracy.
Piracy is a good idea to bear in mind when thinking of it all; the english are an organised kleptocracy, which incorporated itself and made a gang hut called the city of london, which makes up its own laws, even though its laughable “sovereignty” could be extinguished by 4 men with knives in an afternoon.
– it’s all about “Plunder” for them, and if you don’t realised you have been LOOTED this past week, then you must be in a coma. Empire is always a looting operation.
Yoon shills would have us believe “Black Jake and his Lads” turn up to our shores in the SS Barnet Formula and ram gold down our throats at the point of a cutlass; this comes from the reality distortion field of anglo exceptionalism – “it’s alright when we do it” – “the rules don’t apply to us” – “believe me, not your lying eyes”
Modern pirates weapons are all financial, invisible to the naked eye and far more dangerous.
Yoon shill quantity has been high of late, but the quality really shit –
something wingers must remember is the shills get paid for a wordcount and engagement; what they post does not have to make sense, and if they posted crap yesterday, soundly rebutted, they will never up their game, come back with a better argument, because who cares – its wordcount and disruption
scroggie used to infest the ambassadors BTL, a place hoaching with shills; they hate CM as he was on the inside and turned on them … but its quiet over there so he is now over here, so a sniff of the loctite or gorilla and round we go again, same shite as yesterday, groundhog day meets deja vu all over again …
some of the crap we get about Scotland – it doesn’t exist anymore, the seas aren’t ours, the oil isn’t ours, or the Scots don’t exist since we are all just really anglos, pretending to be gaels and picts who don’t exist anymore, and our language isn’t a real language …
the shills who peddle this false and slanderous claptrap will also be the people who shill constantly for a certain eastern country, let’s call it scythia … now there is a deep irony because
– “scythia” is not a real country and will never be; it was always part of something else and only has its current borders because Lenin, of all people, thought it was a good idea
– they are not a people; genetically, they are identical to rushians
– their language is not a language at all, it is rushian, if you had been kicked in the head by a horse; at best it is danish compared to swedish
– as for culture, I have never heard of any significant scythian contribution to the world, OTOH we all know who Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Tchaikovsky are; I have heard “scythian” mafias control the worldwide ecstasy trade and the “rushian” mafias which became notorious in the US were actually scythian. Scythian hookers are good value for money supposedly – it’s not much to put on a poster and shout about.
the shills go nuts supporting this country as if it was a moral mission; the scythian fools got themselves dragged into a proxy war against a far stronger opponent because they voted in some of the most corrupt people on earth, in a country thought to be one of the most corrupt to begin with – they fell for this because they allowed Bandera to become their national hero; this guy was a genocidal maniac who not only thought scythians were a people, but that poles and anyone else should be eliminated.
Scotland and the Scots are real, a people who punched far above their weight in history; scythians by contrast are nothing, a zero people, little more than savages with white faces; they don’t deserve to be a nation, but we do.
– the thing the scythians never learned is : just because you do the bully’s commands, work for him, does not mean he will have your back when it gets tough. Mr Z last time out was getting cold shouldered – his backers don’t want to give him the best gear, or more blank cheques, some are even asking to be shown that the money is going where it is meant to be going. Some of his schtick is getting old – the army fatigues, as if he has just loaded the howitzer, fuck off … put on a suit mate, look presentable if some major power is giving you a billion or 10, give it the respect it deserves.
scythian shilling is a yoon tell
Ebenezer Scroggie says:
4 August, 2023 at 12:38 pm
Well in that case Mr Eb
WHO owns the oil on Isle of Wight on or around the Isle of Wight?
WILL SCOTLAND SEE A PENNY OF IT- I’ve got a fiver to invest.
I suppose it will be better spent on the that farce than putting a fiver on The Gers- The Billy Boys- The Queens Eleven-oops King’s noo ever winning the league this year or the “The Gers” figures are actually true figures.
The oil in the Isle of Wight is in the UK sector, just like the oil/gas in any other part of the UK and the UK sector of the offshore fields.
It’s no different. Did you think it is?
Northcode @ 4 August 2023 at 12:19 pm:
As soon as I [speak Scots] the atmosphere quickly changes. It becomes a wee bit warmer and friendlier and folk respond in kind
my ikspeeriqns tae. dhqr iz saiqntfik methudolodzhi, but it wuwdnae show yi inuf tae bi yuwsfuw. betqr dzhust tae keep on daein it!
My experience too. There is scientific methodology, but it wouldn’t show you enough to be useful. Better just to keep on doing it!
Ebenezer Scroggie says:
4 August, 2023 at 1:12 pm
The oil in the Isle of Wight is in the UK sector, just like the oil/gas in any other part of the UK and the UK sector of the offshore fields.
It’s no different. Did you think it is?
———
So what’s my shere? A fiver on the gers @ 6/5 or a fiver on thon oil @ whatever?
Shit, do I really huv tae back the gers- I’d be excommunicated from family!
“a gang hut called the city of london, which makes up its own laws”
The City of London is indeed peculiar. It’s the closest thing we have to a sate within a state. Even the Romans and the Normans respected its separateness. Even today, the King has to request permission to enter the City’s boundaries
When we were in the EU the City was not. It was not allowed to apply for admission to the EEC or the EU because it is not a democracy. It is a corporatocracy which is governed by appointees of the corporations located within it. Those appointees don’t even need to be British or to live within it.
It’s very odd and always has been. Financially it operates almost as an empire, with outposts in tax havens all around the Caribbean.
Although they have no MPs they do have a special representative at Westminster, called the Remembrancer. He has the same rights of access to the corridors of power within the Palace of Westminster as MPs and Peers.
I trust the separatistas here don’t imagine that Scotland could somehow become a Northern equivalent of the City of London!
The stupidity of vanity, the vain conceit of the corporatistic notion of «ownership».
How might you «own» that which you did not confect?
Any renewal in the politics of Scotland might question the hubris and folly of the latter especially with regard to land whose proprietorial holding continues to blight the national landscape.
John Main said;
“How wealthy will a Sovereign Scot be in iScotland?
You obviously believe the answer is “immensely wealthy”. Is it right that when politely asked to show us the money, you can’t? “Have faith” you may say, or “it stands to reason”.
Show us the fucking money.
It’s a simple request, Xaracen, so far fumbled by every poster I have addressed it to on here. See if you can do better.
“
Obviously I can’t show you the money now, because it’s not here yet because we aren’t independent yet. Get a grip!
That doesn’t mean the money doesn’t exist, it’s just not sitting in Scotland. Scotland’s generous wealth in resources creates it, but England’s establishment demands it be sent down to HM Treasury
for ‘distribution’ and most of it stays in England, as does all of England’s generated money, which is why England, and especially London and the southeast is visibly wealthy (at least before Brexit), but Scotland is not, and that’s because Scotland’s purse is in England’s hands and not in Scotland’s hands.
There is no proper accounting of it, GERS being a sick joke, so establishing what the money is, especially in advance of Indy, is far more difficult than it has any right to be, and that is deliberate.
But it is not at all hard to infer what Scotland’s indy future would likely be in economic terms because the forms of that wealth are easy to identify, and have been identified, and you as an avid reader of Wings will have seen the lists that appear here every now and again because folks like you have such shockingly poor memories, and need to be reminded frequently.
But just to sum up, Scotland’s combined onshore and offshore territories dwarfs England’s in size, and also happens to contain most of the good and important stuff. These days, oil, gas, and energy figure highly, but not just these, and only an idiot would deny that Scotland is very well endowed in these and lots of other things as well.
There is nothing wrong with ‘it stands to reason’, and it isn’t a matter of faith, it’s a matter of epistemic confidence in the basics, and Scotland’s basics are strong.
Job done.
Nice blabbing Mr Eb.
Anyhoo am aff tae taik sum doe aff the bookies. Aw ma gers pals will be champin et the bit fur wullie hils 6/5. I’ll offur them 2/1 and make a alot of doe- jist like trump.
The Tic will romp it.
That’s Ayrshire talk btw. Dae a huv tae translate tae Engeeerlish fur ye!
What do you folk think about Alex Salmond standing for election in the by election? Good idea?
link to news.stv.tv
I reckon he could be in with a shout if he stands.
I suspect this, link to gaiusbaltar.substack.com, has been expertly written to pander to the biases of it’s audience. In which case it’s a remarkable article in itself. However if you ignore the backdrop of The Conflict, it is worth your time to read, though it’s a bit long. It goes a long way to explain why the likes of Lorna Slater got to a position where burning through £100 million has absolutely no consequences for anyone, except the tax payer. It also goes a long way to explain why Stonewall conquered the corporate sector and even institutions like the police with it’s diversity champions programme. There are many grains of truth which can largely explain why everything is falling to pieces. You can even take an isolated example such as the SNP and see how it’s descent into chaos and mediocrity was actually planned and executed.
Fortunately it’s all fixable, just not anytime soon.
The fad for non-English language is characteristically twitty.
It is absurd that they have the Gaelic for Police and Ambulance on those vehicles. There are around 60,000 native Gaelic speakers in Scotland, every one of whom speaks and reads English.
I asked a Gaelic-speaking friend how they pronounce Poileas and Ambualans. She replied in her lilting accent of the Western Isles “Police and ambulance”.
Another example of the nuttiness is putting railway station names in Gaelic spelling. Sometimes it’s quite hilarious.
Burntisland is not an island and it’s never been burned. It’s a corruption of the original name: Brunty’s Land. Brunty was a Norman landowner in the area. Nevertheless the twitty pseudo-Gaelic spelling spells out the Gaelic words for “Island that’s burnt”.
If the idea was to make life easier for non-English speakers, which it is not, then surely they’d have picked Urdu or Punjabi or Cantonese because there are vastly more of those language speakers in Scotland, many of whom don’t speak English.
The £ 1 million backed Scottish bank note.
Includes Ireland.
What does that have to do with Scotland or Scottish independence?
By the Bank if England.
If you want to know,
You will find it on this you tube blog yesterday,
The RICHARD VOBES show,
He also has some interesting thought interviews on how English people are reacting to the modern governance and Monarch.and and Ulez, Finances, wokery etc.
It always pays to seek many opinions and view news that is a alternate to main stream to know what is going on south of the border and how this relates to Scotland,
Scroggiebot just keeps on a-farting…. *sigh*
Show us the f..cking British money as we head into recession and give Billions of tax payers money to another Country that is not in nato,
Nor is this British money tracked, traced or receiving receipts,
The purpose is looking more like money laundering by the day,
Out of Britain, into another Country, and out the back door,
Show us the f..cking British money.
Because it is supposed to support Britain , and we never gave permission for the British governance to use a proxy war to skidaddle with our taxes money,
I want to see the receipts that the money is still ours.and not building up in a foreign global Bank.
Then come back and ask us where our money,
And we will tell you We gave it to the bank of England thinking it was the bank of Great Britain, which turns out not to be true,
That it is a Corporation running the interest rates in Uk government.
Scotland is not the one making the British Isles poor, but we might as well cut loose from this Banking system before we are deliberately made to go broke, to bring in the global digital credit currency,
Where they will be able to control you better , your savings, your mortgage, your Cars, your energy,
Your food supply and the new policy of only being allowed to buy three items of clothing per year,
Know the news from all sources, even your enemies, it explains the direction we are being pushed and why.
Derek Rogers @1:18pm
My experience too. There is scientific methodology, but it wouldn’t show you enough to be useful. Better just to keep on doing it
Good to have my anecdotal observations corroborated. And I will keep doing it; if for no other reason than having a more satisfactory verbal exchange with my fellow Scots.
I like the way you write in demotic Scots. It has a very alien look to it and clearly highlights the difference between Scots and standard English.
Scroggie,
Of course the east west line is not a median line. As I stated, the law of the sea specifically says the median line is one approach. There are other factors – especially traditional or historic rights. The jurisdiction boundary was always straight east west. That is a factor. It has nothing to do with median lines.
You did not address the point about straight baselines abd the difference in treatment between Scotland#s west and east coasts in this regard.
I fear you are illustrating that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Whilst, as Alexander Pope declared, “A little learning is a dangerous thing”, I’ve always felt that knowledge (even a little) is my friend.
James Che
Thanks, I had never heard of the ‘Titan’ banknote.
What a con.
The older I get the less I know.
Police and ambulance are both rather late French loanwords into English. Why poileas and ambulans in Gaelic are «hilarious» and polis, politi, polisi, polizia, polizei, ambulacia, ambulanza presumably are not one must attribute to some grievous hang-up on the part of the poster ut supra.
People needs to stop burning hydrocarbons asap.
If you are cold and hungry, burn parts of your house instead.
One of the reasons I like digging up some of the older Scots words and their spellings is the way they highlight the differences between the Scots and English languages; they clearly show that Scots is not just some poorer form of English, but the ancient language of the Scots in its own right – a common root, perhaps, but separate and distinct for all that.
Scots to English translation:
Robbo @1:41pm
Am liking yer Ayrshire talk tae.
POILEAS / AMBAILEANS are NOT pronounced as English POLICE /AMBULANCE (2.09 pm)
Actually,just about every Glaswegian has been pronouncing the Gaelic word for “Police” correctly since they were weans. And as for the lexical journey of the word “ambulance”, an online etymological dictionary gives us the following French>Latin origin of the English term (we might add that the Welsh is AMBIWLANS) –
AMBULANCE:
‘1798, “mobile or field hospital,” from French ambulance, formerly (hôpital) ambulant (17c.), literally “walking (hospital),” from Latin ambulantem (nominative ambulans), present participle of ambulare “to walk, go about”.’
———
Regarding the other matter of the placename —
BURNTISLAND / AN T-EILEAN LOISGTE (The burnt island)
Davis Ross’s suggested origin of ‘Burnet’s Island’ seems still a minority view. Cf for example the following info from the Fife-Placename site hosted by Glasgow University.
FIFE PLACE-NAME DATA
Sc burnt or brunt + Sc island
“‘Burnt island’ Local tradition, recorded in the OSA (p. 90), states that the name arose because fishers’ huts had been burnt on an islet east of the present harbour of Burntisland, and since incorporated into Burntisland docks. As there is no doubt that the second element is the Sc iland ‘island’ (pace Nicolaisen 1970, s.n.), and as no other alternative readily offers itself, this local tradition from the late eighteenth century should not be dismissed lightly. The burning of the huts might even have been a deliberate policy of land-clearance preparatory to the construction of the port in the early sixteenth century. The official name of this new royal harbour was Newhaven or the Port of Grace, so Burntisland may have been an unofficial nickname or low register name. Whatever the relationship between these names, Burntisland soon ousted the others.”
————
Burntisland was formerly known as Kinghorn Wester. KINGHORN is considered to derive from Gaelic CEANN GRONN (Head of the marsh / Boghead).
SCOTRAIL GAELIC NAMES
Scotrail’s Gaelic nomenclature is actually very reticent in application. Names are translated only where there is transparent academically-substantiated historic Gaelic provenance. There is zero “nuttiness, or “twitty pseudo-Gaelic spelling”. As far as Scottish placenames go, it is our default Anglicised versions which are almost always incomprehensible garble.
The full SCOTRAIL station name list (as per 2016) is here –
link to ainmean-aite.scot
SCOTRAIL GAELIC NAMES
Scotrail’s Gaelic nomenclature is actually very reticent in application. Names are translated only where there is transparent academically-substantiated historic Gaelic provenance. There is zero “nuttiness, or “twitty pseudo-Gaelic spelling”. As far as Scottish placenames go, it is the default Anglicised versions which are almost always incomprehensible garble.
Johnlm,
Your welcome,
There are many many intelligent people on here thirsty for the truth that is hidden from us, yourself amongst the many hungrey to learn more,
It is not our ignorance that can be blamed, but the truths that are secretively hidden from us or very ackward to trace that is the deliberately sin,
The MacCrone report is a excellent example,
The treaty of union actually only being a political treaty, rather than the joining of two kingdoms and two territories of Scotland and England into one supposed kingdom is another excellent but faux and misleading example by Westminster.
What is omitted is not our ignorance but is a set of planned out to maintain and keep us ignorant.
Pretty much everyone here by now, knows I had a appalling abusive Colonial education enforced by either being stood outside the class room all day or by being beaten with a cane or strapped with leather.
I always maintain it was not my ignorance and unwillingness to learn something new, but “their”ignorance of a closed Colonial and selective mind when it came to our languages and Scottish history,
The need and wanting to learn the other reality of Scotland has driven me into researching many avenues and many individuals wether from Scotland or every other Country that has their fingers in the pie of Scotland resources,
for banking, mineral resources, water and wind energy, the treaty of the union and Were the Crown is not Sovereign over the people in Scotland or in its law, due to the Claim of Right, which is included and mentioned in the articles and part of the agreement in the political treaty of union .
The Supreme court in England and the Crown within it has no jurisdiction over Scotland on Scottish independence because of that,
We are taught by the Coloniser to be ignorant of our background, and to be mentally kept imprisoned by given false history or by omitting our history to us,
We are all ready now to learn the truth in Scotland wherever it may lead us even at our ages.
Northcode,
My spouse was born and raised in the northeast of Scotland, while I was from the highlands,
It is noteworthy that not all Scots spoke Gaelic before English colonisation of Scottish languages.
But it is interesting to to see the attempt of claiming north east language of Scotland as Slang English and re-naming it Doric for the benefit of the Coloniser Language.
It is a slur upon the northeast, but sadly those with no memory longer than a few hundred years believe this to be true.
My spouse kept and spoke some of the northeast old language because their community was close knit,
He has some beauties that do not correlate as slang in any form or manner to English, to old English and the old Scots after Colonisation. and as far as the little Gaelic I know, not to that either,
His sister (whom recently passed away) and he used to throw these word in their every day conversation, and I used to have stop them to ask what they meant, and yet I was raised in Scotland.
I well remembered one was “Tint” because it is not Slang English and phonetically miles away in sound and prenouniation to what it actually meant,
I a small list of this lost language I wrote in a diary, to keep the words alive in memory,
Definately not the Colonisers version of a slang English that they newly claim is Doric,
The English Colonies have a similar propencity to make claims over native tongues and culture around the world.
We hear of politicians claiming Falsely that they are native Indian stock in America, only to discover that not one cell in their bodies has come from that inheritance,
We see elite coming to Scotland and dressing up in kilts and looking totally out of place as if they had donned a space suit.
Because a language is taught, borrowed or twisted to fit a new paradigm with the intent to steal or dilute its origins, is nothing but Colonisation,
I suspect my Spouses language of the north east may be as old as the hills and plains, that north east Scots first roamed,
And is not corrupted slang english,
Written “Scots language” is just Pidgin English. I find it comical. Spoken, it’s a dialect and fair enough. If there was any commitment you’d do what the Welsh did and resurrect the true language, which would be Gaelic. link to en.wikipedia.org
“In the event that a lot more than 38% of the Scottish electorate had voted Yes in the once in a lifetime referendum,”
More BS, from ES, tell us all where it said it was a once in a lifetime indyref? it certainly WASN’T in the Edinburgh Agreement and that’s what counts.
If by chance you mean Sturgeon or Salmond said it, or it was in the indy manifesto none of those supercedes the Edinburgh Agreement.
@ Jamie at 1.59: “what do you folk think of Alex Salmond standing in the Rutherglen by-election?”
It is a thought which has been briefly discussed between myself and husband. No conclusion just the obvious points – yes, he is the best politician in Scotland, but he has been trashed in the eyes of many people and would spend the entire campaign dealing with hostile coverage. Until the alphabetties falsehoods are exposed to the whole of Scotland it is probably best that Alex stand only as list MSP.
Freeports in Scotland exposed for the lie that they are, well done Alf.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
James Jones @ 5:45 pm
“Written “Scots language” is just Pidgin English.”
Naw hits no. Scots language, Gaelic language, English language – all are distinct languages and should be respected, not least as a human right for the respective peoples.
However, we know that linguistic imperialism is a colonial tool used to oppress people and depriving a people of their language and forcing them to speak another is part of that process.
We also know that the colonizer may favour certain native tribes over others in order to divide and rule within a territory. Which may help explain why there is a Gaelic Language Act giving Gaelic language statutory authority and funding, but not a Scots Language Act.
And from postcolonial theory we know that peoples in self-determination conflict are always linguistically divided and that a peoples language is central to their identity and national consciousness, as well as a human right.
Sae Scots fowk shuid ken oor ain langage is aye a main faitur in oor haud-doun condeetion, an ane raison we fecht fer oor leeberation an tae reclaim oor ain soveranety.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
@ James Jones at 5.45pm:
Keep going, chief! Few things do more to boost the cause of Scottish independence than insulting, fact-free comments like yours.
Every word of your imbecilic comment is absolute nonsense. If you think English is somehow superior to Scots, it’s because you hold the insultingly arrogant belief that England is superior to Scotland. Well, you’re not going to convince many Scots of the benefits of the UK with that attitude, are you?
What a nightmare it has been to drive in my home town today (Glasgow) the West End and city centre are a no go for cars from the 3rd until the 13th of this month for the UCI cycling event
Taxi drivers are fuming that there’s no ranking at Central and Queen street train stations, nor is their any buses stopping outside them, so folk exiting the stations have no form of public transport to get to their destinations.
It appear as usual as though Susan Aitken and her councillors at Tammany Hall aka Glasgow city chambers, have yet again put the needs of the citizens of Scotland largest city second to those of a cycling event, which hasn’t been thought through too well in its planning.
Roll on the 13th of this month.
There not even the consolation of team Scotland performing in the races, its team GB, which is a right turn off if you ask me.
The historical mapping clearly shows the progressive (regressive?) mutation from Brunty’s Land to Burntisland. No fishing hut involved. No island involved.
With a natural harbour the size of Burntisland’s, there would be no need to build a fisherman’s hut on an island. Fisherfolk, like farmers, are eminently practical folk. Fishermen’s huts would be on the shore.
The fisherman’s hut fable is an invention which had no historical basis, unlike the documented fact that the place used be Brunty’s land before the name was corrupted by some cartographer.
At no time was Gaelic the dominant language in Southern Fife or the Lothians. The Gaelic speakers, even at the height of their culture’s history, were far far away. Theirs is a culture which has no place in this part of the country and never has had. It’s an alien language being imposed by a tiny minority on a huge majority. It’s absurd.
James Jones,
On Each side of the grampians it would appears there were at least two languages in Scotland in those earlier days,
And the Gaelic of the highlands and Island was and had more sing song and lilting aspect to it which I enjoyed listening to, even when they spoke English the calibration of how they spoke did not alter, retained that sing song lilt,
And the Welsh are very similar in their sing song lilt when raised speaking their own language as its first language,
I moved to Wales for a short period during the revival of the Welsh language and the older generation of north Wales was a pleasure to listen to.
There is NO such party know as the Scottish Labour party, its a “optional identity mark” used by UK Labour says the Electoral Commission.
We knew this all along.
link to 12ft.io
The Lib/Dems, Labour and the Tories are ALL branch offices (fifth columns at Holyrood) of their London HQ’s.
It is always amusing seeing the members of the BPHB trying and failing in their pathetic attempts to show how much more ‘Scottishy’ they are compared to everybody else..
Still, it makes a change from the endless ‘Colonialism’ pish and the 300 year old shite.
Normal Scots simply get on with life and speak how they want. How do you say and spell the number 4? Is it four, fower, or ferr? Personally, I could not care less as I understand them all.
It will however be of great importance to some on here for some obscure reason. Language evolves…………..like everything else. For most people this means it moves forwards instead of backwards. I, of course, exclude the BPHB in this comment.
“THE Scottish Government has failed in a bid to postpone a legal hearing with the UK Government over Westminster’s decision to block controversial gender recognition reforms.
Lawyers for Scottish ministers sought a cancellation of the hearing scheduled in September in the Court of Session on Friday.
The Scottish Government says Westminster acted unlawfully by blocking the legislation, passed by cross-party MSPs in Holyrood last year, which would make the process for applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) simpler. ”
No such fight was put up by the SNP government when our Lord Advocate meekly surrendered our right to further indyref’s to the judgement of a foreign court. England’s Supreme Court knocking that route out of the union on the head, was met with indifference by the SNP.
Frae Scrofulus 6.41 pm
“At no time was Gaelic the dominant language in Southern Fife or the Lothians.”
Frae Scotland “Though in past times the language was spoken across all of Scotland – from the largest cities to the smallest islands – it did eventually fall into decline.”
Frae the Highlands.
“Settlers brought Gaelic to Scotland from Antrim in Ireland over 1500 years ago and it quickly spread from its initial base in what is now known as Argyllshire. At one time Gaelic was the language of the Scottish court and of the majority of the country’s population. Very few parts of Scotland, notably Caithness and the Northern Isles, were not Gaelic speaking at one time or another and placenames of recognisably Gaelic origin abound even in districts where the language was last spoken centuries ago.
But Gaelic began to lose ground in the early Middle Ages as the Scots language made progress in south-east Scotland. Gaelic continued to flourish in the Highlands and Islands, particularly during the heyday of the Lordship of the Isles in the 14 & 15th centuries. But as the power and influence of the Lords of the Isles declined, Gaelic’s status also weakened. The Statutes of Iona, enacted by the Scottish Parliament in the early 17th century, even went to the lengths of justifying its measures to undermine the language on the grounds that Gaelic in itself was one of the “chief causes of barbarity” in the Highlands and Islands.”