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Wings Over Scotland


The Sunday Review

Posted on April 03, 2016 by

This is an intriguing and engrossing extended chat between Christopher Silver and Iain Macwhirter for what will hopefully become a regular series by the excellent Phantom Power Films, creators of Altered States and lots more:

It’s well worth whiling away a little bit of your afternoon on.

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gordoz

Excellent material in this; hope it continues – good open discussion miles ahead of BBC & STV output.

Are you tempted to get involved Stu ?

Ken500

No mention of Westminster lies.

Kenzie

And Mr McWhirter reckons that the BBC Licence Fee offers excellent value for money.

David McCann

I agree. Excellent interplay between the two.

Hope to see you interviewed next Stu!

turnip_ghost

Kenzie,

I agree with Iain that the licence fee does provide excellent value for money IF it’s a reference purely to their entertainment/documentary type shows. When it comes to news and political output I’d generally disagree.

very good though…hopefully this becomes a regular thing!

Nation Libre

Sorry, I just don’t see this value for money people talk about. What does anyone watch on the BBC? Seriously, what? £5.6 Billion should produce some really good TV/Radio

Please don’t list some once a year costume drama, I’m talking day to day watching, there’s just nothing worth tuning in for

HenBroon

Macwhirter stated that if WOS did not publish views consitent with iScotland supporters, we would just stop paying. You mean like The Scotsman and all the other biased MSM organs, such as the BBC. I will never pay a BBC licence fee again. So you see Iain, all you did there was state the bleeding obvious. WOS is filling a vacum created by your esteemed colleagues, who lie and sneer their way to oblivion.

deewal

Macwhirter is certainly no friend of the SNP or Independence and Silver let him get away with far too many “opinions” not facts.
The BBC are certainly not to blame and we all think they’re great value for money and are quite happy to pay the licence fee. Yeah. Right. And in the meantime the BBC are still screaming SNPBAD at every opportunity.
He also made sure to point out that the SNP are now losing support (which they are).
Can someone point me in the direction of The Rev’s brilliant description of just how our voting system works and the importance of why everyone should vote SNP 1/2 as they desperately need a Majority (if we want any chance of Independence)
You can bet your arse the blameless BBC will have a Headline “Disaster for Sturgeon” if they don’t get a majority or even if they do get a majority which is smaller than last time.

The Public just do not know how our voting system works and a lot are going to vote Green and Radical whose votes are going to end up in someone else’s pile. Probably Tory.

call me dave

I enjoyed all of this a good general discussion.
I look forward to a few more of these in the coming weeks.

PS: In the deadwood press.

Labour candidates poke fun at Dugdale over candidate gaffe

link to archive.is

keaton

Macwhirter is certainly no friend of the SNP or Independence

Didn’t he vote (and to an extent even campaign for) Yes?

Ruby

Very interesting video.

I don’t think online media would need to replicate ‘old fashioned’ newspapers offering a whole range of different topics.

What would be wrong with one online site offering articles on politics and another offering articles on football or cookery, fashion etc

Unless sites are being offering public funding I see no reason for them to be unbiased.

The part about the BBC being biased because they get their opinion from a baised MSM was interesting.

Sandra

I became wary of McWhirter when I spotted him trolling for headlines on Twitter. I find it hard to trust any BBC apologist who claims to be impartial on such a huge issue as independence. My gut feeling is he’s a closet yoon more interested in selling his books.

Stoker

Kenzie wrote:
“And Mr McWhirter reckons that the BBC Licence Fee offers excellent value for money.”

It may very well be and if that’s his opinion he’s entitled to it, just don’t expect me to contribute.

The issue isn’t value for money, that’s what the scum establishment want to make all the arguments about, it’s about dictating to and forcing people to contribute under various threats.

As i’ve always said, lets make the British Bullshit Corporation pay-per-view and we’ll soon see how good it is.

I don’t care how many tossers they stick in front of us singing the Beebs praises, they’ll not get me to contribute one single penny via any form of coercion….NEVER!

btw: Still not received my ebook from CS due for delivery last year

Douglas Gourlay

Very interesting and thought provoking all round.
The point regarding BBC impartiality being based on the newspaper reports of the day, (did I read too much into that?), was as concerning as it was clarifying. E.g. They had to reiterate (relentlessly) that we could not use the pound, because to say otherwise would not be impartial according to the printed press. Maybe the criteria for impartiality needs to be investigated. If the BBC definition differs from all reasonable definitions, then it explains why they continually pronounce they have been unbiased and impartial in response to every complaint.

HandandShrimp

The BBC seem to be running with an SNPBad story that the Scottish Government have struck a £10bn investment deal with the Chinese but because they haven’t told the opposition parties the details it must be bad.

Ruby

Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
3 April, 2016 at 4:31 pm

Completely aside from political coverage I used to agree with Iain. But now it’s £12.50 a month I have to pay by law and I struggle to think of a single BBC programme I watch regularly for pleasure.

Ruby replies

Why do you pay? Is it for the footie on Sky sport?

Marcia

I wonder what his late Mother,Chrissie would be thinking if she was alive today. She was the SNP’s National Secretary during the 1970’s.

Effijy

I work along the lines of not trusting any of these guys.
We have supposed “Trotskyites” in Alistair Darling and Gordon Brewer, and they are happy to stab any sound socialist policy that would help the majority of those living in Scotland, and all for the Queen’s Shilling.

Always thought it appropriate that the name of the coin starts with Shill.

The Westminster enemy is ruthless and corrupt to the core, but they are not daft.£30K per annum at Eton delivers well

They will have planted moles in all walks of life to keep
control of their fortunes and their crimes.
Politicians in all parties, newspaper editors, all things BBC, will be enforcing their doctrine.

There has been a clean sweep of BBC employees that are ALL anti-independence. I must have heard around 50 of them advising that SNP and or Independence is Bad.
This even includes all the ex Football and Rugby players who act as pundits for them.
SNP/Independence Good = Unemployed.

How ridiculous for the BBC to claim to be representative of the people, when 50 out of 50 of their reporters that I have heard are all Unionists, while more than 50% of the
GE votes cast in Scotland were for SNP and their independence policies.

Proud Cybernat

Mr Macwhirter,

Read the BBC ‘Impartiality Code’ (link below) and tell me if you truly believe they followed their own code of impartiality during IndyRef#1?

link to downloads.bbc.co.uk

I always considered you an intelligent man, Mr Macwhirter, but if you seriously think the BBC followed their impartiality code as outlined in the document above then you are either very stupid or trying to deliberately deceive. I’m not sure which.

I will finish off this post by leaving you with this final question. You claim the BBC merely reflect the printed press and because the printed press is so biased against Scottish independence, this is then reflected by the BBC. Haven’t the BBC heard of the ‘New Media’? Haven’t the BBC heard of ‘Wings over Scotland’, ‘Bella Caledonia’,’Wee Ginger Dug’, ‘Dommon Weal’, ‘Common Space’ etc, many of which existed BEFORE IndyRef#1? Why did the BBC allow itself to report ONLY the views of the dead wood press? Are we really expected to believe that the BBC had no idea that there existed a totally different narrative and viewpoint in the online world?

Aye, sure they didn’t. Stop treating us as though we are fucking idiots. FFS!

SE2016 SNP x 2

Ruby

call me dave says:
3 April, 2016 at 4:36 pm

PS: In the deadwood press.

Labour candidates poke fun at Dugdale over candidate gaffe

link to archive.is

Ruby replies

“The party’s Scottish leader was described by senior colleagues as “badly damaged” and accused of causing “an almighty clusterf**k”

Another said it was Dugdale’s “Subway” moment — a reference to the defining moment of Labour’s ill-fated 2011 Holyrood campaign when its leader Iain Gray sought refuge in a sandwich shop after his election campaign launch was hijacked by a protester.

From an article in the Times entitled
‘Labour at war as Dugdale gaffes’

link to thesundaytimes.co.uk

If you want to read the whole article FOC you know what to do

Ken500

McWhirter gets slots on BBC. Value for some.

Arbroath1320

Very interesting little Sunday afternoon “time waster.” 😉

I look forward with great expectations to the up coming programme between Christopher Silver and someone called Rev. Stu Campbell. 🙂 No I don’t have a clue about who he is but apparently he is a giant of some kind in some sort of media way. 😀

What I found confusing about the programme was trying to figure out what this BBC thingy is that they were talking about. Whenever they mentioned this BBC thingy, whatever the heck it is, I just switched off and their comments flew straight over my head. 😀

Vestas

Micropayments/subscriptions are undoubtably the way to go for indie journos BUT who are you going to use as your payment processor?

For example WikiLeaks was blocked by VISA/MC/PayPal etc for 3+ years. We (should) all know that was political pressure which caused the block (rather than actual laws) so what do you do?

Stoker

Before anyone could even begin to contemplate the misleading tripe of ‘value for money’ we would have to remove news & political coverage from the equation, and sport coverage.

We all know the BBC is a lying mouthpiece for the London establishment and for as long as that’s what *WE* have to call *our* national broadcaster there can be no discussion on value for money.

IMO, all value for money goes right out the window the minute one of these “news” or “political” programmes lies or even attempts a slight deception on the truth or fails to offer genuinely fair and balanced coverage to both sides of any issues.

No corrupt institution can rightfully claim to be value for money. I also detest London attempting to force me to pay the salaries of yer Ken MacQuarrie or Jimmy Savile types etc.

I’ll decide what i spend my cash on, not some knobber in London.

Macart

Enjoyable viewing and always interesting to hear Mr Macwhirter’s thoughts. Agree with David above, would be good to see the Rev interviewed in like fashion.

Safe to say though, I disagree about using public funds or government pull in general to bail out the press. I’m not overly fond of the idea of a media with even a hint of state control.

Mind you I’m also partisan about the subject of aiding/bailing out those who didn’t have a problem turning their backs on equal democratic representation, abandoned half their readerships and used their soap box and their considerable resources to other and demonise those they abandoned.

I’m touchy about that kinda thing.

donnywho

I agree, for £5.6 billion you would expect far more output. Better created, more challenging, more investigative, less London centric, and above all, far more productions.

The fact is (and then sound Tory, ARG) that a nationalized industry with no real competitor and no sense of purpose is going to get fat and bloated and top-heavy!

Now BBC is full of placemen and appointees, who look down on high, making sure that the minions don’t say anything out of turn. This in turn makes absolutely sure that the minions who are ambitious tow the party line.

mealer

The flames have died down.Independence has drifted away from the day to day thoughts of most folks,as have politics in general.Its not the subject of conversation among the general public.Folk have gone back to what they were doing before.But half of them now support independence.More are open minded about it.It will all flare up again in due course.

Roboscot

Had to stop watching when he claimed the BBC ‘don’t editorialise’ and are ‘impartial’. Any Scottish journalist spouting that nonsense is a unionist/BBC propagandist.

Iain More

The TV Tax isn’t value for money. I think the last time I regularly watched anything on it was well, Whispering Bob Harris and the OGWT.

I suffer it as a 24/7 carer but when she falls asleep I can at least switch it off and escape the living room.

In relation above, I have no time for Macwhirter these days either. The interview has done nothing to change my low opinion of him either.

thomaspotter2014

Sorry Rev but I think McWhirter’s a lying 2-faced bastard,just like McKenna.

Your interview will be more interesting.

And HONEST.

Brian McHugh

I don’t agree that the Yes movement has dissipated in any way at all. On the contrary, I think Scots are incredibly pragmatic and have adapted spectacularly well to the setback of the Referendum result. The 2015 SNP result, as well as a very likely repeat in a months time… as well as Wings, Independence Live, iScot Magazine… and a multitude of other ventures, should be more evidence than anyone needs on this point.

G4jeepers

Just leavin this here for your viewing pleasure

link to tinyurl.com

Dr Jim

If you’re English, then British TVs for you because that’s what it is Britain is England and for those who would say differently how many times have you heard presenters say something about the news in the UK followed up by (but in Scotland)

What they should be saying is English news followed by Scottish or Welsh or indeed you never hear Irish news

Like the Queen mother the UK likes to have lots of titles

peter newling

I agree with the critical observations/comments above. However a genuinely impressive documentary is currently being shown [on Wednesdays] titled “Scotland – The Promised Land”. It’s about the few years after WW1 in Scotland and the first two have been excellent. It left me wondering how the BBC came to broadcast it.

Dan Huil

Don’t pay bbc’s britnat licence tax

Dan Huil

@ Sandra 4:46pm

Spot on.

Stoker

I got halfway through the interview and had to pull out. I’ll return to the 2nd-half as soon as i replenish my tolerance levels.

Apart from disagreeing with his questionable opinions i find myself not being able to listen to McWhirter’s voice. It grates on me and i can’t help but feel he loves the sound of it.

I have also always had a problem with attempting to listen to people who, when speaking, constantly swallow hard and smack their lips when doing so. It gits ma goat big time!!!

As for the opening style of the programme, i think it was done very well, it came across quite powerful, perhaps hold future interviews in settings which don’t create such echoey sound.

Bob Costello

I thought that this was a very good discussion and indeed thought provoking. I think Ian was wrong about the BBC and right to have reservations regarding the leadership of the SNP.
I do not think there is credible logic in accepting that the BBC should go with the flow of mainstream media. That is not what we pay them for. If we wanted that then we would simply go out and buy these newspapers.
Theoretically we pay them to report news stories honestly and without bias. That is also, not what we get.

His comment regarding the leadership of the SNP was correct and I have felt that they have been taking their eye of the ball as far as independence is concerned or deliberately playing the soft ball, for what ever reason, and I do not honestly think they have a secret master plan up their sleeve, which seems to be the stock answer from SNP members when one offers constructive criticism regarding the party. There is a collective opinion abroad within certain areas of the membership of the SNP that one has to tow the party line even when one is not a member but still an ardent supporter of independence.

So yes a great discussion and as I say brought out a few points worthy of further consideration. I hope there is more of this

Dave McEwan Hill

I know. I know. The SNP is getting tanked at elections and the opinion poll ratings are collapsing. There is obviously a problem with the leadership. Not.

In case anybody missed it on Thursday we just won the 28th of the 31 council by-elections held since last year.
If we are not very careful we’ll win them all.

alexicon

Everything they do that I like, they cancel – Mongrels, Ripper Street, Family Guy on BBC3. Doctor Who’s been rotten for years now, and Torchwood got binned just as it got decent. All I can think of now is the occasional panel/comedy show like Mock The Week or Live At The Apollo, and in truth I rarely remember to watch those any more either.

Family guy has now moved to ITV2 with an irritating advert break to boot.
You forgot to mention all the cheap cooking programmes that infest the BBBC.
They do my head in with all the luvies drooling over snobby food.

sinky

Deewal at 4.28 where is your evidence that snp support is falling as no evidence of that when canvassing yesterday and today.

schrodingerscat

McW
the bbc cant take a line, it can only report the issues raised in the press,
we need newspapers to provide balanced reporting????

I understand McW championing objective and impartial journalism, but he comes from a time and a place, eg scotsman and bbc, which no longer exists.

McW seems to critisise WOS for being partisan and not the objective and impartial journalism he would like to see but fails to understand that WOS was created because of the complete lack objectivity in even the quality broadsheets wrt the indyref.

independence is the most polarising issue since 1603
libdems may soon no longer be pro uk and pro eu
tories, conservative or unionists, not both
labour, unionist or socialist, not both
what does McW expect?

He also acknowledges the huge support that WOS has but for some reason states the bbc can only use what is reported in the dead tree press? this is one of the poorest excuses for ignoring indy bloggers i have ever heard

but over all, it was worth listening to

Dan Huil

SNP x 2

ronnie anderson

Mibees McWhirter should be reading other peoples words instead of his own.

I would recommend he reads Proffesor John Robertsons reports on the Bbc.

Bbc political opinion formed by MSM press PMSL.

On a brighter note we know where WOS is going in the Future
Onwards N Upwards WINGERS.

heedtracker

Good points of focus in there. MacW’s a BBC man and conservative with a small c. He got caught up in the referendum excitement but he’s gone back to small c again.

13 minutes in is great point about the emergence of Scottish “coinciding” with the “decline and influence” of the Scottish media.

Is that a coincidence and is that actually the case? The whole of the BBC went vote NO berserk and they’ll do it all again. It was the BBC wot won it, this time.

heedtracker

13 minutes in is great point about the emergence of Scottish DEMOCRACY “coinciding” with the “decline and influence” of the Scottish media.

oops

schrodingerscat

Brian McHugh says:
I don’t agree that the Yes movement has dissipated in any way at all.

me neither, our first planned event after the holyrood election is a car cavalcade through the constituency.

id love to see McW face when 200 cars flying yes2 flags drive passed his house or through his town. lol, yes hasnt gone, it rebranded to the snp to keep the dream alive, (which it has succeeded in doing) but after the holyrood election it will revert back to Yes

John McLeod

Thanks for making it possible to watch this video. Several commentators on this thread have complained about Iain Macwhirter’s perhaps over-complacent views about the BBC. However, the video includes a lot more than that. What I found most interesting was the discussion toward the end of the dialogue about the possible shape of a new Scottish media. Christopher Silver seems to have some really good ideas. My initial response to his suggestion that there might be public funding was that this would be ridiculous and impossible. But the example of the National Theatre is an interesting one. Yes, it gets some public subsidy. But it also needs to attract paying customers, and presumably the public subsidy would pretty quickly dry up if it was playing to empty theatres. This made me think about the vast amount of money that would be available if our portion of the television licence fee was retained for use in Scotland. Why would it all need to be spent on TV? Some of it could be spent on core funding for websites that showed that they fulfilled a purpose in relation to media diversity.

Stoker

Bob Costello wrote:
” or deliberately playing the soft ball, for whatever reason,”

Bob, i think what you’re witnessing here is the SNP showing that they’re a credible and trustworthy organisation who signed up to some sort of agreement (wrongly in my opinion) pre referendum. An agreement that both sides would respect the outcome/result of the referendum.

As much as the BUM would love to push them in that direction they cannot be seen to be pushing for Indy2 too soon after the ref. They have to be seen as getting back to the business of running Scotland to the best of their abilities whilst waiting on the correct moment to present itself once again.

There are, as we all know, quite a few possible trigger-points for that moment to appear as we continue on our journey. Like you i don’t think they have some grand master plan as such but i do believe, and sincerely hope, they will be doing all they can to help squeeze all those trigger-points.

ian

Having watched most of the review i was left with the feeling Macwhirter’s one of those subtle unionist trolls.He’s disappointed that the political map in Scotland is not more diverse and radical but has polarised round the SNP.If Scotland was in such a situation we would be a talking shop forever and would probably never see independence.Fun for all the talking heads on the BBC ect but absolutely useless for where i want us to be.

Arbroath1320

Way … way … WAY out there in the ether. (almost into an alternate universe it’s so far out there 😀 )

Could this be the basis of a new TV channel that we all are screaming out for? 😉

Regular programmes from Stu, Bella, Newsnet, Lallands Peat Worrier, Commomn Weal, Wee Ginger Dug hell even Angry Salmond could have a slot, a comedy one obviously! 😀

There many others I could mention, if only I could remember their names. 😀

Dan Huil

@ ian 7:03pm

Well said, and exactly right. Scotland must rid itself of the bbc britnat mindset. I believe, however, that more and more people in Scotland are ignoring the MSM and turning instead to sites like WOS – at the very least they are consuming bbc propaganda with heaps and heaps of salt.

winifred mccartney

BBC impartial – it is the most biased media outlet in the land and to say it follows the agenda in the press – what – they don’t have their own journalists or do they just copy and paste – I for one am fed up complaining and getting the same old drivel back about fairness etc it is obvious to me people like Glen Campbell and Jackie Bird are labours sympathisers at the very least and maybe even labour spin doctors especially after hearing Glen Campbell on the radio this week practically apologising for the fix labour were in and birling to make their incompetency look good as well as editing out the worst bits of Kezia’s tax spiel.

Grouse Beater

There’s tremendous benefits to be derived from giving people extended opportunities to develop their ideas and opinions. We get to see the extent of their knowledge and understanding.

Macwhirter is by far the most amenable journalist working in Scotland. There were moments during the Referendum he was the only sane voice. I have a lot of time for him.

But that interview exposes the limits of his tolerance.

For all his praise of Wings he still expresses misgivings, as if the power of one website matches the army of right-wing media and press united again extending Scotland’s democratic freedoms and structures.

The insinuation that Wings can’t tolerate dissention in the ranks for fear it loses financial support is arrant nonsense, in the same way a newspaper dare not confront errant companies who advertise in its pages lest it loses advertising revenue.

There’s a hint we are being patronised, that somehow Macwhirter is above the fray, and people on Wings are not. We are of one fixed mind. You can seek a goal and still be objective about the journey.

I think he mistakes the laudable discipline we generally exercise when a common goal is shared. It isn’t monotheism. If tomorrow, the SNP were to announce a gagging order on parliamentary committee hearings, or refuse to take any refugees, I have no doubt Wings would show its disgust, collectively and severely, as we have done, and Wings too over SNP errors of judgement.

But it is disingenuous in the extreme to imply we won’t ever stop the Flying Scotsman locomotive getting to its destination because the some smoke and the odd soot speck get into a carriage. Is there another political party set on delivering power to the people of Scotland?

That’s what all this is about. If in securing independence the ideal is lost or betrayed, then we here will protest as loudly as we do now at the lies and propaganda we have been subjected to by neo-liberal tyranny.

The SNP walk a tightrope. Betray the acquisition of real democracy and the party will be sent back to the stone age.

NeoconNat

Macwhirter’s establishmentalism is tempered only by his self-serving desire remain in a job. He’s a middle class windsock who will blow this way and that, depending on on the weather. Before the referendum he took a slightly pro-independence stance. Afterwards he stabbed that cause in the back. Now, like so many others in the media, he’s wondering how he might make a living when the establishment he has served for so long is gone.

The BBC should be privatised. If you insist on paying to listen to lies and dumbed-down crap, you’ll always have the option of Sky.

heedtracker

Having watched most of the review i was left with the feeling Macwhirter’s one of those subtle unionist trolls.

27 minutes in he explains that WoS is successful because it’s “hyper partisan” and its very difficult to do independent journalism when youre crowd funded. This is apparently the only successful model and its worrying.

Fact is, BBC led Scottish media isnt just shite, they are all insanely and barking mad “hyper partisan.”

If Scotland’s tv licence fee payers and news paper buyers were actually treated as if we weren’t all braying tory yoons and OO delights, by every single news room across teamGB, WoS wouldn’t exist, let alone be successful, is what Ian might have added, if he wasn’t hawking himself to said newsrooms, in particular the Pacific Quay creeps.

Dan Huil

@ Grouse Beater 7:23pm

Look! This is getting ridiculous! I am fed up complimenting posts from Grouse Beater, ian, Sandra etc. I am getting greener and greener with envy as I see you folks expressing my views in much clearer, more succinct ways than I could ever muster. I’m away in the huff!

You lot better be here tomorrow.

call me dave

I posted the link to this earlier now it’s borne fruit..

No! It’s soor grapes for Rennie and Ballie.

That’s them no telt! 🙂

link to archive.is

Grouse Beater

Dan Huil:“I am fed up complimenting posts from Grouse Beater”

One of the best back-handed compliments I’ve ever had. 🙂

Flower of Scotland

Macwhirter,s backside must have gotten really sore sitting on the fence.

He,s obviously fallen off, but not on the side I’m standing on!

Bob Costello

Stoker, I would agree that the SNP are indeed trying to be a credible organisation in government and they do that well, certainly compared to what went before them and yes they did agree to abide by the result which they have done but the SNP as a party have a responsibility to pursue independence and the will of their members.
The will of their members was made very clear when firstly their membership expanded by about four times the pre referendum position, and secondly they had 56 out of 59 MP’s elected in Westminster elections . Now that is a clear a mandate as is possible to pursue independence.

Now I am not in any way trying to rush things and I am not expecting them to set a date for a referendum in the forth coming manifesto but what I am expecting and I feel what every SNP member and voter should be expecting is that they will pave the way for a future referendum by providing a “Road Map To Independence” and this is something they should have included in the manifesto for the Westminster elections.

The first and most blindingly obvious item that should be included in the forthcoming manifesto ( and should have been included in the Westminster manifesto) is a commitment to pursue the British government for the power to hold and organise a referendum to be placed with the Holyrood parliament. This would be a start to the road Map, because without that being in the manifesto we will have one hell of a fight to get them to agree to another referendum.
They should also be re energising the grass roots groups as it was these groups who carried the referendum campaign backed by the Yes organisation which supplied literature and campaigning materials.This last 18 Months have been wasted as we should have been addressing the questions that lost us the referendum and the Black Book is now doing that.

I have felt for some time that the SNP lack proper strategy abilities and it is a concern. They are certainly not very good at expectation management either.

Arbroath1320

Think my last post has gone AWOL … oh well, I’ll try again. 😉

schrodingerscat says:
3 April, 2016 at 6:59 pm

id love to see McW face when 200 cars flying yes2 flags drive passed his house or through his town. lol, yes hasnt gone, it rebranded to the snp to keep the dream alive, (which it has succeeded in doing) but after the holyrood election it will revert back to Yes

I wonder how he’d feel with this lot rumbling past his front door Schrodinger. 😉

From a few previous posts that I have read there will be at least 60 motorcycles and one TRUCK (Artic) going on the tour as well as an unknown quantity of cars and camper vans. 😀

Arbroath1320

Here is the full route for thise interested in the NC500 road trip.

The Epic convoy round the NC500 route is a 500 mile drive round the North Coast of Scotland to show support for Scottish Independence.
Day1- Saturday 14th May 2016 – 9.00 am
The convoy starts at Tescos just off the A9 and heads up the east coast passing by Tain, Brora, Helmsdale, John O’ Groats etc.
The first days drive will finish at Clachtoll beach campsite Lochinver, we will also have live music and entertainment on at night..
Day2
Sunday 15th May 2016 – 9.00am
We will head down the beautiful west coast passing by Lochinver, Ullapool, Gairloch, Torridon, Applecross, the pass of the cattle, we will finish off our Journey at Cougie, Glen Affric. At Cougie we will have Live music, Barbecues and beers.
It will be EPIC.
The convoy will be filmed at all the top scenic spots and put on a cd.

I’ve tried to post this all in one a couple of times but it hasn’t come up so I’ve resorted to splitting the post. It had better work THIS time or I’m going to bed! 😀

Arbroath1320

Oops! 😉

I forgot to add the link to the tor’s Facebook page in my last post … DOH! 😀

link to facebook.com

heedtracker

There’s a hint we are being patronised, that somehow Macwhirter is above the fray, and people on Wings are not. We are of one fixed mind. You can seek a goal and still be objective about the journey.

He’s damning WoS with hyper praise. Why does he focus on the twitter account or the bags and bags of lovely subscriber mullah the WoS blogger sleeps on?

Compare and contrast, when’s the last time WoS bugged a murder victim’s phone, or went to jail for all kinds of criminality, or slanders and monsters anyone, or hunts down voters that wont vote the way WoS wants or stashes the apparent mountains of tax free dosh in Guernsey, or where ever it is the Murdoch led super rich UKOK media goon show dodges paying any tax? Belize maybe.

Average BBC ligger earns £400,000 a year on the board, in Broadcasting House, and they vomited over a billion quid on that one renovated box of HD shite too. BBC Scotland managers are all on 200 hundred grand plus a year and you dont get a criminal record for not paying you WoS subs, not yet anyway:D

Dave McEwan Hill

We do not require UK permission to hold a referendum. Go read the UN Charter.

It is certainly more pleasant if they do agree but we don’t need their permission. And I know (and they know) exactly the effect it would have if they tried to refuse.

ronnie anderson

@ Flower of Scotland An if you find oot whit fence he,s sitting oan ah hiv ah handy battery jigsaw, ah think he,ll get the point.

Capella

Good discussion and Wings was rightly credited as by far the most important online resource. But it is odd that Ian Macwhirter couldn’t see how Independence could possibly help to fund a decent Scottish media. What does he think happens to the £300m raised by the licence fee?

I only watch yuoutube, Amazon Prime (rarely) and the iPlayer. That means I watch a lot of films and documentaries made by other small countries with their own independent film and tv industry. Scandinavian noir and RTE Irish history.
The Night Manager was good though, which is an exception to the current standard fare from the BBC.

galamcennalath

Watched it all. Worthwhile. My own view has been that the world of news, entertainment, music, and information has moved from diversity/balance/mix to focus/detail/specialisation. This is not simply new technology driven, I think it’s a wider social phenonimem.

Some examples…

I remember the Internet before Google. Early search engines were trying to push themselves as portals to offer everything the visitor might need. This model didn’t last long. If you want shopping, you go to a shopping site. And so on.

Further back, I remember when the TV went on and whole families would sit through programmes one after another. A quiz, a soap, music, news, drama, sport. While this sort of schedule still exists, I think very few people watch what they are given. We choose. Here the technology of multiple specialised channels, streaming and downloading allow choice.

Even further back light entertainment came as variety. A little bit of this and that. Shows with multiple entertainers and styles. I remember being dragged to the Gaiety Theatre in Ayr. Early TV mimicked the format. No more. Now if you have a favourite singer, band, or comedian, you go to a concert and expect your choice on stage for a couple of hours.

Newspapers traditionally offered a mix. News, politics, arts, announcements, sports. I don’t think it’s the formula most of us seek information in now. We may buy one of the huge number of specialist magazines but that isn’t a suitable medium for rapidly changing info. For that, we go online or to a specialist TV channel. The little bit of this, little bit of that formula, just isn’t what we expect. Traditional newspapers will go the same way as variety theatre!

I also think specialisation inevitably means narrow opinion. I have serious doubts if anyone could create a balanced neutral political site. And news intertwines with politics, so unbiased news seems improbable.

So what if information sources / sites show bias? Does it matter? As far as I can see, what matters most is that the visitor knows in which direction the bias leans.

The BBC needs to be honest and admit it is a biased pro Union, pro London, pro Establishment outlet. The ‘crime’ is pretending to otherwise. Everyone having to pay, by law, for biased output should of course be dumped.

WoS doesn’t hide what it stands for!

Proud Cybernat

@ Bob Costello

Agree with just about most of what you say. But Stoker is right too. And, to be honest, I think Nicola Sturgeon would accept what both of you are saying and I think that is why, after SE2016, she intends to embark upon a new initiative to build more support for Scotland’s independence.

Sturgeon knows where the campaign went wrong last time (economy, currency) and has stated as much in a number of interviews. She does not intend to make the same mistakes twice, that’s for sure. And she will only initiate IndyRef#2 when a clear majority of the people of Scotland consistently show a demand for it.

And if Westminster do not legitimise IndyRef#2 then they will have the EU and the UN to answer to because they will be seen to be denying a fundamental right to self-determination. But the SNP absolutely need evidence of a majority support for indy over a sustained period of time. Otherwise the SNP will be seeen to be denying that same fundamental right to those who voted No in IndyRef#1.

It is as simple as that. We simply MUST build more support for independence and hold that support for a sustained period of time before we can even attempt IndyRef#2. We are, afterall, democrats.

I wishe it could happen today but that’s not going to happen. Educate people and build support by using whatever legal means possible. Slowly, slowly catchy monkey.

Capella

Macwhirter was wrong on Irish independence history too. After the 1916 uprising Ireland fought a war of independence from the British.

The civil war he mentioned was caused by the signing of The Treaty of 1921 forced by Lloyd George’s threat of an all out terrible war if they didn’t sign. This split the Irish into two camps: those content with Home Rule and swearing an oath of alliegence to the British monarch, and those demanding an independent republic.

He should watch some Irish history documentaries on youtube and educate himself.

boris
Andrew Mclean

An excellent example of BBC bias can be seen on BBC link to bbc.co.uk

It is actually shocking that the BBC would deliberately spin the story as SNP bad, and an exemplar of the pathetic ignorant incompetent opposition, they actually are a laughing stock, a memo of understanding would never be put to parliamentary debate, its not a fucking deal! A bloody 5 year old could understand the difference between the two! As for the tories that statement was especially idiotic, considering it was a conservative government which started this ball rolling, this is actually an extension of that!
the Royal bank of Scotland was involved in the discussion, who owns the bank, the government.

Honestly I think the world has gone mad! More jobs, more investment, oh that must be bad!
I think the opposition spokesmen should hang their heads in bloody shame!

And the spin doctor from the BBC who spun this should be fired!

heedtracker

Macwhirter was wrong on Irish independence history too. After the 1916 uprising Ireland fought a war of independence from the British.

The 1800 Act of Union meant Ireland had no parliament and was governed from London by a lieutenant appointed by England’s monarchic emperors. How that worked out doesn’t take wiki to show.

Vronsky

McWhirter is a straw in the wind. He was an enthusiastic unionist when unionism was doing well. His position has become more – uh – nuanced – as the future of the union has seemed less certain.

Any man’s dog for a bone, as my late father-in-law used to say of a certain type of woman.

yesindyref2

@Bob Costello
Good posting, read your others on the other thread as well.

That would have been a great idea to have the power to hold a referendum as part of the manifesto. It would in itself then, arguably, give an SNP Government a mandate to actually seek a referendum on Independence if Westminster said no to devolving that power.

Yes, Scotland probably can call a referendum but without the Section 30 Order it can be challenged in court by anyone. Arguably even with a S30 order it could be challenged, there was a group started in London (Logan I think) raising money to challenge the SG in court for not allowing rUK voters to vote but luckily they bastardos gave up.

Robert Peffers

@Stoker says: 3 April, 2016 at 4:46 pm:

“It may very well be and if that’s his opinion he’s entitled to it, just don’t expect me to contribute.

The issue isn’t value for money, that’s what the scum establishment want to make all the arguments about, it’s about dictating to and forcing people to contribute under various threats.”

I’m with you on that, Stoker. I’ve long been on the wrong end of their vile, oppressive, and what would be declared unlawful, in any half decent, civilised and democratic country, state or political system.

I’m an OAP just on 80 y.o. I am thus eligible for the free TV licence. Years ago I decided that I did not require what is factually and legally, “A Licence to Receive Television Broadcasts”, as I was not ever viewing such broadcasts from any on-air sources.

I had first disconnected and added my Satellite Set-Top Box to the big pile of discarded electronic equipment I no longer required. I didn’t see why I should pay a fee for something I no longer used.

I then found I no longer watched any TV except teletext news and they were doing away with that and I was getting my news from several on-line News Agency websites. So the TV’s were disconnected from the aerial.

I then rewired my home with a hard wired home network that used three computers coupled to the, now aerial free, existing TV receivers and an existing Video Tape Machine and an Xbox 360 Games Console. I could also plug in a couple of Hi-Def camcorders to edited stuff I shot myself.

The system has since evolved to include a Blu-ray PVR and a trio of CCTV cameras. I now have various on-line apps such as Netflix, YouTube and Dailymation. I quite simply no longer watch live TV.

So let’s see what this has led to :-

First of all the outsourced , “Arm’s Length”, set-up the BBC has adopted to collect the Receiving Licence on their behalf, which in fact is collected by the BBC on behalf of the Government of the United Kingdom who are actually legally collecting it on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom.

Yet this organisation has utterly no idea of who, or what, I am. They are not dealing with me as a person and they have not the slightest knowledge about who, or how many people, actually live, or are even permanently in residence, at this address.

The sum of their knowledge is that there is a property with no Television Receiving Licence. Yet it is not illegal to NOT watch Television Broadcasts. Neither is it illegal to own television receivers, (which nowadays are often connected to the internet and can be utilised as monitors for CCTV, downloaded internet video, camcorders shot video, DVDs and/or Blu-Ray or taped video and computer content.

Neither is it illegal to NOT notify this vile organisation that you do not watch live broadcasts, (nor to tell them to make a swift exit from your property).

Now here is my experience of their, probably illegal, actions in relation to me as an individual. First of all their letters are persistent and oft repeated. That could be construed as illegally Stalking an individual.

The letters immediately begin with threats of dire consequences of legal actions and threats of £1,000 fines or imprisonment for, “Assumed” illegal actions by,”The Occupier”. of the address on the letter.

There is no polite request to contact them and, if you cannot hear phones, no other way of contact other than an on-line website. Which website’s forms are so poorly written that they do not cover all cases. My case does not fit in any of their wee pigeon holes.

Even if you bother to notify them that you do not require a TV Licence they will still persist, after only a short while, to hold you guilty again of presumed criminal acts.

Yet in almost 5 years not a single member of that, “Arm’s Length”, organisation has ever actually called at this address. How do I know that you may ask? Well, I have CCTV and record any callers on the few occasions I am not at home.

They not only presume me a criminal but they stalk me with threatening letters and attempt to coerce me to stump up money for a service they presume I watch but which I do not use.

In Scotland it is a criminal offence to demand money with menace and their letters are most certainly threatening from the very first one they send. They adopt a pseudo-legal tone and refer to their operatives in such terms as, “Enforcement Officers”, (and I quote):-

It begins with large red print, “Official warning: We have opened an investigation.”

Then it goes on to warn their, “Enforcement Division will schedule a visit”, and goes on to threaten that if caught watching live broadcasts, you could be prosecuted which, if found guilty, you could face a maximum penalty of £1,000 plus legal costs and/or compensation.

Yet these, “Enforcement Division Officers”, have no other legal right to enter a property, (unless with a search Warrant and accompanied by a Police Officer), than any other member of the public.

They have no more legal powers than an officer of the local Brownie Pack. In fact, while an Officer of the Brownie’s has some powers over the Brownie , “rank & file”, these Officers have none whatsoever over members of the public.

Their legal right is only to proceed directly to the main entrance in order to contact the occupier, and they must NOT stare through windows or wander around as that is an invasion of privacy.

They must also instantly leave if requested to do so. They also come mob handed and the occupier can request that only one person remains on the property to make contact as the extra members may be thought by the occupier as threatening behaviour Not only that but the occupier has no legal obligation to do anything more than request they leave the property at once and not return again.

However, if you never watch, or record, live TV broadcasts you have nothing to fear from these so called Officers.

The phrase, “Send thaim awa wi a flech in thir lugs”, comes to mind.

Genghis D'Midgies

‘The BBC is good value and impartial’ — not in this universe it ain’t.

Take their money away and use it for a diverse media. If a news site is popular amongst the Scottish population for example and the staff reside in Scotland the money previously given to the BBC should be given on a per capita basis to that organisation.

Scotland currently gives the cancer that is the BBC 100 million smackaroonis. That’s more than enough for a diverse and honest media.

pipinghot

Sorry, but I understood he was saying that the BBC were just there to report what the biased newspapers were printing….. Turned off there.

Cuilean

I bought and read MacWhirter’s book, ‘Disunited Kingdom’. It’s a book which the author freely admits therein, is based on subjective opinion but I was still quite shocked at MacWhirter’s dearth of knowledge on Scottish political history, e.g. in the penultimate page of his book, MacWhirter states,

‘It is important to remember that Scotland was a very firm part of the UK until very recently. It is really only in the last decade that large numbers of Scots have started to think seriously about independence as a practical possibility’.

Nonsense, Mr MacWhirter.

In 1707 Scots religion, law, education, land ownership and many other areas of cultural customs & traditions, from banks to cuisine to languages, to employment, to dress etc. etc. were reserved, and remain, to this day, uniquely Scottish.

An early political tremor came in 1872, when Westminster set up an Education Act to subsume Scots education into Westminster control. This was resented and resisted by Scotland. It’s our education, thank you very much!

Scots next resented a ‘Scottish Office’ being imposed on it, in 1885, as if Scotland was a colony of England, and undermining the Will of its elected MPs. (Sound familiar)?

These Westminster power plays led, in 1894, to the formation of the ‘Scottish Home Rule Association’. There were 7 Scottish Home Rule Bills put before the Commons between 1886 & 1900 – all voted down or run out of time. (Sound familiar)? Most Scots could not vote of course, including all Scots women and most Scots men.

In 1900 ‘The Young Scots’ were formed, (an offshoot of the Liberal Party), who demanded home rule. By 1914, they had 10,000 members in 50 branches, with 30 MPs! Home rule was a central feature of UK politics before the Great War. They put forward the 1913 ‘Home Rule for Scotland Bill’ which would have been passed but for the outbreak of the Great War.

The bloody Irish Civil War (500 died in the Easter Rising of 1916, 54% of these innocent civilians) also divided Scots, with, of course, no social media to rebut the Britnat propaganda of these times.

Furthermore, at the end of the Great War Churchill sent tanks and English troops to Scotland (the Scots soldiers were locked in their barracks for fear they would assist civilians) to destroy the rent strikes. This culminated in the ‘Battle of George Square 1919’, where over 100,000 men women and children gathered, demanding amongst other things, Home Rule.

When the tanks and English troops arrived, the Scottish union/strike leaders feared a repeat of casualties of the Easter Rising. There were dozens of army snipers and machine guns deployed on the roof of Glasgow’s G P.O. and the other roofs around George Square, all primed & aimed at the unarmed civilians below. The army commanders had also set up several machine guns within the halls of Glasgow City Council Municipal Building, in case the building was stormed.

The army had fired into unarmed crowds in Dublin 3 years earlier and no-one doubts they would have been just as ruthless on Scots crowds. The Scots strike leaders went to ‘parly’ (as they thought) with the govt but this was a ruse to remove them from the crowds.They were assaulted by Glasgow police (there are photos online of one leader lying prostrate on the ground behind the Municipal Buildings, unconscious, bleeding, surrounded by Glasgow ‘polis’.

Leaderless, the crowds were then violently dispersed by Glasgow Police, who were, of course, firmly on the side of the landlords and the unionist soldiers. (Sound familiar)? Churchill had ordered the Scots regiments locked into their barracks as the British Establishment seriously thought Scotland was about to erupt like Ireland had in 1916 etc.. Churchill did not want to take the risk that Scots soldiers would refuse to fire into crowds of unarmed Scottish men, women and children.

So, MacWhirter is talking arrant nonsense when he states it is really only in the last decade that Scots have started to think seriously about independence.

He is also talking arrant nonsense if he ‘thinks’ the BBC is impartial and must follow press releases.

I for one was pleasantly surprised when Andrew Marr, last year sometime, led one show which referred and highlighted ‘Bella Caledonia’, and Marr was glowing in his praise of said site.

John

link to lenathehyena.wordpress.com They are all in it together , don’t think they will ever change .

Chitterinlicht

Good interview and some good points made particularly about long term sustainabily of politically one sided web sites. Does not bother me and think that these will evolve naturally. I seem to remember Stu tweeting Alex Massie with offer for writing a piece. Would not bother me if more views were brought in here.

The funniest bit was at end about Stu getting 5p a web page view and being a millionaire based on 2015 web page stats.

yesindyref2

@Bob Costello
Re strategy I agree also. 90,000 new eager enthusiastic members with all sorts of skills and abilities, and from all walks of life, signed up after the Ref, and were asked to stuff envelopes and deliver leaflets to elect candidates. And that’s it.

They’re also not good at communications, from all appearances they don’t listen and aren’t interested in members’ opinions. Since I joined after the Ref I sent I think 5 emails. One got a response which is why I knew even before Smith started the SNP were definitely aware of the traps of limited further devolution. The second to Murrell to say don’t worry my card has arrived, with so many applications I’m not surprised – recieved an appropriate thanks and a smilie or something.

But none of the other 3 even received so much as an acknowledgement of receipt (automated or human). Ironically one was in response to the policy forum being launched, my email was saying “great, what about a strategy forum …”

Not surprisingly I’ve given up even bothering.

Genghis D'Midgies

*£300 million to BBC from Scotland’s license payers not a mere £100 million as erred above

Dr Jim

If the State Broadcaster isn’t Biased and only recycles the newspapers for news what do we need it for
If the State broadcaster tries to give a balanced view
it doesn’t recycle the Nationals views, and if it ever mentions the National it qualifies it by stating it’s an Independence supporting paper WHY?

They never mention the other papers political leanings WHY?

I might be wrong but do you not have to be a member of the Labour party to even get a job with the State Broadcaster
because I know many of them who are

Here’s a wee snippet, most of the staff at the Daily Record can’t stand working there and say Davie the Bugg Clegg is a rabid and bitter Nicola Sturgeon hater and they’re sick of listening to him pour out bile about the FM and go about with his face twisted

If I said who it was told me, they’re finished so I can’t
but unfortunately that makes it gossipy hearsay, so it’s believe it if you like (But it’s true)

Ghillie

First impressions of McWhirter not at all good.

Will watch the rest with as open a mind as I can manage…

JLT

Apologies for any typos. Writing this as I write an essay. There is never enough time!!!

Iain McWhirter is right around the 4 minute mark when he discusses Sinn Fein and Ireland, and how almost 100 years later, the same can be seen again with the SNP and Scotland. There is also further comparisons between Scotland and Ireland and what may come (much to the chagrin of the British State). To begin with (and possibly why the Rev was wrong to discount the importance of Gaelic at one point last year (sorry Stuart)), but until Ireland went independent in 1922, the Gaelic language, like the present day Scottish one, was almost non-existent. However, the Irish believed that the revival of the language was necessary since it was a major contributor to the culture of Ireland itself. This is one of the reasons why the Scottish Government is pursuing the idea of reviving Scottish Gaelic slowly but surely (primary kids being taught it; street signs; railway signs). The point is, that Irish Gaelic is now taught throughout Ireland, and has been saved, even though English remains the main common language. The same, hopefully (and we really should try) will happen here in Scotland.

In addition, the Irish in 1842, created a newspaper called The Nation in which they campaigned for the preservation and encouragement of a distinctively Irish folk culture which they saw as essential to the existence of a sense of nationhood among the Irish. Now …to a degree, we can see something similar when we look at Scotland’s newest newspaper, The National in which news events and articles cover what matters most to the Scottish people.

Furthermore, the revival of symbols such as the Irish Harp and Irish Wolfhound and the Hill of Tara also resonate as we Scots look to symbols and words such as the Unicorn, Gaelic phrases (Soar Alba or Alba Gu snooker loopy!) or a deeper interest in the history of our nation.

But Ireland also did something very special after 1922 once they gained independence. Rather in anger and bitterness after what had happened under British rule, they decided not to tear down British symbols or even buildings such as army barracks or town halls. They decided to leave them untouched, and instead, allow the future generations of Irish to decide their fate. Almost 100 years on, the Irish are now slowly accepting that their history was intertwined with that of the British State (for good and for bad), and therefore, it matters! They now protect these buildings and use them for historical purposes as well as education. British town houses in Dublin were in great demand during the ‘housing boom’ of the late 90’s-early 00’s because they were ‘historical’ as are the great country houses that are scattered around the Irish nation.

In many ways, you could say that not only are we seeing similarities between Scotland and Ireland, but you can even see the direction that Scotland will take once we gain our independence. Rather than condemn what took place under the British State, we will see over time, come to a greater understanding of who we are as well as sense of what Britishness meant to Scotland.

But overall …a fascinating interview though.

Jan Currie

really enjoyed this….so refreshing to listen in to an actual conversation, unrehearsed opinions…no agenda, MORE please

One_Scot

All I can really say is that I once had a lot of time for Iain, now, not so much.

Giving Goose

Re Dr Jim and your comment about Clegg at the DR.

I can well believe it.

These are difficult times for Unionists.

They are anchored to a belief in the Union; a Union that is fading with it’s constituent parts rusted solid or corrupted.

Unionists exhibit all the behavioural traits of trusting children who have just been informed that Santa Claus isn’t real.

Their world is suddenly strange, insecure and they are bewildered.

Bob Costello

yesindyref2 Stoker and proud cybernat.

I actually think the SNP do have a mandate for another referendum , although I am not actually saying that we should go for it straight away. If they had an absolute commitment to independence in their Westminster election mandate then it could be argued that we would have been independent now because of the voting system for Westminster. They had a majority of 56 out of 59. Even Thatcher agreed that ,that was all that was needed.

However that is in the past and I am not SNP bashing but I do have concerns regarding their abilities to form logical strategy and forward thinking and I think that was what Ian was getting at. Can I give you a wee story as to one of the reasons I feel that way and this might be close to some of you guys and Girls hearts. I will try to be as brief as possible .

During the campaign we ( the yes bus scotland’s Dragon for independence team which also had many members of Business For Scotland) campaigned throughout Angus Dundee and Fife, but mainly in our City Square where we talked to thousands of people day after day.

It became apparent to me that we had several recurring problems mainly centering around the monetary situation ( no plan B) and pensions. Now these had perfectly reasonable explanations , but especially in the case of monetary union, they were complicated. It was not unusual for us to have 20 or 30 volunteers on any given day. Some , especially the members of Business For Scotland specialised in some of these contentious questions and so we developed a system of having a core of specialists around the Bus and out riggers who handed pamphlets and talked to people but if they were asked a question that they could not honestly answer they would either bring the enquirer into the core group or get one of us out to speak to the person. Now this worked well but it became increasingly apparent that we were not managing to speak to enough people and presumably when they went home they either forgot the explanation or they could not pass the information on to other members of the family. We had many people coming back with their spouses and asking us the explain something to them.

Now about that time the “Wee Blue Book ” came out and it was a godsend. We were fortunate that we had Brian and Pete who are Wingers and we managed to get a good supply of the wee blue book. Now at that time the SNP were not the best of pals with Stuart and it took them some time and a lot of persuasion to take in supplies of the WEE Blue Book but they eventually did. We took in and distributed many thousand of copies of the publication and we handed out more than anyone in Dundee, using various methods of supply.

Ok to get to the point I saw the wee Blue Book as the answer to many of the problems we were encountering so I went to the SNP head office in Old Glamis Road. Most of the politicians were there and I explained the problems we were encountering and suggested that we should get a copy of the Wee Blue Book to every household in Dundee and more importantly that I would pay for it. The SNP had a database of addresses and the franking machine and equipment to do this. Now I should explain that I was hoping that I would not have to pay for this all on my own and had already spoken to one of the members of Business For Scotland about this and had been given an immediate yes and I knew another guy who I am sure would have supported this as well. So I put this idea to all of the politicians sitting there.

They had a brief discussion which lasted about two minutes and said no. I couldn’t believe my ears.
So, lads and lasses this is one of the reasons that I have concerns regarding the abilities of the SNP to forward think. Now it could have been simply that they did not think it was a good idea. in which case they were wrong, or it could have been because they were still a bit in the huf with Stuart for calling an ass hole an ass hole. In which case they were allowing a personal issue to get in the way of independence.
So that is part of the background to why I agree with Ian Macwhirter. Regarding the leadership of the SNP

Tinto Chiel

@ Cuilean, 8.40pm.

Pretty much spot on. MacWhirter kept telling us we were all happy with the Union until recently, which was news to me. There has been persistent opposition to it since 1707 but it has been consistently written out of the Great British Narrative of Whig Supremacy so as not to upset the locals. They bought the lords in 1707 in the face of complete opposition from the commons of Scotland and threatened us with Marlborough’s army.

Perhaps he can tell us how many attempts there have been at Home Rule or National Covenant since 1707? Just start with 1914, to keep it simple.

The Establishment have controlled the agenda since the start of the UK. They don’t like it when it starts to fall apart. How they must hate The Rev.

ronnie anderson

@ Bob Costello I had similar problem with Maryhill YES shop,having given them WBB,s I got a phone call on a Sat asking for more but to only give them to one person as the membership did,nt agree with distributing them,shortsighted muppets.

scottieDog

@proud cybernat
Agree with your post regarding snp. I have been frustrated at the lack of feedback but once heard it said that politicians in campaign mode are deaf to new ideas. As the last few years have seen nothing but campaigns I’ve given them the benefit of the doubt.

Yes I’m hopeful that there will be a more bold set of policies and ideas after may. God knows there are enough ideas from alot of talented people.

The economics profession is fraught with myths and misinterpretation and it will be vital that the advice taken is from as broad a spectrum as possible.
As an example, I know it’s politics but it frustrates me how folk look on the uk trade deficit as being really bad. How can you decry the fact that people around the world want your currency (which has been created out of thin air) in turn for providing you their resources. That’s one example of old outdated neo-liberal ideas.
Scotland will need to run healthy gov deficits (in its own currency) to create a real foundation and we will likely have a hefty reliance on imports. None of that is bad.

We need to start changing the narrative.

Ghillie

OK, 2/3rds of the way the through and I have other things I have to do right now.

Impression of Mr Macwhirter so far: patronising.

At times he looks like he is chewing glass.

This format however has potential and I look forward to watching again.

Unfortunately Macwhirter put me off the Sunday Herald some time ago. My misgivings around his opinions are clearer now.

Thanks Rev 🙂

CamernB Brodie

Re. Mr. Macwhirter’s opinion. This is the man who recently attacked Mr. Salmond by falsely reporting that NATO’s bombing of Kosovo was aimed at stopping ethnic cleansing, which did not in fact begin until after NATO’s air campaign ended. This fact has long been confirmed by various EU sources.

IMHO, this example alone suggests Mr. Macwhirter is a complete fannyballs. Or perhaps a war criminal?

CameronB Brodie

test

schrodingerscat

“And if Westminster do not legitimise IndyRef#2 then they will have the EU and the UN to answer to because they will be seen to be denying a fundamental right to self-determination.”

No, cameron does not need to agree, he simply needs to say to the unionists “dont vote or take part” same as madrid did to the catalunian referendum. the eu didnt help them and wont help us either. we cant force people to vote.

“the SNP absolutely need evidence of a majority support for indy over a sustained period of time”
No, we need a sizable majority, 50% at the moment, a brexit could cause upto 10% of no voters to cross over.

We simply MUST build more support for independence and hold that support for a sustained period of time before we can even attempt IndyRef#2.
if support is over 60% why wait?
62% of a turn out of 84% is over 50% of the entire electorate.
that is an indisputable majority.

if brexit, I would prefer indyref2 in sept, but it may not be possible. if cameron tells the unionists not to participate, the labour councils wont organise the polling booths. we will need to wait until after the council elections in 2017. the snp councillors can run on the ticket of indyref2 and a massive victory would give us control of all the councils and enable us to hold indyref2.It would also give us a mandate.

Proud Cybernat

No offense to the Rev, but he calls a spade a spade and isn’t afraid to colour that spade in expletives in order to drive it into the dirt. I always had the impression myself that the official YES Campaign Group (from the dour and uninspiring Blair Jenkins down) didn’t want to ‘frighten the horses’ (so-to-speak)with such ‘Bolshevik’ material such as the WBB. For, be sure, that is exactly what the Imperial Corporate Media would have done. We saw what they tried to do to WoS even without any official YES or SNP endorsement.

WoS was protrayed by the vile BritNat media as the lunatic fringe of vile cybernattery. We all witnessed it. The official YES, SNP and other indy groups couldn’t afford to be tarnished with the same brush. Yes, we know the BritNat media were talking utter pish but they controlled the media and the message and thus, what a vast swathe of the Scottish population were hearing.

So, I can see why the formal YES groups maintained their distance from Wings and its WBB. The BritNat media would have had an even bigger stick to beat them with–or so they believed.

Which is why it is important RIGHT NOW for WoS to become NORMALISED. It is important that we get as many of our No-voting pals, friends, colleagues, family, etc to see the Wee BLACK Book and judge for themselves who was telling them the truth and who was telling them lies. If we an up the profile of WoS to another 10-15% of the voting population then we will win IndyRef#2 easily and, I suspect, the BritNat media will have a much harder time trying to demonise us–the voters simply will see right through their attempts come IndyRef#2. And, I suspect, with WoS having a much greater profile and influence in IndyRef#2, the official YES campaign, the SNP and other indy groups will be less afraid of the predictable Britnat Media criticism and will recognise and acknowledge the massive contribution WoS will make to the campaign.

So. let’s build support for indy. We do that by building the readership of WoS. And we do that by winning people’s trust. And we do that by giving them the truth. And that’s all in the Black & Blue books.

heedtracker

Bob Costello says:
3 April, 2016 at 9:34 pm
yesindyref2 Stoker and proud cybernat.

So we lost because there wasn’t enough Wee Blue Books out there?

CameronB Brodie

Re. Mr. Macwhirter’s opinion. This is the man who recently attacked Mr. Salmond’s reticence to back NATO’s bombing of Kosovo, which Mr. Mr. Macwhirter falsely reported as being aimed at stopping ethnic cleansing. In fact, the ethnic cleansing did not begin until after NATO’s air campaign ended, a fact long confirmed by various EU sources.

IMHO, this example alone suggests Mr. Macwhirter is a complete fannybaws. Or perhaps a war criminal? Whichever, I dont trust him.

Effijy

Just heard the news that millions of documents have been leaked to reveal many former leaders od state have been dodging their Tax payments.

Hold firm, but it seems that there is no shortage of Right “Honourables” from the House of Lords on the list.

It looks like they will need to kill us all now to cover this up.

I can’t wait to pay £300.00 per day for these corrupt
£Millionaires to have a stately home where they can lie to us for their own benefit.

G H Graham

Let’s not overlook that Mr. Macwhirter still chooses to work for the frothing pro-unionist propaganda sheet, “The Herald”.

He also puffs up the License Fee so that he can continue to get invited by Labour’s agent provocateurs working at the BBC to share his deeply flawed independence wisdom with the plebiscite.

Paula Rose

If you want a hard copy of the Wee Black Book you can get one here…

link to iscot.scot

Grouse Beater

“The [British] Establishment has controlled the agenda since the start of the UK.”

We sorely need a people’s history of Scotland’s struggle written exclusively from our point of view. As one Winger says, there was outright resistance to the Union from its very onset. Burns writes about it in his letters only a few decades after the sad deal was done.

“War is the health of a state,” said the writer Randolph Bourne. He was writing in the First World war when our press came out with bland reports to show we had had a good day on the battlefield. The same happened on the German side – “all quiet on the western front.” We were never told of the extent of the casualties.

Bar a few courageous writers, the press are paid to act as middle management for the Establishment’s interests.

And that’s exactly what we are experiencing now, the power elites method of supressing dissent: cause perpetual doubt and uncertainty to quell rebellion.

Anyhow …

Still some life left in this: link to wp.me

heedtracker

Let’s not overlook that Mr. Macwhirter still chooses to work for the frothing pro-unionist propaganda sheet, “The Herald”.

He was enraged by the not 50% tax rate for Scottish high earners.

“Of course, for many in the SNP, social justice always came second to national “liberation” from the English yoke. For the “45” nationalists, it is about identity and ethnic mythology. But for most Scots, who have never felt oppressed by England, do not want separation and were motivated to vote for Ms Sturgeon because of her social democratic principles, this is a wake-up call.”

“45” nationalists it is about identity and ethnic mythology” ouchee

“I wonder what the SNP MP Mhairi Black, whose maiden speech to the Commons was all about social equity, really thinks of all this.” Sure he does

“Remember Alex Salmond leaping to the defence of the Scottish banks in 2008 back in the days when he hoped Scotland could emulate the banker-led “tiger” economies like Ireland and Iceland? That didn’t end well.”

Knackered, hackneyed, bullshit. How very British journalist of him.

To be fair to this hack in particular, he’s probably sitting at home watching ultra unionist tories like this dude, waffle away on Scotland 2016 with his lost in excel vote tory Project Fear 2016 and trying to get noticed by those BBC liggers.

link to twitter.com

ArtyHetty

Suspect I. Macwhirter is a fence sitter, establishment, see where the wind blows kind.

Regards some comments on the SNP, and their attitude to WoS re the indy ref. Without making excuses for them, they seemed to be trying to steer clear of what was viewed, as radical by the meedya and the gullible, appealing to a few online so called cybernats. In reality, they were, hopefully, logging onto Wings each day, quietly. Remember the meedya were looking for anything to bash the SNP with, to make it all appear irrational, lefty, touchy feely with no actual factual, rational, thoughtout basis on which the people of Scotland could make an informed decision about whether Scotland should be an independent country, like all other countries in the world.

Much of the meedya rhetoric was also for the benefit of those South of the border, and they fell for it, divide and rule all over again, just in case.

My friends in Northumberland saw (and no doubt still do) the pro independence support as some kind of utopia seeking, touchy feely, devoid of any rational and reasoned view, on which to base their decisions about their own country. They could foresee trouble ahead, and that would not do, being just over the border an all. We were all ‘making emotional decisions’, never rational.

The SNP had a heck of a job to do, and still do. Remember, they are not knew at this, it’s a long road so far, but WoS is brilliantly helping things along, and a damn good job the Rev Stu is doing.

Let’s not allow the divide and rule right wing meedya, in whatever form, ( even in disguise) to dictate how we should proceed. It’s not in the bag, we have to get out and leaflet, canvass etc, not long to go now.

Macbeda

@effijy 10:22pm

Would that be this one?

link to icij.org

Looks interesting to say the least. Wont appear on BBC of course.

Rock

At best, Macwhirter is a fair weather friend of Yes.

At worst, he is a opportunist unionist troll.

I think he is the latter.

Lollysmum

Bob Costello at 9.34pm
I can see a couple of problems with why the SNP could not agree to your offer.

1) Data Protection Act-they could not use their database in this manner if they hadn’t got permission from the individuals on that database first. You cannot get permission after you’ve used the info.When registering with the Information Commissioner & renewing existing registrations you have to declare what information you collect & state the purposes you intend to use it for. They can’t just give that info away to other organisations-it would be political suicide & illegal under DP Act.

2)At that time, SNP was a small party led by a small management team. It just didn’t have the physical structure to take on such a task themselves even if inclined to do so. You only have to look at the rapid growth of SNP jobs that had to be filled after the membership surged. Servers couldn’t cope & had to be upscaled/replaced just to cope with new members trying to register. That’s indicative of a party that was taken by surprise by the public’s reaction to indyref & then GE15. They’ve since had to grow their infrastructure to operate & manage all the functional elements required of a political party suddenly thrust into the national political limelight.

As someone who manages a team & an organisation, I dread to think of the growing pains the SNP will have suffered during that period of enforced growth/change where that growth is being driven by external factors & you just cannot control the pace.

3)WOS & Stuart didn’t have the track record back then that it has now. They have now proved their worth, staying power & a level of legitimacy accorded to no other website/blogger however Wings is not pro-party, it is pro-indy & that’s a big difference. Stuart is fiercely independent in his views & he can say things that no party member of any colour can. He can put an argument out there into the ether & get discussions going amongst people who aren’t party joiners. A political party has to rely on its Press Team & membership to do that with limited results. Wings goes beyond the SNP boundaries & as a result cannot be held to account by any party as long as he remains within the law.

When Alex Salmond said that WBB was the best info published during indyref campaign then you know that the WOS message got through to the people that matter but even for indyref2 I would still expect WBB2 to be produced independently because it provides a degree of separation from a political party that cannot be seen to support a maverick who swears a bit (alright a lot) & tells people where to get off if they need telling 🙂 One thing you can rely on with Stuart- he won’t allow anyone to tell him what to put in WBB2-he will include the issues that he believes people need to know about.

4) You can be sure that SNP learned a lot from 1st indyref & aim not to make the same mistakes again. They will call indyref2 when they feel they can win it & that means we all have to work at persuading others to join us.

Sorry for the length of post. Its all the fault of SNPBad 🙂

Proud Cybernat

“No, cameron does not need to agree, he simply needs to say to the unionists “dont vote or take part” …”

If WM (I doubt it’ll be Cameron in charge come IndyRef#2) doesn’t agree and embarks upon a program of actively perverting the democratic wishes of a majority of the Scottish electorate then I rather doubt that will go down at all well on the international stage. WM, the ‘Mother of Parliaments’ suppressing democracy. That isn’t going to happen. And even if WM did stupidly refuse IndyRef#2 and advise Unionists not to vote, the Scottish Government are well within their rights to hold the referendum anyway and can advise those unionists who intend to follow the UK Govt advise that it will only mean an increased YES majority. If you don’t vote then don’t complain when YES win.

“…same as madrid did to the catalunian referendum. the eu didnt help them and wont help us either. we cant force people to vote.

Entirely different scenario. Scotland is (through its people) a sovereign country in a Union with another sovereign country. Catalunya was never thus. A bit like Ecclefechen declaring UDI from the rest of Scotland.

And IF (big IF there), Project Fear 2 doesn’t cause the rUK to brick it and they opt for Brexit and Scotland votes to remain, I don’t see how the EU would be against such a referendum taking place in Scotland. Indeed, I can see the EU being very ‘ameniable’ to Scotland’s position.

Lots of ifs, buts, maybes there. Just goes to show we live in interesting times.

davidb

@ Bob Costello, Indyref2 et others.

The Yes campaign was not an SNP one. Those 90k new members joined AFTER the referendum. So in effect those who formed the Yes volunteer “army” took over their party. And they don’t know what to do or how to handle it.

For now the SNP is the only show in town. It is the united pro independence movement. The Unionists failure post referendum is in part because they are fragmented.

I would urge you to realise you are still on your own. You are still basically patriots who have signed up to the Free Scots without necessarily being Sturgeonistas. You can still publish literature on your own ( I have ). You will have in your branch people like you. The party is not watching what you put through doors. They do not inspect every badge you hand out.

We are all wanting to deliver Independence. The SNP is a useful tool. But when the chance arises – and it will be soon – to fight IR2, do not hesitate to do just the bloody same thing you did last time.The SNP got 30% of that yes vote perhaps. It was the 90 thousand Free Scots who delivered the rest. And if the Unionist bastards had kept to their word we would have won.

The Unionists are too stupid to see that they have not delivered on their empty promise. It will be apparent within the lifetime of these parliaments that they intend only to shaft us. Their bolt is shot. Keep the faith. Just do exactly as you did before the first referendum. But know its coming this time.

Save up funds to print your own leaflets. Attend branch meetings and learn who are on your side. Design your fliers already. The basic arguments are still the same. I have learned what are good and bad physical designs of leaflets. Floppy A4 sheets don’t go through letterboxes. Stupid big cards dont fit handbags. For example.

This is not some game. We have the opportunity here to take our country back without a shot being fired. We own the new media – for now. We have the overwhelming support of the young. Why do you think you need a Messiah to lead you? Just do it yourself. You did it in 2014. But prepare this time. Research the subjects. You know what the questions are going to be. Have answers prepared for next time.

Scotland will most definitely be an Independent country soon. You can smell it. But it is the people who have to deliver it. Its not in the SNP’s gift.

Sandra Schlegel

Cuilean at 8.40pm

Thankyou for that great post. Really enjoyed it. Albeit sad too.

Ian Brotherhood

Dunno about anyone else, but fifteen, twenty years ago I ‘needed’ people like Iain Macwhirter and Ian Bell to help me feel that I understood roughly what was going on.

I would spend a couple of hours max on the ‘quality’ weekend papers, feel satisfied that I was abreast of the most important stuff, perhaps digested some ‘opinion’ which might come in handy if pub discussions turned heavy. (Feel very embarrassed admitting this, but it’s true – I probably wasn’t really that interested in what was going on, just feared appearing ignorant in company. (For example, the SNP 2011 landslide was an utter shock to me – didn’t have a clue what was going on.)

Now? I have my own opinions on what’s happening because places like this provide me with ways of seeing/interpreting ‘news’ as well as alerting me to stuff which the MSM still daren’t touch, or handle with kid gloves only when forced. The time I used to spend watching telly (truly shudder to think how many hours average…) is now, for the most part, spent online. And there’s no going back. Ever.

Macwhirter certainly isn’t the most objectionable journo out there, but he still demonstrates a sense of superiority which comes from many years of being lauded as an ‘intellectual’ and given frequent access to vital opinion-forming media. That’s bound to affect anyone’s self-perception, surely? The truth is that those media in which Macwhirter was raised, and is so good at, are dog-tired. Rev Stu has repeatedly proved himself a superior journalist to many of his dead-tree-press peers and that’s (at least in part) why they fear and loathe him so much.

I don’t have any personal beef with Iain Macwhirter. He’s erudite, personable and occasionally raises a smile but I’m not that interested in what he has to say after his vacillating contributions to the whole indyref phenomenon. TBH, I’d rather spend the time reading comments (especially from new names) here on WOS – fresh voices are being raised constantly and all deserve to be heard, but that’s impossible if we remain in thrall to the same old rota of well-kent faces.

Even here, eventually, the familiar names will fade and disappear through natural wastage, and that includes death and disillusionment as well as the realisation that one has no more to say. It’s already happened, even in the short life of WOS. If you doubt that, please go to archives and select a month at random from, say, two years ago – it feels like viewing holiday snaps developed from a neglected roll of old-fashioned 35-mm film.

If Iain Macwhirter and similarly esteemed colleagues in Scottish MSM want to secure their careers and have a chance of their voices being heard a decade hence, they could do worse than to ‘lower’ themselves by contributing to places like this, even occasionally, to prove that their lofty notions of democracy, accountability and plain-speaking can find less sniffy forms of expression.

schrodingerscat

ronnie anderson
but to only give them to one person as the membership didnt agree with distributing them,shortsighted muppets.

ronnie, the snp keep distant from WOS. as did YES. I agree with this policy. nicola cannot be held accountable for comments made by stu.

this also means that mps,msps, councillors, office bearers etc, cannot be seen to endorse the wbb or the wblab.

however, it was the rank and file who delivered them accross the constituency, and everyone thought, and still thinks it is the best literature we have.

during the ref, the unionists continually equated snp and yes as the same thing. even though ric,ssp,sg etc were also involved and contributed hugely and should do everything to keep their individuality. however, the snp make up the largest group of supporters in yes and will again in yes2.

Yes2 needs to be launched by the grass roots, not the snp. if rise, snp and greens wish to produce a Scotlands future type white paper, so be it. but yes2(ric,wfi etc) does not need to endorse it or defend it.

I think you mistake the snp’s avoidance of the wbb and wos for a very neccessary change of hats. the snp members distributed 1000,s of wbbs and will do again for the wblab.

it will just happen under the wire

Tinto Chiel

Grouse Beater: “We sorely need a people’s history of Scotland’s struggle written exclusively from our point of view.”

Quite so, GB, if only because so much of our history has been written with a British narrative in mind. I used to think the Jacobites were mainly doomed Gaelic-speaking Catholics with little appeal in the rest of Scotland. In fact, many Lowland Scots supported the Stewarts because they saw they represented the lineage of the Scottish kings, for all their manifest faults. They certainly weren’t happy with the imposition of Hanoverian interlopers.This has largely been expunged from the historical narrative to punt the inevitability of British supremacy. I would respectfully ask, what have our “Scottish” historians been doing in our universities all these years?

As if we didn’t know……

These questions are not outdated and irrelevant. Our history is a perpetual re-run of misrepresentation and obfuscation and this has to be acknowledged.

Question everything, Scotland.

Breeks

I wouldn’t care if the BBC did provide value for money. Value for money is one thing, wanton propaganda is another.
The BBC is a hostile influence with a near monopoly on our TV screens. That’s why I want to see the back of it. Value for money is another matter altogether.

Tinto Chiel

@ Ian Brotherhood 11.04 pm: a brilliant and perceptive post, particularly the last two paragraphs.

How true.

uno mas

O/T Waaaaay O/T

I´ve just found out that the “Panama Papers” aren´t skins for rolling spliffs!!!!

The stuff you find out on this interwebby thing.

You´ve got to laugh at the Guardian though as they´re spinning this as a Putin Baaaaaad story.

Really Guardian!? That´s what you take from this?

Ian Brotherhood

@schrodingerscat –

Hear hear.

‘…under the wire…’

Yep.

And that’s what infuriates the Yoons so much. There is no Scottish republican army in the offing. We would’ve seen them crop-up here at some point in the past three years, eh? The Scottish Resistance are good entertainment value, but some of us at the Glasgow Friends of WOS gig last week passed them at the doorway of Waxy’s, and neither party felt any need to communicate.

I’ve lost count of how many WOS ‘nights’ there have been, but there hasn’t been one fall-out (that I know of) between attendees and I couldn’t, hand-on-heart, tell you what (if any) party-political affiliation people have. Even the regular faces.

We’re shifting beyond the merely ‘party-political’ into new territory, and it’s all good positive stuff. If that happens to be of no pressing interest to MSM journos, so be it – we’ll just proceed without them.

dunx

@ Cuilean
The photographs you mentioned,are available here…

link to gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk

Shows Davie Kirkwood laid out after being struck by polis baton. I would suggest that there might even be some CPR being administered here.

Whole site is worth a look as also includes pictures of George Square and its aftermath, references to “young English soldiers” tanks in the Saltmarket and Scottish regiments being confined to barracks.

thomaspotter2014

Tinto Chiel@11.13

The truth will out about Scotland’s suppressed history.

About time.

louis.b.argyll

Tinto Chiel,

We do, we do.

Jack Collatin

I’d imagine that the Town Crier wasn’t too pleased when Caxton came up with the printing press. Why would folk want to read the news, rather than gather in the town square and listen to me bellowing the party ‘line to take’?

Mr MacWhirter attempted to defend the indefensible.
BBC Scotland is controlled by a New Labour affiliated core, and continues to be part of a Better Together Movement, in unholy alliance with the Blue and Yellow Tories.

To expect us to be convinced that the Beeb is ‘independent’ and merely reflects public opinion as scrawled across the ‘papers’, is quite frankly an insult to our collective intelligence.
If Ruth, Kezia, Willie are to visit a nursery the following day, their speeches are forwarded to the Media.

The Herald, Scotsman, Record, Sun, or whatever run a transcript of the speech, topped and tailed by the so called ‘professional’ journos, and the subs adds a SNP BAD Headline, ‘warned’, threatened’, ‘exposed’, or some such guff.

BBC News runs with the story at lunch, teatime, late evening, and the aforementioned ‘professional’ journos have a nice wee sideline in appearance money, commenting on the day’s news, and how bad that SNP is, so they are.

MacWhirter’s alarming ignorance of Scottish (and Irish ) history was there for all to see.
The posts above may help him fill in some of the blanks…
Dead Tree journalism is ,well, dead.
I found the ‘monster raving loony’ cheap shot particularly telling.
It is obvious that Mr MacWhirter has lost heart; or has been on a ‘reorientation’ seminar run by John McTernan.

WoS, WGD, BC, and Bateman, and others, are essential outlets, in this alarmingly Unionist propagandised, State controlled media Up Here.

A telling wee conversation indeed.
May I ask why after 50 years of taking the Herald, Mr Mac Whirter is not in the least concerned that I, and thousands of others, have just given up, and stopped buying his Thundered and cancelled online subscriptions.
It has become that bad, Iain, honest.

old dearie

Could only stomach about a third so far. I attended an event at the Book Festival about 2 years ago which was about Scotland’s media. On the ‘Panel’ chaired by Ruth Wishart was Iain McWhirter, the then editor of the Scotsman and a younger female journalust who was representing the ‘new online media’

At the time I was not as familiar as I am now with Bella (who were mentioned lots) and WOS. The mainstream media were suggesting that their livlihoods might be endangered by these new “online” folk. They further suggested that their material was just lifted by such websites without any payment and that their hours of painstaking research was 6sed by them. Luckily the audience seemed to have lots of reps from websites and bloggers who didn’t let them away with it.

It inspired me to go home and look up Bella and Wings which was the best move I made to read some decent reporting and comments.

McW was being very pro Indy at the time. There was no doubt they were rattled and fearful of change and I believe that is their main motivation for writing such utter bilge on a daily basis. Their world order is veing threatened and they don’t like it.

Dr Jim

Get out the pitchforks

Aye right the electorate just laps up fragmented mob mentality, women will definitely vote for that Jeeez!

Away tae ma bed

Patrician

As many have already commented here Mr Macwhirter’s knowledge of Scottish history is incredibly lacking in depth.

In the early days of WOS, there were discussions about whether Mr Macwhirter was a fence-sitter or a troll, iirc the opinion was more the latter than the former.

@Ronnie Anderson.
I remember that conversation, the person on the phone said, “don’t give the WBBs to anyone but me, they will bin them”, This was about control of the some Yes hubs by wet nats, they didn’t want to offend anyone by being connected to WOS in any way.

The only complaint I had about the WBB was that it arrived too late, it should have been in its 2nd or 3rd edition by the time it was published. It needs a better project manager next time and not left to the deadline avoiding clutches of a freelance journalist. 😈

schrodingerscat

PC
Just goes to show we live in interesting times.

yes we do, but discussions btl do help to show what is coming down the line, and what we do to avoid it.
eg
salmond said indyref would take place in the 2nd half of their term, the unionists were checked with this
salmond said “once in a life time”, this is the basis of the entire unionist arguement against indyref2 ???
careless talk costs lives

we need to second guess what is about to happen.

David MacGille-Mhuire

Lying or simple, willful, historical ignorance expounded by Mr Macwhirter as soon as he opens his mouth.

This is good that it is on the record in so open a fashion. No avenue for back-tracking down the road.

He seems to be of the ilk of the West Brits of Ireland of the JockBrit variation: A wannabe Conor Cruise O’Brien. A fellow-travelling soulmate of Ruth Dudley Edwards (the go-to “Paddy”, West Brit, anti-Eire, BBC, anti-Paddy shill given O’Brien is on the bevvy with Auld Nick in the fires of hell).

A splendid programming concept and lang may its lum reek as long as it maintains balance by having The Rev on for a forensically balancing blether asap (a few other regular posters here could pick up the slack if the Rev is otherwise engaged debunking the on-going slough of Unionist drivel).

By Jeezuz, if the Resurrection was not a myth, I’d raise up Ian Bell for a bit of balance, too.

Macart

@Lollysmum 10.54pm

Good post.

@Ian Brotherhood 11.04pm

Couldn’t agree more Ian and yeah, that’s very much the impression I get whenever I read or hear some ‘journo’ discuss new media. There’s a whole journalistic snobbery/superiority thing happening there. Very much it comes across as ‘you can’t possibly have any relevance if… you’re one of them (picture a look of sneery disgust)’.

Got some ‘NEWS’ for journalists. You’re only relevant if people (the end users) say you are and you’re only as good as your last copy. The truest reflection of any market? Your worth is measured by a readers choice. Shall I spend money to listen to these words, or shall I spend the money elsewhere?

Journos should perhaps consider getting off that lofty pedestal they built for themselves and accept the fact that folk just got tired of being force fed opinion dressed as ‘information’. After Leveson and the Scottish referendum they should also maybe consider that folk may not appreciate being nakedly manipulated for personal gain or political agenda either.

It may also be worth them considering that right about now most journalists and indeed journalism have earned themselves a reputation that’s somewhat less than … golden, in most people’s eyes.

That’s if they expect to have a future mind.

Today, as Mr Macwhirter pointed out, people do have technological options they didn’t have 10, 20, 30 years ago. The journo’s air of prominence, of significance in and to our communities, is increasingly measured by their ability to simply impress any modern readership. They should mibbies consider, that in today’s digital age, they might have to work that wee bit harder to earn respect, or a crust.

Donald Anderson

Not sure where MacWhirter,or the Sunday Herald snow stands on anything.

yesindyref2

@Ian Brotherhood: “Macwhirter … still demonstrates a sense of superiority“.

That’s it in a nutshell. He still expects to be treated as if he is the oracle, and we his humble readers, gathering pearls of wisdom at his feet. Same for David Leask. Neither can handle their opinions being challenged, or being proven wrong (like Macwhirter with his “The SNP are so stupid they can’t see / are falling into / are in / a fiscal trap cunningly set by Westminster”. In that way, by the way, David Torrance can handle criticism, though he chooses to ignore it!

Is Macwhirter (still) pro-Indy? Yes, I think so. Not sure whether he thinks so though!

Almannysbunnet

Paula Rose says:
3 April, 2016 at 10:27 pm
If you want a hard copy of the Wee Black Book

Just for clarity, from the iScot website
(This WBB content will be printed inside iScot Magazine – this is NOT a separate WBB booklet). As a subscriber I was disappointed when I read this as I thought I was going to get and actual Wee Black Book. link to iscot.scot

On the subject of the Panama Papers. This story is effing huge! The UK media will try to spin this as a Putin only story. NOT. Already Iceland PM being called to resign. It’s being reported that Cameron’s late father and several prominent tories are named. 11 million pages leaked. This will have an awful lot of prominent people sweating. Like I said effing huge story. Rev might need help to plow through this lot. The corp media will cherry pick the story (e.g. Putin) to suit themselves.

yesindyref2

Grassroots v organised campaign.

Great discussion here, good postings, like Lollysmum’s one. @Heed will remember as others do like Macart, a Slovenian by the name of abiesalba (Jezerna on the Herald). Taken for a troll, but I think she started out with some genuine interest and very very very long postings. Back in 2012 she posted a list of about 16 problems for the Indy campaign, and the problem is that many of them were at that time unanswerable.

One was that there was no grassroots in Scotland for Indy and, by and large, that was true. Just us usual noisy nutters who’d been nutters for a lot of years.

When I looked at the YES website I used to think it was a waste of space, all it was was about signing the YES pledge to reach a million, and “form your own YES group”. But where was the in-depth info?

Well, that was the point – to get that grassroots. The SNP I often thought did basically nothing except every time there was a mis-reported IFS, CPPR, NIESR or other report, say “This is an interesting report and very good for Scotland. We welcome it.”.

Well, the less the SNP did, the more us people did, and not just us, but all the others. More and more people did it for ourselves, and I guess that was the point.

We can’t get Independence if the People of Scotland aren’t prepared to go out and get it ourselves.

Achnababan

MacWhirter is egotistical and hubristic.

Imagine giving no credit to the SNP in the seventies for devolution. Without the magnificent 7 and 11 MPS we would never got this far.

Ok it was a very potted history by way of introducing his monologue but together with his unflattering comparison of the SNPs lack of early electoral success with the screaming monster raving looney party is breathtaking guff. Robert MacIntyre, Wiñnie Ewing, Margo MacDonald ??

carjamtic

Not a bad pilot,as an experienced journalist IM knows the score,report the news,don’t be the news,but still has an opinion,like most of us,I welcome that opinion whether I agree with it or not.

The ‘conversation’ style of the presenter is good,rather than some aggressive Q&A session,where we learn nothing,as the interviewee just goes on the defensive.

In the end views will be heard,opinions formed,the Jimmies and the Jeanies that put their X in the wee box will have a bit more confidence when doing so.

I believe ‘the I smell sh#*te’ hidden super power of the JJ’s will always come to the right conclusion,given balanced reporting.

#nomorepropoganda

SNP X 2 Eu In

Indyref2

Dorothy Devine

The ” journalistic snobbery ” bit reminds me of Vetriano and the ” art world” – I think the person who laughs last is the winner in that scenario.

As another who used to ‘take’ the mighty Herald and now considers it pitiful , I wish Mr McWhirter well in job hunting.

I too enjoyed the discussion style and look forward to the Rev and WGD being interviewed.

Jack Collatin

yesindyref2 @6.46
“a Slovenian by the name of abiesalba (Jezerna on the Herald). Taken for a troll, but I think she started out with some genuine interest and very very very long postings. Back in 2012 she posted a list of about 16 problems for the Indy campaign, and the problem is that many of them were at that time unanswerable.”

Yes, we all remember ‘Jezerna Rosa’.

At the time ‘she’ explained her flawless English as the benefit of working in Wales for a short while with an Equal Rights Activist group.

She cluttered up every Pro Independence discussion forum with reams and reams of cut and paste EU law, and repeated the exercise throughout the item under discussion, to the point that genuine debate and SNP arguments were drowned in a sea of gobbledegook.

Since ‘she’ was merely a Better Together consortium of trolls, I challenged her impeccable English prose.

At the time I observed that I was fluent in French, get by in Italian and Spanish, and can holiday fairly comfortably in Germany; I argued that I have many European friends and ex colleagues who are ‘fluent’ in English, yet who still commit the odd faux pas…
I challenged HS to check out her credentials..the posts dried up. No more Ms Rosa /’Red’?

Ken500

Without the SNP there would have been no Referendum or another one. Or competent governance of Scotland. 60% Pollings. The Unionist would be doing their worst, instead of facing defeat.

An article on twa faced McWhirter becomes a critique of the SNP.

Phronesis

MSM being swept aside by social media where an educated electorate can read and assimilate historical and current facts for themselves, share and debate and reach common understanding. That’s why Scotland’s independence is coming.

Some investigative journalists are still doing their job…

link to msn.com

These revelations represent the tip of an iceberg hidden in very murky waters. Will there be the political will to develop a global progressive tax system, argued for by Piketty and others and simultaneously deal with the perpetrators of such blatant corruption and money laundering?

yesindyref2

It is possible all the same that McWhirter has seen concerns that are emerging, and is doing his own thing, as perhaps is Tom Gordon, to “clean things up”. Journalists do get far more attention by the SNP hierarchy than the mumblings of the likes of me and others who try to drop gentle hints at times, followed perhaps by not so gentle ones!

And perhaps the Herald itself has decided to go straight and just report the news which, to be honest, is the only way it’s going to survive.

It does have a good business section, I find it useful.

Anyway, the way things are going it’s becoming even more important to give the List vote to the SNP, as it seems to me it’s going to be neccessary to have a good few list MSPs to get an overall majority, perhaps as many as in 2011, and without that overall majority we can kiss Indy Ref 2 and Indy good bye. For a generation indeed.

YES people are going to have to decide how important Indy is to them, is it more, the same or less important to them than “providing opposition to the SNP”?

al urquhar

Aye McSquirter ye`ve missed the boat.
You lacked the courage of [some] of your convictions. No Ian Bell you.

That fence is now so far up your jacksy it`s welded there forever.

What a future to look forward to; carping on the sidelines with the Massies, Torrances, McKannaes of this world, your voices fading to a lost echo left way behind in the slipstream of a re-born nation.

yesindyref2

@Jack Collatin
She did slip her English occasionally though, especially when hissing at Indy supporters like me. Yes, that was a made up name. I think by the time she hit the Herald in 2013 (?) she’d come to hate Indy supporters, hate the SNP and hate Independence itself. But she had said before she campaigned for Devolution in Wales, and in non-Indy threads (Guardian I think), she showed strong socialist credentials.

I defended her once in the Grun from claims she was a flag troll, then couldn’t make my mind up. She did know her Slovenia all the same, or used the same google sources I did to check her out!

She disappeared off the Herald shortly after David Leask asked her to write an article.

yesindyref2

@al urquhar
I think McKenna would like his Labour party back, and the only way he can see it ever coming back is with Indy.

Ken500

Gremlins at the Herald again. The photo on website do not match the captions.

Capella

@ Almannysbunnet
I checked the BBC website for British culprits in the Panama story and guess what – none! It’s remarkable isn’t it that nobody from the world famous City of London has any connection to an off shore tax haven.

Cadogan Enright

Lots of entertainment on the radio this morning in the North of Ireland

Tories flying in this morning to reassure us that there could be no possible boarder issues between us and the Republic if we were to follow them into Brexit. So, Irish people must be more important than Scottish people as I recall there was going to be all sorts of fortifications if Scotland voted for Independence last year.

Also EBC Jumping up and down about rich people hiding the wealth and not paying their fair share of tax having been the inadvertent beneficiary of 11,000,000 ‘secret’ documents. Rather than go though these 11M and find the odd rich UK person or Tory they are zeroing in on a cellist who knows Putin. This is the day after NATO stations another ‘rapid reaction force’ on Russia’s boarder. I suspect the EBC has a part time role as NATOBC.

Meanwhile no mention of the publicly available info on how the Osbourne and Cameron families organise their tax.

al urquhar

@indyref2

and I`d love the return of the ten-bob note, button A and B phone boxes [that worked],and real coos` milk, nae processed crap.

Like Stu`s taste in music it ain`t coming back.

Labour est mort.

Ian Brotherhood

@Cadogan Enright –

Aye, same here. We’re just waiting for all those investigative journalists in Pacific Quay to start giving us some meaty bits…

…any moment now…

Training Day

It’s Groundhog Day for ‘journalist’ Brian Taylor over at Colonial Quay.

Five years ago, just before the election, Taylor disclosed that Labour’s policy on knife crime – remember that, policy wonks? – was ‘going down well on the doorsteps’. We saw how well in the election itself.

Now, five years on, just before the election, Taylor discloses via a BBC ‘poll’ that – guess what? – Labour’s policy on taxation is ‘relatively popular’.

God – or a Westminster paymaster – loves a trier.

Jack Collatin

Jack Collatin says: Yesindyref2@8.11 AM.

The volume of ‘her’ stuff , its interminable length, and the mind-boringly dry legalise of the language, was clearly designed to smother any SNP argument online at birth.

There may have been the odd:- ‘News this is not good for the SNP’, inserted, probably after we marvelled at her impeccable English…

She was and is a consortium of BT Trolls, ready to delight us all with a 1000 paragraphs on the Common Fisheries Policy, the role of the Central European Bank in squashing the Nascent Scottish nation financially, and bendy cucumber rules.
I did not know that Leask had invited her on to HS..and she disappeared.

Somewhere in the bowels of Better Together’s basement, they may be resurrecting Ms Rosa right now.

What happened to OBE, btw?

louis.b.argyll

Sorry for the football analogy, but..

The SNP have got on the ball deep in defence,

They have side-stepped approaching attackers,

running rings around heavy legged midfielders.

The solo run continues through the middle where they are tackled and harried,

A couple of quick one-twos with the electorate, who have great off the ball movement..

We are now in the opponents
penalty area…

…And some people want tinker with formation.

Kenzie

I noticed that Sky news this morning started off with the allegations against Putin and a couple of people who are now dead. But of the present 6 (sic) members of the HoL or serving MPs, nary a word.

Strange that, innit? No, I didn’t think so either.

Breeks

My sense of Nationalism has never been that political, but rather an abiding sense that something was always wrong. Scotland’s oil being plundered was wrong. Scotland’s brain drain was wrong. The Highland clearances were wrong. Scotland’s 1979 Devolution was wrong… We all know the list don’t we? We all know how long the list is too.
It doesn’t seem to matter what aspect of Scottish society you fixed upon, sooner or later you stumble across some disadvantage or impoverishment suffered upon us Scots. It’s so commonplace, it scarcely registers.
Politics only really kicked in for me with Thatcher, and her purely wicked intentions towards Scotland. Suddenly that “wrongness” we suffered wasn’t a curse or misfortune, but the wilful design of an insatiably greedy Westminster.
I have never been a Tory, because that isn’t how you treat the weak, old, and poor. You look after them. Avarice, greed, and spiv economics is crooked. End of…
I have never been into Labour because they could not defend us no matter how many open goals gaped before them, but they seemed forever linked with local corruptions, nepotism, and sleazy favours to their chums. I can’t lie about it either, and flame me if you like, but I believe the Left’s Union muscle and hubris has to share at least part of the responsibility for losing our industry. When I watch a Carry On film, sooner or later there is some “Brothers! Unite! Strike!” reference which is meant to be funny, but frankly it just makes me cringe if not weep.
The Lib Dems? Liberals? SDP? I dunno. Too weak. Too wishy washy. Too much “vote for the nice guy” because I’m the nice guy. Yeah…. Whatever.
SNP. Yes. Why not. An Independent Scotland becomes a blank page where we can re-write everything from scratch. Start over. No Tory, no Labour, no Liberal fudge-master holding the contrived and carefully engineered balance of power.
That’s kind of where I remain. I have always been a Nationalist, Scotland first, but not really an SNP brand of Nationalist. They get my vote, because that vote is bought and paid for by the promise of Independence, but there’s no tribalism or party loyalty involved. They haven’t earned it.
Truth be known, I fear man for man the SNP politician is no more honourable and straight than your archetypal Labour Gauleiter, but if I am certain of anything, or rather if I have faith in any thing, it is certainty that change for the better and purge of the filth will never happen unless Scotland regains its sovereign freedom.

Almannysbunnet

@Capella says:
at 8:28 am
I checked the BBC website for British culprits in the Panama story.

What a shock. Kudos to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists for digging out this story. Not sure if they have any Scottish members but the Rev would be a shoe in.
I suppose it will be up the online community to expose the thieves in our midst. Banks and financial institutions based in Guernsey, Jersey, Channel Islands, Cameron’s family. Crime of the century Brinks-Mat bullion robbers. The great and the good, aye right. The list is endless.

link to panamapapers.icij.org

Jack Collatin

Jack Collatin says:- Breeks @8.56
Well said, Breeks.

Bob Costello

Lollysmum,Davidb.
Just a few wee points. There was no problem regarding data protection as it would have been the SNP that was distributing it and it was election material and I would have made sure that there was enough people to carry out the exercise . I had envisaged doing it through the royal Mail.
The SNP were actually reasonably well organised, although it was sometimes difficult to extract campaigning materials from their point of supply which was the Hub in St Andrews Street and I found that more often or not I had to go to the SNP office in Old Glamis Road and collect materials.

davidb
The yes group WAS actually the concept of and was organised by the SNP . I was at the inaugural meeting of it. It was set up to try to make it look as though the SNP were not running the whole show. It was the grass roots groups which were the spontaneous part of the campaign and it worked pretty good with the yes movement / SNP supplying campaigning materials to the various grass roots groups.
As far as literature is concerned , I would willingly have it printed but it is no use everybody printing their own ideas of what message should be put out there and I have been advocating thought being given to what the problems were and what the answers should be on a countrywide basis. Does anyone for instance know what the present thinking is on currency, no probably not, so there is no point in all the grass roots going out with different messages .This is why the Wee Black book is so important as it addresses the issues that we lost the referendum on and the mis truths contained in the no campaign promises.

We have wasted 18 Months in preparation for the next referendum but the no campaign is still going strong and they have just recently formed a group similar to the better together group which has substantial funding and you will be hearing about this very shortly.
I went to the SNP two days after the referendum and said OK we have lost a battle but not the war so what’s the plan? I was met by a blank look and “what plan”. I am afraid that is still the situation with the SNP. I keep saying it “we need a road map to independence”

DerekM

Now there is a man with a conflict of interests and it shows.

Of course he is going to big up the BBC they have already sent their gestapo to tell him that if you dont tow the BBC line then no more tax payers dosh for you.

And just like the vast majority of Scottish so called journalists when confronted by the lure of tax payer dosh they bend the knee to their masters sickening really and they are right to be worried because there is no place for their arse licking ways in an independent Scotland.

Rev jealousy can manifest itself in all sorts of ways i do believe they are jealous of you because you dont play by the UKOK rules or licked the correct arses to get where you are.

The lesson they all should learn from wings is that if you want your readers to read then stop telling them opinions and try and discover the facts about a story its called journalism not opinionism.

mealer

Christopher Silver isn’t very good in that role.He has interesting things to say but takes a long time to say them.A lot of patience is required.

Legerwood

Alsmannybunnet @ 8.57

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists did not dig out the story. They were just one of the groups who were given access to the leaked documents. BBC Panorama, The Guardian and a German newspaper, which was the original recipient, were some of the other groups given access to the leaked papers. No one knows who is the source of the leak of almost 11 million documents.

From the BBC web site:
“”Eleven million documents held by the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca have been passed to German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which then shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. BBC Panorama and UK newspaper the Guardian are among 107 media organisations in 78 countries which have been analysing the documents. The BBC does not know the identity of the source””

heedtracker

“Yes, we all remember ‘Jezerna Rosa’.

At the time ‘she’ explained her flawless English as the benefit of working in Wales for a short while with an Equal Rights Activist group.”

All you needed to do was ask him to comment in her native Slovene language, just repeat one comment even. I did on Graun and Vote NO Aliebabdass never did once.

Its all here anyway, maybe without her end of ref campaign bigoted UKOK malice, what Graun mods found acceptable, maybe.

link to notesfromnorthbritain.wordpress.com

She knows says he was bullied off the internet. Who cares.

heedtracker

She NOW says he was bullied off the internet.

Sorry.

Jim

O/T but on looking for a part for my car I looked at
euro car parts website.

Apparently it is free UK delivery unless you live in, (bearing in mind they have a store in Inverness), the Highlands and Islands or Nor’n Ireland.

So we are part of the UK until it comes to exorbitant delivery charges, the greedy fucks.

Better together my arse.

heedtracker

So we are part of the UK until it comes to exorbitant delivery charges, the greedy fucks.

They sell chunk too. Partco, where your pro’s go.

Ken500

Why People who support Independence keep on critising the SNP is a mystery. A fifth Column. If the SNP has organised the YES campaign it might have won. It was funded by the SNP. It was the fringe movement that failed. It was difficult to organise.

The reason that NO won was because of Unionist lies. Not because of SNP mismanagement. The campaign was under financial constraints. £1.5Million each. To start printing off literature could have broken the balance. To breach the rules would have been illegal. Although BT breached the rules with impunity. The Tories break Election rules with impunity. Spend more and nothing is done about it.

With 56 SNP and 60% polling for Holyrood, it’s still a viable campaign. The Tories/Unionists know it.

Valerie

Almannysbunnet

Quote taken from your link on Panama papers.
Sounds highly suspect bullshit. USA is the chief smearer of Assad. How tenuous is this smear? A fuel company??

‘One of those companies supplied fuel for the aircraft that the Syrian government used to bomb and kill thousands of its own citizens, U.S. authorities have charged.’

NeoconNat

“we need a road map to independence”

We actually don’t and having one would probably be somewhere between pointless and politically burdensome.

Nobody can deny that we are heading roughly in the right direction. Nobody can deny that the situation is very unpredictable and fluid. There are many variables now where before there were only a few, and that’s good for us.

My guess is that independence will come when we least expect it. I can easily imagine Westminster embarking on some course of action or policy that is so at odds with the wishes of the people of Scotland that it all unfolds swiftly and spontaneously.

Brexit is a possibility but I don’t believe the English voters (who will basically decide that) would be daft enough to withdraw from Europe. I’ve been wrong about how daft I thought they were before though.

The following is easy to imagine and I wonder what use a road map would be under the following circumstances;

1) Westminster embarks on some new insane policy venture
2) Scottish people take to the streets in protest
3) The SNP pass policy on a snap referendum (without Westminster approval)
4) Westminster protests but reluctantly concedes it will respect the outcome (the alternatives being too bleak to even contemplate)
5) Independence is achieved

In the background the demographics are continually developing in our favour, of course. The long road, as I call it, will take ten years at most.

Lenny Hartley

Craig Murray – Why am I surprised!
link to craigmurray.org.uk

Andrew Mclean

Is it true that HMRC will not take action against named UK citizens’ as the information was stolen?

Chic McGregor

@Louis
“Sorry for the football analogy, but..

The SNP have got on the ball deep in defence,

They have side-stepped approaching attackers,

running rings around heavy legged midfielders.

The solo run continues through the middle where they are tackled and harried,

A couple of quick one-twos with the electorate, who have great off the ball movement..

We are now in the opponents
penalty area…

…And some people want tinker with formation.”

Clever analogy.

However, the most pertinent decision now required is not on formation but on whether we shoot or try to walk the ball in.

A decision the difficulty of which is compounded by the fact the goal posts keep being moved by the opposition and no foul by them, however blatant, will be awarded by the referee.

Proud Cybernat

O/T

Remembering Margo today. Big loss.

Macart

The leak of the Panama Papers has gone nuclear on the interwebby. 11.5mn docs and the names surfacing from both the political and banking sectors would make your eyes water.

I reckon this release will be right up there along with wikileaks in terms of damage done to the political/corporate establishment. Its a biggie. Fair old list of who’s who in the political world.

Who knew?

Macart

Oh here’s a starter for ten. 😮

link to independent.co.uk

One more time with feeling.

Who’d a thunk?

louis.b.argyll

Chic,
…indeed,

but shooting from distance narrowly failed recently.
(though we made their keeper dive)

We’re not even into injury time..

..because the ELECTORATE can put time ONTO the clock…

…affording the SNP to keep possession.

To play through a confident team, attack down the other wing..

Knowing we can walk it in,
without a dodgy offside decision,
Without doubt.

bobby mcpherson

bbc entertainment value for money? eh dont think so:
link to heraldscotland.com

Valerie

Regarding Cameron’s father using off shore tax havens.

Old news, it was reported back in 2012. Nobody cares enough about this. He was voted back in.

Almannysbunnet

@Andrew Mclean says:
10:21 am
Is it true that HMRC will not take action against named UK citizens’ as the information was stolen?

Sounds like the kind of BS excuse they would come up with. Doesn’t hold water but it’s not easy to out those that control their budget strings. Weren’t they not complaining just last week that they didn’t have enough resources to chase after rich tax dodgers? Very cosy.

CameronB Brodie

Chic McGregor
If the goalpost keep moving, the approach most likely to succeed would be to walk the ball over the line. Then you can burst the net, if you like. Flash shots may be what excite the punters but we’re talking about the future of a nation here, I think. 🙂

A road-map would be braw but you need to have foreknowledge of the shifting political topography, if it is to be of any value, I would have thought. A tough call, even for a political party. Too many variables and outside factors to model, IMHO.

Bob Costello

Neocon
So we don’t need a road map but we don’t know where we are going. That about sums up the content of your piece.

“we are heading ROUGHLY in the right direction.”

“the situation is very UNPREDICTABLE and fluid.”

“My GUESS is that independence will come when we least expect
it.”

“There are MANY VARIABLES now where before there were only a
few, ”

You managed to cram quite a lot of reasons for having a road map into your piece denying the need for one.

You then go on the present a possible scenario which would definitely require a road map to be in existence because the “road map would have foreseen the need to prepare for the unexpected and indeed make us prepared for such an eventuality .The basic preparation being that the electorate has to be convinced of the arguments we lost the last referendum on which among others are Pensions and the monetary situation in an independent scotland before going ( especially at short notice) for another referendum

I have been in business for over half a century and I can assure you that being prepared is an absolute requirement of survival. Going merrily along allowing things to happen and hoping for the best is a recipe for disaster

Fred

No Ian Bell indeed & never will be, self-promotion’s the name of the game for McWhirter. His pronouncement that Kezia being the greatest Slab leader since Donald Dewar is just nonsense, Ian Gray ticks that box!

Watched Sir Bob Geldof’s tribute to Yeats, his berating the leaders of the Easter Rising for causing the deaths of 500 people whilst largely ignoring the mortality rates in the Dublin slums, the carnage on the Somme & the genocide of the Famine, will probably get him into the House of Lords with McWhirter.

CameronB Brodie

I would hope that the SNP has a realistic strategic overview though.

How best to articulate this vision? Synoptic rationality, mixed scanning or disjointed incrementalism?

One of the biggest problems in most intractable conflicts is that they are incredibly complex, with many actors, issues, interests, and a long history of confrontation, fear, distrust, even hate. As a result, it is almost impossible for one person or even one group of people to come in and, in a relatively short period of time, help the parties find a solution. Solutions need to be developed slowly over a long time period, with many people working independently and in concert, to bring about a transformation of the conflict from a destructive one to a constructive one, and eventually to a resolved situation.

link to beyondintractability.org

Breeks

Here’s an alternative sporting analogy from the world of rugby:

The SNP started the match as outright underdogs, but they soaked all the early pressure, and roared on by a passionate home crowd have stayed in contention, just behind but with the score very tight at the half time referendum. Midway through the second half, they are still behind but way, way, ahead on possession. The match is approaching the final whistle with the SNP encamped on the UK 22, but now missing the golden boot of Salmond at fly-half. The expectant crowd has its fingernails bitten to the quick wondering if they have the strength up front to get over the line and finish this epic campaign. The whole of Scotland is here willing them on, but will it be enough? Just a few minutes left. Back to the BBC studio with Brian Moore and breaking news of the Bath / Wasps result…

(Ha ha ha. Nearly posted this with a typo saying the expectant CROWN had its fingernails bitten to the quick…)

David

I think we intelligently get our own “balance” by tapping into different sources. From my POV Wings provides a detailed critique to the stuff in the MSM that otherwise usually goes unchallenged. I give wings financial support to carry on doing what they do well because it is, in this current political climate, very necessary. I don’t think Wings needs to do any nat bashing to improve its credentials because we already get this stuff by the tonnage from many other sources.

Prior to the beginnings of the indy ref campaigning, lets say around start of 2013, we had Scotland behaving a bit like an old school where the teachers (politicians and journalists) dictated the agenda and were very comfortably accustomed to their headline and soundbite content being swallowed by most of the population most of the time. The small minority of people that that read books about politics, read the commentary pages of the non-tabloid newspapers, critically questioned the agenda of broadcast news, etc, were never a serious threat to the status quo. That has all changed now and that small minority has grown into a substantial minority and might one day hit critical mass and become a majority.

Wings has an agenda, it is openly pro independence and it does a lot of quite tedious and possibly boring work to provide evidence or substantive and credible counter arguements to the utterings of our mainstream media sources. I am happy for Wings to continue in this way and I can, and do, read substantial contributions to nat bashing on the MSM and now more frequently in on line sites such as Common Space. I don’t need Wings to join this bunch as we already have enough of them out there. that the balance.

When the MSM and the public service broadcasters start providing a genuinely intelligent, balanced and fair view of Scottish politics where our elected majorities are not constantly treated like a dodgy minority and our elected minority oppostion politics are not consistently given a platform and lack of criticism normally only given elesewhere to governments of dictatorships then it might be time for Wings to consider taking on a different approach. In the meantime I hope the good, necessary and very popular work of this web site continues AS IS.

yesindyref2

@Jack Collatin
I guess OBE must have got banned. I did see someone on the Scotsman with his “style” when I had a quick look (shudder) recently.

I don’t think Rosa was BT though. She knew far too much, they were an ignorant bunch!

NeoconNat

Bob Costello, your tone is tedious and references to your supposed business acumen won’t work on me, but I’ll forgive all that this one time. Noted though.

You start your confused barrage with “so we don’t need a road map but we don’t know where we are going…”

But I didn’t say we “don’t know where we are going”. I made it positively clear, in fact, that I believe independence (where we are going) is 10 years away at most. So, that’s where we are going.

If you don’t concede a basic mistake like that on your part, I will simply ignore you in future as I ignore so many other fools. Consider this a condition.

Then you say; “You managed to cram quite a lot of reasons for having a road map into your piece denying the need for one.”

You either misunderstood basic English, which points to you being quite thick, or you are deliberately not understanding what I said. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are thick.

Thus, if you are in a car heading towards say Coventry, there are any number of roads you might take. Additionally there are people who might at any time throw road blocks up in your way so that taking any one single route comes with no guarantees in terms of ever getting you there or a time-frame. So far, so tedious and obvious.

Now, on top of all that, as I explained, it’s quite possible that some new unforeseen route will become available to you — giving you a much quicker option. But, crucially, again, nothing can be guaranteed.

As if all that wasn’t enough, there are other vehicles who are trying to ram us and force our car off the road.

Additionally, for all we know, there may be people in our car who might change their minds and want to go somewhere else altogether at some point. They may even threaten to take our car with them.

Our car, of course, may simply break down, making our journey impossible.

Hardly a case for having a map, is it?

We have our compass and we know roughly what direction we want to be going in. That’s enough. You can’t plan for the unforeseeable.

Incidentally, on a personal note, speaking also as someone who manages businesses of varying sizes, if there’s one thing I have learned it’s that nothing is certain. Did you have a plan in place for the credit crunch? How about the recent dip in oil prices, was that on your road map?

SWOT analysis might make sense when you’re buying and selling knick-knacks but here we are dealing with a thousand moving parts.

Paula Rose

Bob Costello – tedious and questionable business acumen this is really getting very funny now.

CameronB Brodie

P.S. @ Fabian Society

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. – Sun Tzu

How do you like them apples?

Breeks

Not posting to be inflammatory, I follow the logic in not having a formal route map, but instead of a route map, I think what Bob Costello, and others want to see is discernable forward momentum.

I get it, yes, the SNP is playing the long, patient game. But it is just so frustrating to see the head of steam built up during the YES campaign left idling on standby.

I see this. I understand this. But nothing I see or understand precludes the SNP at least trying to tackle this rancid hostile media, and the succour it gives to such a weak and chaotic opposition.
Beating Labour is no longer clever. When is the main event when we finally see the BBC getting the bloody nose it so richly deserves?

NeoconNat

Breek, I understand your anxiety. This brings me on nicely to what I said earlier about a road-map either being pointless or politically burdensome.

Let’s be clear, we aren’t talking about a map here; we are talking about some sort of timetable with a means to measure progress presumably.

That could easily have drawbacks. On one obvious level it will let the scum in the media and our political opponents argue that all we really care about is independence, we can’t be trusted with government, we have an agenda that everything else will be sacrificed on, etc.

They pretty much say that now but with a road-map in place it would be impossible to deny. Don’t assume I worry about upsetting unionists too much, we are talking about political expediency here.

Secondly, a road-map would bring with it the risk of the SNP being seen to fail if it didn’t meet one of those measurable stages a road-map would necessarily include; if it doesn’t includes a means of measuring progress then what’s the point in having it?

Picture the headline: “SNP fails to meet its road-map objectives: is independence now dead in the water?”

Why bother? It’s suffice to say that support for independence is growing and where we get a realistic and sensible chance to express that then we will take it. If an opportunity arises, we agitate and push in the right direction at every juncture.

The SNP will most likely include a call for a referendum in its next manifesto, not this one. Between now and then we sit, watch, press, and pounce where necessary. No map required.

Chris Darroch

It becomes quickly, rather grating to listen to the cynical background music of the Labourite, Macwhirter.

Chris Darroch

A veritable Tsunami of adverts for Macwhirter’s whinings.

yesindyref2

OT
This’ll give you a laugh. Small order just in for a product we do ourselves over ‘tinternet, with the comment “You’re apparently the only supplier of X within the EU! Please don’t leave us”.

So I’m getting love-bombed by Austria 🙂

Bob Costello

Neocon
It is a pity when someone feels the need to resort to personal insults when debating . It usually is a reflection of a weak argument and always completely unnecessary.
It is of course difficult to understand your rambling logic and I had wondered if perhaps you were partaking of some substance of dubious origin. If you are ,I would suggest you stop it immediately.
No point in continuing this dialogue , reminds me of something my mother used to say ” be careful not to argue with a fool because people looking on might not be able to tell the difference”
By the way ,yes I did make provision for the crash in 2008 and I also predicted the fall in oil prices.

yesindyref2

@Bob Costello and @ NeoCon
Play nice you two, it’s an interesting discussion – without the need for insults on the one hand, or I know more than you do on the other.

yesindyref2

Sorry, that should be NeoConNat, not NeoCon.

I got on the internet back in the mid-90s when modems became faster and we got 0845 (I think) numbers that cost 1p per minute. A Demon TAM – Tenner A Month – unbridled and unfettered access to the internet and tens of thousands of newsgroups, and an included homepages for each account with address e.g. nospam.demon.co.uk.

It very quickly became clear that the internet was “The Great Leveller”, where peasant could argue with president on an equal footing, “winning” only by force of argument and reference to facts.

The likes of the journalists mentioned earlier still haven’t caught up with that, but bit by bit is indeed creating a level playing field. Without it Indy support would probably have stayed at 25-30%, not just because of websites like this and posters like Peter A Bell and many others giving his (our) time to refute Unionist proaganda, but because of the ability to organise with it.

But it is the Great Leveller, it’s opinions and arguments that count, not position.

Andrew Mclean

Bob Costello
He’s a mischievous little puck isn’t he, quite ironic you use Thatcher’s old adage against him! Thought that would be lost on him! This leads me on nicely, ha ha!
Don’t you think he’s like young Stewart the Tory troll, I wondered what became of him?
He will run back to his Tory chumps and tell them he bested the wingers, or is it “owned”?

Sunniva

I really can’t agree with him on his history.

The 1707 union was unpopular from the get-go.

But it lacked politically credible leadership. It was grass roots opposition. Scotland was still a monarchy, republicanism was in its infancy, and as a monarchy Scotland was divided over the succession. The Hanoverian succession was the main reason for the Union.

The Jacobite part of Scotland did however attempt rebellions in 1708, 1715, 1719, 1745. The non-Jacobite part fizzed away with no obvious leadership. But the 19th century saw the Grant brothers’ Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights (1856) and the 1880s the Scottish Home Rule Association. The Independent Labour Party under Keir Hardie argued for Home Rule.

ailsa craig

@yesindyref2

I complained to the Ed of the Herald about OBE’s very personal insults and he got banned. I had an email confirming this.

He writes in the Scotman under ‘Strichen Eck’ — all the same old regurgitated guff. To anyone in education especially, very few people can hide their style. The man has a deep, deep problem. Obsessed beyond sanity.

Mhairi Corbyn lurks there too; known to us [former] Herald readers as Flinn, O’Golo etc., there as, ‘it wisnae me’. OMG the Herald got bad but the Hootsman is appalling.

yesindyref2

@ailsa craig
Yes, he did get very personal in his insults, good for you (and the Herald) getting him banned. The occasional insult is par for the course, a bit heated and there you go, but he was continual and unprovoked. “Stricken Eck”, now I remember, he was always using that in the Herald to describe a certain bookie attendee (according to OBE).

Still, I used to like sharpening the claws on him occasionally, he was a very useful piece of bark (but no bite).

Grouse Beater

Costello: “The yes group WAS actually the concept of and was organised by the SNP. I was at the inaugural meeting of it. It was set up to try to make it look as though the SNP were not running the whole show.”

Bullcrap.

And not a shred of evidence from Costello to back up his claim.

I got involved too only to discover it had nothing to do with the SNP whatsoever. That came as a shock. While the SNP was happy to see any group formed supporting independence, it had nowt to do with Jenkin’s junkyard.

The volunteers it attracted were a disparate group of stragglers and middle-aged housewives, and sometimes made it hard to find a Scottish accent among them. I thought it an inept group, many who disliked the SNP, or simply didn’t want to belong to a political party

The front man, Blair Jenkins, ex-BBC journalist – warning bells there – was wholly lacking in charisma or leadership qualities. I thought him a hindrance for any campaign, and in some respects he proved to be exactly that, a dead weight.

Breeks

Kinda agree with that Grouse Beater @ 1.07 am, but it’s a bit harsh. I’d agree YES wasn’t well led, but then again, if you compare the YES campaign against the NO campaign, I would place YES a country mile ahead of the dismal and embarrassing Better Together horseshite.
A dose more charisma in the driving seat would have helped, but there was a much bigger problem. I think both YES and the SNP were extremely pedestrian and ineffective in reacting to the hostile media.
Condemnation of the BBC seemed to be a no-go area for both formal campaigns, and worst of all, I don’t see that anything has changed. The media deserved to be fully vilified for their rabid prejudice and bias, but they remain untouched and unbloodied, and all set for the next round of Project Fear.

Do you really think Darling was generating support for No? Did ANY aspect of Better Together give you cause to ponder whether you were wrong? I didn’t. Not even for a moment. The Battle wasn’t between YES and Better Together. The real contest was between YES and the despicable media, and though I hate to say it, YES was a lamb ripe for slaughter.

Next referendum, we should be so lucky to have such a dysfunctional embarrassment as Better Together squaring up against us, but we will have gambled everything, everything, if we embark on an Indyref 2 campaign without first having an effective counter measure for the Unionist dominance of the media.

If we don’t have any answers, we need to knuckle down and find some. Now. The “we” I refer to is all of us… SNP, YES, bloggers, pod casters, punters. The BBC was literally on a war footing against us, yet we were milling around grumbling and writing complaints to the BBC trustees. Wake the feck up people.

Our contempt and disdain for the ineffectiveness of Better Together is probably uncomfortably close in its nature to the BBC’s disdain and contempt for us. We never even came close to troubling them, and we haven’t learned that lesson.

Smallaxe

@ Breeks I fully agree with you ,we need a solid strategy against the media especially the BBC,these people present the most danger to us,without an effective and may I suggest an aggressive answer to their constant propaganda we will have a very hard time moving any further forward.

Bob Costello

Grouse beater
I am surprised at the lack of knowledge displayed on this site concerning the make up of the various movements that supported the over all Yes movement. I can assure you that the Yes movement ( as opposed to the many grassroots organisations ) was set up by the SNP and as for your comment that I have not provided proof. Well I did just that when I said that I was involved in the set up of the Yes group and at the meeting to launch it in Glasgow , it was actually Nicola Sturgeon who launched it.

The other thing that strikes me about some of the contributors to this site is the apparent willingness to resort to personal comments. There is absolutely no need to actually attack people when trying to make a point. Debate is all about freely exchanging views and through this the participants can learn and at the same time inform.
So Grouse beater , do you homework before you attack people and their views.

Andrew Mclean

Grousey
I know what you mean, but no need for the sentence, English voices, come on your better than that.
Bob don’t you agree that we attracted some strange bedfellows, did you yourself not want to share a platform with one? Or am I mistaken?
Ps that is a rhetorical question.

Phantom Power

Many thanks for all the constructive comments. The Sunday Review is a work in progress and I hear you.

Bob Costello

Andrew
Yes in any endeavor or journey there is can be a diverse group of companions but the important thing is that the companions you choose have the ability to get you to where you wish to go.

I am assuming you allude to the incidents surrounding the “road Map to independence” rally we organised in Dundee City Square and to one of all the independence speakers we invited to speak.

I prefer , instead of the “strange bed fellows label” you use to use the analogy of a tool box in which there is a selection of tools of which each one has its use in getting the job done.Tommy Sheridan like every one of us independence minded people is a tool in that box. I don’t agree with Tommy’s politics and have told he that face to face( although there is certain policies of his party that I do agree with, like a not for profit pharmaceutical company)but one thing I do know, and that is that he is passionate about independence and can pull a larger crowd than any scottish politician , possibly with the exception (at the moment) of Nicola Sturgeon.

So Andrew I suppose the answer to your question ( although it was rhetorical) is yes, we the wider yes grass roots set up, did and still do attract some strange bed fellows and as long as they have our county at heart then I cannot see the harm in it.

Andrew McLean

Bob, the strange bedfellows was my poor attempt at humour given his alleged indiscretions! Tommy I absolutely love, platonically of course, and he knows how much he has damaged. And since I am not perfect either according to the wife? I will on say you are correct, he is a specific tool for a specific job, but he once was almost the complete toolbox!

I don’t think grousey knows you? And I am sure realises his error. But he is a big ugly sod and can speak for himself!

Grouse Beater

Bob Costello: “I was involved in the set up of the Yes group and at the meeting to launch it in Glasgow, it was actually Nicola Sturgeon who launched it.

There is a vast difference between cheerleading a new group pitching for your side and actually organising, running, and funding it.

Capice?


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