The Tory Generation
Yesterday we highlighted a quote from Labour MP Kate Hoey about how the party secretly expects their next leader, whoever it is, to be in opposition for the next 10 years, meaning the UK will have a Conservative-led government for at least 15 years. Kate Hoey is on the Labour fringes, but today one of the front-runners for the leadership job proved her right.
The article leads with the big splash:
We’ll leave aside the double dose of arrogance in assuming she might win (a) the leadership election and (b) a general election, since we’ll assume it was a question directly put to her. But it’s an extraordinary piece of logic.
Cooper “worries” that the Tories will use fear of the SNP, and then immediately plays into their hands by joining in, portraying the Nats as “untouchables”, so toxic to the government of the UK that they must be excluded half a decade in advance.
She goes on to expand on the point:
“I feel worried about the careless way in which David Cameron thinks it is OK to play on the fear of Scotland as being the way for them to get more votes and the way in which that divides a nation.
I think that they [the Tories] will continue to do this and it’s a real challenge for the Labour Party for us to try and build that sense of things that we have in common rather than things that pull us apart.”
So let’s just get this straight: Cooper’s grand idea to promote unity and solidarity and common purpose in the UK is to tell one of its constituent nations that they’re not allowed to vote for who they want to, and if they don’t do what they’re told then their MPs will be frozen out of having any say in the governance of Britain? Righto.
Now, none of us knows what events are going to transpire in the next five years. Something could happen which shattered the SNP’s popularity, or that of the Tories. But currently it seems a pretty safe bet that the chances of Labour being able to win a majority in 2020, under any of its prospective leaders, are somewhat remote.
And yet, five years out, Labour have just sent the message that they’ll sit back and let the Tories win again rather than work with a centre-left social democratic party with which Labour shares far more in policy terms than any other party in the country.
That message is, to put it mildly, extremely unlikely to help the party’s desperate straits in Scotland, and we already know that it didn’t do Labour any good in England at this year’s election. In repeating it, in such strident and unequivocal terms, Cooper hasn’t just trampled all over the creaking myth of the Union, but has to all intents and purposes thrown in the towel for 2020 already.
Dig in, readers. You’ve got a LOT of Conservative government coming.
What it is it they don’t get that when they insult and denigrate our elected representatives they are insulting and denigrating us the electorate, the Scottish people. They will never recover in Scotland until they embrace the wishes of the people.
The Labour Party were defeated in England because they didn’t offer an alternative to the tories. So until they change direction and actually become an opposition party then they are doomed.
Unbelievable!
Scotland is a despicable country that no decent Englishman or woman could ever work with.
The union is finished. Please switch off the lights.
Dig in, readers. You’ve got a LOT of Conservative government coming.
Cooper’s merely a red tory trying to get blue tory to vote red tory, in England.
Scotland needs an independent Labour party asap but have they got they got what it takes? Probably not.
Yeah, yeah we lost. Yeah, yeah we’ll listen. I’ll now repeat what lost us last time!
Time for the Northern League, affiliated to the SNP. It will at least scare the living daylights out of the duopoly even if we don’t win.
Scotland doesn’t need an independent Labour Party. We already have a reliable left-of-centre social democratic party in the SNP. Even if we voted for it en masse. it would only replace SNP MPs and English Labour would only work with it if it did not make demands for more powers.
The Scottish electorate has recognised that there are two political blocks in Scotland: pro-Independents and pro Unions. It has emphatically rejected the latter because the former offer what the vast majority want which is strong devolution.
Not another Thatcher type longevity stint in charge?? Christ, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride this one. Add in the fact they have a bone to pick with jockoland I think we are well and truly fucked.
What is it with Labour? Is it stupidity or cowardice (or maybe a combination of both)? By uttering this nonsense so soon after the GE, Cooper has already conceded ground and handed the narrative to the Tories. Thank you very much. Labour should be challenging the right wing narrative that the SNP have no democratic legitimacy, not bending over!
What is said and done at this stage has an enormous effect on the outcome of the next GE in five years time. The Tories have already won. Copper’s pathetic response means that the next campaign will be fought, once again, on the Tories’ terms. Have Labour learned nothing? To regain the initiative, Labour have to be bold, imaginative and honest. They need to set a new scene. People will follow a new vision, not another Tory-lite party that intends to spend the next five years fire-fighting again.
Disappointed, but not surprised.
Do you know what-comments like this aren’t going to bring back ex-Labour voters to the fold in England either!
There’s no reason for us English voters to go back because they haven’t learnt a thing.Welcome to the political wilderness Labour north & south of the border. Toxic in both countries-only Thatcher managed to achieve that feat before GE2015.
She’s speaking to the rabid SNP haters within the Labour party. It’s largely irrelevant with any realistic prospect of power so far beyond their grasp.
Hard to imagine how Labour could recover north of the border. I wonder whether we might see a re-emergence of old style Liberalism in the vacuum Labour leave.
I hate to ask this, but is it looking likely that the SNP may consider fielding candidates down south? I mean do we actually have to become the full opposition in the entire UK wide construct?
They (Labour) said it during the referendum, rather Tory governments for eternity than ‘break up the UK’, or some such crap.
How do we tackle this, we are quite literally being shut out at every level? Can no one publicly comment on this from the SNP. Lay it bare.
Obviously, it’s deliberate. But the price the electorate will pay is to have no opposition in place to curb any of the already excessive policies of the Tories. This is playing out as we speak, they, Labour are sitting on their hands on anything that the SNP support in the UK parliament.
It is in effect a One Party State in operation in the UK.
All we can do this end is to remove every unionist from Scotland next year and from the councils in 2017. Either that or the SNP MP’s walk out.
What is it going to take to protect ourselves, because let’s be clear here, what is coming down the road when Osbourne reveals his new ‘improved’ budget is beyond comprehension for those of us who care for our fellow human beings. Labour are prepared to walk through those divisions alongside the Tories rather than join forces with the SNP, and do not care for the cost to our communities. This is obstructionist tactics from Labour. They only care about themselves.
[…] Yesterday we highlighted a quote from Labour MP Kate Hoey about how the party secretly expects their next leader, whoever it is, to be in opposition for the next 10 years, meaning the UK will have a Conservative-led government for at least 15 years. Kate Hoey is on the Labour fringes, but today one of the front-runners for the leadership job proved her right. […]
The Political map has changed too far in Scotland for us to fall back to sleep. We’re watching you lot right now and seeing you all for what you are.
To the ones who voted no … did you really REALLY want this?? Is that what you expected? Did you think it’s all going to work itself alright, it’s not that bad? 15 YEARS of sorrow to come folks .. get used to it! We saw it coming. YOU could have changed all that!
Fuck that, I’m off !
Brings to mind that phrase from Forest Gump “stupid is, as stupid does”.
English Labour should forget about this Leadership nonsense.
They should form a coalition with the SNP under Angus, with a Labour Deputy Leader. That would frighten the Torah Party!
Indy parties (and realistically that means mainly the SNP) need to eat into the Unionist vote share in Holyrood 2016. Further reducing the WM and Unionist mandate is the essential next step.
Thank heavens for people like Cooper! They work endlessly, but perhaps unwittingly, towards the above objective.
There is one thing which could cause great harm, though. It has been mentioned above in earlier posts. If the Unionist parties in Scotland became independent of London, but remained anti-independence and pro-Union, they could throw a big spanner in the works. Fewer voters would abandon them, while some might return to them.
They would be presenting an illusion of having policies suited to Scotland, however in practice they would have to still to align with their matching London cousins. The possibility of any independent, but pro-Union MPs having real influence at WM is remote. Functionally, their independent status would be an irrelevance.
The potential for them to damage the cause of independence should not be underestimated.
Damn Labour! Damn them! Utter disgrace.
Yvette is part of the problem that brought the temple pillars crashing around Ed’s ears.
It shows that Labour is anything but a learning organisation.
We will be independent well before the tories will reach year 15 in charge. Labour seem to be struggling to catch up with events, are unable to gauge the mood of the public and unable to provide a coherent alternative.
Ms Cooper doesn’t get it… she doesn’t understand Scotland or what has driven her party’s decline up here or down south.
Instead of hating the SNP labour should be desperately craning it’s neck to read the SNP’s answers and try and work out how a small party who had limited appeal when I joined many years ago has grown into the third force in the the UK and is providing the main opposition to the tories, whilst running a popular and effective majority government in Scotland.
Cameron must be rubbing his hands together at the thought of his possible future opposite numbers. To me Yvette is just another Westminster career politician, flipping her way to riches-business as usual for labour.
“Labour” see the maintenance of the State in its current form as paramount, and more important than the welfare of the people.
They remind me of Stalin, who also rejected International Socialism in favour of the Party and State Capitalism, and oppressed minority nationalities in the Soviet Empire.
… except that Stalin at least knew how to gain and retain power.
Fifteen years? On top of the last five?
We need to get those billboards out and extra parliamentary action to force independence before 2020.
It’s clear that we have to mobilise outside of the political system. Get the Noes to see sense.
A view from a room after reading this meaningless and pointless Fabian utterance:
Two-thirds way through this life and i feel politically crushed. i had 18 years under Thatcher, then 13 under Blair and Brown, and now after the last 5 years of Tory Libdem government there is the reality of another 10-15 years of further Tory government. What is a poor boy to do? That’s fifty years of a cultural hegemony. That’s my life, you bastards.
Even an unimaginable 56 SNP MPS wont make a difference and even with a comprehensive 70%+ YES vote in Indyref 2, I very much doubt if the English Overlords will just sit back and legislate the unshackling of England’s colony. They don’t give a shit about ‘democracy’. They are pathological in continuing their inbred need to rule.
A very bad day at branch office
I think Yvette might like to take a leaf out a great friend of New Labour’s book, GW Bush, and say
“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm the Labour Party, and neither do we.”
Cooper’s ramblings don’t surprise me. We all know that Labour don’t do logic.
Irresponsibly abstaining is all Labour are good at nowadays.
They were defeated in England because they are lazy sods who wouldn’t get the vote out in the 34% of England that didn’t bother voting because they saw no point. Damn them! Worse ("Tractor" - Ed)s than the Tories to the common man! Because they pretend to be something they are not! What party represents the 34% of the despairing?
[…] The Tory Generation […]
I think Stuart’s made a really important point here about how the mainstream parties have demonised the SNP and the independence movement to such an extent that none of the parties are able to think rationally about Scottish issues. The hypocrisy of criticising the Tory anti SNP rhetoric yet failing to see that the labour response is playing into this is breathtaking in its stupidity.
The only conclusion you can draw is that they are so focused on gaining power that they have totally lost the ability to think. How many times over the last year have we heard labour party members say the party must learn to listen to the electorate? Listening only to those who say what they want to hear will make sure their struggles to regain support and respect will be prolonged.
All I’m hearing from labour at the moment is they would rather put Scotland down and block any type of progress than work to achieve a fairer and more prosperous country – how sad, perverse and shortsighted can they get?
Yvette Cooper is just making it clear that this isn’t a union of equals. Scotland’s elected representatives will not be allowed any real power. That is reserved for English MPs only.
Scotland is a colony.
Mundell has the power to overule democratic decisions made by the majority of our country. He can just say no. The representative of a government we didn’t vote for has more power in Scotland than the entire block of MPs that we did vote for.
This is how it ends, with Westminster establishment parties trying to out do each other in who can marginalise a nation most effectively.
They can take their fundimundilly broken system, their sinking parliament, their ethnic politics, as well as well as their metro meeja and stick em all where the squirrel hides his nuts.
Rev,Rev, Rev.. have you been on the BrambleWeed and Gooseberry cider again?
When Yvette says :
it’s a real challenge for the Labour Party for us to try and build that sense of things that we have in common rather than things that pull us apart
Shes clearly talking about Labour and the Tory party!
Isnt she 😉
Well “WE” all know what to do at the Holyrood election let’s hope the rest of the country do as well
Eh?… And what’s a Labour daddy?… there are kids growing up now who’ll be asking that one day
Oh that was a political party son, they used to support that other party in England
Is that the Conservative and Nazi Party Daddy
Aye son that’s them
Ooh, glad we don’t have them anymore daddy
The founders of the Labour movement said and did what was right to say and do. They acted in the interest of the people. They were able to represent the people because they remained in touch with the people.
The modern Labour Party is a professional class focused on think tanks and sampling of feedback from small groups of the public.
They have one purpose – Win Middle England. In order to achieve this the founding values are abandoned. The 3 main contenders for leadership sound and act like Tories. The answer to electoral failure appears to be move further right than New Labour.
Tony Blair did “win” elections by winning over the largest population section (England)and doing so when Scottish loyalty though strained was held.
Is this the future?
A choice of Right Wing Parties who will offer minor variations in Neoliberal policies. It appears the wealthiest and largest section of the UK population will drive the policies which increase the pull of wealth South and will increase the gap between Rich and Poor.
Sharp suits and sharp practises have now replaced building a better society.
To those who are yet to come over to those dreams discussed during the YES campaign.
Why did you vote Labour?
Why did you vote NO?
Don’t forget, we’re insurgents!
Yes – Rev Stu,
but at least when Labour lose the next three or four elections they can say it was not their fault. I was all the fault of the SNP. SNP Bad!
We need to get Indy as soon as possible to get out of this nutcase “UK democracy”.
I know this may have been asked before, but have you never been asked (or would you consider) to write a column for any paper Rev.? Your recent articles inparticular have been excellent, but most unionists will never attempt to darken the door of this site for information.
The Unionist strategy is clear.
Sure, Scotland–you will have a loud voice in WM by voting, en masse, for the SNP but you will be excluded from any real power here, okay. If you want your vote to have more than a loud voice you will vote for a Unionist party–or be frozen out. Your choice Scotland.
All this talk from the Labour Party of having a Scottish branch completely independent from their London masters is absolute nonsense and is purely meant as a con for the hard of thinking.
Only in an independent Scotland can they be independent from London. As things stand now, what power would an independent Scottish Labour be able to wield in Westminster? What policies could they offer the Scottish electorate, knowing that they’d be in the same position as the SNP in being a minority party which would be shunned by the London parties as being a toxic Scottish brand?
As long as they are in this Union, only by being under London control and taking London Labour’s whip can any (pretend independent) Scottish Labour Party MPs have a say in any UK policy making – and fine they know it.
She won’t have to do a deal with the SNP because Scotland will be long gone from the UK before 15 more years of Tory rule are up.
“That message is, to put it mildly, extremely unlikely to help the party’s desperate straits in Scotland…”
Yeah, she’s just singlehandedly dealt the new branch office management team a massive sledgehammer blow – know your place Slabberites, You’ll do what head office tells you, as always.
Vote LibLabCon, get Tories.
Vote SNP, get independence and avoid getting Tory governments.
No more LibLabCons – Vote them out at every level.
Nailed it Clootie.
I sometimes wonder if Labour prefer being on opposition.
You get the same perks of the job and you don’t have to actually work at running the country, just piss and moan about the Tories.
Fracking all of the shires is making them more cocky.
Wind power subsidies being cut because there is not enough room down sowf. Like know wat ah mean Arry.
Where is Scotland anyway??
Karmanaut @1.31
Theres our first billboard right there!
I am with Handclapping.
No more Hear Hear,Handclapping and the Northern League.
Applause applause not hear hear, but clap clap
I listened to the Big Debate today and heard a distinct change of tone with much consensus about things that matter in Scotland. Community empowerment, land reform and how to devolve real power to local communities were interesting discussions.
I feel that dinosaurs like Yvette Cooper will quickly be overtaken by events. As a new consensus develops in Scotland the views of Blairites will become irrelevant.
Anyway, Andy Burnham is obviously the MSM candidate.
I remember a certain T Blair going on about the importance of democracy and the democratic vote (one reason sited for backing Bush in Iraq) When there was a democratic vote in Gaza in which Hamas won, he then said no no no we can’t have that we do not recognise the democratically elected party in Gaza. “Suits you sir!!” or maybe not. They haven’t changed they think they can do as they wish and get away with it, when I say “they” I of course mean unionists.
“Times, they are a changing”
It’s unfair to say Labour are sitting on their hands. At least they’re showing some backbone now, by marching through the Tory lobby.
If you get a chance, check out Lord Foulkes on BBC Politics show this lunchtime, as Fifi rages against the big issues of the SLabour day, demanding regulation of the beastly polling companies what cost them so much in their Scotland region alone.
Its a bit like watching a big fat slob standing in the water as the tide rises around him yet Ligger Neil humours him. BBC Politics show obsessed by UKIPster but has a clear black list of MP’s in Westminster all of which third biggest party. Anyway Lord Fifi blames stuff like their historic THE VOW shyst on just the one poll that put a YES win ahead out of hundreds that had NO winning and that YES ahead poll was like 2 points.
We’re not run by a bunch of panicky, malicious, lying colonialists tory boys at all are we.
heedtracker
“Scotland needs an independent Labour party asap but have they got they got what it takes? Probably not.”
it was pointed out by ex slab mp, i think it was tom greatrex??, only yesterday that slab failed because of its relentless snp bad line.
it is pointed out by many that there is no such thing as scottish labour, however, there is a difference between what is good for labour in scotland and good for labour in london.
coopers announcement shows that there will be no change in london labours tactics, without scottish representation there is no one to argue against this, after all, it isnt going to affect the number of seats they get from scotland anymore, same as the tories
dugdale has already dismissed an independent scottish labour party and the list will be opened to the failed slab candidates
prediction, a bonfire of labour msp’s and candidates for holyrood 2016 who do not support the all new british labour party
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, einstein
sturgeon talked of game changer wrt the final indy ref, slab’s chance to change the game wrt their own fortunes has now gone. hell mend them
Not quite – Cameron has said he will stand down before the next election.
The smart money on his replacement is Boris.
So in summary, no, not another Thatcher type longevity stint – something even worse.
O/T, a bit … just saw this linked on newsnet. I’m not one to rake through the ashes of last year’s indyref, and don’t have much time for conspiracy theories (even if they might be true, you only dissipate energy thinking about them).
But some of this is concerning…
link to docs.google.com
By voting for the SNP you have no voice !!
What voice did we have when we voted Labour at National and local level for decades
This is a clear lack of Statesmanship,and an ugly attempt to blackmail the people of Scotland back into a voting pattern that never served their needs in any event.
I would rather embrace the change to something which at least offers hope,rather than go back to the continuous grind of Scottish Labour failure to serve their own folk,due to the needs of the National uk Labour dictates.
Labour lack vision. Labour lack insight.Labour lack the ability to offer hope.
They have become self serving Like an Orwellian nightmare, the Party is everything,the people nothing.Never again willI vote for this selfish group.
They truly have forgotten about why they are elected.
SNP blocked out of BBC Englandshire and rancid The Guardian simply no longer reporting anything about their Scotland region now, except the odd mention for their most dangerous women in teamGB
link to archive.is
“Yvette Cooper
Best moment
Relating how she was forced to rely on benefits when she fell ill 20 years ago. “I was desperate to get back to work. I hated every minute of it.”
Worst moment
A joke about not being able to match the Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon on wearing high heels fell a little flat.”
Was it really her worst moment Rancid?
Feels like it’s time for another Labour mug: What about ‘No truck with Jocky Thistle’ as a vote winning message?
There’s a despairing note about some comments here today, and it’s understandable, but come on – are any of us surprised?
Here, of all places, folk should not be talking of ‘giving up’ and/or ‘fucking off’. The STUC rally in ‘George’ Square tomorrow is yet another chance to get together, meet like-minded folk, and build the networks we’ll need if they ever manage to stifle blogs like this.
There’s no substitute for face-to-face contact, swapping contact details etc – join a group, even for the day. It’s not about ‘sending a message’ to the Tories and SLab and the sad souls who voted No – we know that the MSM simply fails to deliver such messages. It’s about basic solidarity and helping one another to get through the next year, five years, however long it takes. One way or another, we will come out at the end of it – how many of us are left, and what state we’ll be in depends on what we do now to prepare for further attacks on the weakest among us.
11 – 4ish, tomorrow.
Yvette Cooper ‘born in Inverness’ will have to be seen to be ultra anti Scottish in order to be seen and accepted as a potential PM,hence her adopting this tactic.
Even being an Auntie Tomasina of Blair and Brown caliber may not be enough now,such is the toxicity of anything Scottish to the English Establishment.
Proud cybernat at 1.50pm
Your simple analysis is spot on. That is exactly what Cooper is saying, on behalf of all the unionists, and she is expecting all round approval for saying it.
In truth what she is saying is rational when viewed from the perspective of the unionist. What also is rational from New New Labour perspective is to be ‘bold’ in making statements that show their commitment to Britain is absolute; greater than that of the tories. Labour, the real ‘one nation’ party, unwilling to compromise on their principles and standing strong against all nationalism – except British nationalism of course. The same Labour British nationalism that led Blair and co into the massacre in Iraq.
Cooper is well suited to lead the Labour Party to its ultimate demise.
Yet again Labour saying what they won
Whenever I hear the unionist line about the SNP turning Scotland into a “one-party state”, I have to grit my teeth at the sheer hypocrisy.
Every time Labour abstains at Westminster, they allow the Tories to operate the UK as a one-party state.
If Yvette Cooper thinks that kind of behaviour will get her my vote, she has another think coming.
The week when loathing turned to hate.
Fifteen years of the tories, thats one fifth of the average persons life expectancy!
Labour have a problem in trying to be all things to all parts but getting nowhere with their very mixed messages. Their recent themes during the General Election confused many. Torylite or UKIPlite – why bother – just vote for the original.
From dipping in and out of BBC Parliament in the past week it does look as though the SNP MP’s are the official opposition. A few Labour MP’s and the sole Scottish one seem to attack the SNP rather than the Tories. Some of the speeches heard from the new SNP’s MP’s have been marvellous. Tommy Sheppard has been the star so far.
I posted a similar link where she said the same thing and thought the labour party ‘darn sarf’ should join hands with their Scottish friends in Holyrood and in the councils to rejuvenate the labour party in Scotland.
Pie in the sky!
Here is some more pie from the Lib/Dems.
link to archive.is
Labour have descended from an irrelevance to an embarrassment. They are saying they’d rather rule a reduced uk than be in opposition. I feel – and hope – that that’s getting closer. SNP voters, once they make the initial switch, don’t desert, so clowns like these lab leader candidates are only digging a deeper hole by alienating Scots.
Keep letting the people see the real news – as reported on this great site – via fb, etc. The more we see of the rotten state that is uk, the more we dream about how great indy Scotland will be!
Cooper is being pragmatic. She saw the Tories returned to power with 1 Scottish seat. She knows the numbers as well as any of us (ref: Wee Blue Book), that a UK party can win general elections with no Scottish seats and she’s seen ‘Scottish’ Labour wiped out.
So what’s a Labour leader to do? She knows she needs to win the south to get to Downing Street and she knows that she needs to tack to the right to win them.
Therefore, form an election strategy for the long term:
1. Scottish seats are a bonus, so waste no effort on Scotland and ignore whatever’s left of the Scottish branch
2. Be more like the Tories. Figure out how Tony did it
3. Wait. You can only out-Tory the Tories after the electorate tires of them, and with Boris at the helm in 2019, that’s not going to be at the next election.
Meanwhile in Scotia, we’re off.
Is anyone else thinking that we must be witnessing the self destruction of the labour party in Britain!
I wonder what young Kez is thinking right now!
“a centre-left social democratic party with which Labour shares far more in policy terms than any other party in the country.”
Which it *claims* to share more in policy terms with. But for Westminster politicians lying is normal, remember. And this is the party who assured as Saddam Hussein could destroy us all in 45 minutes.
K1 and Proud Cybernat
The quote “It is in effect a One Party State in operation in the UK” perfectly sums up the situation.
The only high profile commentator that has actually voiced this view, or something close to it, is Peter Hitchens, of the Daily Mail.
On a recent Marr Show several weeks ago, he made the comment that all the big WM parties were exactly the same, they just pretend to be otherwise. Although a Right Wing cynic he was/is perfectly correct.
To achieve power at WM you have to abide by certain rules and these rules are set and controlled by, and on behalf of, the Establishment. WM is not the vehicle of government, it is merely a charade, a controlled front, for the invisible holders of power.
When we talk of Labour playing to the South East vote, or use terms like Middle England etc, we are actually referring to the Establishment rule book. This set of rules is expertly hidden behind various layers and curtains, with the strings pulled by the likes of the MSM, onside commentators, willing lackeys etc. We know who they are.
Peel back the curtains and you find the real holders of power. The vested interests; the rich, the powerful, the “Deep State”.
In the current Controlled Democracy, no potential Labour Leader is going to go Off Message and start talking about a real vision. That is electoral suicide. If Labour want to govern, then they have to follow the Establishment rules; keep to the status quo, don’t rock the boat. The UK will be managed (not governed) for and on behalf of the interests of the hidden Establishment.
That clock on the church tower, overlooking the village cricket green will forever remain at half past 3.
The sound of Leather bouncing off Willow will resonate through the birdsong to the clinking of glasses full of Pimms while the Bankers, the Speculators, the Donors will continue to parasitize the population, suck us dry and proudly show off their Peerages, Honours and miniscule tax returns.
The 99% of the population who actually do a job, bind society together by positively contributing with *gasp* real roles e.g. nurses, bricklayers, counter staff, teachers, will continue to be shafted via taxes. The poor, the vulnerable? They can go hang!
Red and Blue Tory; a willing front for the blood sucking parasites of the British Establishment.
@Tam Jardine says: 19 June, 2015 at 1:08 pm:
” … Ms Cooper doesn’t get it… she doesn’t understand Scotland or what has driven her party’s decline up here or down south.”
Most of, “Them”, do get it, Tam.
What they don’t get – and never will – is what to do about it.
I’ve been saying this for years. The South Britain Establishment has been in place since before Christ was born. It began with the first Romans, “They came, they saw and they conquered”. However, if you are not too careful when you read about them in history, you might be forgiven for believing that the Romans conquered all Britain but they didn’t.
They only held sway in the South East of Britain and the reason we have no information from North Britain, South West Britain or Ireland is that the only written records we have are from the Romans. Yet careful study of Roman records exposes two important facts. The first is that Roman Records contradict each other and are politically biased by their authors in order to foster their political careers back in Rome.
The Romans were an elite ruling class but they Romanised the old British rulers who kept the native Britons in virtual slavery and remember one of the commodities the Romans came to Britain for was human slaves. They also ran Roman Britain for the sake of taxation. Roman Britain was taxed on both imports and exports. Which was the real purpose of Hadrian’s wall – to prevent smuggling. Why would the Britons outside the Roman empire attack the Romans?
The rest of Britain was scantily populated and the native Britons had everything they needed they were either Hunter/Gatherers or early farmers and needed nothing more than food, fuel, clothes and shelter.
So, after the Romans left, south Britain maintained a series of other elite Establishment rulers but not so the rest of Britain. Those rulers in the south were Anglo Saxon but the general population remained aboriginal Britons. The leaders, (Royals and Aristocracy), are still with us today some still sitting in the Lords.
As for the rest of Britain they too remained descendants of the aboriginal Britons but they are classes as, “The Celtic Fringe”, but are not in fact Celtic. They adopted Celtic Culture but the Celts were mainly celibate Holy men who left little genetically in the gene pool but did leave us their culture.
So our whole history has been an Establishment in the south East attempting to rule all Britain and the Celtic Fringes always struggling to be free. The only ones to do so already are the Southern Irish but the only ones never actually completely defeated in war by military force are the Scots who may at long last be about to end the Establishments rule.
It’s funny, labour have completely shat on the English electorate – never mind us! They are completely ignoring the scores of people who were turned off voting completely in England – because they were abandoned by the very party they thought they could count on.
Perhaps they should take a look at what happened in the run up to indyref, where thousands of people who had never voted were queuing up to register on time. Alex Salmond mentions this in his book. FFS, labour give them something to vote for.
Austerity will fail, and fail big time. It will suck the demand out of an already weak economy. Labour could, with a change of leader and cabinet shakeup, turn the tables and go back to basics, and get a string of big economists to launch an anti-austerity manifesto.
Of course they are besotted now with the city of London and its bribes so it’s unlikely. My worry now is how much damage the Tories can do to Scotland before we say enough is enough..
Labour are a disgrace.
I said to a colleague who despises the SNP, that he gave Salmond way too much credit for breaking up the UK. That credit must go to a generation of Westminster politicians.
Even Westminster is crumbling – literally – with one Labour MP complaining about urine dripping through his office ceiling onto his papers etc. Feel free to make your own joke at this point.
Just imagine the money Scotland will save from this repair bill estimated to be in the billions (plus Crossrail and Hs2) when we are Independent in the next very few years.
Goose-great post and 100% correct.
@John King, @Karmanaut
“SCOTLAND IS A COLONY” … as the billboard slogan? hmm I’d like to see it, but regrettably a lot of folk will just meekly accept colonisation as long as the 50 inch samsung eye of sauron in their front room keeps spewing out its subliminal “too wee, too puir, too glaikit” mantra.
So, what do we want to see most on the billboards? Do we highlight the broken ‘Vow’? Or oil and the McCrone report? The onshore turbine subsidy, and higher lecky feed-in tariffs? Stiglitz and other economists’ backing for indy? A quote from a politician or the BBC, side by side with a fact that contradicts it?
Answers please to link to counterpropforum.com … it’s going good, already enough promised donations to get a few posters up. And a couple of people willing to be involved in setting things up and running the campaign. The more the merrier – if this thing takes off, and the MSM start moaning about it, we’ll need to show it’s a grassroots campaign, and no jist the scunterbunnet show.
Scottiedog-yes, that’s one of the great unanswered questions, queues a mile long of people registering to vote and we still lost. They sure as hell were not queuing to vote no. Strange that.
“UK will have a Conservative-led government for at least 15 years”
Exactly my thoughts after I watched the labour leadership debate last night:
link to twitter.com
I would hope though that after the first 3 years of it we should have our 60-70% for indy.
Words fail me today as has my computer. Ignore my post at 2.39 – what do you meant that’s what you usually do – it wasn`t finished before it posted. Neither was the second one which hasn`t appeared yet.
Suffice it to say that Labour have lost the way and there is no sign that any of the contenders north or south have any chance of finding the way forward any time soon.
With a summer budget from Osborne due in a few weeks this could turn out to be a particularly miserable time for Scotland.
Perhaps, rather than people saying that Labour don’t understand Scotland and all that guff, we should just wake up to the fact that these wankers despise us?
Just a thought.
X_Sticks says:
19 June, 2015 at 3:29 pm
“UK will have a Conservative-led government for at least 15 years”
Exactly my thoughts after I watched the labour leadership debate last night:
link to twitter.com
I would hope though that after the first 3 years of it we should have our 60-70% for indy.
I’m not sure the speed at which things will now unravel, but one thing I am 100% sure of is this: The people of Scotland will not tolerate another 10 years of Tory majority rule. Not after all we have been through. It just ain’t going to happen – not this time.
@john king says: 19 June, 2015 at 2:04 pm:
“Theres our first billboard right there!”
Actually, John, we only need a very few billboards. Set at
such locations as the border crossing at Gretna.
We have written on them, instead of, “Welcome to Scotland”, – “Welcome to the English Colony of Scotland”, and instead of, “Haste ye back”, we have, “Best ye bide oot or best no cam back”. Or, “Abandon Hope all who enter”.
Cover all cross border roads and all airports.
Generous fundraiser donations mean that I am now in a position to travel to Washington DC next month to make one appointment with a Lyme specialist; the first of many I may have to make over the next 12 months or so.
But you know, in between occasional blackouts & neurological crashes, when I’m able to read articles like the one above, I am seriously minded to remain in the USA.
What sort of people are those Scots, who gullibly accepted a comically written Vow, only to watch the very government they chose, sneer back at them, from the green benches in Westminster?
The medical establishment in Scotland appears to believe that my Lyme disease infection cannot be cured. Well, I am more convinced than ever, that the same prognosis may have already been reached with regard to the chronic, cringe inducing, Jockholm Syndrome.
schrodingers cat, “SNP bad” say red and blue tory, “UKIP” good say BBC, all UKOK media.
Who lost 4 million votes May 7?
Neuter Holyrood.
BBC in Scotland etc monster everything SNP/Holyrood.
BBC in England etc, erase Scotland types from the face of their teamGB earth.
Toryboy world strategy all coming together.
Oh fcuk.
It seems to me that Labour’s dilemma is not about winning back votes in Scotland, it’s about getting shot of Scotland without appearing to support independence.
Labour is now chasing the centre right/right vote. Scotland is clearly on a different pathway, so Labour has no option but to ditch Scotland and focus on fighting the Tories for the centre/right seats in rUK.
I don’t think Labour would have any problem with that – Scotland is clearly a ‘lefty’ embarrassment to their ideology and besides, it’s not as if the Tories have any better chance of winning those seats, so there’s no great loss.
However, to cut Scotland loose politically might be seen as giving tacit support to independence – and lose them the centre right/right pro-union votes they’re after in the rUK.
Here’s a wee tip to Labour and their Scottish branch, set up a focus group of SNP and Yessers and find out who they most fear as leaders and what Labour can do to get out of their hole cause non of the members seem to have a clue. I remember laughing when Jim was elected and now proven right. Probably the only thing Slab could do to worry me is to become independent from UK Labour but they won’t do that.
If the SNP fielded candidates down south which led to English SNP MPs being elected we would end up in the same situation that we found ourselves with Labour: They would start to oppose independence for Scotland because they’d know it would lose their party seats at Westminster.
Good luck with your treatment in the US, GH, I hope it brings you good results.
Interesting logic from cooper…
Cooper knows that her Jock origins will weigh against her chances of becoming Labour leader hence the pre-emptive anti-SNP rhetoric.
Labour in turmoil,and another 10,15 years of Tory rule,it doesn’t bear thinking about.
How crushed by the Tories will Scotland need to be,before the no voters in the referendum wake up and vote yes to independence.
Thanks ClanDonald,
Stunned that NHS Scotland has put it in writing that they have withdrawn further treatment.
But not as much from observing people who thought “The Vow” was real.
I’m sorry but has this dimwit of a Labour M.P. learnt absolutely NOTHING from May 7th? 😉
Apparently not! 😀
@Robert Peffers
First I’d like to thank you for your informative and factual posts. I was talking to some friends in Perth last week and we got onto to talking about Independence and so forth and i asked them if they went on WOS, they said they looked at it from time to time. I said they ought to read more of what’s written there, not just the fine articles by the Rev, but also the comments, cos they’re good for links to other stuff.
But these are busy folks like a lot of people – so i said if you’re going to read anyone’s comments and posts read everything Robert Peffers writes. I did mention that you do a fair bit of reposting. Anyway i really extolled the virtues of your posts. I said it’s information everyone needs to know. If you’re a Yes, you need to know this stuff to bring it to the Nos you know and also to further arm your fellow Yes mates with proper facts, proper knowledge that might well swing people our way.
So…have you thought about archiving your writing, so we can access it quickly? I, like some others have started to cut and paste into a word doc, but I don’t know what I’ve missed and it might take a while to go through the old threads. Just wondering what your thoughts are in this regard. Outside of the rev you’re the one contributer to this place i look for, to see what new gold you have for us. The stuff you posted about the economy, how our export figures are bogus, the stuff about the oil as ex regio and so forth…it’s the kind of information the kind of knowledge that would, could sway all but the firmest and daftest of the no brigade.
I was recently watching some Carl Sagan stuff about Eratosthenes – and it made me think about how long it took for the consensus to be that the world was indeed spherical. It took hundreds of years…i don’t have that long. All the best. Big fan of your work.
Scotland’s crime against labour? Making them choose which of the redundant 40 is worthy of a place in the HoL.
Labour cannot get out of the mindset that they need tory votes to win. Whereas one glance at this graphic would show other wise,
The ‘didn’t vote party’ won in all but a handful of ‘their’ seats and a lot of tory seats.
These surely have to be a much easier group to win over but they are not interested in finding out what they want from a political party.
I apologise to anyone on here who is still a member of what used to called the Labour party or still supports said party. In my view the Labour party is dead, never to be revived. The *ahem* people’s party has been renamed and is now called the Abstention Party and that is how I intend to refer to them from hence forth!
Scunterbunnet says:
“So, what do we want to see most on the billboards?”
The easiest pickings right now have to be the NOs who believed the Vow, wanted DevMax, felt that sufficient powers within the Union was a safe compromise …. and deserve to feel very disappointed now! For those who haven’t worked it out for themselves, some billboard education might help!
cearc
I don’t think the people want the same as the Establishment (Deep State). We only get what we are allowed. It’s the British way.
link to opendemocracy.net
@Giving Goose
WD
Every now and then, we should not forget to simply state how it is.
It is easy to forget to do so.
More precisely, to forget that there is a curiosity, a need for political enlightenment still growing out there. with new potential recipients all the time.
Described by Whitehall sources as the two figures at the heart of Britain’s “deep state”, the two men started discussing getting the Queen to intervene after polls showed growing support for the Yes campaign.
link to commonspace.scot
Stuart – not seen this mentioned anywhere yet but if you can still find it at the end of the BBC News last night when they were discussing the crumbling Westminster Palace there was a Tory MP on who made a statement that sounded something like ” It would be assenign and stupid to suggest having the UK Government anywhere but London”. Could be worth spreading around as it is almost as bad as EVEL on the 19th September and was not directed at Scots.
Sorry I spelled ASININE wrong in my last blog.
The red panda – Ian Murray, is getting all bothered at Westminster…
“On a point of order, Mrs Laing. For the third time this week the House has taken a position in votes that will be recorded in Hansard and in the official record of the House. Unfortunately shortly after those votes have been taken certain SNP MPs have tweeted out completely the contrary to the result of the votes. That happened on the Scotland Bill on Monday, the European Union Referendum Bill on Tuesday and again this evening. Can you rule on whether that is bringing the House into disrepute and how we stop that happening?
They are never going to get over it are they? It wasn’t our fault that her bide in lost his seat!
Even if I lived in England I wouldn’t vote Labour, I cant tolerate the present so called Scottish lot as it is.
O/T Has the Daily Rancid commented on its failed Vow this week? Especially the first clause about permanence?
I’ve been a bit perplexed at the behaviour of the Labour Party throughout the referendum and the more recent General Election.
They have abstained on all sorts of issues but not actually voting with the Tories, it is quite disturbing, it looks as though the Labour Party are cowed and subservient.
To me, it appears that the Tories have something over them, could it be the Chilcott Report that has been temporarily buried and the Tories are controlling their voting pattern by threatening to release it?
There must be something underlying for all the Labour politicians to behave like frightened rabbits caught in the headlights.
Very interesting logic…
The logical place for a UK parliament is the Isle of Man for so many reasons.
First it is almost equidistant from Wales, N.I., Scotland and England (Scotland being the closest).
Second, its is constitutionally not in the UK, so kinda neutral ground, a bit like the District of Columbia in the US.
Third, it isn’t London.
Fourth, I’m sure the Manx would appreciate the upgrades to airport, ferry services, broadband and tourism.
Fifth, their cats would appreciate the extra tales.
Only thing they would need to change would be the name to the ‘Isle of Person’.
“There must be something underlying for all the Labour politicians to behave like frightened rabbits caught in the headlights.”
I do love a conspiracy theory, but in this case I think they are just frightened rabbits caught in the headlights.
@ClanDonald says: 19 June, 2015 at 4:03 pm:
“If the SNP fielded candidates down south which led to English SNP MPs being elected we would end up in the same situation that we found ourselves with Labour:”
The unfortunate thing is that while there have been a number of so called, “English Nationalist”, parties none of them has really been anything other than a hate everything not English party. If a real English National Party were to arise then with three nationalist parties co-operating we could have an end to the Union.
I’ve tried on several occasions over the years to engage with what purported to be an English nationalist party only to get nothing but vile abuse from them. It wasn’t that they wanted England out of the Union – their aim was to stay as the Union and throw the Scots out of the union..
there wont be 15 years tory rule in scotland….the union wont last that long
heed, the rancid hasnt abandoned it scottish coverage…only a few days ago they had a 2 page pull out about crime on canna, a wooly hat wiz stolen, dontcha know 🙂
its now official, westminster labour move to the right to win back england, labour in scotland are to be dragged with them whether they like it or not. no way back for them in scotland now,
the tories are…..predictable. no surprises there
the indy juggernaut is still on track and whether they realise it or not, it is the unionist who have their foot on the gas, they control the media, they fabricate the entire dialogue, either by just plain lying or setting up their own straw men to knock down, they are and always have been in the driving seat
they are a car crash waiting to happen
Cooper and Balls, are part of the labour problem. She has just dropped another one on them.
Truth is, they are in such a mess they could not govern if they tries, did not do very well when they did either.
They do not want to be in government for the foreseeable future, they are bereft of everything need to do so.
So they will play along with the Tories with false anger, and will largely vote with them against anything the Scots want.
So dead in Scotland and they must know that, I suspect Labour North branch will get it’s funding cut, as what is the point in having them, they ain’t going to win anything.
They are so complicit with the Tories, all this could have meant. Are the Tories now funding labour?? Well, could be one answer!!.
”
Robert Peffers says:
19 June, 2015 at 3:43 pm
@john king says: 19 June, 2015 at 2:04 pm:
“Theres our first billboard right there!”
Actually, John, we only need a very few billboards. Set at
such locations as the border crossing at Gretna.
We have written on them, instead of, “Welcome to Scotland”, – “Welcome to the English Colony of Scotland”, and instead of, “Haste ye back”, we have, “Best ye bide oot or best no cam back”. Or, “Abandon Hope all who enter”.
Cover all cross border roads and all airports.”
Or even just “Welcome to HMP Scotland” on the way in, and “Leaving so soon? You haven’t bled us dry yet” on the way out
Mathewson has no support from labour MSPs in his bid for assistant manager of labour in Scotland. Says Herald.
They all see it as his lifeboat as the elections loom.
Yvette Cooper’s dad is Tony Cooper, former chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association.
In 2007 when Yvette was a planning minister she was at the centre of controversy over plans to make it easier for objections to new nuclear power stations to be swept aside.
Yvette Cooper’s husband Ed Balls was recently a guest at the Bilderberg Conference. Ed Balls’ brother Andrew Balls was a director of EDF Energy which owns 8 nuclear power stations in the UK.
GH Graham
“…the chronic, cringe inducing, Jockholm Syndrome”
That is a keeper. Proud Scots but, summed up to a tee.
Cooper’s statement just goes to prove that Scotland is an irrelevance to the red and blue Tories. If they have their way, they will marginalise our representatives but they’ll never willingly let us go. We are too valuable.
There must be something underlying for all the Labour politicians to behave like frightened rabbits caught in the headlights.
they dont know which way to go, they lack a leader with any leadership qualities, the ground they are standing on is shifting, wrt scotland, they know they cant hold out the hand of friendship and we just deprived them of any mps from scotland who could advise them otherwise
labour are the only force in scotland who could muster a front for the union. they refused in the ref and failed in the ge. whether their is 1 or 2 parties in westminster insulting scotland is irrelevant, what labour do in the ruk is no longer important, the tradjectory towards scottish indy is now as inevitable as a one way downhill street.
@ west wales
Aye corrupt sleazy criminal Westmidden in action. Take your pick from Pure Blue Slime or Red Blue Slime, not any choice at all.
R-type Grunt 3.39pm
All that guff? I wasn’t aware my post was guff. Can you expand on what we should be posting then we can all just copy and paste.
@call me dave says: 19 June, 2015 at 6:23 pm:
“Mathewson has no support from labour MSPs in his bid for assistant manager of labour in Scotland. Says Herald.
They all see it as his lifeboat as the elections loom.
He may have even less support when the £100 Million cuts take effect, together with the expected loss of 3,000 council jobs.
Although not regarded as on the left of the Labor Party, Whitlam was a maverick social democrat of principle, pride and propriety. He believed that a foreign power should not control his country’s resources and dictate its economic and foreign policies. He proposed to “buy back the farm”. In drafting the first Aboriginal lands rights legislation, his government raised the ghost of the greatest land grab in human history, Britain’s colonisation of Australia, and the question of who owned the island-continent’s vast natural wealth.
link to johnpilger.com
The Death Star War Zone disaster new Glasgow hospital
Just completed six yes six Kidney Transplants in twenty four hours
All over the BBC news with Eleanor Bradford wasn’t it
NO? did nobody see it? How can that be? Surely that was big news wasn’t it? I’m astonished!
Apart from women can be police officers too it was pretty much anything that hinted at failure of the SNP to do, or give, or take action on, well, anything
Just figured out why Dippity Dug speaks the way she does, she’s not a human, she’s a robot machine gun that can fire out shite at 200 splats a minute
It’s like you need toilet paper to wipe her away, the woman never stops to reload
Isn’t that nice!
Yvette and her husband, Ed Balls will have all day every day to spend together once Labour’s councilors are kicked out and she fails to get elected in 2020.
“Labour will listen and learn their mistakes in Scotland”
Well you ain’t listening, and you ain’t learning, and Scotland has sent you a message like no other! You are finished infinitum!
Now, why would she say that? Always examine the corporate and the personal objectives.
The Westminster bubble provides a comfortable lifestyle for the likes of Yvette Cooper and her companions, whether in power or in opposition. The SNP are a threat to that lifestyle – risk to personal objective.
So better if necessary, perpetual “in opposition” to the Tories – corporate objective, by being mildly right wing, than radical political change (FFA?) that may reduce the UK’s ability to “punch above its weight” (Trident?), and jeopardise Yvette’s lifestyle.
These same dual objectives applies to the BBC and the print media.
On a lesser scale here in Scotland we note BBC Scotland’s devotion to reporting absolutely anything (positive) that occurs about SLAB.
Westminster’s building is crumbling, and so too political democracy in the UK.
Welcome to Scotland (Closing down sale Everything must go)
Well Control of road signs is “maybe” going to be devolved
Or, just cross out Scotland on the welcome to
Welcome to Scotland ( Cheap slaves for sale) (variety of colours)
Welcome Massa’s we is all grateful to see ya
Further to concerns re. fracking.
link to spinwatch.org
O/T but thought provoking article from Robin McAlpine:
“The time is now for Scotland’s new media to flourish”
link to commonspace.scot
Evening guys. Haven’t posted before but feel I have to. I have to admit that I have always believed that people speaking to other people directly might work. For example some of the highly enlightened people on this site setting up a stall in city centres on a Saturday being available to just speak to others and have relevant literature and facts available??? I’d certainly contribute anyway I could. Ps. GH Graham. Best of luck to you pal. Keep up the amazing work guys and gals. Thanks to you all
Hi Giving Goose.
You typed,
“That clock on the church tower, overlooking the village cricket green will forever remain at half past 3.”
For some reason, that comment reminded me of this:-
link to youtube.com
As soon as the election had passed I said to my more left-leaning colleagues that Labour has no chance of winning in 2020, and I think they believed me.
Labour are treating the SNP as nothing more than a protest vote, something that SLAB have been squealing about since 2007 up until they really got kicked hard in the bollocks this year. Labour are going into a war of attrition with the SNP in Westminster, thinking that five years of SNPBAD will drive Scottish voters back to Noo Labour in 2020 and beyond.
Once again Labour have completely misread Scotland (if they bother at all) and the way the political landscape has changed. If Labour are not seen standing up for Scotland, remaining as a party of London, then the Scottish electorate aren’t going to go back to Tory-lite any time soon.
Watch now as a tribe formerly known as Scottish Labour in Westminster try to worm their way onto MSP list seats next year.
It would be more honest if Labour amalgamated with the Tories. We may then get a slightly more compassionate “Laboratory Party”.
The other hope is what happened in the 90s when the Tory Party ripped itself apart because of Europe.
She made the same incomprehensible choice, because she is playing to the same audience. Floating right wing voters in England. Like Miliband before her, she has just blown both her feet off…and she’s not even got the job yet.
O/T
I heard GMS on my way to work this morning,
and I thought Jonathon Watson was on doing his Charlie Nicholas impression.
It turned out to be Gordon Matheson the Glasgow Council leader.
I hope he gets the Dipity leader post, as this will give us no end of fun.
Wee Squeeky and Max Wall.. PRICELESS
@Dcanmore : said.
Watch now as a tribe formerly known as Scottish Labour in Westminster try to worm their way onto MSP list seats next year.
————————————————————–
Aye Murphy has put in a few stepping stones before he (looks over shoulder with fingers crossed) said goodbye.
They will need to get a bigger lifeboat though.
There are a number of former Labour MPs in Scotland like Tom Harris that now unencumbered with the party line are talking quite a lot of sense about what happened and what needs to be done.
It would seem that the Labour HQ are still not listening.
Lord Foulkes is doing it deliberately …The polls the polls!
On Labour’s disastrous general election defeat, he added: “There were major policy issues absent (from the debate) as a result of polls .. so the results of the election could well have been different if we had focused on those major policy issues.”
link to archive.is
“rather than work with a centre-left social democratic party with which Labour shares far more in policy terms than any other party in the country.”
I am afraid that is not true.
Today’s (New) Labour is almost a clone of the Tory party and its millioniare leaders have the same values as the Tory leadership.
New Labour have no principles on anything and no policies, apart from “SNP bad”.
They can’t make a principled stand on anything – they abstain in votes.
All it is interested in is gaining power by whatever lies and dishonesty possible.
It should be the SNP that should rule out any deals with these lying hypocrites.
They are worse than even the Tories. The gap between rich and poor increased during their 13 year rule.
Don’t worry, Dr Jim. If we get control of those road signs, we can use Gaelic Place-names and kilometres to bring the Establishment to its knees.
Tinto Chiel (stroking white cat): “So, Mr Bönd, you vant to go to Glaschu?”
Sorry, time for my pills.
K1,
“I hate to ask this, but is it looking likely that the SNP may consider fielding candidates down south?”
The SNP must absolutely not fall into that trap.
The people of Scotland have woken up but the people of South England form their opinions based on articles in the Mail and the rest of the racist, xenophobic extreme right wing media.
The SNP would be humiliated if they ventured south.
They are doing very well in Scotland where there heart and mind lies.
It was the Imperial Masters march up Buchanan Street preIndy wot did it to ’em.
hand and shrimp
Tom Harris, yes it was him and not tom greatrex as i mentioned in a previous post
i think westminster labour stopped listening to their own scottish representatives a long time ago, Gordon browns attempt at a labour movement in the indyref was ignored in favour of the cross party BT campaign.He was right btw, as the ge result showed.
we all knew gb was right at the time, we all knew that murphy was wrong about everything all the time and we all know the only way for labour to win again in scotland is to take an independent route from westminster. even tom harris knows this.
we all know after this week that westminster labour is still not listening. good. why interupt your enemy when they are making a mistake ?
Labour is dead in both Scotland and England and the Tories are well aware of it. They are also well aware that they have lost Scotland, Ashcroft was not wasting his time up here, so they will grab as much as they can whilst they can. They know the games up so there is no point, for them, in being nice about it. It will never stop until we have Independence and they will fight tooth and nail to stop us getting it. Yvette or any other Labour leader, in my opinion, is irrelevant to Scotland’s future. I hope Nicola and Alex and all the best legal minds they can muster are on the case because it is going to get very dirty indeed. Just listen to Cameron,s speech today concerning British Muslims. But truth will win it for us. Nil desperandum carborundum.
Dcanmore says:
19 June, 2015 at 7:28 pm
Watch now as a tribe formerly known as Scottish Labour in Westminster try to worm their way onto MSP list seats next year.
Indeed. I wonder if Margaret Curran and Cathy Jamieson, who couldn’t get out of Holyrood fast enough, will make a sudden reappeaance?
Report on RT news; taxpayers alliance estimate actual national debt at £8.6 trillion!
Are those “running” uk absolutely insane?
What’s Scotland’s share of that?
No wonder they won’t let such a rich country out of their grip.
There’s a good BBC r4 any answers thing tonight with our old chums rockery for NO builder Rory the Tory, Digby Jones the tory, Jonah Lamont the red tory, and a new SNP MP getting shouted down and interrupted every time she says anything by Rory the Tory, and I mean every single time.
Last audience question, is SLabour finished and biggest vote SLab boost from panel comes from Rory the Tory, great admirer of fine SLabour politcos and they will return in 5 years so there, Jojo Lamont’s not very convinced though.
Like Lady JK Rowling of Scotlandshire, Digby Jones, Baron Jones of Birmingham says SNP and SNP voters are racist against our chums in the south, or at least he may have meant that, as he is jolly angry at Scottish types to the point of barking mad.
Rory the tory will er, test Scottish listeners though:D
Just checked out the report about £8.6 trillion national debt. Comes from the taxpayers alliance – right wing zealots – and they demand more spending cuts!
The Wings Banner will be under Sir Walter Scott column George Square tomorrow BDT & PeteTC,badges badges badges & Kendomacaroonbar gave me April issues of Iscot 1st come 1st served all donations exceptable.
Paddy Pantsdown says liberal progressive parties should all come together under a Libdem coalition in rancid The Graun. Does he include 56 SNP MP’s, Alistair Carmicheal doing the decent, apologise and quit.
Rancid Graun now refusing to even mention the word Scotland now but Pantsdown maybe hints here, that’s if Scotland still exists.
link to archive.is
“end fractures of the left”
“As we – all of us on the left and centre-left – survey the wreckage around us after the last election, we should ask ourselves this question: is this the moment for us to retreat into tribalism, as we always do? My answer to that question is ‘no’.
“Above all how, by working sensibly together where we are able to, we can save Britain from a government which, whatever David Cameron’s instincts, is now increasingly driven by its right wing who are hell bent on policies which will threaten our social cohesion, our national unity, our place in Europe and our standing in the wider world.”
Our national unity probably means closing down Holyrood, rewarding Carmicheal with a knight hood.
ANTI-AUSTERITY RALLY TOMORROW GLASGOW
Anybody know what time this is starting? Is it an afternoon thing or starting in the morning canny find anything to tell you when it is starting?
All these blue and red tories theyre all the same, they don’t understand ordinary people and they have no soul. The future however is the young and new progressive politicians in the opposition benches right now, in their jobs because they want to make a difference. People like this: link to m.youtube.com
@Barbara Watson 5:56 pm
@Chic McGregor 6:05 pm
Two possible explanations for the frightened rabbit look – Labour is fighting two opposition battles simultaneously.
We all know Labour’s main role in Westminster is as Her Majesty’s Opposition to the Government. In opposing the Tories, they know the rules of engagement. If the Tories support it, Labour opposes it (well… bear with me).
However, they’ve now quite deliberately created a second opponent in the SNP, and with it, a similar set of rules – If the SNP supports it, Labour opposes it.
So when the Tories support something and the SNP opposes?
A: How are we going to deal with those Nats?
B: Whatever they do, we’ll oppose it!
A: But what if they vote against the Tories?
B: Then we’ll vote wi… oh, no wait – Dammit! ABSTAIN!!
By creating this Frankenstein’s monster of an opposition, Labour is now fighting a two-pronged attack which looks to be poking them in the rear.
@A MacRitchie
The Anti-Austerity rally is12-4pm in George Sq.
@A MacRitchie –
Details of the rally are included in this latest blog from Richie Venton, SSP Regional Organiser –
link to richieventon.blogspot.co.uk
@Tinto Chiel
We could use BBC weather map miles.. Carlisle Edinburgh 16 miles
Glasgow Aberdeen 23 miles Turn left at Oban follow the railings
Spean Bridge is on Orkney
Directions to Jakey Rolings Hoose this way for Views of Hogwarts Feel free to take pitchers in the windaes
Rock, I think ALex might be testing the waters:
“Loved the High Wycombe audience on #bbcqt. With more exposure, the @theSNP could do really well down here!”
link to mobile.twitter.com
Wee Shouty manny of Glesga City Cooncil saying, they will have to make £100 mil saving with cutback of services . What happened to Camerons promise of £500 mil to the wee shouty manny.
London Labour are not going to be in Downing Street for a very long time. The Tories are going to implement the new constituency boundary changes for the 2020 GE. This will reduce the number of MPs at Westminster from 650 to 600 MPs.
It will greatly favour the Conservative Party.
And give the Tories an even bigger majority in all General Elections for many years to come.
Help!!!
@A MacRitchie
12 Midday as far as I gather.
link to livestream.com
@Shuggy (9.48) –
‘By creating this Frankenstein’s monster of an opposition, Labour is now fighting a two-pronged attack which looks to be poking them in the rear.’
🙂
Indeed.
Your comment reminded me of this – it’s a Two-Headed Skink:
link to oilzine.com
This creature presents two ‘heads’ to adversaries, who aren’t sure which end to bite and end up leaving it alone.
Crafty old Scottish Labour is presenting two arses to the world – the problem for us adversaries is knowing which one to kick first.
Thanks to CH IB & Betsy
Oddly the STUC who promoting this didn’t state when but it will give us more time to travel through. Hope it gets a big response.
O/T.
I’ve been toying with the idea of a Virtual Scottish Parliament that while does not represent the people of Scotland in a legal sense but will represent those who participate in it until the Scottish Parliament becomes legal.
From what I can gather from a technological point of view, a virtual Scottish Parliament is possible provided enough funds can be guaranteed to provide a centralised source to store and administer the data. However, the issue is would it challenge the legality of the current Scottish Parliament residing at Holyrood and could it be held as counterweight to Westminster?
Would people be interested in supporting this?
Scunterbunnet at 2.13
And there is this now
link to facebook.com
@Rock says: 19 June, 2015 at 8:18 pm:
“The SNP would be humiliated if they ventured south.
They are doing very well in Scotland where there heart and mind lies.”
As usual, history has the perfect answer to most of Scotland’s problems. The fact was Berwick was never actually signed over as part of England until 1974. The wording of the Treaty only transferred the administration of the town to the English local authority.
Here’s a short history : –
Berwick was never formally annexed to England. Long after the 1707 Treaty of Union. The, “Wales and Berwick Act 1746”, (since repealed), claimed that whenever legislation referred to England, it also applied to Berwick, but did not attempt to claim Berwick as actually a part of England.
However, England is now officially defined as “subject to any alteration of boundaries under Part IV of the Local Government Act 1972. The area consisting of the counties established by section 1 of that Act, Greater London and the Isles of Scilly.”, thus includes Berwick.)
Berwick, though, remained a county in its own right, and was not included in Northumberland for Parliamentary purposes until 1885. The Redistribution Act 1885, reduced the number of Members of Parliament (MPs) returned by the town from two to one and, on 1 April 1974, the Borough of Berwick-upon-Tweed was created by the merger of the previous borough of Berwick-upon-Tweed with Belford Rural District, Glendale Rural District and Norham and Islandshires Rural District.
So there you go Berwick was only officially made part of England in 1974. So we claim it back and stand an SNP candidate in the next local elections.
@ronnie anderson 10:06pm
you mean this £500M … link to archive.is
@A MacRitchie 10:49
link to twitter.com
Robert Peffers at 3.18
Stick to opinions about the economy etc, Robert
@ IanB Diz it matter. (Crafty old Scottish Labour is presenting two arses to the world – the problem for us adversaries is knowing which one to kick first.)
We are guaranteed to hit the wan brain cell.
@Dave McEwan Hill says: 19 June, 2015 at 11:12 pm:
“Robert Peffers at 3.18
Stick to opinions about the economy etc, Robert
Oh! Sorry! I didn’t know the Rev Stu had appointed a MOD to direct us as to what we could comment.
The fact that Steamy Windows has managed to get 60 other councillors to support his candidacy for Scottish Labour deputy indicates perhaps a couple of things.
Randomly …..
1. There is an alarming lack of choice available to them
2. Or perhaps no sensible Labour figure wants the poisoned chalice
3. Steamy thinks he will lose Glasgow City Council in 2017
I think the Tories are aware the writing is on the wall for the “Union”, and over the next few years will be grabbing everything they can from Scotland. They will frack everywhere they can, paying heed to no one, continue with the theft of our oil at a quicker pace.
With treasury help they will fiddle more of our financial figures to their benefit. They will try and ensure we are not competitive in any field. They will keep dropping funding across all areas, and will of course scrape as much as they can from Social funding.
Some may think of it as a scorched earth policy, for that may be prove to be what it is.
It is also the death throws of the failed “Union”, and they can feel that coming.
Just hearing that bastard Alistair Darling getting a Knighthood.
Well done Alistair, I hope you are proud of yourself.
Fuck Scottish Labour. Rot it hell.
What next for labour, in the words of the talented, much loved and missed Alex Harvey – “Do we care, do we #uck”.
He hasn’t. Just your history lesson is nonsense. Or are we not allowed to disagree with you?
@Robert Peffers & Dave McEwan Hill –
Sparks, ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us’ –
link to youtube.com
🙂 🙂 😉
@caz-m –
‘Arise, Sir Darling…’
Seriously?
You have to hand it to them though, eh? This is just first-rate wind-up material – someone has thought this through, and they’re doing a spiffing job of annoying the natives.
Will we rise to it?! The tension is unbearable!
Whatever next? Blair McDougall to be made a Dame?
caz-m says:
19 June, 2015 at 11:43 pm
Just hearing that bastard Alistair Darling getting a Knighthood.
Cool! First its Prince Dukes Cameron and Osborne this week with their fcuk yer renewable wind energy subsidies, now Brenda’s trolling Scotland too.
IanB
Steady, Sparks are collaborating with FF these days!
Robert
I have no desire to engage in a debate about the early history of England with you as this site is for more useful discourse. However…..
When the Romans invaded England in 43 AD (and they had invaded several times since 55 BC ) they met Celts, not Anglo Saxons. There were many small tribes of celtic Britons with kingdoms in the south of what is now called England such as the Cattuvellauni, the Trinovates, who both at points ruled from what is now Colchester, and the Atrobates who were Gauls from the north of France and the Romans periodically met fierce resistance and regular local uprisings over the two and a half centuries when they ruled the southern part of this island. The Romans had gone by the end of the third century back on a long withdrawal to Rome and it was then that the Anglo Saxon invasion replaced them. The most successful Anglo Saxon kingdom was Mercia which stretched from the Thames valley up to about what is now Yorkshire. (They say the Cockney accent is in fact Mercian).
Mercia survived until well into the 9th century but eventually was absorbed into the Danegeld following waves of Viking invasions and this was then followed by the Norman invasion from France and conquest of a disparate England in the 11th century. Scotland had a very different history and was (sort of) a unified kingdom by the ninth century. It was never successfully invaded and when the Romans had tried they met at least three different Pictish tribes in the Forth/ Clyde valley.
I Hope we are out the union in the next five years. Cameron Steps down before the next election. Somehow I don’t think England and Wales is going to vote Boris in. Just a Thought.
What next? Lord Gord Almighty?
That’s it for me I moving to England wish me Luck.
O/T sorry !
Just been reading Twitter from Lucy Frazer. Just can’t believe a person like this could be an MP anywhere… What a distorted mindset.
@Architect2025UK What?? I hope you’re not Scottish! We can’t stand them porridge wogs.
7:36pm – 14 Jun 15
@Architect2025UK No, the Irish and Americans were Englands slaves which you rejected. We still have Scotland, Wales and northern Ireland.
@Architect2025UK Good! They’re trying to declare our Oil in Scotland as theirs! They’re our slaves, like the USA and Africans used to be.
Can this be for real ?
@Chic McG –
If Franz Ferdinand and Sparks are forming a band, they could call it FFS!
heedtracker says:
20 June, 2015 at 12:32 am
caz-m says:
19 June, 2015 at 11:43 pm
Just hearing that bastard Alistair Darling getting a Knighthood.
Nae doubt there a certain hammered future Sir Ian Smart right now trying to come up with even more unpleasant “blood and soil” Nazi metaphors to fling at Scots that the average YES and SNP voter.
It all worked a treat for red tory Sir Alistair Darling.
I posted this at the end of the “Broken Promise” thread, but this is my favourite “blood and soil” quote.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron, to take a very conspicuous example, raves against the foundational document of European human rights while claiming Britain can do something better. After all, the Magna Carta was proclaimed at Runnymede, which for Cameron provides the perfect blood and soil argument for British exceptionalism.
link to globalresearch.ca
Much as I respect the dead, I can’t wait to dance on Labour’s grave. I shouldn’t have too long to wait but my biggest fear is that they will opt for Dignitas, and claim it on expenses.
Like many here I have no faith that Labour can form a credible opposition to the Tory pary anytime soon.
So what to do? In my opinon the SNP should call for a Scottish referendum on devo max (everything except foreign affairs and defence) as soon as possible.
For yes voters it would be a step in the right direction and could be pitched as such, for no voters it would be a chance hold politicians to the promises made in the vow.
@ Mr. Hill
“When the Romans invaded England …”
Oh Dear! The harm that glib phrases like this cause. The Romans did not invade ‘England’, England did not exist and would not exist for several more centuries. Saying “the Romans invaded England” plays into the hands of Starky and his ilk.
It ‘disappears’ the Britions, the tribes who predated the Romans, survived several centuries of Roman occupation, and then as a reasonably civilized and christian society faced the onslaught of pagan barbarians from Europe, namely the English. The remnants of the Britons of course survived as the Welsh, Cornish and an important element of lowland Scotland.
That’s why we speak (or should speak) of Roman Britain, no responsible historian etc. would ever say “Roman England”. For that matter “Roman Scotland” is equally wrong, (Roman Caledonia?) since the Scots were still living in Ireland at the time.
Robert@3.18pm
I don’t have the gift of second sight, and have no idea what may lie in store for these islands in the future, but I do know a fair bit about their past as it was the thesis subject for my degree, Romano-British archaeology.
I wouldn’t even know where to start to deconstruct your (re)vision of the Roman occupation and its aftermath, so I won’t bother to try, but to say that the Celtic tribes outside of the south-east of England were hunter-gatherers in the first centuries of the last millennium is a jaw-dropping corker.
Fortunately none of this matters a jot in the light of modern political discussion, and your attempt to link Roman ascendency in the South East with modern London area hegemony just doesn’t wash, I’m afraid.
Sorry, Robert, but no doubt we’ll just have to agree to disagree. I would like to know from where you got all your information, though.
@K1 19 June, 2015 at 12:54 pm
No, that would not work – the press would have a field day about the insurgent jocks invading England. It has to be home grown and home region oriented. You need to find a regional party in your area that shares the progressive policies that SNP promotes and join it. And if there isn’t one, start it. Encourage them to think of joining a National Alliance of progressive parties but retain regional control to prevent Westminsterization.
James Kelly (Scot goes pop!) wrote them up a while ago. It is in his archives link to scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk in the article entitled How will SNP supporters in the rest of the UK vote?
There is also a list on Wiki.
There may be other sources, but I don’t know of them.
K.A.Mylchreest
My post makes it perfectly clear that there was no England (Enga land – the land of the Angles from around the fifth century) when the Romans invaded. But that place is described as England today so I don’t know what your point is.
@Ian Brotherhood 1:05an – they already have
Dave McEwan Hill
Am reading ‘Scotlands Future History’ by Stuart McHardy which attempts (with mixed success I think) to look at the Roman occupation/attempted occupation of Scotland. I would just be interested in hearing from any of our learned Wingers what they make of his book.
He suggests that the Roman invasions were largely unsuccessful and although they clearly built forts and the Antonine Wall it was only briefly manned and the commerce with the indigenous population was unproven part of a myth that the Romans had extended their territory thus far north.
I hope I’m not misrepresent his book!
I would absolutely agree that the term should be Roman Britain. The fact the Romans only really established themselves in the lower half of the island doesn’t alter that bit being called Roman Britain. England as a concept doesn’t appear until around the 10th century.
The Romans had several attempts at tackling Caledonia, Agricola, Hadrian. Antonine and the particularly bloody attempt by Severus in the early 3rd century which resulted in heavy casualties both for Caledonians and Romans. All ultimately proved unsuccessful and the Romans settled for a border at Hadrian’s Wall.
@caz-m says: 19 June, 2015 at 11:43 pm:
“Just hearing that bastard Alistair Darling getting a Knighthood.
Well done Alistair, I hope you are proud of yourself.
Fuck Scottish Labour. Rot it hell.”
Al says, “No thanks – I get paid for rotting in The HoL”.
@ Tam Jardine
I wasn’t targeting anyone in particular mate, sorry. I was just referring to a general mood on Facebook & Twitter which seems to infer we should somehow appease these people. I disagree.
Gordon Brown stated during the indy referendum that he preferred a return to office of a right-wing, austerity driven, David Cameron led Conservative/Ukip Government at the next British General Election in 2015 rather than support Scottish independence.
Well we have an Austerity driven Tory Government at Westminster and the stance taken now Yvette Cooper(Mrs Balls)that of she was leader there would be no deal with the SNP.
That means that she does not accept democratic will of the people of Scotland who have elected SNP MPs to speak up for and defend our people and country’s interests at Westminster.
We need to continue to hammer this fact within our communities through out Scotland that Labour would rather policies imposed on Scotland from a Tory party that has constantly been rejected at the Ballot box.
@ K.A Mylchreest
So Scotland was bereft of people nobody here, human life had not yet appeared anywhere in the country
Scotland had an “Empty”
Was that a historical empty or a factual empty
Coz there must I think, probably be a difference
History’s a funny tale told by many different viewers and writers depending on what they themselves read and believed
I certainly wouldn’t be so certain as to quote facts impossible to verify and then present them as evidence
We already have the bible for that sort of nonsense
This is not in any way to decry your obvious historical knowledge or researches
It’s merely to say
Because history is generally written by winners of conflicts and tellers of tales, doesn’t make it so
The Tories know Scotland is on the path to indy, and likely by 2020, and that they will be in Government for at least 15 years, so their battle plan will be this…
….long term – sock it to the poor, disabled and idle
….short term – sock it to Scotland before She goes
Doesn’t take the brains of an arch bishop to work that one out. I don’t even think they see the logic in having a prosperous neighbour on their doorstep. In fact, maybe they want to break us just to save face.
@Dave McEwan Hill says: 19 June, 2015 at 11:50 pm:
“He hasn’t. Just your history lesson is nonsense. Or are we not allowed to disagree with you?”
This is my second attempt to reply – the first one just vanished.
My point was that there was no attempt made to do other than tell me I should not post – here it is cut & pasted,
“Stick to opinions about the economy etc, Robert.”
There was no effort to prove me wrong nor indeed any reason quoted. Just an imperious order not to comment on other than the economy.
So consider this. I always quote sources, either documents, dates or an argued reasoning. Where is there anything stated to prove me wrong? Fact is that history, as taught, has been proven, by both science and logic, to be mainly bunk throughout our entire written history.
(and I’ve just deleted a long list of proofs that really are irrelevant as the above covers the matter quite clearly.
Anyone who cares to dispute anything I post is most welcome to disagree – just make sure you have your arguments ready as I do not suffer fools gladly.
Robert
Your timeline on Berwick seems fair to me. The town was made a burgh by David I and being on the north side of the Tweed was traditionally part of Scotland as it emerged in the medieval period. It changed hands as a border town many times, often violently.
I take the view that given its history its place rests with the inhabitants. If they wish to be part of Scotland again they would be most welcome, if they do not then that is their choice.
What is depressing is the historical reality that the ordinary people of these islands had political representation for something less than 100 years. Tories take a long view and we are witnessing a return to the position as it was before the rise of the labour party: when the richest country in the world, ruled by Tories and Whigs, presided over disgusting levels of poverty for huge numbers, and fabulous wealth for the elite. That is the way they like it, and the post war period turns out to be a mere blip: we are now returning to the norm.
What is astonishing is the fact that those who are to be most adversely affected are voting for this, in England. I get that we have short lives, and that it is difficult to imagine that what we came to take for granted can be removed in its entirety, and that that is the plan. But it is.
Labour are now the whigs, only less successful, because of the persistent perception that they might have some continuing social democratic values. But that is fading and ultimately we will revert to the position that you can vote for whigs or for tories and that is the whole tally of options.
I am no historian but I can say that the differences between whigs and tories have always been obscure/irrelevant to me, insofar as they had implications for ordinary people, but this, from Wiki, looks very familiar
By 1815 the Whigs were still far from being a “party” in the modern sense. They had no definite programme or policy and were by no means even united. Generally, they stood for reducing crown patronage, sympathy towards Nonconformists, support for the interests of merchants and bankers and a leaning towards the idea of a limited reform of the voting system.
@Dave McEwan Hill says: 20 June, 2015 at 12:49 am:
“I have no desire to engage in a debate about the early history of England with you as this site is for more useful discourse. However…..
And what follows is the proof that you do indeed have a desire to debate.
“When the Romans invaded England in 43 AD (and they had invaded several times since 55 BC ) they met Celts, not Anglo Saxons.
Where have I ever claimed otherwise? I said the Romans left and were replaced by the next elite rulers in the South – The Germanic Tribes i.e. Angles, jutes, Saxons and a few others.
“There were many small tribes of celtic Britons with kingdoms in the south of what is now called England such as the Cattuvellauni, the Trinovates, who both at points ruled from what is now Colchester
Irrelevant to what I claimed. Which was that from the time historic records began there has been a ruling elite in South Britain that were attempting to take over Britain.
as for Celtic Britons?
Go read this : –
link to bbc.co.uk
It was the first thing that came up on Google
By the way
“The Romans had gone by the end of the third century back on a long withdrawal to Rome and it was then that the Anglo Saxon invasion replaced them. The most successful Anglo Saxon kingdom was Mercia which stretched from the Thames valley up to about what is now Yorkshire. (They say the Cockney accent is in fact Mercian).
Mercia survived until well into the 9th century but eventually was absorbed into the Danegeld following waves of Viking invasions and this was then followed by the Norman invasion from France and conquest of a disparate England in the 11th century. Scotland had a very different history and was (sort of) a unified kingdom by the ninth century. It was never successfully invaded and when the Romans had tried they met at least three different Pictish tribes in the Forth/ Clyde valley.
Again irrelevant to what I claimed and furthermore is based entirely upon the Roman historians claims. The Romans named the tribes according to what they believed and, “Picts”, was a generic term. Into the bargain a more recent set of discoveries has shown that the artefacts found on Scottish islands pre-dates those found in Ireland. This indicates the long held historic, “Facts”, that the Scots came from Ireland are wrong. Looks like the Scots went to Ireland. However, logic would indicate that as the easy highways of the time were seas and waterways and the lands were covered in impassably forests the Scots were living on both sides of the Irish Sea.
It is less than 25 miles between the two landmasses even today. What makes more sense – the immigrants cut their way laboriously through dense forests or they paddled their coracles less than 25 miles of water?
At no time in history has any, “Invading”, force wiped out the existing population of aboriginal Britons. It all cases they either were assimilated by the existing population or they defeated them in battle and proceeded to enslave, or at least rule over them.
Unless, of course, you can show otherwise.
@K.A.Mylchreest says: 20 June, 2015 at 5:05 am:
“When the Romans invaded England …”
Oh Dear! The harm that glib phrases like this cause. The Romans did not invade ‘England’, England did not exist and would not exist for several more centuries. Saying “the Romans invaded England” plays into the hands of Starky and his ilk.
It ‘disappears’ the Britions, the tribes who predated the Romans, survived several centuries of Roman occupation, and then as a reasonably civilized and christian society faced the onslaught of pagan barbarians from Europe, namely the English. The remnants of the Britons of course survived as the Welsh, Cornish and an important element of lowland Scotland.
That’s why we speak (or should speak) of Roman Britain, no responsible historian etc. would ever say “Roman England”. For that matter “Roman Scotland” is equally wrong, (Roman Caledonia?) since the Scots were still living in Ireland at the time.”
Right on the button, K.A.Mylchreest. Except for that last wee bit, ” … the Scots were still living in Ireland at the time.”
The most recent evidence is that artefacts found on certain Scottish Islands, (some not inhabited for centuries), predates those found in Ireland which, on the face of it, suggests the Scots travelled the other way. It is, though, more logical to contend that as the land at that time was almost impassable forest and the two land masses are less than 25 miles apart, that the Scotii were a tribe that inhabited the shores around what is now the Irish Sea.
Here’s a wee anecdote for you. My late wife and I used to go off in our caravan or motorhome and head for the most inaccessible places we could find.
On one such visit we arrived at a place that did not even have a caravan or camping site. We called at the local inn who allowed us to camp in their grounds. On the first evening we went to the inn for an evening meal and found the place packed with Irish people. There was no evidence of any form of transport. After speaking with these Irish folks it turned out they were regular weekend visitors.
It turned out they were from Irish islands or remote shore areas and could sail to Scotland a lot easier than find transport to the nearest large Irish town for their weekend entertainments. We had a weekend of great entertainment as the Irish lot had lots of great musicians and singers among their numbers. (For example Rathlin Island is quite close to Scotland).
@Tam Jardine says: 20 June, 2015 at 8:38 am:
“Am reading ‘Scotlands Future History’ by Stuart McHardy which attempts (with mixed success I think) to look at the Roman occupation/attempted occupation of Scotland. I would just be interested in hearing from any of our learned Wingers what they make of his book.
I can’t comment upon the book, Tam, as I have not read it but your impressions are correct about the Romans in Scotland. I did though have lots of direct input on the matter.
By chance one day I stopped my campervan at the wee car park/picnic area that is situated on the Dollar Bends. This links with the old rail line that is now a cycle/walkway. I had stopped as the wee dog needed a pee and we just wandered of along the walkway.
Now the Roman Gask Ridge and Gask Road is in that area and we chanced upon a group of archaeological people doing research on the Roman remains. The Gask Ridge predates both Hadrian’s Wall and The Antonine Wall. Indeed it was the very first Roman defensive line in Europe and it joined with the Antonine Wall to bisect Scotland.
I spent several hours speaking with the groups. leaders and I learned a great deal and got some really good computer links to their work.
Now here is a back up for what you claimed above. There is no evidence found that the Gask Road & Ridge were permanently garrisoned. In fact there has never been any Roman Cemeteries found and that is astonishing as the Roman troops normally had a high death rate and not all due to enemy action.
Neither has there been found the normal things that Roman garrisons all have such as Baths and so on. This indicates a regular change of guards from elsewhere. I learned a great deal of cutting edge history that day and it set in train a lot of research afterwards. One very obvious thing was that the old style archaeologists are a dying breed.
The days when their whole science was on their knees with a wee trowel and brush and then expressing what they though of what they had found are gone. These days they start with geophysics and have a good idea of what’s down there before they start and then items found are analysed and dated by electronics and other scientific means.
Not only that but the people tend to make more logical, and less ideological, assessments of what the artefacts mean. Anyway, places such as Crammond & Crammond Bridge have shown a much more pregnant Roman occupation.
R-type Grunt 10.18am
No bother – I read your comment at a bad time for me yesterday. All is good
@HandandShrimp says: 20 June, 2015 at 12:22 pm:
“I take the view that given its history its place rests with the inhabitants. If they wish to be part of Scotland again they would be most welcome, if they do not then that is their choice.”
You do well to take the view that the matter rests with the inhabitants for that is in fact the actual documented legal standing for most of Berwick’s disputed history.
During that time all treaties & laws had to specifically include Berwick for it was legally part of Scotland but, by agreement, administered by the English Local Authority. Which is why the claim is that Berwick is, or was, still officially at war with Russia.
The story that Berwick is technically still at war with Russia is not quite true but it does highlight an actual historic fact. When Berwick was changing hands so frequently it was legally regarded as a separate entity. Legal bills, acts and proclamations referred to “England, Scotland and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed”.
One of these was the declaration of the Crimean War against Russia in 1853. This declaration of war was signed by Queen Victoria as, “Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, Ireland, Berwick-upon-Tweed and all British Dominions”.
However, when the Treaty of Paris (1856) was signed to conclude the war, “Berwick-upon-Tweed” was left out and so Berwick remained legally at war with Russia.
This officially lasted, for lack of a peace treaty, for over a century as Berwick was not mentioned in the, “Treaty of Paris”. In truth, since, “The Wales and Berwick Act 1746”, made it clear all references to England included Berwick.
The real point, though, is that important documents during the 17th century had to mention Berwick separately as Berwick was legally part of Scotland but being administered as part of England and this became unnecessary after 1746, (after the post Treaty of Union Establishment), declared it part of England by the Westminster, “Wales & Berwick Act”, of 1745.
Exactly the kind of thing that the Westminster Establishment are so doing today to rub Scotland’s nose in it when we make any moves to assert our legal position as an equally sovereign kingdom partner and not as just another region of the country of England or just another annexed country by the Kingdom of England.
Those Wingers interested in the alternative theory of The Scots and the Gaelic language mentioned by Robert Peffers and posited by Dr Campbell can find it here. It is a little bit long for a screen read and the adverts are annoying but it is very interesting.
link to electricscotland.com
“We’ll not work with a party that most people have voted for and are broadly on our side”
Really what a bunch of fuckwits!
Frankly I’ve come to feel that people that stupid are actually more likely to cause more harm to the vulnerable through idiocy if elected than the Tories who are doing it intentionally.
Can someone explain to her Majestys opposition that it’s actually the government you are supposed to oppose , not the SNP.
Then again the “left” has a long tradition of opposing itself.
If we were any other nationality (spanish, polish, german, mexican etc)….there would be a lot of people up in court atm for racism (case and point, katie hopkins) and yes, according to EU law….race is nationality too not just skin colour.
Perhaps we should play them at their own game. Quit our jobs, have our politicians royally screw with economy & budget so we’re contributing 0. I mean this is what they said was the perks of being in the union right? That we share the risks and rewards?
I wonder if they’d still want to keep us so badly if they really were subsidising us.
“Yvette Cooper’s dad is Tony Cooper, former chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association.”
And she’s behaving as if it was Tommy Cooper (in character)
Oh and brobb…..
They weren’t criticising the Tories for their anti-snp sentiments. They were criticising them because they used fear of the SNP to create anti-labour sentiments. They’re quite happy with the anti-snp/indy part (or did you not see them all chummy with the tories in better together?).
What labour seem to be unable to grasp is that they don’t stand for anything atm. They’re saying what they think they need to in order to gain votes off the tories. But the problem with that? Why would those people risk voting labour when they know they’ll get what they want with the tories. They need to be different, not the same.
I think the SNP understand that – particularly of late with their anti-austerity stance.
Such a shame the media always picks up on the indy/snp supporters who are abusive etc and never any of the sensible, educated supporters who can present a clear and concise argument without resorting to insults.
While they’re debasing us for our voting preferences….they should perhaps remember that SNP supporters weren’t born yesterday. The majority of SNP voters have mass migrated from Labour (myself included). What they’re essentially saying is that we used to be smart but now we’re stupid. The only circumstances I know which makes that possible is brain damage. So….has 40+% of the Scottish electorate suffered some sort of brain damage simultaneously?
Perhaps its the radiation from Faslane 😉
I suspect that Miliband will return from the US to fight the first by-election
If Labour keep this up, they will never win another election. They should be supporting winners SNP, not losers UKIP.
@Tinto Chiel et al
Looks like I missed an interesting discussion here.
It seems a general rule that the tendency to associate ‘supplantation’ theories along with known cultural and linguistic movement has been grossly exaggerated by historians in the past.
Just about everywhere it has occurred.
Modern genetic marker research, like SNP analysis will in time I am sure, give us a much clearer picture. That is Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms rather than Scottish National Party. I once got an anti-independence supporter very exercised by not making that distinction clear.
An inheritable and unique gene sequence fragment can be a useful and fairly infallible marker for identifying the movement of actual people rather than their culture.
Of course, as soon as the word ‘gene’ is used it gets some folk very excited. But that excitement is misplaced. The tiny fragments buried thousands of years back in the sequence, even if still active, are very unlikely to have been associated with any normally discernible trait whatsoever.
Labels like ‘The Celtic Gene’ are, in that sense, a complete misnomer.
These markers have no more significance than an identifying tattoo or a barcode which merely identifies an historic familial relationship rather more reliably than the surnames commonly used to support people movement theories and to a time when surnames were not even used.
It is not without cynicism that I note that some of the most vociferously expressed ‘fears’ that such research might engender more racism come from professional medievalists. It seems strange to me that those who have paistakingly crafted supplantation theories do not acknowledge the effect which their own hypothesised ethnic identification theories have on that issue already. It also seems strange that they would not wish their theories confirmed. I can’t help thinking that they are rather more concerned with the possibility of getting the opposite result.
In my view, if it turns out that cultural movement more often than not is not associated with a commensurate movement of people, rather than exacerbating racism, it will have precisely the opposite effect.
By establishing that culture and ethnicity are not fundamentally related and cultural benchmarks being by far the more important to folk in their everyday lives, reduction of that association will greatly downplay the importance of ethnicity in people’s minds. Hence, less racism.
The simplest question one could ask is:Why oh why? don’t the people who believe that they are the real owners of the UK want the Scottish people to have their own independent country.
Some discussion above on the history of Scotland and England over the last 1500 years.
A useful book to read is Stuart McHardy’s, Future History of Scotland. it changes and challenges the stories of Scots coming from Ireland, showing how the Church wrote the history representing it’s own views and needs.
It also changes the whole view that Scotland was at the edge of the world, rather it could have influenced the ‘civilised’ world that was centred on the Roman/Greek world.
Of course I find it very interesting because it ‘agrees’ with my own belief that the Unionists have always tried to portray Scotland as being part of some other countries, some other histories, and not a country developed in it’s own right!