The voice of sanity
Posted on
June 04, 2017 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Hilary and Carey, South Lanark.
Just a day and a bit left to help get more videos like this made. Do if you can.
Previously:
(All clips via the always-excellent Phantom Power Films.)
Interesting new video from the farmers.
I suspect a lot of Scottish farmer landowners are not going to be of the same mind and will trust the Tories to look after them.
I think they may need to buy farmland inside the circle of the M25 if they want any assurances from that quarter.
Great film about farming and BREXIT. Scary times for hill famring in Scotland. Interesting article on same issue that warns that Scottish uplands could become a wilderness if we dont get our independence on Newsnet.Scot…
http://newsnet.scot/archive/scotland-free-wilderness-brexits-not-implicit-threat-hill-farming/
farmers in angus have huge posters of ruth davidsons candidate in their fields. Good banter between labour and snp activists on Arbroath High street yesterday Tories largely ignored by public reasonable to conclude anti SNP alliange non existant in Angus.
Hill farmers and crafters rely on the CAP payments. Most farms simply aren’t viable without them. They will stop with Brexit and London, almost certainly, won’t replace them.
The large scale Range Rover driving farmers with their Tory billboards are the exception, not the rule. Most farmers and crofters barely make a living.
Ok Rev, just bunged them a few quid. I wish to god that they would use paypal, would make life easier.
We have quite a few of the Ruth Davidson Candidate to stop indyref 2 posters in fields all along the A75. Mind you, in a few places in fields on the opposite side of the road we have a few SNP Richard Arkless banners. Fermers, eh!
I wish it wiz Friday sigh.
Don’t want to say this is the best one yet, but it is certainly the one which best hits the mark for the farming and semi rural background I come from.
A lot of farmers get a bum deal from the media. There is a big difference between private landowners who scoop up money and subsidy from the public purse and Europe, and the actual farmers who work mental hours and have to be incredibly inventive just to make ends meet.
Scottish farming is a credit to Scotland on the whole, whether it’s the actual product on your dinner plate or the grim determination to contain disease like foot and mouth, our farmers are star performers.
I’m no longer in a farming lifestyle, but have the impression our Farmers come under tremendous and unfair pressure from Tories, Landlords, and Supermarkets. I’m not close enough to the business to know what changes are needed, but no industry can afford to lose expertise and workforce. Farming isn’t merely a job for these folks.
Do yourself a favour and try to purchase some food from a farmers market or direct from the farmer. Then compare it to what you buy in a supermarket. You will be astounded by the difference in taste.
It seems Scotland never gets to benefit from it’s good fortune. Whether it’s our oil, or our lamb straight off the hill, there is always an immediate level of exploitation; a rampant parasitism which leaves our producers suffering from underinvestment and Scotland itself denied the due fruits of its labours and blessings. What kind of formula makes us so good at making and doing things and yet leaves so many of us in relative poverty?
Saw the vid over on WGD.
They’re not wrong.
Much fewer farmers with Tory field signs in Perthshire this time. I know of 2 tenant farms not rented and one for sale up near loch Eroch?. A local told me folk are worried about brexit effect on farming I.e. loss of subsidies.
The EU is strongly protective and supportive of small family farmers in Europe. The UK has opposed the EU’s family farm model for a long time as it wants the corporate sector to take over farm production. This will reduce prices and keep us plebes happy, but like all free markets, will destroy our social and environmental capital.
If we have to trade with China, American and Brazil rather than the EU then expect Scottish farmers to come under even greater pressure as food production is cheaper and we could not compete.
BREXIT will be a disaster for the Scottish hills.
I have tried, but have failed to understand the mindset of farmers, like those here in Angus.
Defra negotiate and accept the lowest agricultural EU grants level in Europe for the UK.
It is like the Westminster elite have long decided a goal of food security, i.e. parity on agricultural imports and exports, for the UK is unobtainable and so have simply given up on farming. Accepted that the UK will always have to net import food, so why bother?
And it gets even worse. Substantial extra EU development grants are available for ‘less favoured’ land areas. Scotland has the vast majority of those and therefore accounts for most of that allocation. However, the grant goes to Westminster to distribute. Westminster chooses to distribute it throughout the UK rather than allocating it to those areas for which it was intended.
The final salt in the wound being that farmers in the South of England with easy to farm land, in need of little development, get twice the allocation per acre as Scottish farmers with much more difficult land.
Pooling and sharing Westminster style.
One can only conclude that Scottish farmers are oblivious to the facts.
In mitigation, there has never, of course, been an MSM exposè of this, despite the presence of farming programmes. The SMSM do not do ‘Westminster Bad’.
However, the above information was only a few clicks away on the internet so really no excuse.
I should add that I last looked at this during indyref1 so things may have changed since then.
First of all my heart goes out to all those affected by another atrocity. We can’t let them derail democracy though. Otherwise they win.
This film is one of the best yet. Well articulated. And the impacts of brexit clearly laid out.
Was meaning to fund these films and this one did it.
It was an absolutely amazing day in Glasgow yesterday. Happiness, purpose and people coming together. Instead of the moronic, foosty brexit cry of “we want our country back” it felt like we were building our country; One that is positive, tolerant and with a massive sense of inclusion. “Another scotland is possible”. And after yesterday it felt highly probable.
Right. Back to leafleting.
P.S.
Another factoid which just sprung to memory, is that Scotland gets less than the legal minimum for those grants than it would if it were a nation state member of the EU. On independence there would be an automatic increase in Scottish farmers grants by 50% just to bring them up to the legal minimum.
So glad to see a film about the farming community. Around my area there have been 17 farms emptied in the last couple of years. Big landowners evict or buy out the tenant farmers so they can run sheep in every field and scoop up the subsidies.
It’s another clearance.
Hope Hilary and Carey can keep going.
The big VOTE RUTH DAVIDSON placards in fields are more likely to be put there by the landowner than the tenant farmer.
Chick McGregor says:
My understanding is that is goes back to, and is tied into, Thatcher’s rebate from the EU.
The Tories never liked the large percentage of EU money going to farmers across Europe via CAP payments. The agreement was that the UK gets a rebate but accordingly gets less out of the CAP funding. The rebate always was a bit of a con and Scottish farmers were the real losers.
Those old enough to recall the countryside pre-EU will remember how run down and poor the farms, cottages, villages and people were. It is hard to believe that any farmer would be keen to embrace Brexit. It isn’t hard to imagine that there will be a fair bit anger if Brexit is a fast track back to those days. I personally find the PM’s promises to match the EU payments unconvincing.
May just said British values were superior to others. She then suggested working with isp providers to spy on people. This is what the Tories want to do. Spy on all of us. What happened in London is disgusting but has nothing to do with social media or ISP providers. Anyone can use a car as a weapon. It’s random and devastating.
She wants us to unite while sticking her fingers up to what Scotland voted for in Europe.
Finally made a donation to Phantom Power, should’ve done it ages ago.
Thank you Hilary & Carey for sharing your story – wish a few more farmers in the Stirling area would wake up before it’s too late.
I would like to pay respect to all our wonderful emergency services who responded so bravely and quickly to the events in London. They serve so well. Of course they must understand that we do not have a magic money tree to pay them adequately for putting themselves in the firing line to protect us.
Rather sticks in the craw doesn’t it?
Those posters in fields do the perceived image of farmers no good at all.
Re farming/rural programmes on telly. I love Landward.
It’s great for playing ‘spot the Scot’.
O/T
“enough is enough” seems to be the new “strong ‘n stable”
@Big Jock says: 4 June, 2017 at 10:49 am:
“May just said British values were superior to others.”
And we all know that to her, and her blue/red/yellow, British mind set that means English, (a.k.a. British) values are superior to all others including superior to the Irish, Welsh and Scottish dominions of Britain/England in the British Isles.
… She then suggested working with isp providers to spy on people.”
And that included the spys of the English/British Security Services that already spy on the British/English dominions it Britain already.
… This is what the Tories want to do. Spy on all of us.”
“What happened in London is disgusting but has nothing to do with social media or ISP providers. Anyone can use a car as a weapon. It’s random and devastating.
She wants us to unite while sticking her fingers up to what Scotland voted for in Europe.”
This is the same woman who cut the borders forces to the bone then did the same with the police. This is the Tory Government that is complicit in bombing the hell out of those nations that provide people so desperate and who have lives so miserable they don’t care if they die if it will hit back at those they see as being responsible for their children’s hunger and misery.
I’m no fan of Corbyn but the guy got it right on several matters including the idiocy of WMDs, the link between the Westminster Establishment blanket bombing and the Tory propensity to bomb innocent people while arming dictatorships in their greed for wealth. Corbyn, though, is just one other Westminster Establishment useful idiot.
O/T
What a sad and sorry excuse the Sunday Herald is turning into. Lukewarm support for the SNP which takes a bit of finding and rabitting on about peripheral issues and progressive politics. Damning the SNP with faint praise and no description of the arses we face across the political divide. Is it trying to be clever?
I’ve met lots of them over my life. Awfully clever folk. Cleverer than the rest of us. Tinkling about with the engine when the vehicle hasn’t got its wheels blown up.
On the other hand the Sunday Sun has huge coverage of the march yesterday, huge coverage of Nicola’s itinerary into six constituencies (obviously the Sunday Herald missed this) and a double page of Alex Salmond’s wee sister trying to win a borders seat for the SNP.
Wont be buying anymore Sunday Heralds.
There is a quandary for farmers, as they oppose the Yes movement and support the Tories why should we buy their products if there are cheaper imports from the US, Canada etc?
Excellent video from very thoughtful people with well considered views. It needs to be shared far and wide by as many of us as possible.
Thanks Stu for making these available on Wings. We are all grateful, I’m sure.
Dave McEwan Hill
On the Sunday Herald and it’s lukewarm approach, I noticed the other day the National carried another two page spread by Henry MacCleish with the usual wish washy sort of support for self determination, but this time with an extra twist.
He was trying to say only the Tories were standing in the way of a Indy vote, a vote Labour and you might get a say in your own future approach.
The UK farming model has always been completely different to the majority of EU countries. There, small family farms are the norm. Here, in Scotland, people were driven off the land to create vast land holdings “the size of German principalities” (Sismondi – Swiss historian and economist 18/19th Century).
The landless flooded into the cities of the Central Belt where, by an amazing coincidence, said landowners had built factories and breweries which needed a cheap labour force. After all, someone had to process all that wool and barley and cotton from the slave plantations.
The CAP is negotiated by British “lords” (quite literally in some cases) to suit the large landholding interest. This is why the rewards are so skewed in the UK and the EU gets the blame. It will be even more unfair when under Westminster rule, or deregulation to be more precise.
UK has always favoured a “cheap food” policy, as opposed to a high nutrition and food security policy.
Thought for the day.
I don’t know how any farmer could vote tory or Leave. They’re catastrophically incomprehensible.
Daily Heil editor Paul Dacre gets hundreds of thousands of EU subsidy euros for his Scottish shooting estate but he’s raged at dole scroungers, EU immigrants, evil Brussels etc, for decades and now we’re all out. (ogling little girls in their underpants DaIly Heil aside)
Cant think of a better psycho tory example today, other than Dacre’s psycho tory boss, billionaire tax dodger, EU subsidy recipient Rothermere and we all know the rest…
Brian Powell at 11.52
No problem at all with the National, Brian, which continues to get better and carries continuous daily support for independence plus other interesting points of view.
A great video and some real depth and substance to the decision these folk make. We know it is not easy to change your mind but it takes real guts to put out the reasons why.
I don’t know what the SH is playing at – it seems to be a vehicle for pseudo-intellectuals who don’t really want to vote Indy anymore or whose support is completely dependent on their own narrow wishlist and are looking for a way out. I have felt for a long time that Mackay will leave when his book revenues allow it. His priority appears to be the journalist first, not the reader.
On the current ‘State of Terror’, I have never felt less confident in a government to keep me safe than in that of Theresa May. On a political, ideological and, fundamentally, practical level they seem to be failing in every way. Yet she can come out and make nothing statements that get Express readers jiggly with excitement that she can talk the talk.
It does look as if Kezia Dugdale has really lost it this time with that personal attack on the FM. Cheap and low, but that is the Slab way. If the Tories’ majority comes from her ‘Paper’ candidates in Scotland, she really has to be held accountable.
I’m with Carey …”I think she’s simple” 10:35
I know the Rev has posted this link already, but we can’t lose this invaluable resource.
People have been giving so much recently it’s a hard ask, but so worth it if you have a quid to spare.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/journey-to-yes-film#/
The clearest explanation regarding farm subsidies and the frequently heralded IT payment failure that the tories are totally misinterpreting and twisting for their own use and the media are not questioning them is by Caltonjack .
CaltonJack i cant do the link ( nana ) help ha ha anyway its explained there , why i haven’t seen this from the SNP i dont know it is for their benefit they produce a clear simple history of these supposed IT failures .
As far as i can make out Westminster never managed to make these payments on time , so they delegated payments to the various parts of the UK expecting them to sort out their problems. so the SNP were landed with a f/k up and they were then blamed for the problems , who would have thought the tories would have done that now .What’s your explanation Fluffy ? . By they way where is he ?
I send Phantom Power portraits to indy doubters: family, friends, associates; it’s a big step up from retweeting mere written opinion.
They can see and hear voters express their well-thought out reasons for supporting the reinstatement of self-determination. In two cases it’s worked a treat – couples were dithering and then decided they’d had enough of equivocation; so, more influence from Phantom’s efforts.
I’d like to think these mini-films get a wide distribution.
Your weekend reading:
Creeping fascism: http://wp.me/p4fd9j-gx3
Brian Cox does his best: http://wp.me/p4fd9j-gNO
I really do believe the Hilary and Carey 15 minute Film Number 14 is the best yet—-a couple of tenant farmers explaining in depth,farming in Scotland and our relationship with the EU.
Being taken out of the EU is going to have terrible consequences for our land,the workers,food and agriculture—–more than we can imagine at the moment.
In the past I’ve given a little to Phantom Power Films—-I’ll try again.
Re Scottish farmers.
Check out this ‘Landward’ programme from 12.40 for three minutes.
Totally dependent on the EU subsidies.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08r3f0f/landward-20172018-episode-6
Very good summary with clear articulation of farming concerns and benefits of EU.
Left me quite terrified to be honest.
And angry particularly that Boris clip.
No matter how hard I try, I find it awfy hard to sympathies with these people. Just feel anger mostly.
Mungo @ 13:50,
What do you mean by “these people”? And anger at whom? Because of what?
These are ordinary people trying to make an honest living in a sector that is of great importance to the Scottish economy, and they have come to realise that their interest, like the rest of us, lies in an independent future. They should be welcomed.
You sound like some class warrior or kipper.
@Macart @others
Thanks for link the just donated
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/journey-to-yes-film#/
I live in a farming community and I know many of them personally. The majority come from generations of Tory voting families.
On the positive side they are all hard working but they are money driven and honestly believe that when we are out of the EU that Westminster will look after them. As long as the money rolls in they don’t care. It’s pointless debating with them, only the harsh reality of when the EU money is no longer there will they realise that they are expendable in a Tory Britain.
I can only hope that they watch that film where people like themselves are quite rightly afraid of the future outside the EU.
MacWhirter shite in the Sunday Herald, McKenna good in the Guardian!
BJ @ 15:00:
All small businesses are necessarily “money driven” because their small-scale economics are a matter of raw survival. They’re walking a wire without a safety net, they can lose everything. That’s something we wage slaves are perhaps too ignorant of, unless we happen to have family or friends in that position.
The in-built belief system that “London knows best”, and can be trusted, lies at the very heart of the matter, and it applies to a much wider extent than farmers, other small businesses or even other traditional Tory voters. So far it has made many such people fairly impervious to reason or facts, which they just dismiss out of hand, no doubt exactly because they are so “inconvenient”.
Cracking that established belief system is the way to win.
Brexit has clearly done it for some already in a bigger way than almost anything before. And these videos may have a more powerful effect exactly because they feature people like themselves who have already taken that first step out.
The big question that remains – besides the great need for funding, of course – is how to get them seen!
@Fred
McKenna article was only OK in my opinion, the issue I had with this is when talking of Slab he states:
Instead of setting their face against a second referendum, they ought to have adopted a laissez-faire approach and concentrated all their fire on the manifest failures of the SNP in closing the educational attainment gap and managing the NHS.
There are NO maifest failures in the SNHS as far as I’m concerned, record numbers of staff, record investment and the best performing NHS in the UK by a mile despite the huge cuts in the Scottish budget directly as a result of Tory austerity.
For failures in Education I think McKenna should take a closer look at Labour councils too, the recently formed alliance in North Lanarkshire between the Tories and Labour immediately set about reducing classroom assistant posts.
A cut being fiercely opposed by the SNP. How can cutting such jobs improve education? Yet McKenna insists these are “manifest failures of the SNP”.
@dave mcewan
I’ve never bought the Sun but after reading your comment saying it had massive coverage of yesterday’s rally etc against my better judgement I bought it. Only half a page. Hmmm
Sunday herald pretty shocking too. Don’t buy either -mid you’re expecting coverage.
@dave mcewan
I’ve never bought the Sun but after reading your comment saying it had massive coverage of yesterday’s rally etc against my better judgement I bought it. Only half a page. Hmmm
Sunday herald pretty shocking too. Don’t buy either -mid you’re expecting coverage.
Re Henry McLeish.
Fed up with his maybe aye or is it naw?
No more McLeish you have had your chance. Decide
Brian Powell 11.43am. Yes i always boycott Israel products .same as south African while Nelson was on robben island. And i and family will certainly boycott f****ng tory voting Scottish farmers products . whilst otherwise i would happily pay a bit more for produce from farmers who stood by Scotland.
O/T but relevant i think , these recent terror incidents that normally for the more cynical amongst the political elite would normally be beneficial to strong and stable government .Are having the exact opposite effect , people are starting to question the actions of this government more closely than before, who was home secretary when this happened or who was in charge and who instigated the cuts in police officers , who was on watch when all these things happened, The common denominator the tories .Who called a EU referendum to quell in fighting and the fear of UKIP , all this was done by the tory party , all this confusion has been caused by the tory party , and Mrs May right at the heart of it , working out well eh ? .
If labour voters now vote tory they need their heads examined .
Thepnr @ 15:59,
I agree. This heavy emphasis on devolved matters in a UK election, aided and abetted by the BBC, is a disgrace. Maybe McKenna is trying to see things from a Labour perspective, but it’s a distorted view that he should also be attacking, not cheering-on.
The austerity that is driving this whole situation is Tory UK austerity, not an SNP-inspired one. The SG are doing their level best to protect us, FGS!
Sheesh, is there no mainstream journalist out there who doesn’t have some kind of party-political agenda twisting their story…?
Agree bob p,down here in ingerland when we go to the supermarkets, my wife and i dont buy Scottish farm produce in case I’m supporting a unionist tory b*****d proudscotbut farmer.Such a shame they have put us in this position. I don’t care if my post isn’t pc. I’m sick of these people not accessing the available facts
If I may change the subject from farmers to fisherman for a moment. Did anyone see Mr Buchan, Ruth’s fishy friend, feature prominently in a Reporting Scotland election report last Wednesday or Thursday I think? Doing his SNP bad and not to believed re EU fishing policy etc.
On farmers. There are several farm shop/ cafes fairly close to me and we visit them quite often and often take friends. They get quite a surprise when they see the range of produce from Scotland on the shelves as well as the butcher meat on sale. It makes them realise what is missing from the supermarket shelves.
Farmers are going to suffer if we come out of the EU and, given the importance of food to everyone, then we will also suffer. Food security is no empty phrase.
Agree legerwood. But I’d rather brush my teeth with bleach than put money into a Scottish tory farmers bank account.
Just noticed a tweet from Pat Kane:
https://twitter.com/thoughtland/status/871388429971599361
Excellent article on the danger of hard brexit and I found Pat’s comment interesting..
J Sutherland.
Because to me, a YES vote was so fucking obviously the right thing to do, it’s like, DOH! Because they gave away their democracy, and mine by the way, to a bunch of self serving wankers and now they’re crying because those wankers are doing what wankers do!
Very little sympathy for “these people” i.e. NO voters. Maybe they need to suffer some for their lack of vision or self interest or ignorance or whatever it was?
I never buy butcher meat in the supermarket.
However, I’m pretty amazed at the ‘supermarket warriors’ who know the difference between a Yesser and Nawbag pack of mince.
@Mungo
Are you happy for Yes support to be stuck at 45% then forever?
Or would you welcome “these people” that is No voters who have changed their mind and will support Yes in a second referendum?
I know what I would choose, it’s a no brainer in fact else we lose.
@Shinty
Neither do I buy meat from a supermarket, you have better choice and better quality from a local butcher. The butchers I use i know exactly where their pork, beef and poultry come from.
They tell you on big signs in the shop and it is all sourced and it’s locally within a thirty mile radius of where I live.
It’s fresher and definitely tastier than the crap served up in supermarkets. I’ll also buy eggs and vegetables when in season from local farm shops. Cheaper and much better plus the cash is staying in the community to be spent in the community.
I’d support Scottish grown produce over some imported crap I have no idea where it’s came from. Money spent in Scotland with small local producers or any small local business in fact mainly stays in Scotland and is spent again and again in that community.
Not so when you send it to large corporations who will distribute your cash mainly to London when you give profits and the power to pay dividends straight to their headquarters. Yes mainly in London.
Thepnr
Not sure, that depends on how things turn out. And I would think it’s more likely that demographic change will be more relevant to the size of YES rather than NO voters who changed their mind.
Very inspiring and honest video , as are the others ,Hillary and Carey may I ask that you spread your concerns and fears widely through the farming community, I note that you are tenant farmers so obviously have to protect your future but thank you for your frankness
@Mungo
It looks like we’re heading for a second referendum in less than 2 years time. Demographic changes over these next 18 months or so are highly unlikey to give us the 5% or so we need based on current polling.
We fail this time and I’ll be long gone before Scotland can have a third referendum, that I believe is certain.
The truth that we all have to face up to is that we must gain support from those that previously voted No im my opinion. I am certain now that I have persuaded three members of my wife’s family to now vote Yes.
I didn’t hate them for voting No, it was their ignorance and the result of propaganda from the state media that persuaded them first time around. These are NOT bad people just ill informed and need to hear the arguments.
We work to persuade the No vote not shout at them or wag angry fingers in their faces. Seriously, you must realise that would get us nowhere. The opposite is true we need to give them the facts and wean them off the lies they are used to.
If we want Independence we will have to earn the support of the people of Scotland. That includes those who may have voted No first time around.
A pound spent in Croydon is better than a pound spent in Strathclyde
Boris Jonhstone
J Sutherland and Thepnr
Look, what I’m saying is that I’m angry with NO voters. They are responsible for the wretched position we now find ourselves in. Aye it’s all well and good that they’ve now changed their mind, but it’s too late isn’t it. We had a chance and they bottled it and so we are where we are. And to me, it was so obviously where we would end up.
Yes we might get another go, and if we take our chance next time then any anger I had will disappear. But the fact is, that here we are just now in a shitty place and it was the NO voters that put us here. Until that changes I reserve the right to feel less than sympathetic if they suffer some consequences of their poor judgment.
Thepnr,
I never mentioned hate. I don’t hate people… I said I am and will remain angry with them until we get our independence.
Mungo i know exactly where you are coming from.
And another thing, 🙂 they haven’t in general changed their minds because they’ve suddenly realised that it’s the right thing to do. They’ve changed their minds because they’ve been stung. Not very noble is it?
Dr jim I’ll never forget that statement along with the mcrone report. Try getting a yoons brain to absorb that information,doh.
Thanks Mike.
Shinty 6.04pm.i think we can take it as a given that the red tractor sign with the uj promoting ‘sweaties beef ‘are unionist backing farmers.
@Mungo
Apologies for using the word hate though it wasn’t referring to anything you said. I do understand your anger at losing, I’m sure I was as sick as you were at the result in 2014.
Almost 3 years later I’m certainly over that anger and focusing only on how we can persuade people to change their minds this next time around.
It’s not far away either and if we don’t change minds there is no denying another failure. No one wants that, get one No voter to change their minds and then that is one more vote for the Yes side and one less for the No side.
It’s all obvious really don’t you agree?
We won’t be winning without changing minds. A big welcome from me to any No voter who comes around to the Yes sides way of thinking and supports what we support.
That is the road to a victory that gains an Independent Scotland, there is no other road. We either get 50% of the vote or we don’t and we will need former No supporters to achieve that. There is no doubt about that to my mind.
I don’t think we should be in any great rush for Indy2 to happen.
We need to see the Brexit fallout have an effect first.
Most No voters I know are pretty materialistic and will only change their minds when it starts to hurt them in the pocket.
Consider, there is no significant YES2 campaign, but there has been a relentless anti-Indy deluge. Even this GE in Scotland has meant nothing else to the Unionist parties.
Also, there is no planned IndyRef2, despite what the Unionists seem to believe. If Brexit is soft and Scotland gets to stay in the single market, there will be no referendum.
Yet support is certainly no lower that the 2014 45%, perhaps well above on a good day.
Should TMay totally fck up Brexit, then it’s game on. YES2 will jump to life in a big way.
The young are clearer what should happen. Those more senior folks who believe there is a cosy familiar haven inside the UK are the ones to target. The UK has changed totally since 2014. Soon we may find that Indy is the safe option for many of those who put their own interests first, not UKOK.
And, all of this will go ahead with the lies and broken promises of the past fresh in most people’s minds.
That scenario is what the Unionists absolutely dread.
AndyH,
Start asking them how many euros/dollars etc they got for a pound on their holidays this year. They will have been impacted already. Next year the exchange rate will be worse.
Thepnr
Aye I hear you, and I’ve done my bit in converting my fair share of people to YES. But that was mostly before the last referendum. I’m afraid I’m not as optimistic as you regarding time scale. I believe that those that voted NO last time will have to personally feel the pain of a drop in living standards or difficulty going on holiday or whatever, before they are ready to change.
I was down in the Borders today. I have never seen as many political signs anywhere like in the Selkirk area.
In Selkirk town there were SNP signs in every other garden. As soon as you leave the town, every farmers field has a Tory sign in it… surreal.
Mungo says:
4 June, 2017 at 6:18 pm
Thepnr
Not sure, that depends on how things turn out. And I would think it’s more likely that demographic change will be more relevant to the size of YES rather than NO voters who changed their mind.
For the most part I’m kinda with Mungo here
As much as I welcome No voters in 2014 moving over to yes there’s a part of me that will never truely forgive or trust them but I’m not sure we can afford the luxury of unforgivingness we only need a 6% swing to get us over the line so every vote is vital and I don’t care where they come from.
If there’s any group out of the spineless 55 I can understand it’s the tenant farmers because for many I think EU membership is vital not only to their livelihood but their homes and possibly everything they own, for them there was a lot at stake and in 2014 continued EU membership wasn’t assured, it was a weakness in our cause and it was exploited to the full by BT, but now it’s a strength and one I hope we exploit to the full.
These No to YES videos are fantastic and beautifully made and have shown that people can change their minds and we should welcome them all whether we like it or not but there are elements in our country whose minds will never be changed such as the brainless red white & blue no surrender brigade and the proud scots, they will never be forgiven by me
Graeme
Mungo @ 18:37,
We know how you feel because we felt it too. We were among the “45” and we can always be proud of that. As you say, if we had prevailed, all this bad stuff that has happened since 2014 could have been avoided.
As for the others now having to pay for their misjudgement, we all like to see justice in the world, but in this case it’s rather like wishing to hole a boat so that the fare-dodgers drown. Problem is, we are in the boat and we drown too!
Come the next indyref, whenever that may be, would you rather that all these former “no” voters stayed that way? So that we can be the “45” and proud losers yet again?
I mean, seriously..?
Agree tam fae somewhere. Had a 5 week Caribbean cruise. 1 American dollar 20 cents to the pound,and that was in March. I wouldn’t worry about those proud scot cretins getting a good rate for the euro. Belfast for the 12th will be abroad for them.
There is another aspect of “no to yes” we shouldn’t forget. The absolute barrage of scare stories, twisted half-truths and outright lies deployed by BT. We weren’t fooled by it, but others were. To blame them for that now is adding insult to injury. Many of these converts are already feeling bad enough that they were “had” by all that trickery, without us “rubbing salt into their wounds”.
Don’t forget, they were the actual victims of this.
But no longer. Which is why the Unionists are getting ever more desperate to prevent another indyref. These converts want their revenge, they want their justice too.
Robert j Sutherland
No, like I said it’s all well and good them now voting YES but they’ve already holed the boat and it’s me that they’re sinking. And I told them not to hole the boat as we’d all sink and they weren’t to concerned for me!
I reserve the right to remain angry with them. I’m not of a mind to spend too much time praising them for now realising they should have voted YES because suddenly they’re concerned that they’ve sunk the boat. Where was their concern for anyone but their own self interest before? That’s all.
As I said earlier, most of these people are now voting YES for the same reason they voted NO, self interest. So aye that’s fine, but they are not forgiven. And it’s not forgiveness they’re after, it’s self interest.
And Robert, I don’t buy that. There was plenty of info out there. Any responsible person should have realised the importance of the decision and done a bit of research. Just lazily accepting the shite the MSM pump through the TV and in papers and Radio is not good enough. Ignorance is no excuse in law… or something like that.
I have no problem with people moving from no to yes. What does annoy me is the patronising platitudes from people like Tom Merton:” I didn’t think independence was legitimate in 2014″.
It is and was always legitimate to want independence. The fact that intelligent people like Tom couldn’t see that in 2014 makes me wonder. It’s not suddenly a good or legitimate cause because previous no voters back it. They need to just say I was naive and believed the propaganda at the time hands up.
Don’t belittle us lifelong indi supporters.
Dave McEwan Hill,
“What a sad and sorry excuse the Sunday Herald is turning into.”
Brian Powell,
“On the Sunday Herald and it’s lukewarm approach, I noticed the other day the National carried another two page spread by Henry MacCleish with the usual wish washy sort of support for self determination, but this time with an extra twist.
He was trying to say only the Tories were standing in the way of a Indy vote, a vote Labour and you might get a say in your own future approach.”
The Sunday Herald faked support for independence to milk gullible independence supporters.
Now that role has been taken over by its sister paper The National, it can revert to its unionist stand.
Any money made by The National helps keep The Herald alive.
And also Robert, the people featured in these videos are people who should have known better. There’s not any old wifies who remember the war. These people generally took the decision to trade my sovereignty and my democracy for shinny glass beads.
Mungo,
“I reserve the right to remain angry with them. I’m not of a mind to spend too much time praising them for now realising they should have voted YES because suddenly they’re concerned that they’ve sunk the boat. Where was their concern for anyone but their own self interest before? That’s all.”
“As I said earlier, most of these people are now voting YES for the same reason they voted NO, self interest.”
As I have said before:
“the selfish middle classes are smart and stubborn people who don’t need anyone else to convince them.
They act in their own self interest and convince themselves.
Can we really win over readers of the Daily Mail, Daily Express and Scotsman?
In contrast there are lots and lots of downtrodden people who don’t even bother to vote.
They are far more likely to be won over.
That is a proven fact from the last referendum.
While the selfish middle classes in the then “SNP heartlands” voted No in stunning numbers, the less well off voted Yes in Glasgow, Dundee and North Lanarkshire.
If we had spent more time and resources on the people in the schemes, we would have won.
Instead the official Yes campaign was a very middle class affair and it failed quite badly.
It is mainly due to the efforts of the RIC and Tommy Sheridan that we mangaged to reach 45%.”
There is nothing more stupid than wasting scarce resources in trying to embrace Tories to vote Yes.
Thepnr at 655pm,
Well said, wise words. It matters to me not one jot WHY somebody votes YES, I just care that they do.
In any decision made on such important matters, of course people weigh up the implications for themselves personally, that is just the nature of things.
Our focus, as you rightly say, is getting NO to YES, bums on seats, whatever way you want to phrase it.
Bitterness and anger will achieve nothing, except give us all ulcers. Time to move on, and focus on the referendum that is just around the corner. We need everybody on board. Divisive, angry comments aimed at those who previously voted NO is not just pointless, it is also stupid, and achieves nothing.
I personally know people who regret their NO vote, but they genuinely believed the BBC and such like. They are not stupid, they are not selfish, they were willfully mislead by the BBC and other London controlled media.
Now they know the truth, and that is all that matters. For them their is NO turning back, now they know how much they were deceived by the media, and lied to by Labour and Tories.
This time around, we will win. Vote SNP.
Exactly Jock !! An apology would be a good place to start!
I hope Brexit gives us enough momentum to get over the line, but we are never going to gel as a nation and do justice to our heritage until we have our own domestic broadcasting network.
I don’t grieve the loss of Berwick, I don’t fret about Scotland’s Darian Scheme, I don’t dwell on Bannockburn or Culloden, nor our bruised and battered economy sold down the river by Thatcher. All of that is history. Sometimes it’s a cruel history, sometimes hateful history you want to rewrite differently, sometimes it’s an absolute marvel, but it is always history.
But this dreadful BBC… this passive indoctrination from cradle to grave, this distortion of reality, this constant manipulation of what we are meant to think and believe… What can I say? I believe it is as great and dangerous a threat to the entire fabric of Scotland as any conquering invader ever has been, or murderous epidemic that wipes the greater half of us out.
It is false, pernicious and insidious, and a great many of us are totally blind to the processes at work here. It’s not just Independence that is so completely distorted, it is our entire culture which is being manipulated to the extent it cannot evolve organically. Our hostile media holds tremendous influence over us. Defeat it, and we must defeat it, and the real Scotland will blossom.
Brexit is topical, and brings its own dynamics, but really, for our positive independence, it is overcoming this hateful BBC propaganda which should top of the agenda, and solved first as a priority before we tackle anything else like Brexit or Independence.
It’s easy to blame the SNP for having muddled priorities, but really, Scottish broadcasting should have been part of the Devolution settlement in the ’90’s. How can you have devolved government without at least some level of devolved communication between MSP’s and the electorate?
Robert Louis says:
4 June, 2017 at 8:07 pm
I think it’s a bit disingenuous Robert to say bitter YES voters are stupid but the No voters themselves are just poor misguided souls
Graeme
Recent events in London& Manchester so very heartbreaking indeed for all concerned. I realise that prevention of these atrocities is so very very difficult for the authorities . However, there is one question I would ask for a concise explanation.
The fairly recent Westminster bridge attack was apparently carried out by an individual apparently on a intelligence services ” watch list” , using a ” hired vehicle” . My question is this , if this individual was on a ” watchlist” , why wasn’t the fact that he hired a vehicle ” flagged up” via the DVLC , ( and the police informed) as soon as he hired the vehicle? After all previous terrorist attacks on the continent prior to the Westminster Bridge attack utilised ” hire vehicles” ? If you hire a vehicle from any hire company , is it not the case that a DVLC check against the hirer’s licence is carried out prior to the the hire agreement being completed?
If the London Bridge attack from last night was another ” hire vehicle” attack and the individuals concerned were again on a “watchlist” ( perhaps this was not the case) then surely questions should be asked and answered as regards this particular method of attack and the ” communication” between government agencies and the intelligence services??
Breeks 8.22pm. Ebc norn irn do exactly the same thing,spewing westmiddens propaganda. But these charlatans have been well and truly sussed now.
Just watched The Voice of Sanity again. Brilliant.
Then, unfortunately, watched some daft video about Donkey Trump.
He has fake teeth, fake hair, and genuine insanity – oh, and he’s pals with Treeza May.
Unfortunately there are many Unionists who will never change their minds on Independence for all the reasons we know and none of them are fiscal
But there are some who will and that will be when it becomes glaringly obvious that England’s going broke and Brexit is used to rape Scotland even further in order to pay for Englands folly
Then as with all human nature, greed wins and the thought of personal loss prevails, and those people will turn and grasp for the only straw available with the famous Scottish losers lament “We might as well give it a try we’ve got nothing else to lose”
But don’t expect an apology from many because they’ll even make excuses for that
They still won’t like us because they’ll know they were wrong so they’ll likely even resent us for being right but the main thing is the right result will be achieved one way or another so fretting about it now will only upset our own selves out of frustration so while patience really isn’t a virtue it’s the way human nature works and there’s nothing for it but to suck it up for now
Events have a way of finding out who told the truth and it’ll happen and if anybody’s been having a good look around the internet today they will see a whole lot of England posting online their wish that terrorists would come to Scotland and blow us up and kill our FM and have various other horrors visited upon us
That’s what the Tories both Blue and Red have turned England into with their divisive politics and the bewildered have fallen for it down there
But the Scots won’t, even the Unionist ones and thats what’ll cause the end of their Precious Union, their own stupidity and nastiness
Breeks says:
4 June, 2017 at 8:22 pm
Brexit is topical, and brings its own dynamics, but really, for our positive independence, it is overcoming this hateful BBC propaganda which should top of the agenda, and solved first as a priority before we tackle anything else like Brexit or Independence.
It’s easy to blame the SNP for having muddled priorities, but really, Scottish broadcasting should have been part of the Devolution settlement in the ’90’s. How can you have devolved government without at least some level of devolved communication between MSP’s and the electorate?
Yes totally agree here breeks. The area in devolution is the key area and why it wasn’t in ANY package irrespective of the rest of the mince promised! This is where we need to target b4 next indyref.
One of my favourite quotes ever-
“The media serve the interests of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked, framing their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly.”
Noam Chomsky, American linguist and US media and foreign policy critic
Very interesting man. What he recently wrote on Trump is scary stuff and we should all be concerned, very, very concerned.
I was a NO voter once, I was ignorant of the possibilities of an Independent Scotland. I also thought that the setting up of the Scottish Parliament was a stupid idea.
Why was that?
Well mainly it was family in particular my old man who passed away in 2005 but had done his time in the war in Malaya and basically believed he was British.
I believed I was British, it seemed at least to me that there were reasons to be proud of being British. I didn’t know at the time time that I had been brainwashed to think that way.
It’s only when your eyes are opened that you can change, opening eyes needs careful handling, honesty and compassion. No one likes to know they have been living a lie for years and might have got it all wrong. Use common sense, c’mon.
Of course then I can understand that people have to change their views in order to come out in support of Independence. What do they reckon support was in 2012? Something like 25% so how in the hell did that increase to 45%.
I guess people changed their minds, that’s right they went from being No or undecided to Yes voters as people do all the time and are entitled to do. That’s why the ruling government can change. Forget any anger you have about the 2014 result what a waste of energy that is.
Instead use that energy POSITIVELY. Just go out and do your best to persuade someone to vote Yes. We do need more Yes voters yet you know. You might help persuade one. Gold star if you do.
Just one thing tonight. Having seen the FMs picks on twitter meeting the people over the last few days and reports of the Glasgow March, …. See if nothing else happens, can we go on being the happy go lucky, smiley supporters of the peoples party of Scotland.
Honestly the other lot; the other side of Scotland’s population are a miserable, blinkered bunch o’ …. och never mind, another glass o’ wine should sort it !
So we are to have packs of mince, chicken, eggs etc’ marked with the new “Tory Free” label? I never heard such pish! Farmers produce is either subsidised or the public pays the real cost of production. We are very lucky in Scotland, where the main crop is grass & much of the land is marginal, that we have access to first-class beef & lamb. As we have a smaller population the cattle are mostly beef-cattle & Scotch Beef is a premium brand. England with its larger population has a correspondingly large dairy herd & somebody has to eat them. Collapse of the EU subsidy will put beef etc’ beyond the means of many poorer Scots as their income will not increase to cover the cost of meat, what they’ll get if they’re lucky is hormone-packed US beef & Scottish farms will be planted with trees.
Who produces Scotland’s cheap food is completely irrelevant, get a grip!!!
Aye Thepnr
I remember the feeling when it became clear that Auntie was a lying bitch.Long before Independence was a serious possibility.
I felt gutted, and humiliated that I had bought their pish for so long.
If one couldn’t trust Auntie, even allowing for ‘necessary’ foreign policy fibs, what could you trust ?
That, I feel, is why so many won’t open their eyes.
They don’t want to. It’s too painful.
Rock at 7.57
As Rock well knows Alex Salmond is now writing for the National from a unionist perspective to help destroy our cause.
He also knows it has the same editor as the Sunday Herald and the same staff except of course it has neither and they are run by completely different teams.
And he also knows that they share resources except of course they do not as they run entirely independent of each other and both survive on their own revenues.
They are certainly printed by the same publishing company – but then again so is the Dundee Courier and the Beano.
The Sunday Herald however since Richard Walker left has become a very unreliable friend under its present editor.
Ah hear ye North chiel, but anyone can hire a vehicle and let someone else drive it? Yes it means they too would be charged as co conspirator and in many cases some of the perpetrators wouldn’t be on any watchlist, if they’re recruiting from local communities someone with no record is exactly who’d they’d target for these purposes, in other words they would always find a way around it, but ah agree there has to be ‘joined up’ agency involvement in light of these ‘low tech’ attacks.
@ North Chiel. From the Guardian newsfeed about 55 minutes ago:-
Police were warned about suspect two years ago
Lisa O’Carroll
Lisa O’Carroll
Police were warned about the main suspect radicalising children in a local park two years ago, a neighbour has revealed.
Erica Gasparri, an Italian mother of three who lives in the same complex, said she confronted the man, known locally as “Abs”, after her son came home and said: “Mummy, I want to be a Muslim.”
Gasparri then went to the park, where she said a “Pakistani man” had stated: “I’m ready to do whatever I need to do in the name of Allah. I am ready in the name of Allah to do what needs to be done, including killing my own mother.”
She said: “I took four photographs of him and gave them to the police. They rang Scotland Yard when I was there and said the information had been passed on to Scotland Yard. They were very concerned. They told me to delete the photos for my own safety which I did but then I heard nothing. That was two years ago. No-one came to me. If they did this could have been prevented and lives could have been saved.
“He would go down to the park and talk to them about Islam and he also came to the houses and gave the kids money and sweets during Ramadan.”
Gasparri said she told other neighbours including a Polish woman, who then tipped off the suspect that he had been reported to police.
Today that woman said she was sorry: “I didn’t know he was a bad guy. Maybe I was blind.”
In a stand-up row near the suspect’s flat on Sunday evening, Erica told the Polish woman: “My first impressions was he was a terrorist radicaliser.”
Met Police said they were aware of the claims, but had no comment at this stage, as they had not released any information about any of the suspects.
Just got around to watching this one. This particular one from Hilary and Carey needs to be shared far and wide, the pain and the passion and heartfelt fears for the future under a UK government who has not provided a single detail of what will happen to agriculture after Brexit. I’ve been paying fairly close attention to the election in the past month, and I can honestly say I have never heard agriculture come up once on the national news. The Tories think they can get away with anything – “trust us, everything will be ok”. And the clips of Ruth line-in-the-sand Davidson remind me how duplicitous she has been over the past 3-4 years. God help us all from sleepwalking into disaster.
Thepnr@ 8.55pm.
Totally agree with you.My old boy used to line up me and my brothers and make us kiss a rangers shield and swear allegiance tae the queen, I even drew a uj on my wall with god save the queen, and when the uk went to war in ’82,(i was 15)all we heard and saw was how great the uk is,I joined up totally believing all the shit on the bbc, it said WE wer the best.
So yes I was brainwashed as was my Da.
One wee thing I always did though was say I was brit/Scot, I was proud to be british But I was even more proud to be Scottish.
Education saved me and thats what no voters last time need.Some of my family and my best friends are/where nawbags but slowly im educating them.One at a time.
I wonder what matters more. 100 citizens lives or a £4 billion Saudi trade deal?
Actually I think I already know. A young Muslim woman on Question Time some weeks ago mentioned that Saudi Wahabbist preachers were being allowed to preach in mosques, which concerned her greatly, as they are basically fundementalists.
I do not believe for a second the Tories do not know this, but I guess money is the universal language of the Tory Party.superceding decency and every other positive human trait.
@Big Phil
Education saved me too.
My Uncle Billy (Yes really) had a giant picture of King Billy on the white horse above the mantlepiece and they were very proud of it.
My old man wasn’t like that though but probably still affected, Billy was his brother.
I am in a state of amazement. I have little doubt that a huge proportion of our media is steadily and deliberately damaging a Tory government and Tory Prime Minister
What is more they are giving a Labour challenger a comparatively easy ride – having lacerated him previously for months and tried to promote his removal by others in the toryLabour party in Westminster.
What is going on?
Most of us are aware that the the team in Number Ten operate to an agenda determined and limited by an establishment behind the scenes and that an under control rightish Labour Party is all that it can allow if it can’t have a Tory one.
Is this election rather more about Scotland than we all imagined?
We all know that the UK would be beggared if Scotland leaves it.
Did the establishment finally wake up to the fact that promoting the Ruthie party in Scotland (rather than their previous support for Labour to save the union) was having the unintended consequence of a certain destruction of the union as the Tories can never get enough support to win Scotland – and the Scottish Labour support facing English Tory governments forever were being driven to the SNP and opting for independence instead?
A Labour revival in Scotland could halt the independence surge and the short term danger of a Labour win at Westminster would be a price worth paying for that. After all they could turn round after a short period and destroy a Labour government again or put it in the hands of one of the many redtories that infest it.
Tell me this is just a bad dream.
Good thread this evening – the type which appeals to the likes of meself who thinks in very simplistic terms, big broad strokes etc.
I suspect many of us are the same, and that’s why WOS is such a great site for getting a grip on slippery details. It must be a bloody chore for Stu at times, but it forces some of us to consider aspects of propaganda and elementary political shenanigans which would otherwise be easy to avoid.
That’s why I can sympathise with Mungo’s frustration. I very recently had to listen to people who are dear to me discussing the GE, Brexit etc and it was quite sickening to hear entire Mail/Express ‘headlines’ being swapped in lieu of a ‘real’ conversation. I tried, three years ago, to get through to them. Copies of the WBB were accepted but, I suspect, remain unopened if they weren’t binned. The crude caricatures of Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon have not suffered so much as a dent. These are the folk who are susceptible to the dangerous mischief-making of Ruth Davidson and her openly racist, bigoted ‘friends’ because it suits them to believe that the SNP is a threat – anything which makes it appear even more-so is therefore welcomed, no matter how quickly it falls apart under the merest scrutiny.
I’ll never ever get through to them because they are as rigid in their beliefs as I am in mine and that’s why, at times, I really despair. The antidote to that horrible feeling is what happened in Glasgow yesterday. We’ve set the bar so high for ourselves now that we have no choice but to power on and hope that the momentum will, eventually, persuade that vital 6% to come aboard. All or nothing.
@Dave McEwan Hill
I think you are right, I sense that something weird is going on. The Tories are behaving like bad parodies of themselves, and is it my imagination or has Ruth Davidson disappeared?
This video of Amber Rudd shutting down Nicolas Wilson, Mr Ethical, at a hustings in Hastings has been circulating. Posting it here in case some of you haven’t seen it. This should spell the end of this ghastly Tory Party – but I’ll be amazed if it reaches the MSM:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEcMW6RmC_w
There defos is summit happening and it is weird.
Dont despair Ian Brotherhood a change is happening and I felt it yesterday.Keep Educating them at least you’ll know you tried, thats all any of us can do. We’ll Get There.
@Big Phil –
Cheers mister.
I don’t mind admitting to getting down about it all from time to time. I imagine most of us do, especially when we see just how low the Tories/State is prepared to stoop.
You’re right – yesterday was special.
Mungo @ 19:49,
Put yourself on a high horse if you like, but we all vote out of some kind of self-interest, actually.
As for understanding, I refer you back to my posting @ 15:32. It takes some people longer to comprehend the truth than others. So what? Breeks is right, the BBC has a lot to answer for in that regard. “BBC News working at propaganda strength” during indyref, as former insider Paul Mason put it. You can’t just ignore all that high-octane chicanery as if it never happened. The sheer magnitude of it took even we indy supporters by surprise; we expected something far fairer of the broadcaster.
Be as bitter and twisted as you like, that’s your own private affair. But it’s not very wise to air that in public in such a way that it deters anyone from changing to yes. We need to win next time – there’s no room whatever for personal self-indulgence.
Personally I’m just happy that we are steadily winning the argument with people who used to understand things differently. Every convert is a step towards where we all want to be.
Isn’t that good enough?
You might be right @Dave McEwan Hill says at 9:36 pm
But I think it is too little too late.
SNP vote is steady
BLiS being bigged up now will only hurt tRuthless’s Tories in a FPTP election.
All their eggs were in a Red basket which they ditched for a Blue one.
The Unionist vote swap in the Local Election will suffer in a GE if that is what is happening.
@davidbsb who cited the lady that reported the suspected bomber to the police
Here’s an attempt to profile the Manchester bomber so we can identify red flags or danger signals when we see them.
https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2017/05/25/profiling-the-english-terrorist-red-flags/
Re ” Dave Mcewan Hill @ 0936 pm”,
Yes Dave, a Labour revival in Scotland could pose a problem for the SNP. Any revival however , would have absolutely nothing to do with KD ( blairites totally discredited in Scotland) and everything to do with JC and his ” SNP agenda” currently being propagated south of the border . However , it seems that TM will probably win the election ( the question is will she be wounded or manage to scrape an increased majority)? The ” best outcome ” for the Independence movement would probably be the Tories being back with an increased majority and thereafter pursuing a ” hard brexit”. However, if she is wounded, then assuming she stands down? will any Tory successor propagate a “softer Brexit” ( with possible single market access). This scenario could be a tactic to persuade the FM to call off any Indyref2.
I would probably say that JC being in no.10 is unlikely , however, our FM could possibly extract a ” high price” for support and single market access would be very likely.Under this ( unlikely) scenario , the ” gradualist approach” to Independence would be ” back on the cards”. ( interim FFA?).
One thing is clear. Our FM requires as many seats as possible on Thursday to ” keep up the pressure” whatever the outcome south of the border. A weakened SNP with May returned with any increased majority will precipitate a ” hard Brexit” and the ” boot being put in to our Holyrood parliament”. 40-50 SNP seats will mean that our FM can take a ” hard line” with whoever occupies no. 10 .
Let’s hope today’s pronouncents on the need to tackle sectarian related political violence at its root by the Torys and Labour includes the Orange Orders – or hypocrisy Will go into orbit
Teresa May’s own party needs to clean up its own act before pointing the finger at the Muslim community
Dave McEwan Hill says:
With each day that passes I am becoming more convinced that we are seeing a ‘very British’ coup d’état by the saner elements of the Establishment.
Leave was never meant to happen and the Scots were never meant to be given another chance at Indy so quickly. But with EURef the Leavers won and the loony right grabbed the initiative.
It’s an almighty mess. A corner the Tories have painted themselves into.
The solution? Engineer a hung parliament. There will be no mandate for anything other than a soft Brexit. Indy avoided. The City saved. The economy saved. All problems solved, simply.
How likely is this scenario? I honestly don’t know. On Friday we will all find out!
Also appears that the Libyan involved in Manchester was part of an anti Gaddaffi group which was encouraged when they were used against Gaddaffi.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/31/terror-in-britain-what-did-the-prime-minister-know/
Yet this story is being buried, to allow the narrative of the unknown “lone wolf” to be led. Yet the FBI warned MI5 that there was a credible threat.
Come #ScotRef I’ll be demanding of the Electoral Commission that the BBC register as a campaigning organisation for No.
They campaigned for No in 2014, and have been doing so ever since, and it’s getting worse!
Perhaps we might inundate the EC with letters to this effect.
Fred@9.01
Strawberries in a highland Tesco yesterday, produce of Angus adorned with the apron.
Did I buy them? did I F*C%.
Glamaig & Dave McEwan Hill @ 9.58
I’ve been thinking along the same line’s
The last week to ten days the media seem to have decided May is not to win.
Granted she doesn’t take much exposing as useless but they have really hung her out to dry.
All of a sudden unelectable Corbin is prime minister material!!! Whit….since when???
It can only be either that they are going to stop Brexit or it’s us.
Or maybe stopping Brexit to keep us,not that they would ever admit that.
Something is going on…..and I really didn’t like the phrasing of May’s speech this morning.
Unite and deal with the internet!!!or was it deal with the internet then unite??
I can’t help but feel we need to get out before they do actually get control of the internet or we will never get out.
Now
There’s a global opportunity for Scotland the home of internet servers the government doesn’t interfere with, business would love to store data with us???
Ian Brotherhood @ 21:55,
Yes. It’s a phenomenon I was referring-to earlier. The “na na na… I’m not listening… na na na… that evil Nicola wotsername… na na na” syndrome, as it is professionally called. =grin=
It’s almost a binary thing. You don’t make any progress whatsoever until something happens – possibly even something seemingly peripheral – that jolts their view, then suddenly the shield drops.
Maybe for some bystander it will have been yesterday’s march, witnessing that the “no-one wants” propaganda is demonstrably untrue.
That’s why I think these videos are so important. It’s ordinary people speaking about themselves and their personal voyage of discovery. Maybe each of them will reach some people and make them stop and think again.
And as we all know, once you’ve taken the proverbial “blue pill”, there’s no turning back.
Albert Herring @ 10.31
While yer at it Albert, include Whitehall in that.
@ galamcennalath
I agree and like you say we’ll see on friday. As far as Scotland is concerned – we need a grand slam SNP if independence is to proceed on track
PS also agree with whoever mentioned above that Northern ireland had long sussed out BBC bias – it’s been a little less blatant since the Good friday/Belfast Agreement but it’s still there
In light of the Gaddafi Lybian ‘rebel’ UKGov connection, there was something I read on one of the links that suggests this is the real reason why the UK gov was annoyed by the quick leaks from the US of the perpetrator’s name as it scuppered the possibility of the ‘lone wolf’ narrative, as he was ‘known’ by both UK and US authorities. Think this has some merit, as it seemed an odd thing to do at the time, but still would beg the question ‘why’ US intelligence would scupper this narrative in the first instance?
K1 @ 10.47
It’s hard to see the reason the US would have acted this way K1.
But I would have thought it too is about this election and Brexit…. curiouser and curiouser!!!!
Quite so Liz!
@ K! who asked “‘why’ US intelligence would scupper this narrative in the first instance?”
US press got hold of the story (leak?) and published it on the grounds of freedom of speech
Why did the US intelligence leak the story?
Because they could?
Because the Trump administration doesn’t like the May administration?
Because they hoped to deflect attention to what else was going on in the USA? e.g. scuppering the Paris Agreement, Trump’s orthodox Jewish son-in-law being investigated for links with Russia?
I feel positive that independence is oors for the taking. The uk parliament is going apeshit. I said weeks ago that the tories want to lose,They know the games a bogey .Brexit fcuked the union and they are running scared. Look at their policies?? feck me WHO in their right mind would vote for that?? (brainwashed and rich ).
@RJS (10.39) –
Cheers for response.
Let’s wait and see how the landscape looks this time next week. Perhaps a few scales will be shaken from some eyes.
Here’s hoping…
Ben madigan @ 11.23
I don’t buy that this had any thing to do with freedom of speech Ben.
I suspect that the US media is as compromised as ours is!
That story got the nod from somewhere?,and,there is an agenda.
We will probably be able to work it out better if we find out whither or not the US actually wants us to Brexit.
Mibbi a tax haven UK is what some across the pond could get on board with???
And mibbi they didn’t want Brexit as they did indeed need a way into the EU through London.
Who knows!!but they are in this up to their ears.
Bob Mac this is why the UK turns a blind eye to Saudi inspired Wahhabism which is a global jihad. The Saudi’s were funding a Group of people in Scotland in the nineties who’s aim was to establish an Islamic Republic of Scotland, I don’t know if they are still in operation, they were based in a large Villa in Beauly , I spoke to some of them when they turned up at a post Bannockburn
March Ceilidh , they didn’t take kindly to my suggestion that they were barking up the wrong tree trying to gets Scots to become Teatotal. Additional to the U.K being a client state of Saudia Arabia US foreign policy supports Wahhabism over what they see as it’s main opposition in Islam Nasserism which to the yanks and the establishment is too socialist in makeup.
So does the UK clandestinely support International Terrorism? you bet it does, why we’re ISIS allowed to transport in convoy tankers full of stolen oil from oilfields under their control in Iraq and Syria to Turkey where it was laundered into the International oil market? One of the first things that Putin did when he based aircraft into Syria was to destroy these convoys
http://markcurtis.info/2017/01/22/how-the-uk-became-a-saudi-client-state-after-1973/
.
Robert J. Sutherland
Sorry to be pedantic Robert, but it’s the red pill.
As a handy reminder, a bluey is streets for a valley, AKA valium.
ergo blue pill = back to sleep.
Well worth a read and watch. G A Ponsonby has put together an excellent record of the lies of Ruth Davidson, aided and abetted by the BBC. Worth sharing.
http://indyref2.scot/ruth-and-lies
Words of rock solid common sense from Simon Pia “Never, ever vote tactically for a Tory”
If the Tory got in and May won a majority then you did that and there is no excuse…you are in that moment a Tory voter and the blame falls at your door.
Mentioned this afore, but did the late great Rikki Fulton not do a sketch about ‘The only tory in Scotland’? My how things change. eh?
K1
m.youtube.com/watch?v=mZE97pYI8dE
Davidson is determined to introduce Northern Ireland Unionist Party political thinking and activism into Scotland. She is a dangerous woman who will divide the nation and she is fully supported in the agenda for change by the Westminster Tory establishment aided by senior officers of MI5 and MI6.
I’ll update my blog providing the evidence.
https://caltonjock.com/2017/06/04/east-renfrewshire-the-constituency-linked-to-the-hard-line-unionists-of-northern-ireland-through-the-tory-party-i-expect-scots-in-renfrewshire-are-not-gullible-and-they-will-reject-paul-masterson/
K1
John Pilger
://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mZE97pYI8dE
@Dave McEwan Hill, 9.36, @galancennalath, 10.29, @Lizg, 10.38
I was wondering what was being acted out in front of us. Your comments have clarified the issue. Thank you.
“stopping Brexit to keep us” sounds right.
“we need to get out before they do actually get control of the internet or we will never get out”. I agree Liz
K1
Tried to post a link re the “Manchester boys” but disappeared into the either, I fear hammers are winging there way from Bath already. Anyway it was the renowned journalist John Pilger at http://www.johnpilger.com who spills the beans?
K1
are we doing summit wrong with the youtube links???
We’re into the final 3 days of GE17.
Don’t forget to turn your back on the Tories, Scotland.
“Now is Not The Tory Time” (tell it to a Tory.)
And never will be.
HOLD & GAIN.
For the SNP.
Capella
That’s a whole lot of lies !
Does any truth come oot o’ Ruth’s mooth ?
We’ll get there Cactus. HOLD.HOLD HOLD. Then we go. 😉
@ defo – Yup, Ruth tells lies. Sad.
But the BBC fails to hold Unionist pols to account. Lies and mendacity are to be expected from carpet bagger pols. But failure to challenge in a public service broadcaster is deplorable. That’s what makes the BBC a state broadcaster, busy spreading propaganda, rather than a public service broadcaster with a mission to inform.
Thanks to the internet and real journalists like Stu and G A Ponsonby and many others, these lies are skewered.
aye Capella. They are a public service broadcaster…
Serving the needs of around 0.01% of the public. And themselves. obvs.
Whilst, despite the marvelous viewing figures, WoS and the other good guys will never have the reach of Auntie and the rags, those of us who do get the message can do the rest.
Big phil it’s no k1 it’s me _ brain died!
A definitive guide to farming subsidy payments and the short changing of Scottish farmers by Westminster. When will they open their eyes to the rip-off being perpetuated against them by the Tory government and David Mundell
https://caltonjock.com/2017/06/02/election-hustings-angus-ms-hair-admitted-she-could-not-bring-forward-a-party-manifesto-for-discussion-of-policies-since-there-were-none-she-only-wanted-to-discuss-the-referendum-thats-it-folk/
@ Capella.
Agreed Capella but unfortunately the lies skewered are only seen by us that look for truth, the ones that need to see it dont. Its a sad fact.
@Lenny Hartley.
Im doin summit wrang tae, lol
defo @ 23:47,
Much obliged for that correction. I obviously need a memory upgrade as well… =laugh=
The point of the targeted subsidies is to help Farmers improve their land and methods to a point where they no longer need them. If they were allowed to reach their intended beneficiaries then they’d dry up in due time as the need for them diminishes. What’s been done is investment money being deliberately spread too thin in order that more comes in.
I’ve said this before the tories don’t want to win this election. They are long term strategists and they would like labour to win and then they can blame the whole mess on them. The EU ref was done to quell the tory moaners inside the party and it was a shock when the leave vote won. For the tories it is a win win – labour in and they blame them – tories in with big majority they can do what they like because Corbyn will be back in parliament with his sniping PLP who will want rid of him.
If labour get in it would only be for one term and the tories can wait it out and be in for the next 20 years and blame labour for everything.
Winifred, my thinking too – they want to leave the unholy mess of brexit/ Scottish independence to somebody else , anybody will do.
The smarm being used about Mr Corbyn now is in very sharp contrast to the spite and shite used before in the media.
Rats were never smelly unlike the sewers in which they operate.
OT Any good clips of the march ? Photos? I saw the Asian network report on youtube – a really good piece, apart from the title!
@ Gary45%, if U can’t stomach UJ’s on your strawberries/tatties etc’, don’t shop at Tesco who specify the packaging from the grower. Try Aldi or Lidl, I bought Scotch strawberries there yesterday.
The point of subsidies is to provide cheap food, if U don’t fancy cheap food vote Tory.
Is it not the case that both the government and the media are playing right into the hands of the terrorists by suspending the GE Campaign and giving saturation media coverage of the Manchester and London attacks to the near exclusion of anything else going on in the world?
Thatcher didn’t suspend or cancel the Tory Conference after the Brighton bombing.
While we want to be kept updated on the latest news re these heinous acts is it really necessary or desirable that bulletins are near 100% attack coverage with the same material repeated over and over again to the exclusion of anything else?
Not only that – programs are being cancelled and/or re-scheduled with little notice.
It is generally accepted that matters of law and order are Tory territory so it would normally be the case that the recent horrific events would favour them re the GE campaign.
Additionally, although there is no suggestion of government involvement in the attacks this latest one occurring when the Tory campaign is in trouble is convenient and making the most of it obviously distracts from the apparent collapse of the Tory lead.
Although it has been mentioned, the scandal over the Libyan connection has bee underplayed as has the massive cutbacks imposed on the Police (in England) and The Border Force. I suspect that once the election is safely out of the way all hell will break loose over these and the fact that May was Home secretary responsible.
And BBC Breakfast continue in the same vein – near 100% of the program is about the London attack while the rest of the world doesn’t seem to exist apart from sports news.
Links
http://indyref2.scot/ruth-and-lies
https://davesworld2017.wordpress.com/2017/06/04/why-we-must-vote-snp/
http://scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/yougov-contradicts-survation-by.html
http://rbs.postach.io/post/dire-prediction
https://grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com/2017/06/04/i-despise-the-tories/
https://mewsingoutloud.wordpress.com/2017/06/04/enough-is-enough/
https://tompride.wordpress.com/2017/06/04/terror-attacks-show-theresa-may-must-stop-cutting-our-emergency-services-to-the-bone/
Brexit: Lawyers warn of industry influence as EU ‘fundamental right to health’ set to be axed
http://archive.is/TqGF5
https://www.thecanary.co/2017/06/04/theresa-may-accused-politicising-london-attack-despite-suspending-campaigning/
http://evolvepolitics.com/watch-voters-outraged-tory-mp-tells-cornwall-hustings-shes-really-pleased-foodbanks/
http://boingboing.net/2017/06/04/theresa-may-king-canute.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/home-office-terrorist-funding-report-saudia-arabia-focus-not-publish-conservatives-government-a7766381.html
OT watching RT right now – our man in Samarkand doing well.
https://theintercept.com/2017/06/04/tory-uk-saudi-arabia-gifts-money/
Britain is being led to an epic act of national self-harm over Brexit
http://archive.is/W2k8X
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2017/06/04/austerity-has-been-a-disaster-imposed-by-choice/
GE2017: 7 simple lessons for understanding polls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI_Jqfh7J54
Nana: Good Morning. Thank you for Your links.
Kettle’s on! Peace Always
🙂
With a number of prolific liars in Scottish politics, perhaps a broad agreement about who is the number one liar in Scotland might help the electorate decide better who to vote for.
Candidates for the top liar rankings might include people like Alistair Carmichael, Ruth Davidson, the BBC, and Kezia Dugdale. But I’m sure there are others.
Good morning Smallaxe.
I posted a reply earlier, may appear later.
manandboy @ 7.58am
Scratch Dippity Dug from your list of runners for the Biggest Liar in Scottish Politics race.
To be a liar, you have to know you’re telling lies and Dippity isn’t that smart, or self-aware.
For me, it’s between Ruthie – who is not that smart either – and the BBC.
Morning reading sorted.
Ta Nana.
I was out most of yesterday so just catching up on thread. Some good interesting posts to be sure.
I think most folk know where I stand on NO to YES. My hand is always out is the short form, but just to be clear. We won’t right these wrongs and the greatest wrong of all done to Scotland’s electorate two and half years ago, without changes of heart and mind.
We won’t change those hearts and minds with constant recrimination and/or rage, but only with understanding and an open welcome.
People were lied to, deceived, made to fear for themselves and what they held dear. Their world views and old loyalties were manipulated and played upon relentlessly and ruthlessly in order to achieve a desired political result. Every dirty trick in the book was used across every demographic and focused on the most vulnerable in our communities. From young to old, poor to wealthy, Scots born to new Scot. They used their reach and the media to intimidate and instill fear across the board.
There are always those voters who won’t change. They’re just peachy with Westminster politics, their social order, their bigotries and their empire view of the world. That is their choice and they’re welcome to it.
It’s not us and it’s not for us.
So no. No recriminations. No blame game. No guilt trips for people who simply wanted to engage with the democratic process. They are going to be needed to continue to engage with that process after all. We may not have agreed with their reasons or reasoning back then, but we do need to understand and be absolutely clear on what drove it.
There is only one place where blame and guilt lies for the strategy used in that campaign and it’s not with the voter.
The same bastards are still employing the same manipulative process today and the stakes, if anything, are just as high if not higher. This vote on Thursday is about our democracy, our rights and yes, what kind of country we want to live in.
It doesn’t get much bigger than that.
We know what the Tories have done to people’s lives and what they intend to do with our democracy and our rights. We know that Labour in Scotland and the Libdems will act as willing enablers.
It really has come down to Scottish democracy versus the Tory system. It’s about who we are and who we want to be.
Don’t say you weren’t warned.
GYVO
Quelle Surprise… first caller to call Kaye is Dr Scott Arthur, No mention from BBC that he is a Labour Councillor.
Having to go out this morning so in a bit of a rush. Here’s a few more links before I go.
Farmers feeling increasingly gloomy about future ahead of Brexit, says NFU
http://archive.is/2Fx6s
Geez…
Tory Culture Minister was sent out to defend Theresa May’s cuts to policing. Listen. To. This.
https://twitter.com/ToryFibs/status/871623527434248192
John Pilger on the terrorist attacks
video here
https://twitter.com/RTUKnews/status/871449747910832128
http://www.politico.eu/article/schulz-to-trump-dropping-paris-agreement-means-no-trade-talks/
Great links Nana. Especially the Guardian’s Brexit self harm article.
I can see Corbyn actually winning this election. Pity he’s been such a duffer over Brexit. If he was to offer the UK a “get out of Brexit free” card, I think he’d be home and dry.
I tip my hat too to our resident cartoonist Mr Cairns. A few weeks ago I thought his cartoon with May and her blood soaked hands was a bit on the strong side, but now it hardly seems strong enough. Arms deals with Sunni Saudis who fund ISIS and bring terrorism home to roost, while simultaneously cutting the English Police to the bone, – and that’s to the bone minus VAT!
Maybe there’s an argument there for arming the English Police, if only to get a more lucrative arms deal from the Tories. A bobby on the beat armed with truncheon, pepper spray, a taser and a stand off drone strike of cluster bombs for failing to stop.
I have many regrets in life and now and then one of them surfaces to ruin my day.
The one consuming me today is the years I spent buying the bloody SUNDAY POST.
I won’t feed that rag ever again.
Just read the piece GAPonsonby has put up regarding statements made in the past few weeks by ruth davidson , the list goes to quite a few paragraphs of her total downright lies and she is getting away with wholesale lying on TV and radio , in fact the more she isnt questioned as to the validity of her bizarre comments the more ambitious she gets who in the media has the guts to call her out .
One small example when questioned on her boss down south not appearing on TV debates she said oh this is perfectly normal David Cameron never appeared in TV debates in the 2015 Election , is she having a f/kn laugh ,ponsonby them produces the photo of him on stage with the other leaders, this is total garbage .
Call Kaye call set up.
Why don’t SNP ask the the presenter to guarantee that the caller is not a Councillor or at least they declare an interest.
The BBC is biased.
May– she is the right leader to govern and protect the “nation”.
Is it me or is her record not very good? Reducing police numbers in England,.
Safe in her hands ? No.
Foolishly tuned in to Kaye Adams hoping SNP would shine. Very disappointed in Stewart Hosie, tho’ to be honest, Ms Adams was in full attack dog mode, interrupting, guiding the callers, etc.
I am not an MP but I knew straight away caller ‘Scott’ was Scott Arthur; why oh why did he not greet his call, saying, ‘good morning Dr Arthur’ and unsettle his carping just a little. Or remind him education is a devolved issue – this is a General Election.
Frankly, Stewart Hosie was far too polite against such biased interviewing. Did no one warn him what she and Radio Shortbread was like?
OT Curious to find out what the sudden antagonism to Quatar might be about, after reading Craig Murray’s new post, I had a look at their news website Al Jazeera.
So this interesting news programme provides the answer IMO, the war in North Sinai which nobody is supposed to know anything about.
First item though, is the corrupt, right wing British media, a 15 minute filleting of how the press and BBC backs the Tories and attempt to sideline Corbyn.
The Listening Post – British media’s coverage of Corbyn: Balanced or biased?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0_EdUH5Xn4
Oh aye, the police cutbacks being so underplayed that nearly everyone’s talking about it. ‘Hands off our armed police!’ cry hordes in unison, who a few months ago would have stood in shock if they saw some plods with G36s in their town centre poncing about like superheroes here to save us all.
Great care has to be taken with the recipe for public fear, where the aim is to have receptiveness where once there was hostility; a pinch too much of a particular ‘narrative’ can ruin the broth and easily lead back to hostility. The idea is now in the public imagination. Time to ease off. They’ll possibly accelerate the proposed ~2020 target for cops with guns and deploy the pretend soldiers ‘preventatively’ (in places that would’ve previously spooked the cattle, but now are greeted with a mere swish of the tail) with furrowed brow shortly after the election to much rejoicing, as people can be reassured white vans will be shot whenever spotted. It’s like a sort of somnambulant masterpiece of totalitarian Art being painted in front of our dopey eyes.
As I saw someone suggest yesterday – surely some metal bollards on pavements would be more effective.
Interesting reading the comments from those suggesting that the Tories are either throwing it or that the media have decided they are not to win.
Something that has to be factored into the mix here is much trouble down south if the stance on Brexit is seen to be softened (or indeed abandoned) by Leave voters down there.
If they are up to something, it’s a risky game to play.
Hamish100 says:
Good point. Letting viewers/listeners think people are ordinary members of the public when they are far from it, is underhand.
Did Dr Scott Arthur phone in and how lucky he was to be picked me or was he invited to phone in and was very lucky to be selected out of the whole population. Is it not the case the BBC check your phone number to see if you have been on the radio previously.
I think Kay with an e and her back room team will keep their mouths shut.
Phantom Film’s Indiegogo fundraiser reached £15,705 and met 92% of their goal. Readers of this blog have done well to boost the total in the past couple of days.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/journey-to-yes-film#/
Keep a sharp eye out, Theresa’s about.
Aberdeen looks likely, huddling in an Industrial unit, staff gagged & bound…
“Meanwhile Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson will campaign at a business park in Aberdeenshire, and Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale and East Lothian candidate Martin Whitfield will visit a lobster hatchery in North Berwick”
How typically shellfish.
Coat on. 🙂
http://www.midlothianadvertiser.co.uk/news/scottish-news/theresa-may-makes-another-bid-to-woo-scottish-voters-1-4466043
@Achnababan
Don’t worry about China, its a net food importer. Worry about competing with Kiwi and Aussie farmers. Hyper competitive without subsidies. New Zealand scrapped farm subsidies long ago now. Kiwi farmers are exposed to world markets. They make it work not with farmers markets but because whether it’s meat, wool, dairy, apples or kiwifruit their produce is marketed through cooperatives. Look up Fontera some time.
UK farmers should have all joined in cooperatives long ago. That is the way to deal with the supermarkets.
Some of the most marginal really high country hill farms are now becoming wilderness but more because they were renting from Maori tribal owners but only paying peppercorn rents (Central Govt rules prevented the owners charging more). That all changed, the Maori owners started charging market rents and a number of farmers walked off the land as it was no longer profitable.
Some of the land is being developed with a tourist market in mind. As the climate warms, rainfall being roughly equal, in time it may well become viable for sheep farming again.
But Kiwi and Aussie stock farms are huge compared to Scottish hill farmers. In NZ a crofter level farm is called a ‘lifestyle block’. My eldest sister and her family live on one on the slopes of the Taranaki volcano. Her husband works as a senior fitter. They have some drystock, chickens, pigs. One of my nephews raises chickens and sells them for pocket money.
Some of the technicians in the dept I did my degrees in had lifestyle blocks south of Dunedin. Small flocks of sheep, meat and wool, bit of milk for cheesemaking. Nobody in NZ would try to farm the size of land some crofters try to make work as a sole income stream.
Oops, it’s Qatar without a “u”.
Chilcott Report.
Panama Papers.
Tory GE2015 Fraud (except 1 sacrificial Lamb).
Leveson Inquiry 1.
All of the above forgotten about by the media and kicked into the long grass after absolutely no action taken.
Leveson Inquiry2 cancelled.
Fox Takeover of Sky – decision postponed till election out of the way.
Yesterday’s Sunday Politics was cancelled. Does anybody know who was scheduled to appear?
Given the proximity of thursday’s vote should that program now take place and be broadcast asap at a peak viewing time?
For those who dont know or haven’t heard of Mr S Arthur have a look at his u/tube channel, I would advise you wash or shower afterwards , he has this ability to attract every loon and demented unionist on the planet , the vile hatred of Nicola Sturgeon is present in every clip he posts , he seems to have a fixation with the SNP they are the only subject he post clips about, unhealthy and totally demented .
Maybe channels like his will be subject to scrutiny regarding Mrs Mahems latest comments on social media and u.tube , tough shit eh ,
Theresa May reported to police for breach of election rules.
http://archive.is/bkDDK
Story in today’s Herald about Ms Davidson and some difficulties she is having with the Perth constituency where Mr Wishart is standing. Sorry behind pay wall so cannot link. Story is buried in the paper.
The local Tory candidate is already an MEP. If elected as an MP then the next name on the list would fill his slot as an MSP but Ms Davidson wants to bypass this process and appoint her own candidate. Apparently the next name on the list has criticised Ms Davidson in the past. All came out in a leaked email.
Also the Tory candidate in the GE who is already an MEP is in line for a Holyrood seat as well! Nice jobs if you can get them.
Local Tory Association not happy.
Re the appearance (yet again) of Scott Arthur on their daily SNPbad phone-in aka Call KayE is it not the case that the whole point of the program is or should be an opportunity for members of the general public to question politicians?
Given the caller screening that EBC carries out one must ask how callers such as Scott Arthur manage to get on so frequently -I suppose the answer to that is bloody obvious.
Should it not be a rule that such programs exclude calls from any elected politician or political party office holder?
Such a rule would obviously not preclude our own illustrious leader Rev Stu from taking part if he ever manages to slip through the PQ screening net again.
Capella, re Qatar, see my post last night about the Saudi’s , given that about 90% of the population of Qatar are the same Islamic sect as the Saudi’s I wonder why the leader is supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Strange one, they will have to start doing what there told or their screwed.
According to a report I read today Qatar were not unfriendly with Iran. However no chance of alliance with Iran as well as different Islamic Sect remember the Iranians are not Arabs but Persians.
OT I caught a glimpse of The Herald’s letters page this morning. There were letters about the march surrounding a photograph but the photograph was not of Saturday’s march. It was from 2014 with people holding placards and the NO placards almost blotting out the YES. A 2014 photograph focused on NO to cover a 2017 event focused on YES – as an Alert Reader, I had to smile.
Did everyone catch the photographs of the march and the interviews with participants on RT?
I didn’t here ‘Call K’ but I can assure you, the Tories Broadcasting Co. was bending over backwards to sabotage Nicola on Woman’s Hour at 10.00 am this morning.
Have a listen but it comes with a health warning – mind you, It’s worth it to hear how Nicola deals with her.
Jane Garvey, named on this website before for her apparent Tory bias was spouting lies and bias disguised as questions e.g.
Why has your popularity tanked in the polls?
You’ve said you will go into coalition with Jeremy Corbyn if he wins.
If the three Unionist parties in Scotland get more than 50% of the vote on thursday, how can you justify your obsession with Independence?
Why is education and the NHS doing so badly in Scotland?
You want Brexit to go badly, you want a bad deal for the UK.
Nicola was great, polite and firm and most certainly won every answer but it was a travesty of an interview – more like an attempted character assassination.
Suffice to say Jane Garvey ‘got her arse well slapped and presented on a plate’ ( I think that’s the phrase)
Shocking bias from a supposedly impartial broadcaster.
They then had a contribution from Brian Taylor, who for once WAS impartial despite being fed a few questions which could easily have led him to praise ‘the opposition’. He actually pointed out that there is great confusion in Scotland about what matters are reserved/devolved and therefore which issues really matter in this election i.e. defence; pensions although he didn’t point out the BBC’s part in obfuscating these very issues.
Taylor also said that this will be the 7th vote in Scotland, voter fatigue could be an issue although he hoped not.
Good man, when asked he replied that we don’t think of our three main party leaders as women but as politicians.!
—————————-
Robert Graham:
Not sure why you suggest we look at this website if it is so bad, why don’t you report it to the police for hate crime?
(Also, has it occurred to you that not everyone reading this page is ‘friendly’ and you could inadvertently increase his following?)
Good video with short speeches from Tony Ben & Corbyn over the past 20 years on bombing ME
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV9gtyeMzQM
gus1940 says: at 11:18 am
“Re the appearance (yet again) of Scott Arthur on their daily SNPbad phone-in aka Call KayE is it not the case that the whole point of the program is or should be an opportunity for members of the general public to question politicians?
BBC should at least identify such as caller as a Labour Councillor as they are always keen to point out any pro Indy connections but not Scotland In Union propagandists.
Also as calls are screened how is it how he is invariably the first caller?
Dorothy Devine asked at 6:50am this morning:”……
OT Any good clips of the march ? Photos? I saw the Asian network report on youtube – a really good piece, apart from the title! ”
BBC Reporting Scotland Saturday teatime managed 22 seconds of reporting !! 🙁
Here’s the March and Rally as reported by RT TV. Two and a half minutes. LIVE !
RT Television:
http://tinyurl.com/yaaa39to
FILM. Independence Live,March and Rally Stream has now been Archived and placed on YouTube by a small dedicated group. Many thanks to them 🙂
http://tinyurl.com/y99cy5rx
ENJOY. 🙂
Dave McEwan Hill,
“They are certainly printed by the same publishing company – but then again so is the Dundee Courier and the Beano.”
In other words, they are printing The National to make money, not to support independence.
Hardly ever a strongly worded front page exposing unionist lies and atrocities.
About 8,000 Yes voters buy it.
Articles by Alex Salmond in the inside pages might make them feel good, but The National does not want them to be read by No voters.
If The National is hidden in the shops, it is on the instructions of its unionist publishers.
Call Kaye
I’m convinced people like Scott Arthur are tipped of in advance of the subject matter of this so called phone in.
Some callers have let slip that it was the programme that contacted then.
Thank you Rev, Hillary, Carey and all video participants-it breaks my heart for farmers.