Ticking off the boxes
Posted on
October 21, 2017 by
Chris Cairns
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21 10 17 08:57
Ticking off the boxes | speymouth
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23 10 17 10:45
New blog posts this weekend. | Aye Right Radio
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Brilliant. Well said, Hamish. My Cairnstoon book and Hamish pin came this week so you can add gloom to the free-from list.
…without Westminsterthe list is unlimited!
Love it and hope and pray that the last two boxes are ticked very, very soon!
‘Smack free zone’
About time. Never understood how folk could stick that stuff in their veins.
Well done Scotland.
P.S Could we also make it a BBBBC free zone?
Great toon again Chris, very apt. The sooner the last two become a reality, the better. I just love oor wee hamish.
I agree Dorothy, BBBC free zone would be great.
Funny but unionists are going to scrap all of it. Union jack free, soon.
Add ‘Tractor Free Zone’ to the list.
Brilliant.
Fantastic I’d love to see it in a Come to Scotland invite formatThanks Wings
Reluctant Nationalist says:
21 October, 2017 at 7:35 am
‘Smack free zone’
About time. Never understood how folk could stick that stuff in their veins.
Well done Scotland. Whooooaaa!
I think there’s more work to do on that sort of smack. But the sooner we get away from the total prohibition mentality the better.
The only winners from prohibition are the criminals and their money launderers in the ‘city’.
Westminster and the nukes will be going with Brexit.
England/Wales want to stand alone in splendid isolation, They will get their way. They have no one to blame but themselves. The Tory lowlife crap.
The Tories reprobates and the stinking Press are throwing good folk out of Scotland. Dirty bastards. How dare they do that to people. Stinking lying scum. With no empathy. What are the judiciary going to do about? To protect people’s human rights from this insane, warped Tory Gov. The Scottish Gov must put up a fund to protect these people and pay their expenses.
Wasting public money like there is no tomorrow. Trying to depopulate Scotland. Imposing illegal taxes on Scotland. 40% tax on Oil & Gas sector losing thousands of jobs and £Billions of revenue. Trying to illegally bring the Scottish economy down. Now doing it with the Whisky industry. Illegally high taxes not imposed anywhere else in the UK or the EU.
Westminster unionists and their cronies tax evading. HMRC not fit for purpose except to protect the tax evaders and their mates at Westminster. That is why they want out of the EU, To keep on tax evading. The EU is cracking down in tax evading by multinational corporations paying no tax. The Tories and their mates arevdefrauding the public purse at every opportunity. £Trns of debt making everything cost more. QE taking people’s income downl Contrsctong the economy.
Fallon is a dirty warmonger. An alcoholic. Just need to look at him. Alcoholics make poor decisions. Without proper total abstinence counselling. Cameron was on the booze and the take. That’s why he had to resign to cover up.mThe state of it. He caused Brexit. Now rewarded with a job in the City for helping out the moguls
Westminster should be drink and drugs tested before they are allowed to make any decisions. Fallon wants to start a war with. Russia. The unionists causing chaos and death in the Middle East and the rest of the world. Killing and maiming miliions of innocent people. Selling weapons to the Saudi to kill innocent people. Barbaric. The most absolute despot monarchy in the world.
UK/US causing the worse migration crisis in Europe since 11WW. Destroying the world economy. They want to walk away. Leaving the EU and others to clear up their mess. Not even taking in 30,000 displaced children who could easily be accommodated. It is just disgusting. No compassion. Yet they go to Church every Sunday. Claim they are Chrustians and renege in their vows. .
Brexit. The Tories will ‘negotiate’ less rights for more money. There is nothing surer. They are total ignorant incompetents. Starving people to death. Attacking the most vulnerable in the most brutal way. In a land of plenty. They just can’t get enough public money, to embezzle to line their own pockets, Lying about everything. Lie, after lie after lie. Disgusting parasites in every way.
The unionists politicians are complete, ignorant bastards. They haven’t got a clue, They can’t count or read a balance sheet. Wasting public money on grotesque projects of no value. That no one wants. Then cutting essential services that people need. Spending £Billions on HS2, Hinkkey Point, Trident and Heathrow. All a total waste if money. With far better. cheaper more cost affective alternatives, Cutting Education/NHS, social care, welfare benefits and all essential services. A total false economy. Starving people to death and killing and maiming millions. Ruining the world economy. Brexit. The Tory/unionist fail. Failure after failure. £Trns of debt. Making everything cost more. Total Wasters. .
Hope Hamish gets to tick those last two boxes real soon =)
And as you say Clootie, once we add Westminsterfree that list is unlimited!
This would make another good postcard Chris 🙂
Might you think about drawing us a Christmas or Seasonings Greetings card?
Labour MP Clive Lewis. Pissed?
‘Get on your knees bitch’ To an fringe audience member. Labour fringe conference event.
That’s what you are dealing with. He has been sited as a future Labour ‘leader’. Volunteers to fight in illegal wars. Vulnerable foreigners. Then gets depression. Obviously.
BBC free zone – yet to be ticked.
Despite all Scots living under medieval rule of BBC Scotland’s SNP bad, so stop voting SNP now, it ain’t working.
Hope beeb Scotland gimp network keeps up to date with current polls:D
http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/scotland.html
SNP 36.9% 35, forecast 40.0% 45
Come on planet toryboy, lets have another snap GE.
BBC free? Did I hear correctly Tompkins Tory being called out on “slamming” the SNP for a policy he supported in February.You could hear the other Yoons wooshing in to talk over who ever told the truth. (About 10 to nine)
Apologies to Dorothy Devine – you got in there first.
Says it all with dry humour and so try. Thank you.
Very nice, Chris.
That cartoon will make a good poster. I hope, sometimes against hope, we keep Scotland a democracy, for England’s influence is corrosive, meaning, we continue to share wealth in a strong welfare system where everybody benefits.
Your must not miss weekend reading:
No country is an island: http://wp.me/p4fd9j-kO4
Too serious to be funny:http://wp.me/p4fd9j-lij
Oops try should read true, total typo.
“Westminster Free” is the BIG box that needs ticking asap. Then the list will then be long. Much to get done in iScotland.
“Smack free zone”, you just know that the same people who want to be able to beat children will be those who oppose baby boxes and named person. We all know that most fascist thugs aren’t actually toothless knuckle draggers, they also come well heeled.
Can’t come soon enough Chris..
I don’t buy that it was a snap election heed it was deep state collusion and manipulation of a UK general election never seen before. Pre planned but not quite as successful as they had decided.
Wishart and Gethins just survived but they made the Tory boy loser a lord and wee Rennie was apoplectic that the plan failed to get Gethins he threatened court action, dunno what happened with that he was probably told to shut the fuck up.
We are in the fight of our lives against these bastards..
The SNP may have lost seats.
But there are people in all party’s that support Independence. Independence is on the increase and is the most important fact.
They might not shout about it, because the crowd they are in, but who cares, as long as they vote YES.
Croompenstein says:
21 October, 2017 at 9:25 am
Can’t come soon enough Chris..
I don’t buy that it was a snap election heed it was deep state collusion and manipulation of a UK general election never seen before. Pre planned but not quite as successful as they had decided.
Its fun to speculate all that but if it was a UK wide cunning tory stunt, it’s blown up in their smarmy tory faces completely.
They’ve given Corbyn’s Labour a very clear shot at government, when it looked all for them for a decade at least. Scottish polls today show us, despite relentless spectacular BBC Scotland SNP bad attack propaganda war on Scots, Colonel Ruth is probably not going to be the next Scottish First Minister.
Work to do, everyone in Pacific Quay. Is future FM Anas your saviour?
If only we had ticked the Westminster box in Sept 2014. We’d be out of it by now.
We would be doing our own thing and busy nation building. It wouldn’t be easy but at least any shit would have been our own shit!
We might have found ourselves like Ireland in the EU28, as it would have become, in Engexit negotiations. Putting pressure on on the rest of the EU to ensure the rUK comes up with an open border!
There would have been a political rearrangement in rUK. They might even have been spared Eng/Brexit, who knows!?
Talking of Brexit negotiations, clarity I believe. I paraphrase the EU …. “Agree to give us our €60billion by Christmas, or f.ck off!”
O/T some quality BritNat Trolling on BBC Westminster “Use of devolved powers in Scotland”
Tory and Labour MPs lying their arses off big time.
Excellent Chris, as usual.
I agree with others there would be many more ticked boxes if we could get shot of the bottom two, and definitely should have been an unticked box for the BBC.
Shereen …
BBC the usual labour yoon Harris ex labour MP and the usual suspects
Awaiting Harris to explain why a labourite should ignore Scotlands wishes to remain in the EU.
@Les Wilson says: 21 October, 2017 at 10:03 am:
Good one Chris.
Mind you it is not only Hamish that is ticking – so is the time bomb that is
BRUKEXIT.O/T . A oldy but goody .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OonR06Givtg&feature=share
UK free zone
What a day that’ll be, they’ll hear us cheering and greetin at the same time all around the world as we *TAKE BACK CONTROL*
Now you’d think the UK would like that phrase, but apparently only when it applies to English control
Tory []
Nice one, Chris.
Those last two?
The YES movement is on it.
Tory government free zone.
Austerity free zone.
Lying media free zone.
Please help make it true. Make Scotland Independent.
Great drawing Chris. That’s some list and I’m praying the last two are ticked off soon.
I admit to getting downhearted. One minute I’m up and the next I’m down, like Sandy’s puppet. Yesterday’s report of the American couple being told to leave Scotland had me in such a rage it’s a miracle there is any crockery left in my kitchen.
Equality Westminster style where the bigger partner tells us who can and can not stay here is an insult to us all.
OT I read in today’s courier that Harriet Harman has urged SNP MPs not to let “nationalism trump femininism” and vote in favour of changes to the rape laws in England.
What an absolute brass neck she has, this Labour hypocrite who as interim leader said in July 2015 that Labour would not vote against the Tory welfare bill and should not oppose limiting child tax credits to two children.
The only way we can be WM free is to persuade another 20% of Scottish voters to vote for Indy.
After 3 years of SNPbad and relentless MSM lies and deceptions we remain at 46% ish . So to move the formal NO voters will be tough. Maybe brexit will shift a few but we require a big shift.
They still believe the propaganda both Labour and the Tories spew even in the face of facts presented about the damage brexit will do. Farmers, Fishermen and businessmen/ women normally rational people deny it .
As Voltaire said “It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.”
You might need a longer board Chris.
John Walsh: “The only way we can be WM free is to persuade another 20% of Scottish voters to vote for Indy.”
20% is ideal, but we need only a swing for 5 or 6% from the 2014 referendum, assuming 52% is considered the end of the matter by those who voted NO.
By whatever margin we win it will take a generation – 10 years – for people to accept Scotland is once again a nation state, withdrawal from it unthinkable.
A Scot in Englandshire: http://wp.me/p4fd9j-kO4
OT, but a commenter on Munguin’s has proven something we had all thought about Douglas Ross…
https://munguin.wordpress.com/2017/10/19/all-in-this-together-aye-right/
Graun’s funny as ever today on its Scotland region, like nothing ever happens here, fair enough they’ve blacked out Clyde Shipbuilding getting UKOK reamed this but not even the rolling SLabour leader comedy show makes it to Graun news.
Instead, Scotland’s shite and Scots speak funny says the Graun,
“Anglophobia certainly exists in Scotland, and the “slightly posh-sounding English” that Dunlop says she speaks probably does make her inimical to the more bigoted nationalist. But in England too that voice has lost friends. Who wants these days to sound posher than the family they were born into?
Well, one man at least. How did Jacob Rees-Mogg come to sound as he does? “Top school” and “family background” won’t do as explanations. Etonians don’t as a rule drawl like that, at least not in the past half-century, and there are no dukes and earls in his lineage. His mother, Gillian, went to Camden School for Girls, a good grammar in north London, and then to secretarial college; his father, William, was born into the Somerset gentry and attended Charterhouse and Balliol College, Oxford. They met at the Sunday Times in the early 1960s, when William was the city editor and Gillian his secretary. A colleague at the paper, Hunter Davies, remembers William as good journalist (he later edited the Times): no drawler, but rather aloof and too work-absorbed to notice that his secretary was secretly in love with him – until, that is, Davies pointed it out.”
Ah the great brit journo, beloved and respected wherever they wander.
Am I the only person in Scotland that witnessed the unbelievable report from the BBC’s David Henderson on the lunchtime edition of Reporting Scotland yesterday (20th October) on the frigate story ?
In all my years this ranks as one of the Top Ten BBC ‘avoidance’ broadcasts, that is, avoiding the very simple headline that the number of frigates being built has been reduced.
It’s available on the Iplayer today until 13.45 then it’s gone forever, I can’t believe everyone has missed this and no-one’s talking about it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b098s0s7/reporting-scotland-lunchtime-news-20102017
glad when those last two boxes are ticked…love the comments about BBC above too
We’re gonna need a bigger white board, Chris.
On the BBC…just caught a snippet of BBC Shortbread in the car. Tom Harris, whom we kicked out along with the rest of the ‘Fucking Useless’ 41 (their own Shadow Cabinet’s description) seems to be a regular on BBC and Alison Rowatt the Brit Nat from the Herald were rabbiting British Nationalist New Labour garbage on a show hosted by somebody called Shereen…on Brexit..all agreed a Deal will be done that we can all be happy about..no mention of the 62% no mention of Scotland at all..what a wee Nazi styled Propaganda Unit for the British Nationalists the BBC has become.
I am enraged that this man Harris is getting an income from my TV licence money, to preach British Nationalism of the New Labour New conservative Tony Boom Boom variety.
Add ‘No BBC’ to the list, Chris.
That’s just a great image Chris. Can bedroom tax be added to that and a few other things that the ScotGov are having to mitigate for.
The things that people complain about, SNHS, even though it’s very healthy due to SNP investing in it. I talked to a very nice young guy other day who has just moved up from London, says he probably won’t go any ‘further north’ though. He reckoned the transport is crap for a start. Brand new to Scotland, but he loves it so far. Told him to get on a train, and go and explore. Can anyone imagine gojng to live in any country and saying, ‘I won’t be going any further north no though’.
It’s the way Scotland has been portrayed for centuries, scary, cold and wet with no transport. I suppose the britnats made sure transport was kept to a minimum.
Lots of work to do I reckon, many young people from over the border will be coming to Scotland.
Need a card to hand out with info on websites for news and info to counter the massive anti SNP, anti independence media that most will only see, or hear, if new to Scotland and they already have some fixed ideas about things from the media, where they come from.
Might make a card, for an artist group I joined and many from England. Great bunch of people.
Brilliant summary Chris, Thanks
Spot on again IMHO! _Beagan ri beagan dh’ith an cat an sgadan_ 😉
Brilliant Chris.
I would add ‘Cringe Free’ except I can’t decide if it needs to go before or after Westminster.
Brilliant as ever,Chris!Must get a copy for the staff room !
From one of nana’s Pages, a bit old but still relevant https://consoc.org.uk/publications/the-weakest-link-the-uk-governments-legal-argument-for-a-binding-referendum-on-scottish-independence-runs-counter-to-international-and-constitutional-law-by-matt-qvortrup/
Frack
Smack
Hack? [all britnat newspapers]
Famous15 @ 9.04 am
It was Andrew Tickell ( Peatwarrior ) who got spoken over / shut down by G Brewer this morning
What did we used to say A. Tickell > Good Guy , AT W@nk . GB W@nk
Another one could be ‘no sanctions’. No 6 week wait for some measly funding to cater for just th every basic needs that any human should have according to the Human Rights Act. We still have that in place, as far as I know, but the tories seem to think they have already scrapped it.
If only we had control over ‘welfare’. ScotGov can only mitigate so much, and with no powers over Universal Credit, ESA, Job seekers allowance, or Income support, or Housing Benefit, people are really suffering.
Signed a petition yesterday begging the UKGov tories not to introduce ‘welfare vouchers’. Yes, that has risen it’s ugly head again, stop the poorest having actual money. I didn’t know you could pay for the internet with vouchers, oh wait, slaves are not allowed such luxuries. The internet is a lifeline for many, and of course essential for even looking for jobs etc.
The Tory future UKok looks bleak indeed.
We could just have a big sign on the A1, Welcome to Scotland, we’re not England.
http://metro.co.uk/2017/10/21/pregnant-woman-denied-nhs-treatment-after-taking-polish-husbands-name-7016266/
You might want to add ‘personal responsibility’, ‘economic sense’ and ‘free speech’ to that list.
@Tackety Beets
Mr Tickell shot down Prof Tomkin just fine this morning using the same ammunition as seen on WOS much to the chagrin of Brewer who didn’t quite shut him down quick enough. 🙂
PS:
Shereen Nanjiani and guests rake over the old news on Radio shortbread ever Saturday! SNP bad too…Phtooey! 🙁
Ot I see the media are trying to decide if T? May is doing well in the brexit talks but she is a remainer how on earth can she represent the people who voted to leave I mean the tories won the g.e. They did not ask the parties who lost on to their cabinet to help to run things to me the whole thing is a farce the losers are representing the winners the losers sole purpose is to make it as complicated as possible and delay it as long as they can so that the bosses can keep paying low wages for as long as possible and to stave of a Scottish ref .2
Mr Tickell shot down Prof Tomkin just fine this morning
Hey watch it! That’s my Slovene girlfriend you’re talking about, whom I love very much, not just because he’s a really good kisser.
Adam Tomkins MSP?Verified account @ProfTomkins Oct 18
Why is the SNP wasting taxpayer’s money on a scheme that is prohibitively expensive and unlikely to work?
She’s says this about anything Scotland though.
Next tick is Royal family
@Aldo_macb 12:58pm
“Next tick is Royal family”
Agreed. Next tick after that is Lymes. [Keep the midges, though, just for old times’ sake]
O/T @ Croopenstien at 925 am
‘I don’t buy that it was a snap election heed it was deep state collusion and manipulation of a UK general election never seen before. Pre planned but not quite as successful as they had decided.’
The last GE caught me out. I thought the Establishment/tories were completely incompetent with their ‘no to indy ref2’ slogan and nothing else. How wrong I was. It was a clear cut, well thought out, executed, deliberate plan.
I suspect they are doing it again.
As soon as the terms of Brexit are known and NS fires the starting pistol for Indy Ref2. England will insist on a new Brexit Ref – UK wide of course. And this time they will win.
This gives the tories a legitimate out on their home made disaster.
It will split the Indy ref vote – what kind of EU membership do you want with your indy ref/devo max, vow under new management?
And as soon as England votes to stay within EU, all the conditions for holding Indy Ref 2 are null and void.
We need to keep doing what we are doing, its all good stuff, but we need to be the safe place for the voters. When all the bad news of Brexit is doing folks heads in, and they increase their project fear 2+++, we need to be the no brainer, safe harbour, common sense, no effort required, let just vote for them and get it over with party.
Putting this out there folks, for your thoughts.
@daisy Walker – that’s a very good point.
I would add “Tax avoidance free”
Very good.
At this precise point in time, I am genuinely not sure why your average reasonable minded every day Scot would vote against Scotland becoming Independent.
@ daisy walker
don’t think UK will get to go back in time with Brexit EU will insist on a new start with new terms creating even further upheaval, add to that the die hard UKIPER’s , another fine mess.
A reliable source has revealed that the BBC Scotland news department refer to their viewers as ‘the mushrooms’.
Daisy Walker
‘I don’t buy that it was a snap election heed it was deep state collusion and manipulation of a UK general election never seen before. Pre planned but not quite as successful as they had decided.’
“The last GE caught me out. I thought the Establishment/tories were completely incompetent with their ‘no to indy ref2’ slogan and nothing else. How wrong I was. It was a clear cut, well thought out, executed, deliberate plan.
I suspect they are doing it again.”
Too right, Daisy. No one in Europe knows what the Tories are up to – except the Tories, or rather the brains they hire for political strategy. I believe the UK Government is stalling for time while keeping the uncertainty pot simmering. From a Scottish perspective, this prevents the Scottish Government from forming an Independence Referendum plan based on Brexit facts.
With no hard Brexit-bad evidence to go on, the Scottish Electorate will be left completely undecided right up to the date for IndyRef, September 2018, too late for campaigning.
The Tories know Brexit is going to be a disaster, the details of which if known in advance, spells a near certain Yes vote for Independence, so by repeatedly delaying, May is attempting to run down the clock on IndyRef, forcing the Scottish Government to wait and wait and wait for bad Brexit news to convince soft No voters to change their minds, but which never comes – till it’s too late. In the absence of clear evidence that Brexit will be a disaster for Scotland, the soft No’s will vote with the status quo.
Or is there a simple explanation why the whole of Europe can’t figure out why the Tories are conducting Brexit in such a shambolic manner.
At the last GE, the Scottish Government were found asleep at the wheel and lost 21 MPs. By forcing the 27 to wait, wait, wait, the Tories look like they are trying the same trick, and inducing the Scottish Government to have another snooze.
Wake up Scotland, or you are about to lose your Independence.
Again.
ANOTHER Chris cracker , Hamish maybe a couple more boxes to be added e.g. tRuthie, twa joabs , queens eleven murdo, Brutish Bullshitting Corporation ,and assorted msm hacks , Davie tank top boy , and assorted PSB’s
Sing up…
https://imgur.com/a/4ENDZ
Towards the light…
https://imgur.com/a/KVuof
Daisy Walker
westminster calling euref2 is not beyond possibility
we need to keep our cards close to our chest, watch what happens, then jump to indyref2 within a very short time frame.
euref2 could trump indyref2 if remain won.
this is what we lost in sept14, we gave away the ability to decide our own destiny.
Proud Cybernat ,don’t think I have ever thanked you for those delightful cheer ups you continue to brig so Ta muchly!
Bring – obviously – I don’t have a head cold!
RT has Catalonia Independence march in Barcelona live at the moment.
Daisy Walker@1.16pm
I have been worrying about this for a while. I think the Tories have a long term plan to sink another Scottish Independence Referendum. I thought I was maybe going down the conspiracy theory road but I don’t think that Tories are as stupid as they make out they are.
We definitely have to be ready to do another IndyRef quickly, and be one step in front of the English Governments ambitions.
Manandboy says:
21 October, 2017 at 2:58 pm
Daisy Walker
‘I don’t buy that it was a snap election heed it was deep state collusion and manipulation of a UK general election never seen before. Pre planned but not quite as successful as they had decided.’
Always cautious about conspiracy theories, but this below makes pretty chilling reading…
http://truepublica.org.uk/united-kingdom/how-brexit-was-engineered-by-foreign-billionaires-to-bring-about-economic-chaos-for-profit/
Brexit engineered solely for profit seems a bit of a stretch if I’m honest, but Brexit for profit and the EU damaged in the process, and suddenly it doesn’t sound so fantastic a theory, bearing in mind the US concerns about an ever more powerful EU.
What makes it more credible is that Brexit winning the vote was not the predicted outcome, because a UK voting remain would have kept the UK’s thumb in the EU pie, but with a much more politisced far right, with Farage and UKIP resonating with La Penn in France, Gertrude Wilders in the Netherlands, and the ADP in Germany. That dynamic could have spelled potential disaster for the EU.
But they screwed up the Brexit Referendum by actually winning it, and were then caught isolated with their pants down when Wilders, La Penn, and the ADP were each thumped at the polls, and central EU solidarity actually grew in its reaction to the UK’s rather lonely exit.
Deeezaster. So, if such a conspiracy theory holds water, the “players” still need a UK collapse to profit from, but a Brexit which actually happens must now be made salvageable. It’s one thing to profit from a passing commercial downturn or collapse, but the profiteering element of the deal also requires a recovery, so the businesses you buy for a bargain price recovers to their true market value. No recovery, no payout.
A basket case UK however needs the loss of Scotland like a black hole in the UK Balance of Trade. There is a very credible possibility that the Brexit collapse will be so cataclysmic that recovery may be decades away, and post Brexit investment will be stuck with no economic recovery in sight, but an angry and mutinous population.
So, suddenly there is a lot of dark money being spent in Scotland trying to contrive defeats and humiliation for the wrong footed and somewhat complacent SNP.
But this dark money bid also failed. It punished the SNP yes, dented the momentum and confidence, but critically, it did not remove them from power. The cries of “No to a Second Referendum” only gives you a mandate if you win, but Ruthy blew it.
The worrying thing for Scotland, is that the UK’s fate outside Europe now seems pretty well sealed. The Dark Money is on its contingency Plan B agenda, and that means surviving Brexit, limiting the damage to the UK, and that very much means keeping Scotland on board.
We won’t be fighting Westminster next IndyRef, we’ll be up against something much more sinister.
Spain abolishing the devolved parliament of Catalonia at the stroke of a pen.
May and Corbyn watching closely to judge whether they’ll be able to get away with it too.
Good cartoon: Astute lampooning of the benefits of the Union
https://caltonjock.com/2017/10/21/shettleston-elects-tory-councillor-scottish-media-ecstatic-major-breakthrough-claims-ruth-davidson-and-her-acolytes-but-lets-look-at-the-facts/
Thanks Dorothy.
It’s a fun way to pass the time between now and Indy. We have to make the BBC in Scotland’s name mud; stigmatise that crooked outfit. Every little helps. 🙂
That is what I like to see, expose their next move, show them we know what they might be up to.
Vote YES, and be ready.
@ Jack Collatin 11.58 . “I am enraged that this man Harris is getting an income from my TV licence money, to preach British Nationalism ” .
Apparently not enraged enough . What are you afraid of Tangereen Jackie announcing your non payment on 6.30 NOT SCOTTISH NEWS .
DONT PAY THE BBC PROPOGANDA LICENCE FEE .
Here’s a link to a new Scottish broadcaster…
https://trulyscottishtv.wordpress.com/2017/10/21/13-days-in/
Ah fine cairtoon. Carter Bar, wuv wan fur ye.
Alang wae thoan Seevintae-fower, Ae Wan & Ae Seevin. Whit aboot, yoan wee rid-enn tae Gretna?
In reply to Breeks at 4.18.
I don’t do conspiracy theories either. But I do look at motives and follow the money.
In particular I no longer see Labour and the Conservatives as opposites, with separate agendas.
They are both there to deliver the same outcome, but with a different tune, tempo, flavour, depending on the mood of the public.
Big Tereeza and co, are not the ones in charge. I rather think they are the walking dead – all being left in situ at present as a great big smoke screen, while the power behind, quietly gets on with sorting out the direction the UK is going to go.
And they cannot lose Scotland – financially we are the UK’s powerhouse, outside the banks in London (and that’s funny money). We generate real stuff exports (booze) we generate a place at the big table (Oil and Gas) and with a renewable potential 4 times the size of our oil and gas industry – anyone who controls Scotland can extract full profit from the oil and fall back on the renewables at a later date (money in the bank).
Buggering up Indy Ref 2 is the number 1 priority of the establishment, in a way that Brexit (hard, soft or any other type) is not – they will make a profit from it one way or another, but they have to keep Scotland.
I’m putting this out there, so folk can think about it and be prepared. Indy ref 2 will also be Brexit 2, one way or another, and we need our messages to be tight. We still have a lot of people to come home.
If anyone feels downhearted by what I’m suggesting, please don’t, we’ve done such a lot of good work. This is just more of the same, but a bit more fine tuned.
We need to support this, and make it work
https://trulyscottishtv.wordpress.com/2017/10/21/13-days-in/
Daisy – here what you’re saying. But if Mayhem does not deliver the ‘will of the [English] people’ there will be hell to pay down south. And the Tories (blue & red flavours) will find UKIP breathing down their necks again.
Mayhem may well find some way to bring EUREF2 but I think it can only realistically be, at best, a vote on accepting/rejecting the BREXIT deal. And I am certain that they will ensure such a rejection in any EUREF2 will be regarded as a mandate to walk away from the EU with no deal.
But who knows.
At the end of the day, the YES movement must play to its own strengths and its own positive argument for constitutional change and care less about our opposition’s. Not that I think they have or have ever had any particular positives for Scotland remaining in the UK.
Interesting discussion over at Richard Murphy’s blog on defeating the tories. Developing well BTL. Disbelief though at suggestion of Labour celebrating tories winning seats in Scotland from SNP.
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2017/10/21/the-end-of-tory-rule-is-possible/
Anyone got any screen shots or articles confirming Labour’s glee at tories winning seats?
Daisy Walker says:
21 October, 2017 at 4:55 pm
In reply to Breeks at 4.18.
I don’t do conspiracy theories either….
I think we’re on the same hymn sheet Daisy.
One thing Im curious about is whether the “establishment” which writes the cheques for the UK, and survives the yang-yang equilibrium of Red Tories and Blue Tories, is the same UK establishment which has been running the UK for decades, or whether this reckless, feckless Brexiteering Dark Money “establishment” is the same establishment, or a cheap, loadsamoney nouveau riche alternative.
What I mean by that is that this Dark Money Establishment was perfectly tolerable when it was promising Dickensian values in the workplace, widespread deregulation and abandonment of social burdens like the NHS, in otherwords, Rule Britannia and happy times for the wealthy.
However I get a sense of tension, that this Dark Money Establishment has got Brexit very wrong indeed. It gave themTheresa May to be strong and stable. Oh dear. It promised Ruth Davidson could deliver Scotland. Whoops. Yes, we can divide the EU by appealing to individual national interests… nope. Bit by bit, the Brexit Dream has turned into a nightmare, it has made a lot of people very nervous, and put a vast quantity of UK wealth at high risk status, – and just as unforgivably, it has also been indiscreet in revealing its interference and influence. “That simply isn’t good enough dear boy….”
I wonder if we have one Establishment divided, or whether we are seeing two completely separate Establishments…
Look at Boris Johnson. I sense there are as many Tories who would see him strung up as there are who would thank him for Brexit. The Establishment has an identity crisis.
Listening to tonight’s BBC news it is clear that quite a lot of people will conflate the Scottish and Catalan situation.
It is time to make a lot more of Scotland and England being joined by the Treaty of Union and treaties can be broken. No better example than EU/UK. This is something I never hear from the SNP.
This might possibly stop uninformed people comparing Scotland with regions of England. An example this week was Scotland having the most potholes. I did not hear anyone say this was comparing an entire country with one third of the UK land mass with a region of England. In reverse a bit like saying England has more potholes than Aberdeenshire.
On the Treaty of the Union. most don’t know about it and we really need to ask why that is.
It’s the same as the lack of knowledge about Devolved and Reserved powers.
My own thought is that Scotland has been dominated by Labour for over 50 years, and like the oil story, it is not in their interest for that information to be known.
It was interesting hearing how the attitude of Gibraltarians changed in the !980s, after they stopped teaching British history and taught their own history.
Once Scotland becomes Independent, I want a full size poster with all those boxes ticked. For real.
Does anyone remember the last time a genuine unionist came here to state their case in a civilised way?
I’m struggling here…
Could it be that they’ve given up even pretending to have one?
😉
Magnificent. These Cairns’ are a talented bunch?
It’s Saturday night Scotland…
@Footsoldier 6.17
I make that very point whenever I can. We are not a region of England. The Kingdom of Scotland is an equal signatory with the Kingdom of England.
If either party decides to remove itself from that Treaty, the the United Kingdom ceases to exist.
Regarding pot holes, England fares no better than Scotland. I’m sure someone somewhere has some heavy duty shares in Kwik Fit lol!
Tommy Sheppard gave it big time to Stirling’s Tory MP at the debate on devolved powers.
heedtracker,
“Graun’s funny as ever today on its Scotland region, like nothing ever happens here, fair enough they’ve blacked out Clyde Shipbuilding getting UKOK reamed this but not even the rolling SLabour leader comedy show makes it to Graun news.
Instead, Scotland’s shite and Scots speak funny says the Graun,”
Guardian reader with a Slovene (ex?)girlfriend, how many people in Scotland read The Guardian every day?
I also want Scotland to be a Royal Family free zone.
I am sure even Ian Brotherhood would agree with me on that.
how many people in Scotland read The Guardian every day?
recently, stu put up an article about how many electronic visitors it had
guardian about 500k
daily record 500k
wings 325k
i cant remember the exact details but the guardian is popular online in scotland
@ frogesque – re potholes – I once heard a former roads man (must have been in 2014 when I listened to these programmes) explain to Kay-with-an-e that the reason the roads are so poorly repaired is that the Councils now use inferior and cheaper bitumen. Apparently, bitumen is a valuable product which can be separated into more valuable elements. What they use on the roads is cheap rubbish which crumbles in no time.
Mystery solved.
P.S. No idea who creams off the valuable bits.
schrodingers cat,
“recently, stu put up an article about how many electronic visitors it had
guardian about 500k
daily record 500k
wings 325k”
500,000 Guardian electronic readers in Scotland?
499,999 of whom would be No voters.
We are doomed.
@Rock –
To what do I owe this unexpected attention?
Have yourself a Rocktastic Saturday fella!!
😉
@Breeks whether ‘it is one establishment divided, or two entirely different establishments’
I don’t know but either way – the madness of Brexit does not phase them. They can make money from it – it will just be asset strip on speed dial, compared with the slower asset strip by austerity measures.
@Proud Cybernat, ‘if may does not deliver the ‘will of the people’ there will be hell to pay down south…
As more info comes to light about the damage Brexit will do, the opinion polls suggest that England would now vote to stay. If Scotland gets a second indy ref over it, they will actually have a democratic argument to a new Brexit ref.
I agree we Yessers have to play to our own tune, but we did that in the last GE. We will have to cover the same ground as we already are, but with different emphasis on certain areas, and Europe/Brexit will be in the mix.
If I am right about their tactics and they pull a new Brexit ref out of the hat to be run at the same time as Indy Ref 2, I want for us to be prepared, not sucker punched.
We need to be the boring, safe, sensible, practical, reliable, grown up ones, who will put the whole thing to bed for a long time. And we need to convince our pensioners.
Breeks, Indy Ref 1, and its immediate aftermath, were extremely badly run by Better Together. I wondered when there would be a change in tactics, and thought it likely they would close the tap on giving us stories to debunk on a daily basis. That was fun, that was entertaining, that was sport – think Murphy and eggs and a man in a chicken suite running after him.
They have stopped that and they won’t repeat it. Meanwhile TM and Boris and all, are their useful fools to keep us distracted.
As I said before, I’m putting this out there so folk can have a think, and come up with ideas. The last GE showed us how we can be caught out.
Anyway, wir no ca’d canny Scots for nowt.
O/T We’ve heard a lot of talk about Art.155 of the Spanish Constitiution and Rajoy behaving like Henry VIII with regard to Catalunya, but no one in the MSM seem to have provided us with a copy of the text to analyse. I now remedy this situation (in English translation) for any lawyers among you to sift through.
“Article 155
1. If an Autonomous Community does not fulfil the obligations
imposed upon it by the Constitution or other laws, or acts in a way seriously prejudicing the general interests of Spain, the Government, after lodging a complaint with the President of the Autonomous Community and failing to receive satisfaction therefore, may, following approval granted by an absolute majority of the Senate, take the measures necessary in order to compel the latter forcibly to meet said obligations, or in order to protect the above-mentioned general interests.”
LATEST: Catalan President Carles Puigdemont says Catalonia will not accept Madrid’s plan to curb the region’s autonomy.
In a statement, he described the imposition of direct rule as the worst attack on Catalonia’s institutions since the Franco dictatorship. (Statement made @ 8pm tonight, UK time.
(PS I have been following the Plaid Cymru Annual Conference. Cheers to Tommy Sheppard for his visit and speech.)
Ministers ‘could reduce Universal Credit waiting time’ following outcry
Ministers are ready to reduce the waiting time for Universal Credit (UC) payments from six weeks following an outcry from Tory MPs, it has been suggested.
Did Ruth Davidson lie when she was on the Andrew Marr program
@ Welsh Sion . Another anti climatic statement from Puigdemont the Catalan Parliament will be closed down before he declares Independence , people in Catalonia will be frustrated by his wait & see attitude .
Belatedly caching up on today’s thread. The discussion around a scenario of a re-run of the EU referendum for the UK is very important in the context of planning for an Indref2. Thanks Daisy at 1.16pm for raising it.
A second EU referendum for the UK remains at least a possibility, and may become more probable if the BREXIT negotiations continue to be a mess, and the UK ‘elites’ (the ones with ‘skin in the game’ financially) and their media allies come to the view that what the UK is facing – no deal or a ‘hard’ BREXIT – because of how negotiations are being conducted by May’s government, is not anymore in their financial interest. When the prospect of a hard BREXIT is coupled to the risk of the break up of the UK following an IndyRef2, this will surely focus the mind of powerful parts of the British ‘establishment’ which have so far remained fairly quiet in the hope that the worst of BREXIT would be mitigated by sensible, competent negotiation. That is becoming a forlorn hope.
In my view, the Scottish independence movement (and the SNP) at this time lacks a well- developed, publicly promoted narrative other than the one linked, in one way or another, to BREXIT. As such, any course of action here over the short to medium term is vulnerable to being out-flanked by what the Tory government may, under behind the scenes pressure, decide.
@Welsh Sion
From that A155: “take the measures necessary in order to compel the latter forcibly to meet said obligations, or in order to protect the above-mentioned general interests”
That’s vague, and non-specific, so it seems to me the general principle in Law of “proportionality” would apply, or should if taken to any relevant court.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportionality_(law)
The question then would be, are Rajoy’s actions “proportionate”?
Personally I’d say no, no they’re not, they’re over the top.
Back to the pizza break from website work 🙂
@Daisy Walker –
Love yer posts because you are asking us to get ‘back to basics’ (that phrase should be reclaimed from the Tories).
Here’s my tuppence-worth…
I would like to see Elaine C Smith heading up Yes2 and Lesley Riddoch organising the media strategy. I know the whole ‘positive discrimination’ debate is a toxic one, but this is purely pragmatic – even middle-aged white men like me are getting properly fucking fed-up seeing other middle-aged white men deciding stuff. Some of the best moments in recent UK politics have featured women making a total arse of guys. (NS vs Carmichael and Sarwar, Wood/Lucas/Sturgeon vs Paul Nuttal…there will be other examples some may want to remind us of.) It’s ‘pragmatic’ because Scottish society is, I feel, a lot more matriarchal than many are prepared to admit, and if the ‘mother’ in a household suddenly stops buying the Daily Mail and voices criticism of Tories, you can be sure the man of the house will take note. (I’m really trying to avoid stereotypes here, but am basing these conjectures on people/families I’ve known.)
As a former SSP member I’d love to see Colin Fox step down and make way for someone fresh, female and older – someone who has the confidence to sever all ties with RISE, apologise for the strategy adopted post-indyref1, and reassert the party’s own independence (a minor aspect, aye, but important to folk like me and we were widely acknowledged as very good campaigners). Characters like Jonathon Shafi and Cat Boyd are, intentionally or not, extremely divisive. This is just a wish-list, aye, but I might as well add that I’d love to see Tommy Sheridan just call it a day – I know that will upset some, but he’s become a real liability. The original aim of the SSP was to unite ‘the Left’ and it managed to do that – no mean feat! The sad truth is that TS has, in the past decade, done more to divide the Left than anyone and it’s pretty clear that he’s never ever going to repair the damage. The guy is personable, charming and still relatively young – he can forge a fresh career.
Last thing on my list – I’d like to see Nicola Sturgeon going back to the formula she used in the early stages of the indy1 campaign – ‘we can, we should and we must’ (get independence). That was the basic skeleton she used for a long time and it was very effective. (The leaders of the other indy-supporting parties could easily adopt the same framework and customise it.)
“We can/should/must…can/should/must…can/should/must…”
The only way we’ll ever get through to older voters is by keeping the message simple and repeating it until we’re blue in the proverbial. If anything, Brexit has given even more edge to the ‘must’ part i.e. the most important bit – only the most thrawn characters can now adhere to the BTUKOK line.
That’s me done Daisy – none of it’s intended to irk anyone and it’s all heartfelt. I hope you get much more feedback – perhaps even some from Scottish Tories!
😉
“The Spanish government will take control of Catalan public media in order to ‘guarantee accurate, objective and balanced information’.”
Just like that nice accurate, objective and balanced BBC, eh, Rajoy?!
Guardian reader with a Slovene (ex?)girlfriend, how many people in Scotland read The Guardian every day?
Probably about 3, Rock.
But that doesn’t prevent Severin Carrell being wheeled out by beeb Scotland gimp network, as just one of their UKOK talking heads, to explain how shite Scots are without or because we no longer vote red tory.
Its noteworthy that stinky olde Graun’s hammer of the Scots is visibly ageing by the UKOK day. Karma and hard work going through every single news thing about his Scotland region and then not printing anything.
The same people who get hysterical if a BBC journalist is accused of being a little biased are nonetheless happy to support the Spanish government in taking control of the entire Catalan public media! It’s difficult to think of a more appalling example of double standards.
Been thinking about it over my pizza, from that wiki article about proportionality:
““In European Union law there are generally acknowledged to be four stages to a proportionality test, namely
1 there must be a legitimate aim for a measure
2. the measure must be suitable to achieve the aim (potentially with a requirement of evidence to show it will have that effect)
3. the measure must be necessary to achieve the aim, that there cannot be any less onerous way of doing it
4. the measure must be reasonable, considering the competing interests of different groups at hand””
The highest court in Spain as a member of the EU is the ECJ (CJEU), same as it is for the UK. I think Puigdemont has played it straight, apart from the Referendum itself perhaps. But he has correctly suspended UDI.
And that Rajoy through arrogance is playing it wrong. Which means that if Spain actually proceeds to close down Catalonia, the Catalans must take it immediately to the ECJ, as personally I think Spain’s actions actually fail all 4 tests of proportionality, as it’s unlikely even to work at all, even short term let alone long term. In any case an initial submission should be able to make it clear there’s a case to answer on that test, which I presume is buried somewhere n the Lisbon Articles which Spain has signed up to and ratified.
And as far as I’m aware, the ECJ could hear an appeal for an interim interdict which means Spain would have to desist until the case was heard. It could of course refuse to accept such an ECJ ruling which means it’s out of the EU immediately, with no deal.
But who knows, IANAL.
I think some of the hidden details of this report are going to be interesting.
http://archive.is/BZ7H8
A no deal Brexit will cost Bristol and Aberdeen about £4billion over five years, The first thing to point out is that the population of Aberdeen is half Bristol’s. It suggests Swindon will lose £2billion yet it has a population similar to Aberdeen. Therefore Scotland is being hit harder.
It also suggests a Norway style agreement would cost over half of a no deal exit! So, at best it’s awful, at worst it’s an utter catastrophe.
UK five year cost of hard Brexit will be £430billion. This article doesn’t give Scotland’s share but presumably the full report does. £10billion+ a year out of the Scottish economy, I’m guessing.
We do want to jump over their cliff, and even Norway style sucks!
I said “ It could of course refuse to accept such an ECJ ruling which means it’s out of the EU immediately, with no deal.”
That’s not true of course, it would be suspended from voting meanwhile. But I couldn’t resist a bit of viciousness 🙂
@ Ronnie A
Beginning to wonder if he is really prepared to fight for what he believes in or if there is an element of doubt creeping in with more than a passing thought toward self preservation.
If so, it’s not right to have put the good people of Catalonia in harms way like that. They stood up peacefully against significant levels of state sponsored violence to express their will on the understanding that, their will would be respected and acted upon by their own leaders.
It’s easy for me to stand on the sidelines and say that ofc but, I do wonder if he has the cajones to see it through. I sincerely hope I am wrong on this.
Anyway, it’s all (Sir) David Murray’s fault. It was he who let the cat out of the RFC bag about the systemic corruption of The British Establishment.
It’s annoying when certain parts of the media refer to those who voted Remain, and still retain that viewpoint, as REMOANERS.
I was trying to think of a suitable derogatory name for those who voted Leave. LEAPERS, perhaps. Those Hell bent to leaping of a cliff!
In Scots they would of course be LOUPERS, which carries it’s own appropriate double meaning.
Whaur’s ma jaikit?
@WW
If he rushes about like a frt in a thunderstorm, it won’t achieve the aims. What he is doing is let the other side make mistakes, and they’re doing that in abundance.
Sometimes non-action is absolutely the correct thing to do.
@me at 10:21
Just realised louper is French for …. to miss, to flunk, to mess up, to screw up
🙂
@ YIR2
Totally get where you are coming from and fools rush in as they say.
Let’s hope you are right.
In Catalonia Puigdemont does not have the vote. A third+ support Independence. The turnout is 30% to 40%. That is not a majority.that is needed for the Independence vote. Under Spainish Law Rajoy is acting legally. In Spain they put people in jail. If they break the Law. Bankers, the head of Bsnkia etc went to jail, lawyers, politicians, Royalty. They charged the King’s sister and brother in law with corruption and property fraud. Over property deals. He got convicted? Rajoy has been accused of corruption receiving illegal payments but they could not make it stick. There is a political fraud scandal every other week. The Spanish despise the politicians. They supported it when politicians and others go to jail. It should be a deterrent.
The Spanish Gov will have to work out a settlement eventually. They will not want bother to administrate Catalonia. It will be too much trouble, fuss and bother.
this is good..unbiased in-depth reporting on Catalonia
http://tstvscotland.weebly.com
Sky News Review again perpetuating the myth that Scotland is a subsidy junkie compared to Catalonia which makes a positive contribution to Spain’s economy.
Really love the cloud behind the sign, it gives the drawing a great sense of depth. That’s the mark of a true artist.
@ K1
Not sure where they got their stream from earlier but, I watched Puigdemont’s statement on there and there was some halfwit Yoon guest offering totally one sided analysis and it was not favourable to Catalonia and it’s people.
I know that is not the fault of the folk behind the channel as they have to work with the hand they are dealt but, still…
Sky News Review again perpetuating the myth that Scotland is a subsidy junkie compared to Catalonia which makes a positive contribution to Spain’s economy.
Yes but that endless scrounger Scot stuff, so deeply cherished by England shuts down comparable “selfish” Catalan style monstering of Scottish independence.
galamcennalath @ 10.03pm
Thanks for the link to the London Schools of Economics analysis of the economic cost of BREXIT.
As the evidence of a very substantial economic ‘hit’ on the UK (and Scottish) economy from BREXIT emerges from such independent sources, there must come a time (and soon) when this negative impact on Scotland’s economy and people, COMBINED with the leverage of Scotland’s democratic vote to remain in the EU, converge and together make for a wholly justifiable, compelling case to go for Indyref2. In 2014, Better Together played the supposed negative economic impact ‘card of a Yes vote’: now is the time to beat the British Nationalists at their own game.
The case for independence goes far beyond short/medium term economic performance in my view, but tactically the merits of the Yes movement and the SNP/Greens ramping up the profile of the evidence on the economic costs of BREXIT is appropriate at this time, and necessary. We need to be on the front foot rather that wait around to see what emerges from UK-EU negotiations.
@WW
I hope so too. But he seems to have made all the right steps so far, and has the movement behind him, able to hide away huge piles of ballots, play dominies for heaven’s sake when the guards burst in.
Like us though, he too has his impatient elements he has to keep happy 🙂
Not sure where they got their stream from earlier but, I watched Puigdemont’s statement on there and there was some halfwit Yoon guest offering totally one sided analysis and it was not favourable to Catalonia and it’s people.
There’s a new Beeb r4 news gimp today hosting their vote tory PM show today, interviewing a pro Catalan activist who got completely monstered by this very angry beebster.
Its worth a listen to, if you’re into that kind of tory BBC England fury at the “separatists” of another country.
The Catalan is called Castro too. She wasn’t that great, keep it simple is the way, when you’re in the beeb gimp line of fire.
@ galamacennalath Ref Louper
Twisted for a minute , then remembered as we approached puberty we discussed “Loupin dykes wi wer faither”
@YIR2
The Dominoes moment was first class.
Sometimes, I am the impatient element 😉 but, at the same time, I do understand that there are times when it is necessary to play the long game to reach our desired goal.
We’ve waited a lifetime after all, what’s another couple of year?
@Ken500
“In Catalonia Puigdemont does not have the vote. A third+ support Independence. The turnout is 30% to 40%.”
That’s just plain wrong Ken500, the turnout was 43% = 2,286,217 votes, plus 700,000 seized ballots. Of the total votes case including blank or invalid ones, 89.4% voted YES, that’s 38.5% of the whole electorate, and we don’t know how many of the 700,000 might have voted YES, or how many YES voters stayed away completely.
I wish you’d stop repeating wrongness about the Catalonian referendum. If you’re going to do it, stick to reported information, supervised by teams including from Scotland, including from our YES.
@ Heed
Liz Castro??
OT
Russell Howard on STV Woss saying the BBC try to censor what he says.
Scotland is already suffering from Westminster rule. Even without Brexit. Scotland is losing £20Billion a year. In lost revenues etc because of Westminster interference. Scotland will lose £8Billion+ lose 8,000+ jobs. Aberdeen/ NE already mismanaged by unfair Tory taxes will be the most affected by Brexit. £200,000 gained from fishing industry? will not fully compensate. Despite what some techters believe, Dumb fecks.
Scotland has lost over 4Billion a year in Oil & Gsx revenues. Tory tax 40% since Jan 2016. Higher before when the price had fallen. Scotland lost thousands of jobs. More Oil & Gas has to be imported. Fracked Gas from the US. Gas from Norway. putting up the balance of payments and the debt, Westminster ignorant low lives caused exploration and production to be cut because of too high taxes when the price had fallen. Less profits to invest. The last seven years since 2010 they have run down the industry. They haven’t got a clue. Simpletons.
Scotland has to pays £Billions in debt repayment in money it hasn’t borrowed or spent. Westminster spends it in the rest of the UK. On the accounts there is £9Billion of unexplained expenses. Why are these expenses unexplained? The reason accounts are done is to identify expenses. False accounting. Illegal methods. £1Billiin on Trident. £3Bilion? In tax evasion. Whisky companies etc making vast profits pay no tax. Scotland can’t borrow £6Billion? to invest in the economy. Scotland loses EU investment grants renewables etc because of Westminster indecision. Scotland receives the lowest CAP payments in the EU as part of the UK. Westminster took extra CAP payments made to Scotland, to adjust for the situation. Then gave then to wealthy farmers in the south.The minister said BT as he was doing it. A SNP, LibDem and Labour? MP we’re telling him not to do it. He just ignored them. Stuck up, cocky freak.
It just goes on and on.
Robert Goodwill (migration rep) who is illegally chucking people out of Scotland. Robert Goodwill was the Minister (Transport) who refused an Inquiry. when helicopters were falling from the sky killing people in the Oil industry. 2009. Helicopter companies were breaking UK Health & Safety Laws.
There was a cover up. Aided by BAA? led by a helicopter training pilot. Even though the Westminster transport committee agreed there should be an Inquiry. The helicopter owners sold up two years later for £250Million. The make of helicopters were subsequently grounded after two further crash. One in Norway. When the crashes happened. The authorities blamed the workers. They said they had to sit beside larger windows and lose weight. So they could get out in time if there was a crash? Not blame the Company for not leaving a paper trail for maintenance matters as required by Law. The faulty helicopter would have been grounded. A subsequent Sherriff Inquiry in Scotland established the facts of what happened by giving immunity from prosecution to the (guilty) witnesses. No sanctions.
I think indyref2 mandate has already been implicitly linked to brexit. Be pretty difficult for SNP to justify if the genie was put back in the bottle.
Of course the SNP could stand in 2021 to have an unconditional mandate for indyref2. Best thing to do meanwhile is to keep building the country we want albeit with the limitations placed upon us by WM. We Need to be innovative.
Give me back my whisky 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVvkZ_6TQMA
From his “Hell No I ain’t happy” gig. He switches from stand up to Otis Lee Crenshaw and band about 42 minutes in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okyr8XzhjzE
One of my all time favourite comedy gigs and worthy of sharing for those that have not seen it and need a good laugh.
Enjoy 😉
Sorry Stu.
Last post was for off-topic. 🙂
William Wallace says:
21 October, 2017 at 11:11 pm
@ Heed
Liz Castro??
I dont know. Its on iplayer though. I’ve not heard the BBC news caster before but she was pretty amazing, if you’re a tory, and if she is new, it is her first time filling in for Eddie Mair.
Its likely she’s a BBC World Service big hitter though, that crew are the most ferocious tories around, even for the beeb, its a great nursery for London tory beeb hatcheteers.
I think one of the biggest issues behind the seemingly low Catalan ref turn out was the real threat of police violence.
You only need to see how our resident yoonster and fear monger Rock, jumped on it all to threaten Scots with the same level of violence from the British state, actually Rock the roaster threaten Scots with much much worse.
More broadly, you can see how britnat culture in Scotland and England is also wrapping up Scotland and Catalonia together, with the same style of fear mongering.
I’ve seen riot cops in action in central London as far back as the Thatcher poll tax riots. These guys do not take prisoners.
@ K1
I’ve seen riot cops in action in central London as far back as the Thatcher poll tax riots. These guys do not take prisoners
Me too and neither do we 😉
All we have to do is undo 😉 Our situation is entirely different.
Head!ing HOME..
It’s raining Glasgow.
Xx.
Ken500 at 10.32
Independence support in Catalonia among Catalonians is at about 70% and almost total among the young Catalonians.
@Cactus & WW –
Half-cut here.
Ah hear Edwina Currie on the fuckin radio, but ah don’t hear Smallaxe.
It’s a strange one, eh, when ye’re an atheist but ye find yersel prayin?
yesindyref2 at 11.10
Well said. We had meeting on Thursday night with folk who had been in Barcelona and Tarragon for some time. The only significant level of opposition to independence in Catalonia comes from the Spanish incomers (and even some of them support Catalonian Independence because Spain is deeply corrupt). The huge anti independence rally held in Catalonia was dominated by Spaniards because the Spanish Government gave free transport across Spain to anybody who wanted to go to that demonstration.
The reason Rajoy is stopping a democratic referendum is because he knows he will heavily lose it.
What our contacts to Catalonia found most moving was a huge crown in Barcelona singing Flower of Scotland and then singing a song about “Trish Marwick”. What they found most disgusting was the Spanish para military thugs breaking all the fingers on one hand of a woman who had dodged through them to vote.
We are organising twinning with some Catalonian organisations.
@ Ian
Welcome aboard the night train brother 😉 Get it on with Rich Hall and Otis Lee and let’s fkin laugh our way to Independence with our own occasional comedic interludes 🙂
One Scotland, One Catalunya, One love and all our love to the mighty sma axe.
Peace to all the wingers, peace to all Scots and peace to all the world 🙂 😉
Eh’ll drink tae that.
@Dave McEwan Hill
I read that David Cameron was a hero in Catalonia because of the Edinburgh Agreement and our Referendum.
Imagine that!
Aye ahm HOME fellow IBro ~
Has anybuddy seen the other side of this board…
ZONE.
They ain’t free.
Cheers Chris.
Tick-tick.
Dave McEwan Hill @ 00:18,
Saw a news report @ 23:00 on Euronews covering both sides fairly, but when the Rajoy part came on latterly, ach, I was back to shouting at the telly again.
I guess one paradoxical advantage the Catalans have is the sheer rigid intransigence of Rajoy & Co. – it’s a futile haughty throwback to the beginning of last century – and it’s so spectacularly counterproductive for his Unionism.
As far as Catalonia is concerned, his regime is metaphorically cutting off the branch it’s sitting on.
Scotland’s Hamish looks cool as fuck.
Check his Elvis frontal quiff out!
Rarrrrr.
This is radio Scotland.
William Wallace
passing the mic
to the guid auld cactus
through the night 😉
How’s them
BRUK EXIT talks gaun PM TM?BRitain is of the land only, not of politics.
(we’ll sort that out too)
Update PM TM…? transparency.. nae chance.
The EU will enlighten us.
What’s happening People of Catalonia? ~
Ye aweright?
Ffs Rahoy, quit being a dick, Catalonia knows…
Tick-tick.
Nae bather Cactus.
Eh’ll lead iy
You dae what ya want and sling iz the dinghy ya dick 😉 🙂 … 🙂
(been buzzin’ aboot on aff-tapic and other…)
Cool man Wallace, haud the stage, ahm still warmin’ up.
Get a wee hauf doon ye!
n get it up ye!
Ya dick!
🙂
A wee hauf ffs 🙂
Best radio hand ower ever and you drapped the mic ya fker.;) Eh’m fkin blootered and waiting to pass the mic to a mair capable compere.
Love ya Bro
It’s your show
the night is young
Let’s fkin go !!!
Ra boys urr back in the tongs.
FUCK you ya dick, TYB. 🙂
Love Scotland.
An howsabout dem boxes.. you may tick em.
Love William Wallace an all he has done for us.
and where we are at now!
Tick.
Tick.
Cumin or comin’ soon all over a country near you.
Smile.
That’s the normal happy reaction.
That sounds spicy!
Be free.
Give us the call when we’re ready WW.
14 / 17.
A toast to the People of Glasgow ~
We are amazing.
We are the key.
To free.
ACG.
Where are we now
Cactus ye say
Wir embracing comedy
what else kin we dae?
Here hiv we been n
wiv been waiting ah night
fir you to appear
and tak up the mic 😉
The show is ah yours
and o one thing em sure
yir a legend amongst many
and yir legend endures 😉
So here is the mic
and let it be known
that you speak for all Scotland
and Yir seed have you sown.
So as eh freestyle
wi a a couple o lines
let me say to thee
that eh consider thee fine
A man of all conscience
and an intelligent word
A man o wir country
that needs to be heard
You are like a brother
and I love you like ain
a credit to all Scotland
wha’s like ya but nane
Peace, love and unity
Meh time is dane… 😉
If eh write any mair
Eh’ll go fkin insane 🙂
A toast to the People of Scotland ~
Keepin’ it real.
Scotland.
Glasgow.
Perth.
Rhu.
YOU!
Tick-Tick.
Tock not required.
Wales doesnae even get a menshie!
Good Wiiliam Wallace.
Ahm humbled.
Anyone who comments here from now on in..
..is a catalyst for change.
Be passionate.
Be you.
Le poetry is bon.
Ffs William Wallace ~
Just read urs about another 17 times in a row…
Cheers bro…
Same tae u.
Wae love,
Scotland..
We.
Own.
Midnight.
Never forget that fact, now is later.
Welcome to Scotland.
You should.
X X
X
X X
Any questions?
Welcome to Scotland.
Come and join us.
Quickstep.
Tick.
iScotland never sleeps.
369 days a year.
Questions?
All is 🙂
Aye.
Gies a shout when ur guid Smallaxe… Ah’ll jump a train over tae G a gain.
I drank two German wheat beers tonight.. one of the emblems was a picture of two smallaxe’s, accompanied by the numbers next 14 & 17, on a cool dawn blue background.
Herman Pschoor or something.
Tick two.
@WW, dude 🙂
Yeah, somebuddy said it earlier…
A1 size earlier.
Welcome to Scotland…
Let’s see that on an A-board walking up n down Buchanan St.
Ur. iFuture. Is. Nigh.
Go figure.
3.
Non apologies for the rattling of this thread 🙂
Have an amazing Sunday, Scotland.
It is SO important that ye do..
That’s not later, it’s now.
tick tick
Ok Cairnstoon Hamish sits on the top of my LHS desk speaker…
I swear (on the Wot-Wots) that he just moved there.
The Power of Scotland!
Good morning, marnin’
LOVE.
SO…
That’s all eh us…
Dae Aye.
Aye!
Ahm likin’ ECOHamish ~
Green is good.
Colour…
Stick.
Scotland Welcomes You.
I hope the last two boxes will be ticked soon.
Cheers, in any order is cool.
Scottish Steve ~
Exact-alee.
Tickety.
Soon.
Welcome to Scotland.
You are now entering a FREE zone.
Full stop.
Those last two WILL be achieved you know? When? Hard to say, but basically when we’re ready as a population.
Remember, a referendum doesn’t equal independence. It’s just a ballot, an opportunity. Scotland can and WILL have self determination only when a majority want to have it. Scotland IS a nation, a country. It is a country that is party to an international treaty, the history and mechanics of which are well known by now, but it is not currently a nation state.
We had one opportunity recently, because it is our right as a national population. We’ll have another as and when we wish it. It’s kinda why unionist political parties go into overdrive trying to convince the electorate they don’t want one (duh). We can have one anytime someone stands on a ticket of offering us one and we mandate their offer. It’s ALL about your permission. Your rights. Your freedom to choose.
Scotland’s population is only ever two ballots away from self determination at any given time and theoretically one under certain circumstances. To rip off a fairly popular fantasy franchise… YOU HAVE THE POWERRRRRR… and you always did. No Westminster vote can or could stop the popular will of the electorate, only our own fear, uncertainty and doubt. Again, it’s kinda why certain folk go out of their way to foster same (duh number two). The day you decide they’re talking a load of Jackie Baillie. The day YOU decide you’ve given them more than enough chances to prove their competence and worth. The day you decide enough is enough, is the day they no longer have any power over your decisions, your aspirations, or your needs.
So in your own time then. 🙂
Yesindyref2 says:
21 October, 2017 at 9:09 pm
@Welsh Sion
From that A155: “take the measures necessary in order to compel the latter forcibly to meet said obligations, or in order to protect the above-mentioned general interests”
That’s vague, and non-specific, so it seems to me the general principle in Law of “proportionality” would apply, or should if taken to any relevant court.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportionality_(law)
That all sounds a bit “Sewell”, and the weasily words “would not normally”.
The only general principle of Law which I would apply is expediency invariably outranks justice.
The question then would be, are Rajoy’s actions “proportionate”?
Personally I’d say no, no they’re not, they’re over the top.
I would agree. Spain is freefalling towards fascism, and the storm clouds are gathering over Catalonia. International law is not a lion which will run in and keep the peace, it is a mouse which will audit the carnage and apportion blame afterwards.
Am I too cynical? Perhaps I am. International Law it strikes me has a mere fingertip control over any Nation. The principles are complex, and enforcement is problematic. What do we expect the International Community to actually do? Put UN troops into Catalonia, or UN lawyers?
Laws would be great if people observed them, but without police action to back it up, in real terms, what does it amount to?
It seems to me, and it’s crude, but when it comes to International Law, you act first, and defy those who would oppose you. If you can live with the sanctions, the principle of expediency I mentioned will facilitate years of inaction and standoff. Just look at Israel, the US in Guantanamo and Tony Blair’s war crimes in Iraq,.. the list is long.
Just look at the Act of Union. Thoroughly inconsistent with the principles of Scots Law, but the will of the aggressor prevails for the expediency of peace and the excused non-intervention it affords other countries.
Back on my hobby horse, Scotland should start acting a sovereign Nation, and defy others to overrule us. Even our most noble Declaration of Arbroath was only recognised by the Pope in 1328, eight years after it was written, and after King Robert the Bruce had already won Scotland’s war of independence and the English had capitulated and formally recognised Scotland. It was the bold and uncompromising Bruce which earned Scotland its status, International Law played catch-up.
Fortune favours the brave. Sovereignty favours the bold. International Law is spectacularly elastic.
@Breeks
But firstly, the UK Government found it’s not above the Law as it found with Miller, and secondly it’s not International Law that counts for this as the first step, it’s EU Law – if it applies. And though International Law consists of Treaties and Conventions which aren’t always signed or ratified, EU Law takes its base in the Lisbon Treaty and its Articles which have been signed up for and ratified by all 28 member states, with the CJEU / ECJ as final court, over all national courts if applicable – something the UK really doesn’t like.
Apart though from whether that Principle of Proportionality would be met by the proposed actions, there is a question of whether it even applies to a member state, under the principle of subsidiarity.
And at that stage my brian turns into a meaningless blob of jelly and custard, pass the cream and cake pelase.
The Ref on having a Referedum was 2,3Million votes out if a 5.5million electorate. Reported 30%+ turnout. The Catalonian authorities would not release the total turnout figures. Total confusion, . The opposition Parties told people to boycott the vote. So 30%+ did not vote. So the Ref on a Ref did not produce a majority vote, but was declared a 90% victory??. Not on those figures.
Then the Ref went ahead in the confusion. Same voting figure 2.3Million in favour. Now given as a 43% turnout. The opposition voters are still boycotting the vote. You can’t ignore people who are boycotting the vote because they believe it is legitimate to do so. Or not voting because they do not care? Or whatever – apathy. The claims of 700,000 votes going missing. Almost an impossibility? How were they secreted away. Where is the evidence, photos of the missing votes or ballot boxes? These votes being carted away. Nearly 1/3 of the votes cast? They would have needed fleets of vans/lorries to have taken them away. The Catalonian administration was in charge.
2.3Million out of an electorate of 5.5million. A population of 7.5million. 1.5Million under eighteen. There are 1/2Million not in the electoral roll. Are they EU/foreign citizens residents not allowed to vote. Yet the decision will affect their position, No taxation without representation.
The banking crash happened on the Costas. The Mediterranean coast. Including Catalonia/Barcelona. That is where most of the miss selling holiday homes, banking fraud, Pozzi schemes took place. Not in Madrid etc, although they were detrimentally affected.
From Catalonia, Valencia, Havia. Costa Brava. Right down to Marbella Costa de Sol. That is where the majority of the housing/crash miss selling etc was going on. Fleecing other EU citizens and foreigners, False housing speculation. Financed by money borrowed from the London lending markets for property spectulation on the Costas. Often by UK register companies – subsidiaries. Catalonia (is like London) one of the wealthiest parts of Spain. Property prices halved with the crash. Many (foreigners) people lost their deposits, life savings, pensions. Lost £Millons/Billions. No come back under Spanish Law especially for EU/foreign citizens. Just forget it. The Spanish Law is antiquated. Needs reform and more regulation.
The Spanish Gov had to borrow €Billions from the EU/ECB to bail out the Spanish banks (including in Catalonia). That had to be paid back by the whole of Spain not just the areas (Costas) mainly affected. The burden fell in the poorer rural areas which were affected. They had to be protected/helped. . They had not caused the crisis. There is some kind of retribution system in Spain because it is a Federal system, The Catalonia authorities did not want to pay their dues. To help out the other poorer rural areas. £4Billion was in dispute. The Spanish Supreme Court backed up Catalonia and stated they did not have to pay. To appease them?
Catalonia had protection as one of the wealthiest parts of Spain. A lot of tourism. Barcelona is one of the most visited Cities in the world. A major tourist/commerce port. Tourism, fishing, business and commerce centre. Links to Latin America. Shared language. Middle East commerces. Trading, passenger vessels go to Morocco, Middle East/Africa. Gateway to commerce. Boats go from Denia/Valencia to Ibiza – Morroco.
The Catalonia authorities knew what could happen but went ahead in any case. Then when they had the Referendum which they claimed as a 90% victory. It wasn’t unless you ignore the opposition? In a so called Democracy, Then asked for talks. Adding to the confusion.Then they were all out in the streets wanting reconciliation and peace?
Catalonia has autonomy, Not complete fiscal autonomy, because of the redistribution? Federal system. Raises and lowers it’s own taxes etc. There seems to be tax evasion in Spain. The politicians are all corrupt involved in scandal etc, including in Catalonia. A poltical scandal every other week. It is reported Puigdemont owns a Catalonian national TV station. He was a journalist. Then Mayor of Girona. That would not happen in any free and fair democracy. The President owning a national TV station beaming out propaganda?
It is the exact opposite of Scotland getting blasted with unionist propaganda. Support for Independence is higher in Scotland 50%+. It is 1/3+ in Catalonia. Despite the rallies in the streets. Spain has four months holidays a year, That could explain the large rallies on the streets. Public holidays. A month at Christmas. A month at Easter Two months in summer July/August. It is too hot to work. All the fiestas inbetween. It averages out one week a month. Nice heathy lifestyle. Good food, plenty of sunshine and relaxation. TV is not very good but no one watches it. Except the sport. Football. They are football crazy. Tennis, golf swimming as well. Lots of galas. There are too many other things to do. Fishing, hiking swimming, water sports. Eating, social drinking community activities, family activities. Catholic Church but separation of Church from State on democracy, The former King helped to lay down, achieve Democracy. Universal Suffrage 1978.
Rajoy wants there to be elections. Then the powers will be given back. The Spanish Gov will not want to Gov Catalonia. It would be too much time time and trouble. Fuss and bother. It would break Spanish Law is the powers are not handed back. The Spanish Gov will want regime change after the reason revelations. That are considered to be illegal under Spanish Law/Constitution. Will reforms come about with agreement. Possibly. Some good might come out of it. Catalonia has to face it’s responsibilities as well. Spain is in the Eurozone.. The Spanish Gov and the EU guarantee Catalonia’s debt, They will not condone bringing the the Spanish economy down (Catalonia situation) or it could adversely affect the Eurozone/EU/European world economy.
The EU authorities will not let that happen. That is why they stay out of it or support the Spanish Gov taking swift action, They have to be seen doing something because it could ultimately affect so many other people. The ripples run wide. Once the crisis dies down the powers will be returned to Catalonia, They do have autonomy. The Catalonian regimemtun the Catalonian State as a fiefdom.
There is nothing but support in Spain for corrupt politicians going to jail. The majority despised the corrupt politicians with a vengeance. They support seeing corrupt politicians, lawyers, bankers going to jail. Royals being charged and put on trial. It relieves their support for justice and fairness. Also acts as a deterrent. The incumbents know the score. Step out of line. The force of the Law awaits. Ignorance is not an excuse.
Ah, the dream will never die! Incidentally, you peeps who post reams of stuff on hear (like the last couple above me) – you do know everyone just reads the first couple of lines, then moves on?
‘…you do know everyone just
reads the first couple of lines, thenmoves on?Fixed that fur ye Malky…your welcome 😉
@Ken500
Same misreporting of figures as before from you.
In addition, if a ballot paper is A5, 80gsm, 500 sheets of A4 is approx 3 cms = 1,000 ballots. So the size of 700,000 ballots is:
700 x 0.3 x 0.2 x 0.03 = 1.3 cu metres. You could get that in a small Peugot Partner and have it only a quarter full, though at 750 Kg it would be near max load weight of 850 Kg.
I see John Rentoul has a lovely article about Ms Davidson being the next PM – so perhaps we can have a wee tick box for a Ruth Davidson free zone too.Happy Days!
Ian Brtherhood , I note the atheist prayer for Small Axe – I was away last week and haven’t caught up with such news . I’ll add another atheist prayer to yours.
Links
http://indyref2.scot/snp-to-be-removed-from-office-as-may-imposes-direct-rule-on-scotland
https://news.gov.scot/news/10-000-baby-boxes-delivered#.WenxaZoSfR0.twitter
http://tarffadvertiser.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/how-was-your-week.html
A wee reminder
https://twitter.com/scotzineguides/status/921394585380835329
http://www.healthbusinessuk.net/news/19102017/wirral-rolls-out-baby-boxes
https://www.rte.ie/eile/brainstorm/2017/1020/913934-we-need-to-talk-about-brexit/
http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2017/10/20/week-in-review-an-economy-sacrificed-at-the-altar-of-brexit
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/ruadh%C3%A1n-mac-cormaic-monoglot-ireland-will-be-at-loss-post-brexit-1.3263311
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2017/10/20/the-threat-to-the-uks-tax-base/
Trump and the right wing press are lying and I know why: the rise in UK crime is my fault.
https://www.byline.com/column/67/article/1899
Human Rights Commission requests ceasefire within region
http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/211020174
http://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/reality-bites-news-worsens-1-5245153
President Carles Puigdemont on Spain invoking Article 155, 21 October 2017 section in English
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rrn57wodOM8&feature=youtu.be
Catalan finances explained. This explains the smashed Catalan skulls, if anyone is interested and will be very familiar to any Scottish person who understands the true scale of our net contributions to the UK over the last 40 years.
Video with subtitles here
https://twitter.com/scotzineguides/status/921776542317006849
http://www.ara.cat/en/No-Spain-is-not-democracy_0_1890411182.html
Insectageddon: farming is more catastrophic than climate breakdown
http://archive.is/hgUMK
Brexit is the same. 1/3 support. That is why the Tories are on a hiding to nothing, Trying to push it through. Thirty years in the wilderness awaits.
17Million voted for Brexit. Out of an electorate of 45Million. A third. A population of 62Million. 2 million? people did not get to vote. EU citizens or ‘foreigners’ not registered or allowed to vote. Yet it would affect them the most. No taxation without representation.
Chucking folk out of the UK. Out of Scotland by Tories of whom no one in Scotland voted. It is an absolute scandal. Changing the rules and chucking people out of the Highlands. Depopulating Scotland of good people who have invested in it. The Highland clearances all over again. Just despicable. Outrageous. What a way to treat people. How many people from Scotland had to seek santuary in the US from the clearances, poverty etc, Imposed by the Westminster crooks and their cronies. So they can embezzle public money. Overcharging people for visas etc, Still doing it.
A 40million diaspora all over the world. The US, Canada, NZ, Australia etc. Scotland has friends in high places including in the EU. Now workers from Scotland go all over the world to work and for opportunities. In the Oil & Gas sector, finance, legal, insurance, engineering projects, medicine/science, fashion food and drink etc. They retire to Spain and other places, where their relatives stay. Or have extended visits. Or overseas travel. Travelling broadens the mind. Closes barriers with closer ties.
Not the Tory Party. Splendid isolation. That is why they are so unliked. They can’t contact, compromise or join in. Intransigent ideology. Starving vulnerable people to death. Worrying people sick. Stuck up superior freaks. Or think they are? 30 years in the wilderness awaits, after this latest performance. Not nice and dim. Watch out for Corbyn, another failure as far as Scotland is concerned. Ignorant incompetents who can’t count or read a balance sheet.
The Scottish Gov must set up a fund for expenses for these people like the Felbers for whom the guide lines are changed and fight it all the way to the ECHR. May, Rudd, and Goodwin should be censored. What a way to treat people.
Everyone should write a letter to May and Rudd to tell them what they think of their actions. The way SNP MP’s are treated at Westminster. Keep it polite if you want a reply. More trouble and strife for the administration. Or anonymous if people want to be more robust. Put in the gloves and post it far away from location. Or do both. Don’t give e-Mail or telephone numbers. M15 can be in on the act, without authoriity. Westminster governs by using the Official Secrets Act to cover up it’s crimes.
Aye.so where were th 700,000 votes secreted to.700,000 votes is quite a pile The Catslonian authorities were organising it. Where’s the photo of the pile. Or the boxes secreted off. Someone must have taken a photo. They were all in the ballot booths. Yet no one saw it happen? They must have been collected from somewhere. Or did they vanish into thin air. Up in smoke but not one notices. Everything else was recorded. Acts of violence etc. Still deplorable but low in terms of numbers. Isolated.
Mmm, that was niggling me as I based it on my 160 gsm, but it was 100gsm I checked. 700,000 ballots on A5 80gsm would be 2.2 cu metres and would fill less than half the van, but at 1.75 tonnes it would break the springs! Oh well, make it 3 vans for comfort.
I would like to make a suggestions for the new Scottish TV channel.
A news program for daily evening Scottish news that lasts even just 10 minutes at quarter to the hour every hour, so it can be viewed be everyone when they get in. it would also show up what is not intentionally not being reported by our media in Scotland.
The daily news from Scotland could be recorded, it is OK for others to do, so it will be OK for us use to push our view.
Lots of Brexit rumours in the media this morning. Suggestions May has agreed a larger divorce sum, behind the scenes, and that the UK will seek a Swiss style arrangement.
No body if going to be happy. No ordinary person is going to be better off. And a load of people are going to get screwed over.
The question really now is, who will May et al actually screw over most?
Well, Scotland by default. We will come out worse off unless we choose Indy soon.
But even Brexiteers. Ordinary Leave voters wanted EU immigration controlled and they believed financial promises and so therefore do not expect to be worse off. They will be worse off, no matter what. May could go for a soft-ish Swiss get out of jail arrangement which would reduce the hardship.
However, the UK pays net £128 per capita per annum, Norway £106, Switzerland £55. So Swiss style access will still cost say £5billion per annum. The gutter press and loony Right won’t like that. And on top of the divorce bill of £40+billion.
Or May could go hard. The loony Right would be appeased. They would get their ‘real Brexit’. Over five years this will cost the UK economy £~450 billion. That will hit ordinary folks badly. Jobs, services, cost of living.
It’s all incomprehensible vandalism and lunacy in the name of English nationalism.
Still, I hold out hope that it will all result in IndyRef2 and a Yes win. And we leave the loonies in their asylum.
Great ‘toon Chris,
And all delivered by an SNP government.
Who say’s we can’t govern ourselves for our own benefit? ..just the yoons and the MSM.
The Brexit Bill could be £60Billion+. The access money could be upwards of £6Billion. The UK pays £12Billion a year (€15Billion with a €5Billion rebate) The UK will not get £5Billion? In CAP subsidies. £Billions less of share defence costs which will cost UK £Billions More. No EU investment Grants etc for Renewables. EU promoted cheaper safer fuel sources. No shared EU negotiated trade deals with other continents. US, China, India etc. Protectionist counties. The EU as a larger conglomerate can negotiate better terms.
The fecking, dumb, stupid Tories will be paying more for less rights. They are going to be paying more £12Billion+ for a worst deal with no rights. Not to be included in decision making . £5Billion repayments £5Billion cost of membership. No CAP payments, No shared Defence costs. Losing £Billions which will have to replaced by more cash in the UK. Tariffs on trade? It will affect the NE/Scotland the worst.
Trident will be going with Brexit. England/Wales in splendid isolation. Suits them.
These Tories are off their heads. A catastrophe. Unless these Tories go soon. Get voted out. 30 years in the wilderness.
IheartScotland
On why we can’t govern ourselves…
There’s a small thread on Twitter about the smacking ban proposal.
At first I thought this debate is going to fall into the two camps again. Those that support the SG and those who will oppose anything they come up with . Even though it’s actually a Green Party proposal ( I think some in their haste to decry the SG have not read that bit)
Turns out some of those who oppose are groups like Spiked and Be reasonable allegedly .
Now a quick google search throws up a petition by Be reasonable in Wales to oppose the smacking ban being put forward there .
The Christian Institute admit they set up pro smacking Be Reasonable Campaign and it is who they are all connected to that bothers me.Regardless of what side of the debate your on.
This is why it is essential that when BBC Scotland interview someone either on the telly or radio they must give some background to who the person is representing – otherwise they are failing ( again) to inform people that in some cases it is a right wing well financed group with a long long reach not always based in Scotland they are interviewing
Some could even consider it in that context fake news, if they knowingly carry on doing it
Galamcennalath @10.01
“It’s all incomprehensible vandalism and lunacy in the name of English nationalism”
Great phrase. Already borrowed and filed for future use..
The wealthy elite own the Tory party. They don’t care about “nations”. All they want is money and power and they will do anything to get them.
From this perspective, getting out of Europe with its human rights and social justice laws (weak though these are) is essential. Keeping small wealthy “nations” like Scotland and Catalonia under the reliable heel of undemocratic regimes is essential.
Democracy is anathema to the oligarchs.
In 2014 they were caught unawares. The polite pinstripe-suited smiles soon withered and died and were replaced by a relentless propaganda war using every means necessary.
The Francoist regime in Madrid is doing exactly the same. Except they already know a legal referendum would produce a majority for independence.
That is why they have had to bring out the batons now.
I hope the EU will respect their citizens rights and start to pressure Spain to comply with the ECHR it should have signed up to on becoming a member. Sooner or later they will have to address these issues. Later is better than never.
Molly @ 10.40am
The Chritian Institute was also one of the parties to the court case against the SG’s ‘Named Person’ scheme.
Some could even consider it in that context fake news, if they knowingly carry on doing it
Its only part of the beeb’s rolling SNP bad everything campaigning. If it wasn’t smacking ban it’s, well everything the SNP bad do do.
We’re living through a spectacular BBC propaganda war that wont be over til the SNP are gone.
And we have to assume that the BBC will be successful, if only because they have the resources, the staff numbers, 400k+ and they do always win, from Heath to Scargill, Snatcher Thatcher to Tony Blair, Fuhrage and UKIP, BBC gimp network always wins.
Unless ofcourse, we get Scotland back:D
Capella 11.10
Good post.
Nail on the head.
@Legerwood
@Molly
Aye, right. And why are we not surprised.
At 9:21am yesterday I wrote ….
” …. you just know that the same people who want to be able to beat children will be those who oppose baby boxes and named person. We all know that most fascist thugs aren’t actually toothless knuckle draggers, they also come well heeled. “
… an opinioned guess turns out to be the truth!
What is it with these hard right people and their ‘Christianity’?
I’m not religious but I’m certain Jesus himself would be more than a little pissed off at what they do in his name!
On Marr this morning, a smirking Chuka Umunna stated that the Spanish were wrong to go in so heavy handed in the Catalonia referendum. They should have let them have their referendum, like we “gave” the Scots.
Later Andrew Marr interviewed a member of the Spanish government, the foreign minister I think, and asked him why he didn’t allow the referendum as happened with Scotland, then declare it illegal. The Spaniard pointed out that historically and constitutionally the situation with Scotland was different. Andrew Marr decided not to pursue that line. Moving on.
galamcennalath says:
22 October, 2017 at 10:01 am
Lots of Brexit rumours in the media this morning. Suggestions May has agreed a larger divorce sum, behind the scenes, and that the UK will seek a Swiss style arrangement.
Hmmm… that’s a credible possibility, but it would be quite a feat to achieve.
However, given that the UK has forlornly tried to circumvent Barnier and attempt to strike bilateral trade agreements with individual member states, it seems incredible that Theresa May now thinks circumventing Michel Barnier by going through Donald Tusk instead is a good idea that’s going to produce a better result for the UK.
The ONLY wriggle room for I see for Westminster is negotiating some kind of concession which might warrant Theresa May going back to the country for a second referendum. That too might be a cul-de-sac however, and might only reveal the true extent of how much the EU is actually delighted to see the back of the UK.
I suspect Michel Barnier does have the bare bones of a UK trade deal worked out in his head, but the UK isn’t going to like it, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it was a “take it or leave it” affair which had already reconciled itself to a few years of UK WTO tariffs just to temper the UK’s obnoxious exceptionalism and arrogance.
All things considered, between themselves, the Tories and UKIP have set the UK on a profoundly stupid and difficult trajectory which is going to tough on UK citizens and commerce for many decades to come, and I don’t actually recognise ANY meaningful gain.
I see no redeeming features in Brexit whatsoever. There is no sense in it. It is the culmination of decades of chauvinism, ignorance and narrow minded bigotry all poisoning the UK/BritNat psyche towards other people’s and culture. The British media is a disease which blights the whole UK, not just Scotland.
It would seem only Scotland has developed a slight resistance to the typical BBC garbage and finally seems alert to the need of a cure. The big question is whether we can accelerate this mini “Scottish Enlightenment” in time to save ourselves from Brexit and prevent it happening to Scotland. We seem slow to the task however, and to be leaving ourselves with an awful lot to do, and not much time to do it. Frankly, I struggle to see the sense in that strategy either.
From this perspective, getting out of Europe with its human rights and social justice laws (weak though these are) is essential. Keeping small wealthy “nations” like Scotland and Catalonia under the reliable heel of undemocratic regimes is essential.
Its more nuanced than that though. England voted over half to Leave and we have to accept that one of England’s national characteristics is exceptionalism and dislike of foreigners.
Growing up in the UK used to mean you were indoctrinated with all kinds of English xenophobia, thick micks, greedy Jews, canny jocks, humourless loser gerries, coward ities, smelly frogs, and lets not go down the English comedy route, with tv like It Aint half hot mum, turning India’s vast extraordinary continent of many different people, religions and cultures into a really bad racist joke.
Contemporary English xenophobia may or may not be changing but this is why at least half of England wants their UK back. They do not care that its going to make them much worse off, or they actually do swallow the brexit tory Empire 2 bullshit.
There was one on BBC r4 Any Questions yesterday, plummy, tory rule Britannia waffler, Brexit is going to make Britain great again. No one cheered.
Anybody in urgent need of a strong emetic should have a look at the hymn of praise to our not so little Colonel in the SoS.
Off Topic.
TV. CATALAN NEWS. The President of the Catalan Government,Carles Puigdemont speaks directly in English language to the People and Governments of Europe last night.
Scroll from 1:33 to 2:50.
http://tinyurl.com/yacyo7g9
His speech on TV in Catalan lasted much longer.
galamcennalath says:
22 October, 2017 at 10:01 am
‘Lots of Brexit rumours in the media this morning. Suggestions May has agreed a larger divorce sum, behind the scenes, and that the UK will seek a Swiss style arrangement.’
She might seek it, but from what I understand the EU doesnt want another Swiss-style arrangement because it was hideously complicated to negotiate, requires constant updating, and they dont want to go through that again?
@ John H
When we first became aware of the way the Media perpetuates the English=UK=British superiority we raged at each and every incident. Now it is so commonplace that we basically acknowledge and move on.
Two incidents I noticed this week:
Tim Willcox, a BBC presenter, said when comparing the Scottish referendum with that of Catalonia that we had our vote and ‘the Scots lost’, not that Independence supporters lost, the SCOTS lost.
A friend alerted me to the dreadful ‘Break the News’, shortbread quiz on Radio Scotland featured Catriona Shearer, a BBC newsreader on the BBC early mornings apparently. She came across as amusing and pleasant and then an item came up about Ruth Davidson on the Bake Off. No criticism whatsoever from anyone, cutting-edge satire it is not. Anyway, Shearer said that she used to work in the back room news with Davidson way back and that Davidson was ‘normal’ and a generally good egg and that she would be great.
You got the feeling the job had been done and mission accomplished for BBC Scotland. It was odd and disconcerting and I don’t know what we do about the BBC, it is so blatant now.
Galamcennalath/legerwood
I didn’t realise that.
This is yet another reason BBC Scotland hacks me off by treating us like children.
Once more an external well financed lobby/ group attempting to distort what happens in Holyrood. The very least our media should do is inform us .
We are connected to the rest of the World , even if Pacific Quay isn’t.
Aye.so where were th 700,000 votes secreted to.700,000 votes is quite a pile The Catslonian authorities were organising it. Where’s the photo of the pile. Or the boxes secreted off. Someone must have taken a photo.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=spanish+police+take+ballot+boxes&rlz=1C1CHBF_en-GBGB757GB757&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwium7iPjITXAhUICsAKHeg9DZcQ_AUICygC&biw=1366&bih=637#imgrc=R6aHGhLxZ9q0lM:
Ken
No idea why the hatred towards the Catalan people but it is getting old – give it a rest, you are persuading no one.
The Hamish pin came in the week – IT IS GEORGEOUS!
Much admired.
Breeks says:
The waiting is painful!
The way I rationalise it is, political opinion can shift very quickly when the right (or wrong) circumstances arise.
We followers of politics watch and think about every turn and twist. Fortunately I don’t lose sleep over it, but I confess to spending just too much time watching the drip drip. Most folks only begin to think about it in detail when confronted with something big.
IMO Brexit is going to turn into a clear and present danger to Scotland and it’s going to be difficult to hide the truth. IndyRef2 where Indy is presented as our salvation will be the best opportunity we get, perhaps ever.
I’m champing at the bit! All Brexit outcomes will be bad, Nicola only needs to the push the button and I for one will be out there working to win. Me and thousands of others. The Yoons and the BBC don’t stand a chance. Face to face beats face to screen. I am optimistic and very impatient!
@Cactus says: 22 October, 2017 at 12:34 am:
” … Aye ahm HOME fellow IBro ~
Has anybuddy seen the other side of this board…They ain’t free.
I’ve a wee bit news for you, Cactus.
None of it is free in Scotland either. It is paid for by the Scottish taxpayer.
It is, though, free at the point of delivery and thus is a much more progressive form of paying for these things.
In effect those most able to pay do pay more of the costs with tax money. However, (as we are still ruled by Westminster), the least able to pay still pay because Westminster’s tax system is now mainly indirect taxation, the main one of which is VAT. Which even the poorest of the poor are forced to pay.
Thing is that by being free at point of delivery there is no need to have vast civil servant departments involved in a system of means testing nor another vast department of civil servants to police the system for fraudulent claimants as they have in the kingdom of England systems.
It was properly costed and found to work out cheaper to provide it free at point of delivery than to means test and police for fraud. That means the saved costs can be used for other things.
Same goes for free bridge tolls. The previous toll system hardly paid for the costs of running tolls and paying the profits of the private companies who ran the system. Free tolls also encourage trade in the areas served by the bridges and also served by the island ferry services. Private enterprise running such services are run for profit and thus the user pays for their use.
Not to mention the idiotic claims that England subsidises Scotland is so easy to prove as sheer lies. Not only is the reason that Scotland, Northern Ireland & Wales get different per capita funding because that funding is based upon the different levels of devolved functions from UK ministries that each UK country gets and thus the funds to run them must also differ but as ONLY England is funded directly as the UK there is no actual figures of the English per capita funding.
I do not care who makes such idiotic claims, BBC, MSM, politicians or England/UK nationalists, I can shoot down their lies as those of idiots in seconds with the all too obvious truth.
Glamaig says:
Yup. Sounds like the kind of fantasy solution the less-hard-right Tories would pursue.
Looks like the EU are going away into a wee huddle to formulate (in the UK’s absence) the kind of trade arrangement they would accept.
All along I’ve said there will be one of three outcomes – abandon Brexit, walk way with no deal, or take what the EU offer with only scope to negotiate minor tweaks at the edges.
Nothing has yet changed my mind.
Jings!
Our friendly constant companion, like carrot loving ‘Harvey’, rabbits on… insisting we should spend more than our pocket money allocation on budget day for nice things but wants the SG to somehow pick up the bill.
I’m not against a balanced diet with lots of greens but FGS Derek Mackay can’t pull too many more rabbits from a magic top hat. 🙁
@ heedtracker – I don’t believe English people are naturally more xenophobic than anyone else. They have to be taught to hate. That’s the job of schools, churches and the MSM. Divide and rule.
The effect is weaker now in Scotland because the media are almost all English, with some American thrown in. We notice the endless stream of propaganda coming from the metropolis because it’s nearly all in a foreign accent.
But English people don’t have that distance. Some of them swallow it whole.
I don’t know what they are all watching every night as I don’t have a TV. But Great British Something and Let’s All Laugh at Some Cultural Stereotype or The News Where We Are is always available.
Oh for a Scottish Broadcasting Service that could serve the people who pay for it. But there is no chance of Westminster relinquishing control of telecomms.
Still have the Internet though – for now.
Just listening to P Harvey on sunday politics, he really is a jumped up wee squirt, the sooner the SNP get back to a majority the better.
Being held to blackmail by the greens makes me sooo angry.
No wonder Brewer was smirking all over his face.
Listened to Bill Whiteford’s review of the papers with a couple of guest reviewers this morning. The most notable thing was that I don’t think the Labour Party got a single mention.
Changed days.
Im just reading the update of Alyn Smith’s book Scotland in Europe, it’s worth ploughing through it as its full of great ammunition to counter the tidal wave of bullshit out there.
Available to download here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3WzAC_bN3YnejV1NWQzTzhWbEE/view
They don’t need the greens to get the budget through. They negotiate with the others as well. Labour never agreed for spite. Why people get taken in by the greens is a mystery. They took votes from the SNP using myths. Losing the SNP their majority. Most of their policies are unpopular nonsense. An inpopular limited interest pressure group.
They want to borrow and spend like there is no tomorrow on grotesque projects of little value. Then demand that essential services aren’t cut. Yet they have wasted all the money in cohoots with unionists. On monstrosities that no one wants. OAP’s from other places can’t use their off peak travel passes on the Trams. Running empty and underscribed. More buses have to run. The business case was lied about. It was pushed through illegally. A total muck up of corruption. Now unfolding.
People in England/Wales have to blame the EU for their predicament. Or they would have to blame themselves for voting for Tory/unionists Parties. It is displacement responsibility. A squirrel for diversion. Blame the EU instead of the Tories for whom they voted. If they admit the truth it makes them look like fools. Naive and stupid. So to save face they blame the EU and vote right wing UKIP. The Tories rose to the bait. To hold an EU Ref to stop support going to UKIP. A major misjudgement. They will regret. Losing ground.
Capella
“I don’t believe English people are naturally more xenophobic than anyone else. They have to be taught to hate. That’s the job of schools, churches and the MSM. Divide and rule.”
I’ve got to agree with you there, as prejudice is rooted in the traditions of cultural institutions and practices.
http://communication.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228613-e-164
Postcolonial Contraventions: Cultural Readings of Race, Imperialism and Transnationalism
http://www.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.7228/manchester/9780719058271.001.0001/upso-9780719058271
The shameful ‘Go Home’ campaign
http://www.irr.org.uk/news/the-shameful-go-home-campaign/
I see Fox is trying to play silly bu99ers in the hard right press by saying the divorce bill will be tied into the trade agreement and can’t be settled now.
That is utter bullshit, he knows it, and he’s assuming gullible ordinary Leave voters won’t see it. And the EU will have none of it!
IMO all part of the plan to walk away and blame the EU for intransigence. Though, it’s never quite clear if the Tory faction pushing for this is in the ascendancy or not! Certainly the hard right media are on the job.
Take Norway, closest outsider to the EU. It DOES NOT contribute to the EU central budget.
About half of Norway’s EU costs are direct subsidies paid to the 15th poorest EU countries. Norway has opted into many EU initiatives including scientific research. And finally it makes a contribution to EU admin costs. For this, and agreeing to comply with most EU standards, it gets single market access.
The UK divorce settlement is for shortfall in the EU central budget caused by leaving the EU.
Future payments, like Norway’s, will be completely different.
Will our inquiring investigative media highlight this. Nope. The gullible will be allowed their gullibility.
Half of England is xenophobic, or they would not have voted Leave.
Its that simple or complicated.
There’s a terrific American satirist who puts a lot of this mindset down to the 50’s, or really “50’s man.” Old people who came into the world and of age in the fifties, like Orange Hitler,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzUd8YrFJCk
Not for nothing did lots of English high tory wetfarts flock to Orange Hitler’s side, Teresa, Fuhrage, that sneaky shit’s sneaky shit Mike Gove and so on.
heedtracker
Xenophobia is largely an acquired disposition, though individual biology does influence one’s susceptibility to institutional propaganda and prejudice. There is negligible genetic difference between ethnicity.
Not sure if someone has posted this already
Great meeting with @ScotGovFM and @JosephEStiglitz @scotgoveconomy at INET Conference.
https://twitter.com/Garygillespie42/status/921707261747191808
Nobel Prize winning economist @JosephEStiglitz says an Independent Scotland in the EU would resolve the uncertainties of Brexit
video here
https://twitter.com/Sun_Pol_Scot/status/922055161156997120
@galamcennalath
I’ve got to admit I don’t thing it’s reasonable to have the divorce bill settled before the rest of the divorce is agreed. Why should the UK have to agree to pay say £60 billion, when it doesn’t know what it’s getting for it, if there’s going to be a transition period of 2 years for which it’s paying, or the terms of a trade agreement for which it’s also paying?
Kind of like someone leaving a golf club, but being forced to carry on paying for the upkeep of the greeens and the bar staff salaries.
The UK isn’t negotiating in good faith, but neither is the EU so far. What it is doing is burning up 7 months of the 2 years so far.
A wee bit o/t – The BBC did one of these balls in a box things, for or against something,
This time they were asking, Is the beniifits system to kind or too cruel, I never listened to the Commentary but just watched the too kind balls mounting up ,
What a dumb lot we have in this country, the ones who have never been involved with the system have had their judgment twisted by the right wing media,
They believe the safety net that has taken years to construct is a waste of their money, the stupidity is beyond belief,
The only analogy I can see is the lifeboats on the Titanic or lack of ,its that simple, meant for simply people and they still don’t get it,
It was conducted in England I am not sure if the results would be much different up here, I sincerely hope not, and we have a better sense of community, who knows .
Interesting stuff, this afternoon.
Thanks to all for the innumerable links and prods/elbows in the ribs.
@ CameronB Brodie – I agree – very small children have no awareness of colour/ethnic difference in others. But some learn to discriminate as they grow up.
@ heedtracker – sounds like you are substituting age discrimination for ethnic. It’s the easiest thing in the world for corrupt governments to divert our justified anger towards the immigrant or anyone who can serve as a useful “other”. Divide and rule.
That way we won’t turn our wrath on the elite who laugh all the way to the banks – which they own.
yesindyref2 says:
I’m no expert. I’m only going on an opinion formed from reading multiple sources online and trying to separate the truth from the propaganda. I’m an engineer, not an economist!
To answer your question simply, my understanding is the UK gets nothing other than not being pursued in international courts for what it owes.
The divorce settlement covers all sorts of commitments which wouldn’t be fulfilled by just contributing to access the single market.
The seven year cycle will end in 2019 with an overall negative which the UK’s share is ~€80billion. These cycles always end with a big negative carried forward. This would be reduced if they continued to be a member during 2019/2020 by €20billion. Paying off this accumulated debt is the biggest component. Walking away leaves the debt distributed among the EU27 and they will pursue it legally.
The UK has agreed to underwrite loans given by the EU. This amounts to over €10 billion. Like loans to Ukraine. If they default, the UK won’t be there to pay.
Also, there are long term development commitments to third world. If the EU wishes to continue the same levels, other countries will have to stump up.
Clearly much of this is open to negotiation. However to my mind it seems clear that settling bills and future relationships are distinct. My believe is the Tories confuse the two intentionally as a tactic to hide their true intentions,
Norway takes no responsibility for the EU’s massive overdraft, loans and development grants. UK currently does as a member, but as an outside country wishing only some access to the single market it wouldn’t.
An analogy would be a business partner leaving a partnership, but still wishing to be involved as a non partner. The partnership has a whopping overdraft which all the partners agreed to. The leaving partner has to pay off their component. Then, the remaining partners can negotiate what the ongoing relationship is to be,
Yesindyref2
I might be wrong because let’s face it he whole ambiguity thing is being done deliberately but aren’t we paying for what the UK already said it was committed to?
So when new proposals were put forward David Cameron said yes we’re in and now the EU are saying well before you …
Welcome back to Scotland.
6 / 8 is pretty good to date, the remainder will follow.
Check this out Smallaxe, here’s the beer I was talking about:
https://www.hacker-pschorr.com/beers/weisse
‘Saltire Smallaxe 14 / 17′ 🙂
Cheers.
Oh! What a shame! The Queen isn’t purring today. The Queen’s eleven are NOT going to be in the Scottish League Cap now.
It was, according to Radio Jockland, (cough!), “Two opportunist goals”, ‘wot dun it for the Steelmen and, of course, the better team lost – according to Radio Jockland, that is.
HM The Queen of England/UK will not be amused today.
Oh! What a shame!
@me
Oppps 🙁
“seven year cycle will end in 2019” should of course be 2020
@galamcennalath and Molly
“To answer your question simply, my understanding is the UK gets nothing other than not being pursued in international courts for what it owes.
The divorce settlement covers all sorts of commitments which wouldn’t be fulfilled by just contributing to access the single market. ”
Yeah, the EU budget runs for 7 years from 2014-2020, and the UK as a member of the EU signed up for this.
I’ve been thinking about this on and off for a few weeks, and the problem is Article 50 itself, which not only allows the UK to leave the EU but sets a 2 year limit on it, and can then kick it out. The UK has no choice in this, it’s solesy up to the EU27 to prolong the negotiations if it wants. That would mean the UK having no benefits of membership from 2019-2020, but being forced to pay for nearly 2 years of that budget according to the EU stance, for which it gets no benefit.
I think it could be argued that Article 50 itself effectively cancels the commitment to the budget after March 29th 2019 – any further contribution is voluntary.
In Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which negotiations under Article 50 take place, the only thing that relates to budgets I can see is this:
“(iv) agreements with important budgetary implications for the Union;”
http://www.lisbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/treaty-on-the-functioning-of-the-european-union-and-comments/part-5-external-action-by-the-union/title-5-international-agreement/506-article-218.html
which is very vague, but doesn’t specifically state the departing member must keep up all its previous budgetary commitments.
So I think it’s very arguable, and down to “good will” and negotiation, and that implies equality in negotiations. Both sides therefore, I think, are taking unreasonable stances.
The Unionist argument for staying in the UK seems now to amount to
England forces Scotland to depend on it so they can extract what they want from Scotland and if we try to leave they will punish us by forcing us into further poverty than we already have so we’re Better Together
Well I’m completely sold on why that’s better than telling them to get tae F..k
And the English can’t figure out why they’re not really popular or why the EU are saying now’s the time to put you arrogant Bastirts in your place and 27 countries are queuing up to sling a shovel full of dirt on top
The British have dug their own *deep and special* hole
let’s help the 27 other countries to fill it in
Joe Stiglitz says Scotland should get away from England NOW!
My current position is this, and it’s probably been affected by the Spain – Catalonia thing. The only thing the EU27 should have had as a prerequisite for all talks to get underway simultaneously, was the fate of the EU citizens in the UK and the UK citizens in the EU27 countries. That should have been agreed long ago, but both sides are using those people as leverage, as pawns in the negotiations.
Instead of that the EU27 have been banging on about the money money money, without a parallel talk on the transition period, which should be until the end of the 2014-2020 budget at least, if the UK continues paying its “dues”. Pay the money, get the benefits, apart from votng.
The EU27 also refuse to talk trade agreements while insisting the UK can’t make any trade deals until it leaves the EU.
Both of those I think are morally wrong, unfair and unjust. And no, I’m not in the slightest influenced by the anti-EU media. Like many I like what the EU should be, I’m not so happy with what it is, even if it is reforming bit by bit – see my own blog!
Incidentally, in the Sweden thread in the Sunday Herald where the foreign minister says Scotland would be welcome in the EU, here’s a bit of the comment that so far has 72 upvotes, the most in that thread, from a very strongly pro-indy poster:
“Hmm… Not too sure I really want to be a full member of the EU after their pathetic response to the Catalonia situation?”
I think that’s a bit of a barometer of the general feeling in the pro-indy camp at the moment, people are thinking and watching, and maybe not liking right now. Yes, it;’s still early days for the EU response, and Tusk’s speech Nana linked to was a cracker, but it seems to have been totally ignored by Rajoy and his merry people – plus the socialists in the Spanish parliament, which is a bit of a bummer. For me, the EU is on trial and the jury is still watching the evidence.
On the EU/UK ‘negotiations. The EU laid out its rules at the very beginning. The UK position was it was going to take whatever agreements and access suite us and pay nothing.
The UK carries the whole blame for what is happening.
After decades of not bothering about how the EU works there is a storm of complaint about what it does do. The EU can be changed, but people actually need to pay attention to what is going on there.
EU countries appoint the Council of Ministers, the Commissioners and the MEPs. That’s all countries, including the UK, appoint the people who carry out all the actions. Every country has a legal team who examines the laws the EU makes and these must be approved by every country.
If citizens want the Eu to intervene in the actions in Spain, for example, then the countries of the EU need to give it the power to do that, or be ready to put pressure through the MEPs, the Commissioners and Ministers to take action.
@Brian Powell
“The EU laid out its rules at the very beginning.”
There are two sides in any and all negotiations.
Inform Scotland just £45 short for the £3,500 total
I’ll put what extra I can into the pot but can anyone else help out.
Can’t post linky from tablet but the fundraiser is on the Inform Scotland website.
Come on! Stop moaning about the BBC bias and do something! Surely half a dozen or so folk can spare a few guid pounds Scots.
‘”There are two sides in any and all negotiations”. The UK decided to leave, the EU provided all the information for its position, the UK refused to lay out its position in any detail or clarify what it intended.
The EU has responsibility for 27 countries, the UK Westminster Gov decided it would ‘speak’ as one for all parts of the UK. UK responsibility.
Europe’s position is straightforward. It doesn’t like to see the fragmentation of member states.
Europe wasn’t keen on Scotland’s departure from the U.K. in 2014, and it isn’t keen on Catalonia’s departure from Spain now.
The link below sets out the European perspectives from 2012.
https://www.ejiltalk.org/catalonian-independence-and-the-european-union/
If it wasn’t for Brexit, and the fact the UK was on its way out of Europe, I doubt very much that Europe would be sympathetic to Scottish Independence even now. There would be a presumption against it. That isn’t the situation however. Brexit did happen, and thus Scottish Independence is not a negative result for Europe, but potentially a positive one.
What exponentially complicates the situation in Catalonia is the Spanish violence and fascist vocabulary.
Europe is now walking a tightrope between its legitimate anxieties about member stats fragmenting; (after Catalonia there is the Basque Region and Galicia, and countless other secessionist groups throughout Europe), and the harm done to the EU through its perceived sympathy for what is undeniably Fascist thuggery.
Brexit is giving Scotland a powerful leg up in terms of presenting Europe with credible arguments why Scotland’s (forgive me) secession from the U.K. is good news, not bad.
You know what strikes me about Europe? They haven’t budged an inch. Their policy towards secession and fragmentation of member states was spelled out years ago. The preambles for Brexit, despite Brexit being unprecedented, were all there, written years ago, but set out refreshed within hours. But here, the Brexit negotiations have been a farce. Westminster has bounced around denial, bluster, threats, attempted division, bilateral deals, and straight forward self delusion.
Europe, in stark contrast, has presented Michel Barnier, the one stop shop for all the Brexit Negotiations you could ever need, and when M. Barnier speaks, he speaks for the European collective. Even now, at this stage in the Brexit negotiations, all roads still lead to M. Barnier, as they always have, but yet Theresa May is still out on a limb bending Tusk’s ear, and the Brits are still trying to divide Europe with bilateral mini trade agreements with individual member states. It’s not just ineffective, it’s amateurish, it’s unprofessional, and it’s simply rude.
So, I would caution folks against judging Europe too quickly. They have a reasonable and well argued policy towards secession which predates Scotland’s YES and Catalonia’s referenda, and they are abiding by that policy because that is what Europe does. It plans the dive, then dives the plan. It’s no so very different from the SNP adopting policy from conference then sticking to it.
I think sometimes we fail to grasp that Europe is an organism that will first and foremost protect the fabric of its own organism, and that isn’t meant as a criticism. It’s the protection which would extend over Scotland if we pledged ourselves to the European ideal. There is no equivalent to that protection in EFTA. In fact to forego EU membership in lieu of EFTA membership make our “secession” are rather ordinary secession of no particular interest to the EU.
I don’t know what it is about Scotland which seems to attract “uniqueness” like a magnet, but Brexit makes Scotland kinda unique as the exception to the EU’s strategic position on secession. Scotland rewrites the rule book as a de facto secession which confounds Europe’s general presumption against secession.
And before you say it, I know Scotland would not be seceding from anything, but the argument doesn’t really change whether it’s described as secession or sovereign emancipation. Same difference in this context.
The EU has never pushed for an exact sum from the UK. It has always asked to know the means by which the UK believes the sum is to be calculated.
It would seem therefore reasonable for the UK to set that out with the proviso that it should include payments for a transition period.
Then negotiations could thrash out obligations, amounts, and totals. Then move onto the transition details.
The UK problem with that is there is a strong faction who want to pay nothing, and don’t want a transition.
There almost certainly is negotiating gamesmanship between the EU and the UK, but I feel the fighting within UK sub-factions is of a much greater magnitude !
Brian Powell @6.05pm
You write: “After decades of not bothering about how the EU works there is a storm of complaint about what it does do. The EU can be changed, but people actually need to pay attention to what is going on there.”
This is absolutely correct, if perhaps too late for reasonable, sensible people in the UK (especially in England and Wales) to wake up and realise this. The far from perfect EU is a work in progress – and it is much, much more that just a trade agreement between European states. (I have more confidence in the prospect of EU institutions changing for the better than I have of those institutions linked to Westminster changing.)
In an article entitled ‘Why we must save the EU’ in The Guardian (5th April, 2016), Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister – someone with every reason to rail against the EU and its institutions – wrote this:
“Greece and Britain are facing the same three options. The first two are represented aptly by the two warring factions within the Tory party: deference to Brussels and exit. They are equally calamitous options. Both lead to the same dystopian future: a Europe fit only for those who flourish in times of a great Depression – the xenophobes, the ultra-nationalists, the enemies of democratic sovereignty. The third option is the only one worth going for: staying in the EU to form a cross-border alliance of democrats, which Europeans failed to manage in the 1930s, but which our generation must now attempt to prevent history repeating itself.”
As a supporter of an independent Scotland, I could sign up to working for ‘option 3’ for the future, long term benefit, peace and security of my family, my country and its European neighbours.
Welcome to Scotland, IF YOU HAVE THE RIGHT CHANGE.
I came home to Aberdeen Airport on Friday evening and boarded the bus to the centre. I paid with my concession card.
Right behind me was a young lady, who obviously did not have English as a first language.
She proffered a shiny new tenner, straight from the ATM and recieved this response from the driver.
“I canna tak at, You’ll need the right change”
She exited crestfallen no doubt to make a small purchase and aquire the right change. The door closed and off we went.
I haven’t been back to look, but I don’t think there are any notices in the airport or at the stop which say, “You’re not welcome if you don’t have the right change”.
I felt ashamed that my country gave such a welcome to someone who was probably arriving for the first time. I believe the busses now take “paywave” but it was not announced by a notice or the driver.
Now the driver may be acting on the instruction of his miserable bosses, but there is no excuse for the available options not being clearly signed. Perhaps the information desk could sell tickets, in Edinburgh there is a dedicated kiosk and out of hours the driver takes the money and gives change.
So we may not have the list of things in the welcome sign but we do have a bunch of miserable shits in our transport industry who cannot understand that a new arrival is unlikely to have the right change.and is equally unlikely to know that it will be demanded.
I was in the same situation and had no change, or I would have paid her fare. I am ashamed that what was probably her very first contact with a local person was so negative.
yesindyref2 @ 17:31,
You have obviously thought about this question some, but despite the undoubted vagaries of a process which was never expected to apply to a country such as the “strong and stable” =cough= UK which is a significant contributor to the EU budget, there are three issues which seem to me to be clear enough:
+ The “divorce bill” trope is very misleading, IMO. As a full member of the club, the UK has committed it to future expenditures, some for only the remainder of the current fixed budgetary seven-year cycle, but some which are considerably ongoing (eg. the pension payments due to EU civil servants who happen to be UK citizens). I don’t know, reneging on the latter may be possible, legalistically speaking, though hypocritically the BritNats keep trying to assert to us that independence would saddle us with a “£Mxx black hole”.
+ It should be a purely technical matter to work out exactly what the amount due should be. In principle it should be the easiest by far of the three issues that need to be worked on. The other two are far more intractable, and satisfactory resolution of those still seems very far away.
+ UKGov signed up to the two-part negotiating structure right at the start, but ever since it has been playing hardball over the money and citizens’ rights, clearly desperate to carry them over into phase 2 (if it ever happens) as negotiating pawns. Likewise trying to bypass Barnier and appeal over his head to national leaders. The usual BritNat duplicity and double-dealing we know only too well. Conversely, in that respect the EU has been transparent and fair right from the start. That kind of “rigidity” is quite honourable, IMO.
@Breeks
Sure, the EU or at least some in it, would like total political integration, one Europe. Ain’t going to happen in my lifetime, and they’ve been pushing that agenda too fast – slow and steady it likely would get there in time, with strong devolution.
Meanwhile pushing people too close together against our will, like similar pole magnets, and this is the result:
http://www.thenational.scot/news/15612373.Two_Italian_regions_vote_on_greater_autonomy_from_Rome/?action=success#comments-feedback-anchor
more and more wish for regions to have autonomy, and it’s something the EU, with its Council of the Regions with 350 members, is going to have to accept and deal with. That about pushing unity far too strong has been my opinion for many years, and it’s a good aprt of the reason the UK as a whole voted Leave. People aren’t prepared yet to give up national sovereignty. Too much history, and too many people alive who remember it, even if from parents.
@galamcennalath says: 22 October, 2017 at 11:33 am:
” … What is it with these hard right people and their ‘Christianity’?”
Oh! Come on, galamcennalath, don’t you know that from the dawn of time all religion has been a gigantic con-trick?
It has always been a tool of those who want to control the masses. Whether it be worshipping the Sun or Jesus Christ the religious leaders knew a great weapon when they saw one.
Remember the Hollywood film, “The Wizard of Oz”?
They use every trick in the book and most people are sucked in by them. It is, and always has been, all about control.
“Religion is the opium of the people.” – (Die Religion ist das Opium des Volkes).
This is probably the best-known quotation by Karl Marx, the German economist and Communist political philosopher. Taken from the origin German text, in Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, 1843.
It has always been a big con-trick and while people believe in the existence of unprovable superior beings it will always remain so.
This is the bases for sovereignty of all kinds since the year dot. Sovereignty comes from the belief that the royal personage, (king, queen, emperor or whatever the particular country calls them), was originally supposed to be God’s, (whichever particular God was the popular belief), representative on Earth and thus they wielded/wield, God’s will.
Hence such as, “God Save the Queen”, and how English Royals are head of the Established Church. It is also why all Members of Parliament, armed forces, civil servants, the security services and the police must all swear an oath of allegiance to the crown on the so called Holy Bible. It used to be directly to the monarch but that changed in Scotland in 1320 by the Declaration of Arbroath and in the Kingdom of England in 1688 during the so called, “Glorious Revolution”.
That had King Billy & Queen Mary invited to assume the throne but only if they signed that they legally delegated their God Given Sovereignty to the Westminster Parliament and thus made ONLY the Kingdom of England’s three countries a Constitutional Monarchy. Today the Monarch of England is still legally sovereign in law. It is Her Majesty’s Kingdom and everyone in it are HM’s subjects and thus it is, “Her Majesty’s Government that sits at Westminster.
So there’s the truth – they must legally stick to their Christianity or the whole bloody edifice comes legally tumbling down.
Bear in mind that when they haul Nicola Sturgeon up before the bench on charges it will be recorded as The Crown Vs Nicola Sturgeon – before they haul off to be imprisoned in the Tower of London. Now don’t laugh – there have been ("Tractor" - Ed)s in that tower in my lifetime.
In the opposite corner from moonlight @ 7:50pm :
The bus was on the way to the airport from Highlands, was delayed substantially by a road crash, a young non-UK girl was getting itchy about missing her flight (who wouldn’t). Advice to her flowed from the entire aisle. At the last stop two jumped off crying Hold The Bus ,found a taxi, got it turned round, the collection for this girl went over £200 stuffed into her handbag. I wonder if she made her flight. I do not wonder at the humanity which she saw.
@Moonlight
Yes, that is pathetic. We have to face up to the fact that there are many soor faced Scots that are not welcoming to foreigners.
Sad gits who would feel all the better for changing their attitude.
Moonlight says:
Now the driver may be acting on the instruction of his miserable bosses, but there is no excuse for the available options not being clearly signed. Perhaps the information desk could sell tickets, in Edinburgh there is a dedicated kiosk and out of hours the driver takes the money and gives change.
I did for two years as a studento, the driver is probably working a 12+ hour day, slave wage, low status, fabulous rude public. If its Aberdeen, First.com made £50+ million profit last year.
You want a nice bus service, pay for one.
@RJS
Aye about divorce, but I think the golf club membership is more appropriate. You want to leave, but if the club wants to insist you continue to pay your membership fees for another 2 years you get to play on the course free, as long as you follow the rules. You don’t get to go to the AGM, and arguably you don’t get to go into the clubhouse unless signed in by a member. But you’re under no obligation to pay for repairs or improvements in 5 years time. You get 2 years worth of green fees, and on your bike.
Yes, pensions are a more difficult ongoing thing, if they come out of current revenue the way the UK’s do.
As for “bypassing Barnier”, the UK head of state has as much right as a current member of the EU to talk to any other head of state of any other member state, as any of the EU27 do. The UK is still a member of the EU, pays its dues, and has full membership of the club.
O/T . http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1496725783751706&set=pcb.1496730357084582&type=3
Whit we’re up tae the day wee Anne Jenkings ( a lurker ) wiz oot flying the Wings Flag in Douglas Dundee today.
Ask not what you can do for your country , just get aff yer erses an get oot there like Wee Anne .
Sad gits who would feel all the better for changing their attitude.
Same goes to you Alex. If it was First, they make big profits, but are very low payers, notorious, 12 hour days, 8 day weeks, no training, no security, and so on.
Public transport in the UK is a great example of what were once public services, sold off to profiteer pirates, who are without ruth in their greed and exploitation.
Its one of Thatcher and then ofcourse Gordon Brown’s great legacies, extracting as much from the working class red tory voter possible and funnelling it all up to the very very rich.
Then ignorant people grinch about poor UK customer services. How frightfully fucking British.
O/T
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10214868922662834&set=a.10214869027345451&type=3&theater¬if_t=like_tagged¬if_id=1508699727901865.
Just checked the Inform Scotland fundraiser.
One very generous soul donated the remaining £45 to reach the target.
Any chance Wingers could push this to show the buggers we can oppose their propaganda?
Oh look, Severin Carrell, Graun Scotland region ed’s popped into the office. Easiest job in UKOK hackdom, that dude has,
Sunday 22 October 2017 14.57
“Briton jailed for three months in Dubai for touching man’s hip
Jamie Harron, from Stirling, claimed he was simply trying to avoid spilling his drink in a bar when he touched the man”
We need a new term for Briton Scot, Briscoton, Scotin, Broscotin.
@ Phil
I’ve got to remember that next time I’m on a bus. Put on a polish accent and rub Vicks below my eyes.
“Oh, cyan eeanybody halp me. I am nyot going to myake my flight.”
heedtracker at 8:10pm
You’ll note I gave the driver the benefit of the doubt.
Management is nearly always responsible for mismanagement.
My point was that said management should organise it better.
Not being an Aberdeen voter I lack the ability to change what we know to be a crap council which is in all likelyhood delighted that First made 50 million.
Who was that on the footbridge over the ‘new’ Three Towns bypass, (first one after you pass ‘The Red Squirrel’, heading north) half-eleven this morning, waving saltires?
Fair cheered me up anyway, whoever it was.
😉
yesindyref2 @ 20:22,
The “golf club” analogy isn’t entirely appropriate, since such an enterprise normally has only to deal with running costs which are strictly time-limited. When you leave, your consumption of resources ends, consequently your dues end, and that’s that. Simples.
But it’s not that simple. Suppose the metaphorical golf club decided to take out a large loan to build a new club house, and did so only on the assurance of future support from all the then members. For one major contributor, a year or two later, to suddenly take a big huff and say they’re quitting and going to renege on that ongoing committment, how can that possibly be fair on the others, who have to pick up the tab? The terms of the loan contract may matter technically (“jointly or severally” or “together”) but dodging mutual committments freely entered into is totally disreputable, whatever.
Under the terms of Art.50 invoked by UKGov, the UK is not a full member of discussions with the EU27 over Brexit. That at least is crystal clear.
I don’t know about you, but if I was negotiating a dispute with someone and they were constantly trying to wangle out of the agreed terms of negotiation and trying to undermine everything by going behind my back to negotiate with my principals, I would recognise them for the rogues and cheats that they are. Whatever the “rights” of the matter, it’s a fundamental breach of trust, and a sure sign of dishonesty. How can that be a sound basis for resolution?
In point of fact, for example, the ongoing status here of people from the rest of the EU has nothing whatever to do with possible trade terms. These human beings are deliberately being held hostage by UKGov, as Foxy once let slip, and that’s utterly reprehensible.
The old “divide and conquer” faithful is a failure here anyway, because the governments of the EU27 can see the UKGov’s manoevering and evidently read the situation well. So the “clever ploy” backfires. As it damned well should.
heedtracker,
“Guardian reader with a Slovene (ex?)girlfriend, how many people in Scotland read The Guardian every day?
Probably about 3, Rock.”
Why don’t you make a stand and reduce it to 2?
It will do wonders for your health as well.
heedtracker,
And find another girlfriend.
That Scottish electrician in Dubai should’ve worn a t-shirt with Mohammed on it. That way, they wouldn’t have thought he was a dirty kafir.
As a Sunday evening contribution to the topic of English feelings of suoeriority, I can’t resist this from Janet Teissier Du Cros, a Scottish writer who spent most of her life in France. She is referring to both sides of the Channel.
It is so much a second nature .. to believe there is no one like them that the notion scarcely even reaches the level of conscious thought….It is probably one of the reasons they find each other so oddly irritating.
Divided Loyalties (1964)
Ken500,
“In Catalonia Puigdemont does not have the vote. A third+ support Independence. The turnout is 30% to 40%.”
The turnout in Scotland will be 10% to 20% if the British police beat up Scots going out to vote and seize the ballot papers in the highly unlikely event that Nicola will defy Saint Theresa and hold an “illegal” referendum.
(Go strong with your foul language only if I am proven wrong, which we will know by March 2019.)
Moonlight @ 19:50,
My mrs has made the exact same observation as you, but here in Glasgow. The individual result depends on how “jobsworth” the driver happens to be, but the real problem is the system.
It always makes me cringe to see how stuck and backward the whole public transport thing is across the whole of Scotland. Go instead to any city on the Continent and it’s stunning how well-integrated and flexible their public transport is, especially in paying for a ticket. Tickets that also allow unlimited transfers within a fixed time period, etc. It’s an eye-opener, and shames our utter backwardness.
The organisation of public bus/tram services here hasn’t evolved since the Stone Age. Joking apart, it has even regressed since the days of the “clippies”.
@HandandShrimp says: 22 October, 2017 at 12:14 pm:
” … Ken
No idea why the hatred towards the Catalan people but it is getting old – give it a rest, you are persuading no one.”
Don’t know about anyone else, HandandShrimp, but my impression of Ken’s anti-Catalonian bluster seems more to be to convince himself than to convince others.
Yesindyref2 says:
22 October, 2017 at 7:58 pm
@Breeks
Sure, the EU or at least some in it, would like total political integration, one Europe. Ain’t going to happen in my lifetime, and they’ve been pushing that agenda too fast – slow and steady it likely would get there in time, with strong devolution.
Just for clarity, I wasn’t advocating total political integration. I interpreted ithe text as a presumption in favour of the status quo, but my own preference would even stop short of that.
I would describe myself as an ardent pro European, but in the same breath stress that I am prepared to give Europe the benefit of the doubt largely in response to the decades of sniping and derision which all things European have suffered at the hands of our “wonderful” British Media.
It’s like Moonlight says above. I am mortified that our friends in Europe and all their initiatives are routinely slagged off by the BBC and wider media. I find it embarrassing. I remember several years ago, friends had some German schoolchildren staying as a twin town exchange, and the father was perplexed about scheduling the TV to avoid all the war films, war dramas, or war documentaries. He didn’t feel at all comfortable about German kids being expected to watch black and white war films on the BBC, but there was so much of it to avoid.
Britain has an unhealthy fixation with WW2 which goes beyond morbid curiosity, but it took me years to see it. I used to love all these films believing them to be true, and unaware of the poetic license behind modifying the whole story. I was always curious about whether German kids grew up watching German war films of sanitised defeats and distorted reality. What kind of war films do French kids watch? How is it France can get over the war, and benefit from close and progressive alliance with Germany, and leave Britain harbouring the big chip on its shoulder?
It took me a long time to recognise it wasn’t the French or German people being dysfunctional, – they had got over WW2 and put it behind them. The real dysfunction laying the British who couldn’t survive for 24 hours without some classic war film or documentary celebrating European inferiority.
That is also why I would and do firmly advocate postponing any referendum on Scotland relationship with Europe so we have a chance to interact with Europe on our own terms, not the terms dictated to us by BBC stereotypes and cynicism.
And totally OT – wasn’t Scotland meant to get a saltire emoji on this Apple iOS update? What happened to that?
Ken500,
“Why people get taken in by the greens is a mystery. They took votes from the SNP using myths.”
No, it is not a mystery at all.
The Greens were heavily promoted by the fake “independence supporting” The National to make sure the SNP lost their majority.
@RJS
From A50L “4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it.”
So no participation in the Council by the UK when they’re talking about Brexit, quite right too, but that still does not stop head of state talking to head of state OUTSIDE the Council on a one to one basis if they want, and also quite right too.
Am fetching a tall ladder to get up to my high horse!
Relutant Nationalist, I may be misreading the intent of a couple of your comments but they are sounding very racist to me. If so, not on.
Robert Peffers I usually respect your point of view and informative comments but where do you get off on denegrating anyone’s faith?! Cut it out. Not cool.
Breeks @ 21:23,
Agree with a lot of what you said there. When I was a kid, we boys used to regularly play at fighting the “jerries”. But I’ve long since grown out of that.
And I’m not alone either, even down south. The Leavers may have won last year in England + Wales, but it was still a “damned close run thing” (as another Englishman was once heard to mutter). And with the ongoing slowmo Brexicrash there may even have been a significant change of heart there too.
However, I don’t think the reason for the WW1+2 obsession (which clearly exists) is especially a serious ongoing animus with the French or Germans as such. I believe it’s instead a kind of long drawn out mourning process among the English Establishment (including TV programme editors) for the Lost Empire.
That same thing that’s fuelling the Brexiteers and their Empire 2.0.
Brexit is essentially Suez’56 for slow learners.
Get lost Rock. Stop your nonsense and haud yer whist. The National is holding it’s own. At least it is a normal paper. Printing alternative views. Even the truth. Not some regurgitated twattle.
Re Brexit negotiations.
I recall Theresa May making a not so veiled threat to the EU of linking UK intelligence sharing to a trade deal at a time when France and Germany had been bearing the brunt of terror attacks.
Events in England since then have put her gas at a peep on that particular negotiating tactic.
No,I don’t recall any such lack of good faith or morality on the part of the EU’ with regard to Brexit negotiations.
They seem quite straightforward in comparison with the British.
Who isn’t?
@Ghillie
Reluctant Nationalist is at the wind up and has been since the very first day he posted on here. I chose to ignore his comments then and still do.
You were right anyway, his comments are racist and inflammatory.
@Breeks
Totally agree with you, the only problem being that postponing the referendum on membership out of sight might lose a whole load of EU-agnostic YES voters and lose the Ref. For me, like you, I’d love to see Scotland making a shot because I think in some ways small member states have more power than the big guys – if two of them are going head to head, they need our votes and will do almost anything to keep us happy! And that’s from observation, Luxembourg, Belgium, Portugal and even Holland and Denmark get away with murder, as does Ireland. Scotland would engage, the UK antagonises, and then just rolls over. Most EU states pay lip service only to many of the Directives even if they’re made into their own laws.
Anyway, I do feel uncomfortable “defending” the UK, as its approach has been a shambles. But it’s up to the big guy – the EU27 – to play it absolutely straight and level, and I don’t think they have been, though they may be starting to now.
Which could be a problem in March 2019, as if the EU27 haven’t diligently pursued an agreement, the UK could take them to court on the basis of bad faith negotiations, to prevent them being kicked out of the EU in the strict 2 years, and ironically, it would be the ECJ as that’s where the Lisbon Articles are jusrisdicted (if that’s a word).
yesindyref2 @ 21:31,
I’m sure we could merrily (if unproductively) nit-pick about the niceties of Brexit negotiations all evening, but we all know what’s really happening here. Perfidious Albion up to its hoary old tricks.
However the UKGov is now running on the fumes from an empty tank of English exceptionalism. However it goes about its devious ways, this time it’s not going to get the special sweet deal that it still blithely assumes it’s entitled to.
Further to that, I can only repeat the last sentence of my response to Breeks @ 21:41.
With friends like this…
Nigel Farage claims the EU supported Scottish independence because of its pro EU stance –
but has not supported the Catalonians because they are anti EU.
When the interviewer points out he is talking bollocks (my paraphrasing) Farage just ignores the correction as if it doesn’t matter.
http://archive.is/V2z5w
Ken500 only ever interacts with Rock.
Just sayin’
So Rajoy intends to “ take over” the Catalan media including TV & radio stations etc
presently under “ local control”. Unsurprisingly a “ coup” always involves “ seizing control” of the
state propaganda apparatus. Of course London does not have that problem here in Scotland as the political, cultural “ Better together” conditioning continues unabated. However, just a thought, can Rajoy please take Jackie Bird & cohorts from “ Propaganda quay” and give us the Catalonian broadcasters as replacement? Fair swap??
@yesindyref2 says: 22 October, 2017 at 3:41 pm:
“I’ve got to admit I don’t thing it’s reasonable to have the divorce bill settled before the rest of the divorce is agreed. Why should the UK have to agree to pay say £60 billion, when it doesn’t know what it’s getting for it … ”
Whoa! There, yesindyref2. You obviously don’t get what that so called, “Divorce Bill”, is made up of.
In basic terms every EU member state is contracted to paying into the EU coffers to make up the EU funds that are distributed throughout the EU member states.
So the more wealthy EU member states will be paying in but will be getting less out as they do not have the problems the grants are meant to alleviate.. It is that money paid in by member states that funds the grants made to all EU member states with those most in need getting the most out.
For example, The Republic of Ireland got loads of grants when it first joined the EU but these tapered off as the Republic got on its feet and the Republic is now one of the more wealthy EU member states paying in. The UK made these commitments but is now wanting to walk away and that means the other 27 member states will have to make up the difference. Thing is the commitments are to cover a period of several years.
For example the EU grants meant to assist the Scottish Hill farmers that the Westminster Government misappropriated and gave a good deal of it to the large, and already wealthy large farmers in England.
The funding came from the EU budget specifically for smaller family type farms and more so for such as family owned Hill Farms that are hardly even making a living. Yet Westminster gave a portion of the EU Grantst to the big conglomerate farm companies in England.
Then there is such as the EU funding that was/is paid to the ex-mining areas to help wipe out the dereliction left in the wake of the mines. Like removing pit bings and re-landscaping devastated areas. All of which are on-going commitments that Westminster had agreed to and are now saying they will walk away without fulfilling the commitment they made.
What’s more Westminster has made it clear they will not hand back the grants they already have had from the EU but not yet used the money for the purposes it was paid for.
Does that make the so called, “Divorce Bill”, a little clearer?
The support in Scotland for indepedence is 50% . The IndyRef turnout was 85%. Double Won by a bunch of lies and false vows. In Catalonia the turnout was 30%+ and 43%. People who did not agree were advised to boycotted the vote. Or did not vote. Apathy.
Telling the truth about Catalonia/Spain is not trying to convince anyone. It is the facts. Take it or leave it. Anyone who frequently visited Catalonia/Spain. Knows what went on there. During the banking crisis onwards by reading the Press and talking to people. Most are getting on with life. They do have a conducive lifestyle and many are not consumed with Independence. Even though there are large rallies. They do not have hatred to the rest of Spain or each other. That is not hatred towards the Catalonian people just is a fact. The numbers do not add up. Complicated by the fact all of Spain wants to stay in the EU and Spain is in the Eurozone, They guarantee Catalonia/Spain debt. The EU members will not see it going down for external reasons. No matter what for obvious reasons.
The rallies were used by the Unionist Press to try and say there was more support for Ibdependence in Catalonia then there was in Scotland. When the opposite was true. Every Ibdependebce movement is different. Yet some folk want to make false comparisons which are not realistic. The situation in Catalonia/Spain might put off people in Scotland voting for Independence. Thinking it is a waste of time and will not make any difference. When it will. Or Scotland will lose powers, if it voted for Ibdependence. When it will not. The opposite will be true. A better, more equal, progressive country.
It was a Union of two countries. Supposed to be treat equally. When one was not. Since 1928 and before. Not a recent federal conciliation in 1978. Catalonia and the rest of Spain will have to sort out any differences, It might bring changes. Until then no one has died. Like they have in the UK with Tory policies. Scotland dragged out of the EU against it’s will etc. Innocent Folk being chucked out of Scotland by the Tory bastards.
@Ken500
Give it a rest please. Your views on Catalonia are way out of sync with the majority of the Indyref support. To support state police bashing heads of ordinary who WANT TO VOTE is way out of line.
To take the side of Fascists that close down a democratically elected government and take over their media is way out of line on an Independence blog. Give it a rest or try the Daily Mail.
You did this before with your support for Trump as President though you haven’t gone there much recently. Thank Fuck.
It’s been talked about for weeks now. Labour and Tory rebels endeavour to amend the EU Withdrawal Bill giving parliament the power to reject whatever the outcome of the negotiations turns out to be.
One thing puzzles me. What would happen if parliament rejects the deal? The negotiating will be over so the only two options will be cancel Article 50 and Brexit, or jump off the cliff with the hardest of Brexits. The latter can’t be what this group want, and the former might not even be possible.
So at this point, I begin to think it’s all a whitewash and the intention is to pass the deal regardless in an attempt to make it all look ‘democratic’.
I trust nothing that Unionist parties do at Westminster.
Ken500,
“The IndyRef turnout was 85%.”
45% of 85% equals 38.25%
“In Catalonia the turnout was 30%+ and 43%.”
90% of 43% equals 38.7%.
Despite the massive oppression by the fascist Spanish state, Catalonia still managed a higher Yes vote than the Scots in a “free” vote.
Albert Herring,
“Ken500 only ever interacts with Rock.
Just sayin’”
You must have also noticed the language he uses against me.
Consider also Thepnr’s polite message to Ken500 and compare it with the language Thepnr uses against me.
Conclusion: The likes of Robert Peffers, Petra, Ken500 and Thepnr attack me with venom because they are never able to counter the points I make.
Nothing on the unionist BBC about the +ve stuff re Scotland in Europe from Stiglitz today.
They got a -ve headline & hammer it home relentlessly.
Ken500,
“They do have a conducive lifestyle and many are not consumed with Independence.”
Same with about 55% of the voting population in Scotland.
@Albert Herring
Ken500 doesn’t like the Greens and doesn’t like the Catalonian referendum, maybe even one or two other things, that’s his personal view he’s entitled to, but I used to see his posts all over MSM and other blogs giving pro-indy info, for years. Saved me the bother!
‘Despite the massive oppression by the fascist Spanish state, Catalonia still managed a higher Yes vote than the Scots in a “free” vote.’
Control of the media and the power of propaganda works much better in a ‘free’ vote.
If only we had a bit of rough wooing to contend with.
@Robert Peffers
You obviously don’t get that many of us know loads about loads of stuff, but have different views and opinions.
Which is great innit? We’re not all clones of each other!
It will do wonders for your health as well.
You’re a laugh sometimes Rock, sorry Dr Rock. Reading newspapers is low risk health wise. very low. Although worlds greatest perverts at the Heil, Express, Sun etc are quite useful emetics.
Your average UKOK hack’s just a tory, belching out the party line, especially beeb gimp wise. Its why they were hired, its how they hope to climb the greasy pole of tory media greatness, maybe become the next Gordon Brewer or Severin Carrell, gods among liggers.
Its the filth that own UK media that are the real health hazard.
Rock @ 22:58,
The real reason you get so much criticism on here from virtually everyone is because your opinions are almost inevitably shallow, self-justifying, repetitive and boring. Nothing else.
Not to forget also a depressive litany of “moan by numbers” against practically everyone and everything. (“A’body’s oot o’ step except oor Rock.”)
Sorry to be so direct, but you really need to face up to the truth. It’s a bit like trying to tell someone in one’s personal circle that they have BO. You have the textual equivalent.
Not easy, but a necessary home truth for the good of all. You not least.
@Alex Clark
To an extenet I agree except that Ken’s point has been that we can’t compare Catalonia with Scotland as it’s constitutionally different, and yet what the MSM is trying to do is completely compare us with Catlaonia to put us in our place, with our faces in our bowls of porridge.
And that we should be caerful going overboard with our support for Catalonia, as it could affect our entry / staying in, the EU if we piss off Spain.
Ken500 doesn’t like the Greens and doesn’t like the Catalonian referendum, maybe even one or two other things, that’s his personal view he’s entitled to, but I used to see his posts all over MSM and other blogs giving pro-indy info, for years. Saved me the bother!
Yeah I’d go with that. Its almost impossible to know what Cztalonia is really about via our media, so all views count btl.
BBC is being absolutely revolting over Catalonia, presumably because they’re leading the massive ongoing tory war on Scottish democracy and nation statehood. But that doesn’t make it right. Its all once again highlighted how corrupt the BBC is today.
Hate to state the obvious but we are moving towards 2018.
The vote of 2014 is over.
It is up to us to persuade more people to vote for independence and self determination for the next referendum to be.
Whether its 2018,19 etc I don’t really care as long as we win.
Anyone who doesn’t fight for this are just closet tories/liebour however they dress themselves up.
@yesindyref2 says: 22 October, 2017 at 11:11 pm:
“You obviously don’t get that many of us know loads about loads of stuff, but have different views and opinions.”
Oh! yesindyref2, I certainly do get that and, what is more I’m a great one for supporting those differences. I most certainly do not want Wings to become a cosy wee club of people just agreeing talking to each other.
“Which is great innit? We’re not all clones of each other!”
Thing is, in this instance it is not a matter of opinions and/or differing views. It is a matter of facts and facts are not open to opinions or views.
The simple fact is the EU budget runs for a specific time and the member states all signed up to the conditions of that budget. It is thus set according to the expected contributions being met and if any member state defaults on their commitments the others, (in this instance they are mainly far less wealthy than the UK), then the 27 must make up the difference.
It is a bit like the UK taking out a mortgage. The UK is committed to making the payments on time for the allotted period of the mortgage. Like a mortgage, if they fail to make the payments on time, the mortgage supplier forecloses on the deal and the full sum becomes due at once.
The UK is withdrawing from the deal but wants to walk away without making good the outstanding payments, or only paying what the UK sees fit.
You’ll note I gave the driver the benefit of the doubt.
Management is nearly always responsible for mismanagement.
My point was that said management should organise it better
Moonlight, we live in culture where the average CEO earns several hundred times more than than say that bus driver.
I don’t know which stats to show you, concerning just how much more CEO’s pay themselves, but ultimately we do sometimes have to stop and ask ourselves what exactly it is that we want from an indy Scotland and how we convince enough Scots that it is in their interests.
One of the great triumphs of red and blue tory reign, under Gordon Brown especially, has been the staggering earning inequality in this farce UK. Yet the red tories still think we should vote for them. You certainly should if you’re a CEO, of say a public transport corp, like First.
Google, how much more do CEO’s earn than average workers.
or
How much tax is lost to offshore UKOK tax havens.
or
How many UKOK tax havens are there, all legal too.
@yesindyref2
I agree that the situation in Catalonia is not comparable with Scotland FFS. Have you read ALL that Ken500 has had to say on Catalonia?
Here’s some quotes from this thread.
“The Ref on having a Referedum was 2,3Million votes out if a 5.5million electorate. Reported 30%+ turnout. The Catalonian authorities would not release the total turnout figures.”
Is that true? No it’s bollocks.
“The claims of 700,000 votes going missing. Almost an impossibility? How were they secreted away. Where is the evidence, photos of the missing votes or ballot boxes?”
You yourself were arguing against this today explaining what 700,000 votes actually looked like.
“It is reported Puigdemont owns a Catalonian national TV station. He was a journalist. Then Mayor of Girona. That would not happen in any free and fair democracy. The President owning a national TV station beaming out propaganda?”
Who reported that? Or is it all just Ken500 bullshit.
“Rajoy wants there to be elections. Then the powers will be given back. The Spanish Gov will not want to Gov Catalonia. It would be too much time time and trouble. Fuss and bother. It would break Spanish Law is the powers are not handed back.”
Haverings from someone who would serve the cause of Independence better by supporting the right to self determination of the Catalans as we ALL should. Else consider yourself a hypocrite.
@Alex Clark
Yeah, I read all of Ken500 about Catalonia, and have corrected it 3 times I think, today, yesterday, maybe before.
Where have you been all my life? 🙂
Hi Robert Peffers at 8:03 pm.
You typed,
“It used to be directly to the monarch but that changed in Scotland in 1320 by the Declaration of Arbroath and in the Kingdom of England in 1688 during the so called, “Glorious Revolution”.”
Alex Clark @ 23:44,
The only real differences between Scotland and Catalonia that I can see are:
+ the UK “constitution” =laugh= is make-it-up-England-as-you-go whereas the Spanish one is fossilised-in-stone-since-1978.
+ Catalonia at least has its own broadcasting channels.
+ The Madrid regime isn’t afraid to use brute force whereas the London regime is more subtle. (Maybe something to do with the previous point.)
Not that much fundamental difference really. Both are peoples, within a purportedly democratic Europe, striving for their just human right to self-determination against naked big-state suppression and exploitation.
Censorship – Rahoy plans to close down Catalonia’s broadcaster. Must control the narrative if there’s to be a general election to ensure the right result next time.
Westminster doesn’t need to do that. They already control the narrative
Except for online providers such as RT. But they are working on closing it down. Boris Johnston thinks it’s an “absolute scandal” that Labour MPs appear on RT. He needs Rupert Murdoch’s support to become the next PM. Rupert wants RT closed down.
Lord Adonis calls it “Putin’s RT channel”.
That’s why Scotland can’t have its own broadcasting service. It’s too democratic and therefore too dangerous.
https://on.rt.com/8qcp
I have no idea why the start of my comment was posted without my say-so but to continue…
Around a year ago, Wull posted a comment that the sovereignty of the people of Scotland had been mentioned in the The Act of the Clergy (1309?) so had been in existence before that date. The 1320 declaration merely confirmed what had existed for hundreds of years.
.
Hi Robert J. Sutherland at 9:16 pm.
You typed,
“The organisation of public bus/tram services here hasn’t evolved since the Stone Age. Joking apart, it has even regressed since the days of the “clippies”.”
I deep beggie your pardlobe? We, who make use of the number 73 Arbroath to Ninewells Hospital service, still have clippies, both male and female, on our service, daily. So, the days of the clippies are current, not resigned to the past. PARP!
yesindyref2 at 11.19
The differences between the constitutional positions of Scotland and Catalonia are a distraction from the major issue.
Regardless of any constitution position of any nation, sub nation,region or whatever the UN Charter is completely unambiguous. “All people have the right to self determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status…… ”
The EU may not be covering itself in glory (and it forbids any member state from using force against its peoples) but this is an issue for which it has no obvious locus or procedures. It is the United Nations which is letting the world down and exposing itself for what it is.
@Robert J. Sutherland
I know Robert but look at any map of the world and you will always see Scotland as a country not so Catalonia. I have very much sympathy for all Catalonia’s citizens right now.
Those that both support Independence and those that oppose it, as I see it this can only get uglier and the citizens are defenceless and that’s why the EU should intervene.
It’s never too late to prevent bloodshed.
Brian Doonthetoon @ 00:21,
Why did I just know that someone would eventually fact-check me on that one? =laugh=
Could be very handy if any newly-landed traveller in Arbroath needed to have an urgent medical check-up, I suppose! =grin=
@ Breeks and Yesindyref2 who asked:”What kind of war films do French kids watch? How is it France can get over the war, and benefit from close and progressive alliance with Germany, and leave Britain harbouring the big chip on its shoulder?”
Can’t answer for france but can tell you about Italy. Nothing on the TV recently but in the 70s-80s they had very factual-style documentaries.
I couldn’t believe what i was hearing at first – they seemed to be talking about very different events and a totally different war. Even their version of battle of El Alamein was an eye-opener.
Italian press and TV are are very big on the lesson of “never repeating the horrors of war and the holocaust”- There’s a special programme every year on the horrors of the concentration camps.
Italian partisans are not played up much, particularly since that generation is dying/has died, also because they were pretty left-wing.
Their legacy is the Italian Republic and its Constitution which the majority of Italians support whole-heartedly (see then PM Renzi’s failed Referendum on Constitutional change last year).
I imagine a similar sort of attitude is found in France but not in Spain since Franco continued his right-wing dictatorship until the mid-1970s
Alex Clark @ 00:26,
Just one fr’instance: the present-day “Belgium” used to be an assorted bunch of southern provinces of the “United Kingdom of the Netherlands” (“Verenigd Koninkrijk der Nederlanden”), as it was unofficially called after post-Napoleonic reunification. They didn’t even have a single common language. How very convenient for them then that they “broke the law” =gasp= =shudder= ~150 years before the EU was organised!
This kind of situation is hardly new in Europe, and you might say that the existence of the EU even makes it more likely. So for its own future well-being, the EU had better evove a sensible way of accommodating legitimate cases somehow.
But as you say, the essential step now is for the EU to insist upon a dialogue to avoid bloodshed. To do otherwise would be to become an accessory. A properly-constituted referendum would seem to be the obvious and essential fact-gathering exercise to know how best to move forward.
One suspects however that not everyone wants to let that happen, precisely because they have a fair idea already of what the result might be. Does that not sound familiar?
@ Capella – since you’re here (or were at 12.12, anyway)
o/t
As a bit of light relief from Heydrich, I’ve been reading a book about the Irish Famine by Tim Pat Coogan.
This is purely anecdotal, but he says:
The second paragraph looks awfy familiar!
Hi Robert J. Sutherland at 12:51 am.
You typed,
“Just one fr’instance: the present-day “Belgium” used to be an assorted bunch of southern provinces of the “United Kingdom of the Netherlands” (“Verenigd Koninkrijk der Nederlanden”), as it was unofficially called after post-Napoleonic reunification.”
Picked this up from sumbdee’s Twitter thingy today. The ever-changing European borders over a 1000 years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iha3OS8ShYs
I have Spanish friends in both Madrid and the Costa Blanca and their opinion on Catalonia is they couldn’t care less whether Catalonia becomes Independent or not, to them and their friends the unpleasantness only started because Rajoy whipped it up
Sound familiar?
Which could be a problem in March 2019, as if the EU27 haven’t diligently pursued an agreement, the UK could take them to court on the basis of bad faith negotiations, to prevent them being kicked out of the EU in the strict 2 years, and ironically, it would be the ECJ as that’s where the Lisbon Articles are jusrisdicted (if that’s a word).
I respect that’s a possibilty, but a remote one I think.
I think the UK would have a difficult job to persuade the ECJ that It was Europe negotiating in bad faith after the UK slated the EU with the likes of Farage and various Tories cocking their legs on Europe’s leaders, institutions, and achievements. The UK then openly supported the far right parties in Europe, especially La Penn, hoping that far right success would derail and fracture the whole EU project and celebrate its disintegration. The UK then threatened war with Spain over Gibraltar, which apart from every other absurdity breaks the EU law of a member state declaring war upon another. Furthermore, the UK has shown flagrant disregard for EU laws about member states pursuing unilateral Trade Deals while still a member of the EU, which hasn’t stopped the UK pursuing unilateral Trade Deals all over the planet, and even fishing for bipartite deals with individual EU member states.
All things considered, I rather suspect the UK would be well advised to avoid accusing the EU of negotiating in bad faith. Europe has been a model of decorum, while the UK has run about like a spiv opportunist trying every door handle to see if it was locked.
https://ec.europa.eu/info/news/introductory-comments-michel-barnier-2016-dec-06_en
Michel Barnier spelled out the EU’s position, and his whole disposition towards Brexit negations with explicit clarity from the very beginning, and has stuck to those principles with commendable constancy.
And just to my tuppence on Europe’s ever changing borders of 1000 years – Isn’t that cauldron of boiling sovereignties and national boundaries the very reason Europe has been plagued with wars for centuries, which spawned the colonial wars and global exploitation at the point of a gun, culminating in two world wars of industrial scale slaughter which destroyed half of Europe and killed millions?
The EU was born in the ashes of WW2, at the point when war itself evolved to a new potency of actual destruction of the planet. I hope, a thousand years from now, historians will look back and recognise that the creation of the EU was the step change in European cultural development; the point when it abandoned its petty bickering and dreadful all consuming wars and hatreds, and from then on engaged its energies in progressive ideals and collective aspirations for the common good.
When the EU was formed, the world became a better, and safer, place. In that context, I can understand and respect the presumption that international disputes and constitutional instabilities should not be given encouragement as a general guiding principle. It is a big component of the European formula.
In losing the UK, the EU has shed a divisive and disruptive component which has never properly reconciled itself with Europe’s collective ideals, but in Scotland, the EU is losing a component part which has.
@Breeks
I don’t disagee with you.
The crazy thing about the afterm at of ww2 and the Marshal plan is that the UK out of all the western European countries got the biggest share of the loan.
In fact the UK received almost as much as France and Germany combined (in fact around 25% of all money received). Yet as usual that more was not used wisely by our ruling parties in Westminster.
@ crazycat 12.59 – just catching up. Yes that is an interesting observation. How efficient of the Japanese to grasp the essentials of British colonialism.
BTW – I’m still on the Heydrich case but have had numerous interruptions recently. But now have a collection of war records to read through which look promising.
Will post if anything definite turns up.
Re Irish famine, I read Kennealy’s excellent “Three Famines” dealing with the Irish, Bengali and Somali famines. Appalling cruelty involved and Westminster politicians, who also owned vast estates in Ireland, such as Lord Palmerston, the worst offenders. Add Winston Churchill to the list for starving Bengal.
As someone above said re Italian accounts of WW2, we have been fed a very partial and self-serving view of Britush history.
Start a letter writing campaign. Every time May and the Tories do anything that is despicable. Write a letter. Keep it polite if a reply is required . Better bogging up their administration. If it is more rebust do it anonymously, put on gloves – typed – and post away from location. Do not give e-Mail addresses or phone numbers. Or M15 will be in the case. A few thousand letters will clog up the administration. Give an few alternative views.
Criminal Johnstone wants to start a war to try and get the Tories out of the binding mess they have Created. A war with North Korea, possibly involving China. The US has been starving North Korea for over fifty years. The Chinese help them out. Fallon wants to start a war with Russia who saved the West in 11WW. 26Million Russians died. 1/2Million British died. Fallon doesn’t think 100Million deaths was enough and wants to start another war, A letter for Johnstone and Fallon. The alcoholic and the crazy nasty.
Johnstone was brought up on EU money. His father was an EU diplomat. Johnstone owes his privileged background to the EU. He is an egotistic liar. Murdoch sacked him for telling lies. The biggest liar in the world sacks a liar for telling lies. Honour among thieves? Johnstone will never be PM despite his ludicrous ambitions and delusions of grandeur. The poseur had too much baggage. He would not last five minutes before the scandals came leaking out. More holes than a sieve losing water.
The Tories are ‘negotiating’ an EU ‘settlement’ which will cost more for less rights and no imput on decisions. That’s the Tory way. Less for more. They are a bunch of bampots. On their way out. 30 years in the wilderness awaits How can these people be so stupid. It is an embarrassment. Wasting public money like their is no tomorrow on grotesque projects of no value that no one wants. Cutting essential vital services that everybody wants, needs and supports.
It is the the Tory way. So far out of touch. They fall over. Scrambling over each other in pursuit of embezzling public money for them and their cronies. A complete pack of deranged, mentally challenged. Dog eat dog. The unionists Parties are extremely strange. They can’t count or read a balance sheet. May can’t walk and talk st the same time. Now pleading with the EU to bail her out to try and save her regime. Not much chance of that, Reap what they sow. Starving people and killing and maiming millions of innocent people. The Tories will be gone before long.
Scotland will be Independent.
The Italians were allied with Germany – Fascists. Mussolini. Brown shirts. Hitler. 100Millions died. In 11WW. One of the worst catastrophes in history even of cruelty. The devastation. The world still suffers from the affects of it. It still shapes policies around the world today. Before history Is rewritten. The need to stop conflict and war. Injustices.
OT. Regarding the European attitudes towards WW2, I would thoroughly recommend reading The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer.
It’s story is so gripping, and written as a personal recollection there are some minor errors in the narrative, many questioned the books authenticity, however it is my understanding one or more of Sajer’s comrades were identified, and verified Sajers accounts.
“…One of his [Sajer’s] staunchest critics—Großdeutschland Veteran’s Association leader Helmuth Spaeter—recanted his original suspicions of Sajer, noting “I have underestimated Herr Sajer and my respect for him has greatly increased.”
It’s been a good few years since I last read it, but I would thoroughly recommend it. Sajer was a French Alsatian recruited to the German Army and sent to the Eastern Front in 1942. It brackets a time of German ascendancy through to the horrors and deprivations of defeat and retreat from the Soviets.
I was never a great reader, but largely as a result of reading The Forgotten Soldier two or three times that when Anthony Beevor’s book Stalingrad came out, I read it cover to cover.
Show them we have not forgotten the Pigs Head Initiation, that along with other things is open to bribery.
Is this why some people say silly things.
Links
http://indyref2.scot/why-does-madrid-want-to-control-catalan-tv
https://www.snp.org/pb_how_are_the_snp_improving_scotland_s_digital_infrastructure
http://indyref2.scot/media-power-and-the-habit-of-lies
https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/conservative-party/news/90017/excl-govt-accused-hiding-bad-news-after-liam
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/statements/2017/goodwill-ambassador-rescinded/en/
https://medium.com/@MrWeeble/who-actually-trades-solely-under-wto-rules-1b6127ce33c6
UK business chiefs unite to demand urgent Brexit transition deal
http://archive.is/WhMdG
This is why the wealthy want Brexit
https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/company-tax/anti-tax-avoidance-package/anti-tax-avoidance-directive_en
Italian regions vote in favor of autonomy in shadow of Catalonia crisis
http://archive.is/lnAr1
https://zelo-street.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/murdochs-100m-sex-pest-shame.html
Who / What’ve is behind Collabarative Scotland a John Sturrock was interviewed on BBC’s Scottish radio station. Claim they want to facilitate conversations on difficult subjects such as Brexit help to keep young folk in rural locations etc. To facilitate these conversations whilst not guiding them (my words) Aye right! I believe they have a bus set up for this . Starting today in Dornoch, following on to Wick, Thurso round to Ullapool. Independence wasn’t mentioned, Brexit was
As the BBC were giving this air time, it can’t be pro Independence.
Who / What is behind Collabarative Scotland a John Sturrock was interviewed on BBC’s Scottish radio station. Claim they want to facilitate conversations on difficult subjects such as Brexit help to keep young folk in rural locations etc. To facilitate these conversations whilst not guiding them (my words) Aye right! I believe they have a bus set up for this . Starting today in Dornoch, following on to Wick, Thurso round to Ullapool. Independence wasn’t mentioned, Brexit was
As the BBC were giving this air time, it can’t be pro Independence.
We should not be surprised at the EU blanking Catalonia’s request for help. The EU is responsible for some good changes across the board. However we cannot escape the fact that the EU relies on income from the current 27 states to fund it’s work.
To maintain this there is some corruption and a look away attitude.They care much less to what happens to potential small countries who are not already a solid state and who currently contribute to their budget.
How they behave is not always honorable, just look at how they handled the Greek issue.The interest rates on loans and the pressure they put on the Greeks to comply.I really did not like these tactics from the EU and their Bankers (did I spell that right!)
Personally I agree with the EFTA route, which may not be perfect, but joining the EU is less than perfect either. I do believe that changes are coming to the EU, but should be assessed after Indy in a referendum whether to apply for full membership or not. We may be comfortable in EFTA, we may want more but that will be the peoples choice.
I think that we may settle in with what EFTA provides, which is still much more than we are likely to get after Brexit by a large margin. We will be working with other small productive states, and I like that idea rather than the behemoth EU proper.
After their lack of action ref Catalonia, I feel less trusting of them right or wrong, that is how I feel.
So it is quite possible that the EU full membership issue may not be addressed for some time if we are comfortable with EFTA if this proves to be the case.
For Scotland it would be like getting out of jail.
Nana says:
In its own geeky way, an enjoyable article.
Turns out … “there is only one country in the world that trades only under WTO rules. …. Mauritania, it’s GDP is $4,714million (0.2% of the UK’s), 50% of its exports consist of Iron Ore, and between 1% and 17% of the population still live in slavery.”
Sad and funny at the same time.
Of course Brexitised UKOK is going to sign trade agreements here there and everywhere. It doesn’t seem to occur to Brexiteers that the old saying “beggars can’t be choosers” is like to apply and a desperate UK is likely to get thoroughly shafted in trade negotiations!
It could be payback time for India!
This madness appears to be bottomless.
O/T but confirming BBC imaginary reporting.
The Aberdeen students charity ‘Torcher’ parade happened on Saturday evening. A video showed it to be a 3 float, 10 minute embarrassing affair with local social media bewailing the demise of a once exciting, noisy, cheery crowded night.
The Aberdeen report completely misreported it as a colourful, thousands attending parade which will be bigger next year. Like the Evening Express build up, nothing like the truth.
If they are happy to totally falsify such a tiny event, and praise it as a success, no wonder we can’t actually rely on them for news. Other Aberdeen readers views welcome.
@ Nana – I like the way the EU portrays tax havens with a palm tree.
So there is a carry-on-thieving incentive for UK to leave the EU. What a surprise. Not.
https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/company-tax/anti-tax-avoidance-package/anti-tax-avoidance-directive_en
Clydebuilt says:
I am always suspicious of these apparently good intentioned private organisations.
http://www.core-solutions.com/blog/commitment-to-respectful-dialogue/
” We have established Collaborative Scotland. “
https://collaborativescotland.org/about/
” Funding and resources for infrastructure is provided by Core and other private donors. Funding and resources for individual projects and initiatives comes from our partners in these. The initiative is led by John Sturrock QC, Senior Mediator and Founder at Core Solutions, along with a group of informal advisers. “
http://www.core-solutions.com/who-we-are/
” As the founder and chief executive of Core, John has pioneered mediation and high quality training in business, the professions and commerce across the UK and elsewhere. “
On the face of it, there activities with Collaborative Scotland look philanthropic.
I’ve scanned mentions of them in Google looking for an underlying agenda. Nothing springs out.
Perhaps information on who the ‘private donors’ are, and what their agendas might be, could be revealing.
It’s a sad reflection of the way Unionism operates that we find ourselves suspicious of almost everything!
Lots on Radio Shortbread this morning about unpaid work experience/internships and featuring a Lord somebody from Labour – with no mention at all of our own MP Stewart MacDonald, and his private members bill. Lord somebody from Labour still thinks a month of not being paid is ok though, and this is presented as a Good Thing.
https://www.holyrood.com/articles/news/stewart-mcdonald-introduces-private-members-bill-ban-unpaid-trial-shifts
Joe of the Coutts, I used to love the torchlight procession – the trick being never , ever to get anywhere near the medical students and their buckets of awful offal.
A shame that it has become a damper than damp squib and wondrous that the Scottish media are willing to lie about it – I don’t think!
Seems they shamelessly lie about everything.
I don’t see corruption Les Wilson. Please read this link… It comes from 2012.
https://www.ejiltalk.org/catalonian-independence-and-the-european-union/
The EU’s attitude towards Catalonia is by the book, the book that aims to prevent the fragmentation of European states. Not only should secession be discouraged, but seceding Nations should face the enormity of life in the big bad world on their own, as a disincentive for other regions to follow in their footsteps.
As for the Spanish brutality, the EU has condemned it, and I expect is bending over backwards trying to reign in the Spanish Government, but so far with little effect.
I will repeat my earlier point too. Europe has a stated presumption against secession of regions from their sovereign states, because it creates instability and encourages further secession. Scotland however, post Brexit, becomes a rare if not unique instance where our “secession” from the UK actually contributes to EU solidarity rather than contributing to its destabilisation.
If Scotland capitulates to Brexit, and seeks a soft Brexit deal in EFTA, but becomes a state outside the EU, the EU’s interest in Scotland’s successful emancipation from the UK becomes insignificant, and rather than assisting Scotland, we should expect the EU’s attitude to become one of indifference at best, but more likely, reversion to established doctrine which presumes against secession on principle.
Europe can, and will help Scotland escape from Westminster control, but that assistance will evaporate unless Scotland commits itself to European Membership.
Outside Europe, as a sub-sovereign region of the UK, Scotland will be the perfect embodiment of a Nation which secedes expecting perks to rain down upon it, but which the EU would prefer to see struggling alone as a disincentive for other secessionist pressures,
If you want to lobby for Scotland outside Europe, you are making a grave mistake to believe the EU will adopt a benign disposition towards Scotland. The EU looks after its members. Non members are shown the EU Book of Rules, and as Catalonia will verify, the EU Book of Rules has a presumption against secession.
I repeat too, use of the word secession is inaccurate for Scotland, but the principle is apt.
Great coffee time linksmanship Nana! Italian devo to their regions is fascinating.
Life moves really fast in Europe. In Geography at school, 70’s style, we were taught about how post war poverty of southern Italy in particular was tackled. Italy was one of the EU founder nations too, in the fifties, a decade or two before the UK pleaded to be allowed in.
As the UK bombs out, its interesting listening to Leave tories today, who say “we” only wanted into an EEC, not a political super state.
That was yesterday’s tory chatting, in their Scotland region. These tories were also jolly angry that SNP rotters are making it easier for “less well orf” kids to get into uni now. So its making it harder for private school children to get in.
The rich are different from us:D
These rich Scots are more than able and happy to pay for their children to go to uni, so its a bit of a culture shock to be told “your money’s no good here.” So its off to the USA.
Breeks 8.29am. Yeah good book,I also read it twice.sajers mother was german.
Yeah Nana, everybody is familiar with the mantra ‘War on Want’ but perhaps if a new one, namely ‘War on Greed’ came into vogue, the first might become redundant.
Breeks at 10.00
Thoughtful piece and particularly the emphasis on the importance of Scotland maintaining a pro EU stance to solidify EU support for Scotland’s secession from UK.
I understand that the EU is “busting a gut” behind the scenes to little avail with Rajoy
The Graun twits think this is a Monday morn online headline. Its hardly that, you just needed to watch our imperial mistress collapse on her conference stage, with her set, in front of her own bloody party, of our tory imperial masters. Why just enough Scots think we couldn’t do better Scots governing job than tory England land, is very odd. Rule by BBC Scotland gimp network can only be 85% of tory power base in its Scotland region.
“Jean-Claude Juncker’s chief of staff denies May dinner leaks
According to an account of the dinner on 16 October, published in a German newspaper, the commission president described Theresa May begging “for help”, and appearing “anxious”, “tormented”, “despondent and discouraged”.
@yesindyref2 11.19
You said this…”And that we should be caerful going overboard with our support for Catalonia, as it could affect our entry / staying in, the EU if we piss off Spain”.
……….
I completely get where you are coming from with that point, however, i firmly believe in standing up for what is right, especially on a deeply principled issue, even if it causes some personal difficulty.
I never back down in the face of threats or intimidation, and neither should our Scottish Government.
The Catalans have a legal right to choose or refuse, self determination, as defined by the U.N. and it would be a deriliction of democratic solidarity, if any of us as individuals or government were to waver in that conviction of principle.
If Spain threaten a Veto, we have other options to access the EU single market, and as EU members, Spain would be obliged to accept trade with Scotland, for one example, so any Spanish veto on Scottish EU membership would be an empty gesture.
I support the SNP Government because they are principled and stand up for those held under the jack-boot of right wing ideology, at home AND abroad. That is moral high ground we should never vacate for personal ease of progress regarding EU membership.
@yesindyref2 says: 22 October, 2017 at 11:19 pm:
“… And that we should be caerful going overboard with our support for Catalonia, as it could affect our entry / staying in, the EU if we piss off Spain.”
I do not know if you have read the (cough!), “breaking news”, that the
BritishUK propaganda machine has been suppressing for a considerable time but which really alert Wingers knew but may have pushed into the backs of their minds due to the plethora of smelly stuff forever hitting theBritishUK ventilation equipment.Several other European countries, “regions”, are now being reported by the
BritishUK propaganda machine as claiming their right to be independent.Among them are two of Italy’s richest northern regions that have voted for more autonomy. Over 90% of the voters in Lombardy, (which contains the city of Milan that is the Italian financial capital), and the Veneto region, (around Venice), voted YES in non-binding referendums.
Both these Italian regions are members of, “The Northern League”, which has historically claimed that they are subsidising the poorer south Italian regions. Factually Lombardy and the Veneto regions of Italy account for around 30% of Italy’s total national wealth.
Perhaps you missed my comment a few days ago that listed the European countries that have their own problems with regions claiming their freedom from the country.
Here’s a cite to a Wiki listing of the European regions either seeking autonomy or already having gained it. It may highlight the extent that Westminster and the BBC propaganda has suppressed from the people of the United Kingdom but the truth is that the EU may well be under far greater threat of breaking up than any particular member state cares to admit.
I may well be wrong but it seems to me that all these member states with such problems, and the EU itself collectively, are now faced with a choice.
Each member state with regional unrest must decide to choose the Spanish way of violent suppression or they must peacefully sort out their national problems in a democratic way. The conclusion must therefore be that if they attempt to violently suppress independence, and do so with the EU’s blessing, then the EU is about to end.
Neither Catalonia, Italy or Scotland are alone in this struggle for autonomy and
Brexit is only the tip of the independence iceberg.Either the EU accepts the would-be breakaway states and backs their own laws of human rights and freedom of any identifiable group to self-determination. If not the would be break-away states will leave the EU as a much weakened and toothless organisation.
If the EU makes the right choice then the EU membership increases its member states by accepting the breakaway states as new members. If not the EU will end. I believe that in the end the EU will do the right thing.
Graun Scotland editor pops by the office again,
“The Arctic char, Salvelinus alpinus, is a remarkable survivor from the ice age in Britain, having been trapped in various lakes and Scottish lochs for 10,000 years. As a result, if you manage to catch one, the fish may look considerably different from those in other lakes, because they have had many generations to evolve to survive in local conditions after being cut off from the oceans when the ice retreated.”
What a dosser Sevvie is:D
There must be something happening in his Scotland region.
Scottish investment bank’s a major breakthrough, UKOK promised 13 teamGB type diddlydoodah destroyers, now its three…
@ galamcennalath 9:58 am :
“On the face of it, there activities with Collaborative Scotland look philanthropic.
It’s a sad reflection of the way Unionism operates that we find ourselves suspicious of almost everything!”
Rightly so in this case I reckon. Screenshots of the “Collaborative Scotland” website in 2014 are full of retweets of Scotsman bullshit about how the Smith Commission would/did deliver.
Also very telling that they registered a .org rather than a .org.uk – tells me that this is a commercial FOR-PROFIT organisation.
Looks to me like an astroturfing site setup the year before indyref1….
Graun live stuff, holy christ we’re not even out yet.
“Car dealer Pendragon joins ranks of UK firms issuing profit warnings – business
Severin’s fellow hack,
Motoring
Opinion
Owning a car will soon be a thing of the past
John Harris
The idea that we will surrender our prized motors can look far-fetched. But as cities clamp down on vehicle use, technology is putting a utopian vision in reach”
and we wont be able to afford them anyway, all because of merry olde England.
Walking everywhere is very good for you though and we can wave at say the royals as they swish past in giant armoured electric limos.
The Catalalian regime do not have the majority vote. They were manipulating the vote with propaganda. It is 1/3. A low turnout. That is not 90% That is a lie. It was pushed through. That is the problem. In a democracy the majority wins. If 2/3 (some did not vote for various reasons) want to stay in a Federation with Spain, That is what will happen. That is Democracy,
It is exactly the same with Brexit. 1/3 support it. 17Million out of a 45Million electorate 62Million pop. 2 Million? Not allowed to vote. The Tories do not have an overall majority but are pushing it through. That is why it will fail as they will. The Tories will ‘negotiate’ a ‘settlement’ that will cost more for less. Cost more money/contibutions for less rights and no access to decision making. They are a laughing stock.
Same with IndyRef. It was won on a pack of unionist lies
Promises reneged upon. That is why support has increased and there will be another one soon. The unionist liars.
The Tories Fallon and Johnstone want to start a war with Russia and North Korea to distract from the mess they are making of the economy and Brexit. It is the Tories way. Kill some more people so they can tax evade and embezzle more public money for them and their cronies. Greedy nasty parasites. That is why they join unionist parties.
Dr Jim.
Re Catalonia
Was talking with Spanish ( Extremadura, Galicia/Basque) friends last week. They don’t care if Catalunya goes Indy or not. They worry that Rahoy will cause more violence… surely not? They were horrified by the scenes they saw on TV last week and they know that they only saw some of the violence. Very concerned that democracy is under threat. They say it is all being whipped up to hide the massive corruption in Rahoy’s government.
( Wasn’t sure if they were also implying that there is also corruption in Catalunya which they are also trying to hide – didn’t get a chance to enquire further, sorry. )
Obviously the Basque region is watching carefully and stirring!
Regards this argument presented about turnout.
If you do not vote, you are presumed to accept the decision of those who did bother.
If the Catalan referendum had a 30% turnout and 90% voted Yes, then that absolutely IS a pro indy majority.
Regards this argument presented about turnout.
If you do not vote, you are presumed to accept the decision of those who did bother.
If the Catalan referendum had a 30% turnout and 90% voted Yes, then that absolutely IS a pro indy majority.
Take the recent vote at WM last week on stopping universal credit roll out.
The tories abstained under a 3 line whip, resulting in a 298 – 0 result in favour of the opposition day motion.
A tory tried, during making a point of order, to claim the government had not been defeated on the motion just voted on. However, the speaker was unequivical in his response, making it very clear that by not participating in a vote on a motion, that absolutely DID NOT make the result anything other than a defeat for the government.
If the tories chose to not take part in the vote, that was thier choice, but that did not demean the motion in any way as a vote in parliament is to decide the will of the parliament, and the record will show the motion was carried by 298 – 0.
Not sure if anyone has been reading the Wings over Scotland twitter feed and spotted the tweet from Stephen Kinnock (yes the nasally idiot mp and son of Neil Kinnock)
Completely pissing myself at the sheer stupidity of Kinnock
He tweets the following rant “Shameful that Big Ben refurb using foreign steel. We need a patriotic procurement policy that gives us a fair shot” linked to a Daily Telegraph (well he is a socialist isn’t he, reading a socialist paper, ok maybe not that socialist)
So apparently the work being carried out on Big Ben is using steel form Germany, Brazil and the UAE, uh the utter disgrace using foreigners steel.
But its not steel work going IN TO the clock tower, its actually the scaffolding, you know the stuff that goes up and then taken down once work is complete, so its not permanent.
In the case of Big Ben, the workers have had to bring in specialist modular scaffolding due to the nature of the work and probably cant attach anything to the crumbling stone. When you watch news programmes like Channel 4’s news, you can see on any ‘interview with someone in London’ you see Big Ben and the very fancy modular scaffolding.
This type of modular scaffolding was only available from the foreigners
But the reality that this is temporary structure, which will be removed at the end of the work (to go on to the next work) seems to escape the stupidity of Kinnock
@Clydebuilt, 9.10am
Collaborative Scotland – what an unfortunate name – a bit like Macron’s En Marche. I note the lack of transparency regarding private donors. It puts me in mind of Richard Cook’s Constitutional Research Council or the VoteNoBorders outfit which was promoted by the BBC and Gavin Ensler. Core, the parent organisation, specialises in mediation and training for business. It is quite a jump to travelling round rural areas talking to young people about Brexit. Whoever commissioned this project has enough of a reach to have the state broadcaster promote it.
Countries / ‘autonomous communities’, such as Scotland and Catalonia achieving independence has the potential to create massive problems for the EU.
EUROPEAN FREE ALLIANCE (EFA)
‘The European Free Alliance (EFA) works to make the idea of a “Europe of the Peoples” a political and cultural reality at the European and international level. It is an umbrella organisation that gathers 40 progressive nationalist, regionalist and autonomist parties throughout the European Union (EU), representing stateless nations, regions, and traditional minorities in Europe. It focuses its activity on the promotion of the right of self-determination of peoples, human, civil and political rights, democracy, internal enlargement, multi-level governance, devolution of powers, cultural and linguistic diversity; as well as on nationalism, regionalism, autonomy and independence. The right to self-determination is a cornerstone of the EFA’s program and ideology.
The European Free Alliance is a European Political Party recognized by the European Parliament since 2004 and develops its activity with the financial support of the European Parliament and EFA Members. It is classified as a non-governmental organisation (asbl/vzw) under Belgian law.
The European Free Alliance is a pro-European party that endorses the European Union’s values, namely the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law. Through its member parties, the European Free Alliance’s scope is spread over 17 EU Member States (MS).’
http://e-f-a.org/about-us/whats-efa-and-history/
Problems not least of all for Belgium itself.
‘European Separatism: Scotland, Catalonia, and Growing Divisions in the EU.’
‘Another interesting European example of separatism is the situation of Flanders and Wallonia in Belgium. The Dutch-speaking Flemish and French-speaking Walloons both have sought independence at various times in Belgium’s history since its independence from the Netherlands in 1830. However, as Flanders has grown in population and prospered economically, Flemish calls for independence have increased in recent years despite Flanders and Wallonia already having their own regional governments in Belgium’s federal system. Flanders now contains over 60% of Belgium’s population and three-quarters of its economic activity, meaning that Flanders effectively subsidizes the less-wealthy Wallonia region in terms of government programs. And as a result of mounting Flemish frustration, the pro-separatist New Flemish Alliance won a plurality in Belgium’s parliament in the 2014 elections. The existence of two incredibly distinct peoples in two different regions of the country makes Belgium’s situation very complex, since independence for Flanders would effectively mean the end of the Belgian state. The Belgian government thus faces an immense dilemma; it can neither allow an independence referendum, as a ‘yes’ vote would tear apart the Belgian nation, nor can it afford to ignore the New Flemish Alliance and its supporters.’
http://theprincetontory.com/european-separatism-scotland-catalonia-and-growing-divisions-in-the-eu/
I see Labour run Wales want to introduce a 50p minimum alcohol price. I wonder what the SLab position is going to be now? …although they obviously got the idea from Monica Lennon
More trouble for the tories and their love of ‘lists’..http://archive.is/IUycq
Ha, ha, ha. Smart Alex, Brewer, didn’t get the answer that he was looking for. Too bad that we didn’t get a look at his, no doubt, big red, sweaty, crestfallen face at the end of the interview.
”It sounds as though you were convinced of the case for Independence for Scotland back at the time of the referendum (Mr Stiglitz), but you’re not convinced of it now.”
Aye he is Gordon. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
‘Joseph Stiglitz – on Brexit, Scottish Independence and the Basic Universal Income.’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4YCB4KkuwA
@Robert Peffers
I was in Milan in July and there was lots of banners/adverts up around the city about the referendum. It wasn’t the odd YES or NO sticker here and there but rather an acknowledgement and even encouragement for people to get out and vote. Of course there was scant coverage over here whIch is probably why I forgot about it until you mentioned it. Thankyou
IMHO the continued concentration of power into the hands of commercial and central bankers and financial elites will further increase the fragmentation of individual countries
Incredible how no right wing English MPs have launched a well funded campaign for ‘wealthy’ England to secede from th UK. LoL.
A tale from the Catalonia/Spain releationship 2006.
http://archive.is/AqMjf
An interesting letter published in the National that contains a few points that I wasn’t aware of such as, ”all community hydro schemes in Scotland are under English Law.”
Additionally what you might not see.
”Even Attlee, who did many good things failed to honour his 1945 Manifesto of Home Rule for Scotland (”not needed now we’re in power”) and although he nationalised all the Scottish companies (mining, railway, etc) to London, with good intent, when they were privatised they did not come back to Scotland to deal with but were sold off cheaply to friends of the Westminster ruling class with no benefit accruing to Scotland at all.
http://www.thenational.scot/news/15608255.Letters__New_Treaty_of_Union_would_be_in_everyone___s_best_interest/
Wouldnae surprise me.
‘Theresa May BEGGED for help with Brexit during EU dinner, according to leaked account.’
http://www.thenational.scot/news/15613377.Theresa_May_BEGGED_for_help_with_Brexit_during_EU_dinner__according_to_leaked_account/
@ Robert Pferrs who wrote “Several other European countries, “regions”, are now being reported by the British UK propaganda machine as claiming their right to be independent”.
Among them are two of Italy’s richest northern regions that have voted for more autonomy”.
Indeed, the Veneto region and Lombardy voted for more autonomy (Devo-max) within the framwork of Italy as a unitary state. Unlike the Spanish constitution, the Italian constitution allows for ever-greater autonomy of its regions.
And a local Referendum is not the only way to achieve greater self-sufficiency. Negotiating with the national government in Rome is another way which Emilia Romagna, another region in Northern Italy, opted for in its pathway to further autonomy.
NB The Northern league has long abandoned its requests for secession
Thanks Poster Nana for all your links just before nine today.
This one is top of the current broadcasting agenda:
http://indyref2.scot/why-does-madrid-want-to-control-catalan-tv
“Why does Madrid want to control Catalan TV?”.
BBC also gets a mention.
Only a short 2-3 minutes read—-well worth it.
glamcennalath @9.58am. “on the face of it Collaborative Scotland seems benign” yes seems that way . . . . . The Herald under its editorial boasts of being ” committed to providing fair. And impartial coverage …….. And does not endorse any political party” Seems benign also.
The Scots strike again! Whisky, gin AND beer!
History of BrewDog:
‘Martin and I (James) were bored of the industrially brewed lagers and stuffy ales that dominated the UK beer market. We decided the best way to fix this undesirable predicament was to brew our own. Consequently in April 2007 BrewDog was born.
Both only 24 at the time, we leased a building in Fraserburgh, got some scary bank loans, spent all our money on stainless steel and started making some hardcore craft beers. We brewed tiny batches, filled bottles by hand and sold our beers at local markets and out of the back of our beat up old van. Our biggest mission when we set up BrewDog was to make other people as passionate about great craft beer as we are. And that is still our biggest mission today.”
……………………………………………
‘BrewDog raises £1m with latest Equity for Punks crowdfunder.’
Craft brewing sensation BrewDog …. planning to open new breweries in Australia and Asia.
Beer fans clamoured to invest in the brewing firm which is valued at £1 billion now.
BrewDog’s phenomenal success has seen it’s value increase by 2,765% since 2010 and now boasts an 800 strong team, 47 bars around the world and two world class breweries in Aberdeenshire and Ohio.
(And for anyone who is interested) …Shares cost £23.75 each and are issued in blocks of two.
http://www.thenational.scot/news/15610902.BrewDog_raises___1m_with_latest_crowdfunder/
The EU can seemingly ‘interfere’ in relation to a member states internal matters when it suits them. So why not Spain? Rajoy and the PP?
‘Sanctions Against Austria Pose Troubling Questions for the EU.’
…’The entry into Austria’s governing coalition of Jörg Haider’s Freedom Party presented the European Union with an unprecedented situation: participation in the government of one of the member states of a party widely considered “undemocratic.”
The response of Austria’s EU partners was equally unprecedented: lacking the means under the EU treaties to mark their concern, they impulsively imposed diplomatic sanctions as 14 “like-minded states.”‘..
http://www.europeaninstitute.org/index.php/18-european-affairs/spring-2000/762-sanctions-against-austria-pose-troubling-questions-for-the-eu
We, but not me, are supposed to be celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Protestant reformation. You know the one, the event that divided western Europe and paved the way for Scotland’s eventual annexation by England.
Here for example, is what the proto-reformer had to say about Jews.
On the Jews and their Lies
by Martin Luther
What shall we Christians ( ie reformed Christians) do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and blaspheming … I shall give you my sincere advice:
First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. … Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. … Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. … Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. … Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. … Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. … Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam. For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting, and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants. … In brief, dear princes and lords, those of you who have Jews under your rule: if my counsel does not please you, find better advice, so that you and we all can be rid of the unbearable, devilish burden of the Jews. …
Now let me commend these Jews sincerely to whoever feels the desire to shelter and feed them, to honor them, to be fleeced, robbed, plundered, defamed, vilified, and cursed by them, and to suffer every evil at their hands — these venomous serpents and devil’s children, who are the most vehement enemies of Christ our Lord and of us all. And if that is not enough, let him stuff them into his mouth, or crawl into their arse and worship this holy object. Then let him boast of his mercy, then let him boast that he has strengthened the devil and his brood for further blaspheming our dear Lord and the precious blood with which we Christians are redeemed. Then he will be a perfect Christian, filled with works of mercy for which Christ will reward him on the day of judgment, together with the Jews in the eternal fire of hell!
Just what is being celebrated here? Anti-Catholicism, anti-papalism is only part of the message. The Nazis loved this guy.
Breeks says:
So may I suggest, that if immediately after Brexit and if Indy should occur, and for the short term EFTA being the possible answer. That after a time in EFTA Scots should NOT get a referendum on whether to stay right where they, are or fully join the EU?
I find that interesting! if that is what you would propose. Or maybe I have got your comments wrong. I apologise if I have.
@Meg Merrilees
There is massive corruption throughout all of Spain and massive amounts of black money sloshing around
So the citizens of Spain, and I mean all regions behave in the same way by working for cash in hand and not banking it
When I lived in Spain the first thing all my Spanish friends advised me was NOT to have money in the bank but to lift a tile in the house and plank it there plus get a dog or dogs, which I did and I was right to take their advice
In Spain every official body right down to the local council can empty your bank account at will and invent a debt you have to pay or get a lawyer you still have to pay, but the result is the same somebody can remove your money and it can take sometimes years to get it back
With never an apology
No one should worry too much about the Spanish and any thought of being overly impoverished, they are a resourceful people well used to guarding their dosh and if the banks threaten them they just close their current accounts stop paying bills live on the cash under the floor and totally disregard authority
The Spanish people, all of them, have got the bottle many Scots don’t have even though they are very like us in nature, warm, generous and they love to laugh and swear like troopers
You can have a great night out anywhere in Spain with the Spanish people if you learn the language, well at least one of the languages of which I only speak one
There are also many dialects which makes life difficult as well, in Seville they speak from the back of their throat without moving their lips and you’ve got no chance
A great country and a terrible country all at the same time
but the people are not as poor as anyone would ever have you believe
‘Letters: Oil and gas should have changed this country forever. Graeme Goodall, Buckie.’
Plus what you may not be able to see.
”I have worked in oil and gas exploration for 29 years. I have been employed for the last 24 years by a Norwegian firm operating in Norway.
It pains me to see how my own country has fared from a miraculous windfall which should have changed Scotland, like it did Norway forever. Instead Scotland is shackled to a toxic Union that has squandered everything and is arrogantly dragging the entitre country on to imminent economic and social disaster.
I frustratingly find that ordinary Scots are under the blind impression that the UK owns and sells it’s oil and gas to the global market just like Norway does. This is simply not the case I’m afraid. The election of Thatcher in 1979 saw Britoil swiftly sold off to the private sector in 1982. By 1986 all of Britoil assets were owned entirely by BP. Thatcher’s unbounded wisdom also saw fit to gift the actual oil and gas itself lying under Scottish waters to the foreign oil companies in return that they only pay revenue tax on the profits they make to the UK Treasury.
Should we really be shocked to find that in 2014, Norway’s oil and gas revenues were triple that of the UK since production began, even though Norway had produced over a billion barrels fewer in the same period (40 billion barrels). It is not too late for Scotland to save itself from ruin and change economically and socially forever but only through independence can this cartel be broken and real change be achieved.”
http://www.thenational.scot/news/15610933.Letters__Oil_and_gas_should_have_changed_this_country_forever/
Cirsium 11.49am. Aye there’s lots of “collaborators “in Scotland.
‘Would Nicola Sturgeon’s fairer and more equal Scotland be a more productive one too?’
https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/2017/10/20/would-nicola-sturgeons-fairer-and-more-equal-scotland-be-a-more-productive-one-too/
……………………………..
Far too many links to post on here but if you’re interested in what’s actually going on in Scotland, MUCH of which you wont read / hear about in the MSM, take a look.
https://thoughtcontrolscotland.com/
geeo@ 11.21
Absolutely agree…
Citrine in his book the “ABC of Chairmanship” clearly points out that if a motion is put to a vote you should use your vote to support or reject the motion. An abstention is not counted as a rejection but in fact an abstention will always be counted as ” in favour of the decision of the majority” unless the voter indicates to the Chairman that he/she is “remaining neutral”
An abstention is often used as a protest vote but in fact the correct way to protest a motion is to vote to reject it.
Citrine states at the beginning of the book that that this definition of Chairmanship is based on amongst other titles, ” the Manual of Procedure of the House of Commons”. All themore astonishing that the tories got it SO wrong last week and it is recorded that the Government was defeated.
With regard to some of the posts here, I have no doubt that the interests of the future independent Scotland will be best served by her remaining (or becoming, whichever is legally the right terminology) a member state of the EU. The SNP should stick to its guns, and maintain its accustomed consistency, in this respect. As it generally has done in all others. Scotland in Europe, as a full member state, has been the unchanging watchword for decades.
In spite of the apparent wavering and wobbling from on high, I personally am hoping that this remains the reality underneath. We get occasional assurances that the long-held policy has not changed, although these assurances never seem to be announced very loudly, or emphasised with sufficient conviction to overcome the impression that the policy has been watered down, making people feel that remaining in a customs union etc., like Norway, would be just as good, or better.
I can understand that, pragmatically speaking, the SNP are a bit bit shy about the ‘Scotland in Europe’ policy at the moment. If they plug it too openly, the Unionist camp will certainly go into overdrive with their attack dogs. Morning to night the media will be full of scare stories about post-Brexit Scottish independence will mean the erection of a hard border between Scotland and England.
So there are understandable reasons to ca’ canny on the issue, just at the moment, at least in terms of public pronouncements. That does not mean we have to agree with these understandable reasons, even if we acknowledge them.
Pragmatically, too, it may seem to be wise to wait and see how the border issue in Ireland pans out in the Brexit negotiations, before saying anything too specific about Scotland’s future in Europe. It could be argued that there is no need to proclaim too loudly that Scotland’s intention is to remain or become a full member state of the EU. And that it would be bad strategy to do so. It could be added that that too should be understandable to pro-Europeans like me (and another 62% of the Scottish population). so long as the principle and the intention has not been, and will not ever be jettisoned.
Maybe …
What would certainly be less commendable would be if the apparent and new-found ambiguity about the whole matter, which has arisen in the wake of the Brexit vote, were simply a ploy to keep a minority within the SNP happy. That minority which has always been anti-European, and remains so. Let’s pander to them, and keep them quiet, and on board, so that they don’t split our apparent consensus apart.
A minority which we now know includes some senior figures, like Alex Neil. People who have been against the official policy all along, although they never said so. Maybe instead of saying ‘people’ at the beginning of the last sentence some would like to substitute the word ‘chancers’.
Despite my doubts to the contrary, I am hoping very much that such is not the case, and never has been.
If it were, the SNP would be guilty of sacrificing, first, the best interests of Scotland (which is to be a member state of the EU, as the SNP always told us); second, the Party’s own hitherto excellent consistency on policy matters; and, third, maybe even Scotland’s independence, for the sake of a Party unity which might ultimately prove illusory.
I hope that is not the case, but if it is it brings to mind a horrible parallel. The pro-Brexit, anti-European Tories, and in a different but equally inane way way their Labour equivalents, are in fact sacrificing the best interests of the UK they claim to love for the sake of their own Party’s advantage.
That kind of ‘pragmatic’ politics has no lasting appeal to the public, and simply brings the whole of politics into disrepute. I don’t care about your strategy (even if I acknowledge that you have to have one): I want to know about your principles. And I want to be sure that when I vote for you, and you get power, you will stick to them. If you wobble on this one, are you going to wobble on Trident too? Or even on independence itself? Of course you won’t – or so you will tell me – but how do I know?
Everyone despises pure chancers, except chancers themselves. What people ultimately admire in politics and politicians, as in any other field, is people of principle. Even if I disagree with you, and your principles are not mine, you will gain a certain respect from me if you stick to what you genuiinely believe in.
Scotland in Europe, as a full member state of the EU, remains, I sincerely hope, the SNP’s policy. No matter what is going on in the froth of politics – the visible bit – I trust that that remains the firm conviction underneath. The body of the beer is not in the froth.
I also hope, and trust, that the SNP have no intention of downplaying, qualifying or even betraying what the Scottish people so clearly voted for. Which was, quite simply, to ‘remain’ …
My further hope is that although the SNP is not saying this as loudly and clearly and publicly as it might have done, it is at least making the point effectively in the corridors of power in Europe. If that is the case, I would expect them to be arguing as follows.
We (Scottish Government / SNP)will do everything we can to keep the whole of the current UK in the EU, or, since that seems unrealistic, at least in the customs union etc., moreover on EU terms. If we fail, we will be going immediately for independence and, specifically, for independence in Europe, in accordance with our long-standing policy.
Within that framework, the Scottish government / SNP could also express their hope that independence will not result in a hard border between Scotland and England, even if England is no longer a member of the EU. Exactly how that is going to be achieved post-Brexit may, at the moment, be hard to fathom, but it is a factor which the EU should take into account when negotiating the border arrangements between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Whatever is decided in that regard, the same kind of arrangement will likely obtain between England and Scotland, after England leaves the EU and Scotland becomes independent and one of its full member states.
I hope very much that this is what is happening behind the scenes. If it is, well and good: I can accept that, and even excuse (at least to some extent) the wavering and wobbling that seems to be happening on the surface. It’s not the froth that counts, but the beer underneath.
If, to the contrary, the SNP’s long-held policy on Europe is being deliberately but surreptitiously changed, and watered down, by some kind of sleight of hand … well, if that is the case, I will be thoroughly scunnered.
The SNP will continue to have my vote until independence is achieved – I too can be pragmatic – but after that, it might be a different matter. I will see what I think is best.
I expect I will still be casting my vote for a party that I know will fight to maintain or recover my full European citizenship, and all the rights that go with it. And if the SNP are not ready to do that, I expect I will be looking elsewhere, pretty fast … but only after independence is first secured.
I find it reprehensible to see the EU in purely pragmatic, entirely economic terms, as if it was simply there to provide markets for our goods and be financially good for us. The European ideal is, and always has been, a great deal more than that. So too is the reality, however much the EU remains a work in progress, and always in need of further improvement. We need to be members of it to be able to contribute positively to these improvements.
Walking away from that challenge is a typically Brit thing to do, especially when Britishness is equated with Englishness. The 62% proved that it is not a typically Scot thing to do, even though I wish the figure had been more like 92%. Scotland is quite at home in being in something bigger than herself; we are a European nation; we will do well in Europe, and Europe will benefit from having us. This is a great challenge and opportunity for Scots, and not just on the economic level. There is so much we can contribute … as well as receive.
The SNP has to face up to that reality, and grasp the nettle, not only putting independence first but also ‘independence in Europe’. In many ways, that policy is what made the SNP and future independence credible. Even more so is that now the case, with England moving out of the EU and into the backwater of isolationism. Isolationism isn’t a Scottish habit, and it isn’t a realistic option for us. Not just economnically, but spiritually too. We need to be fully part of a wider spectrum, taking our place in a canvas that is not restricted to, or centred only on, ourselves.
Scotland’s independence is more important than the future of the SNP. And the SNP won’t have any future if it does not wholeheartedly serve that cause.
Hopefully, as I mentioned above, that is what all the present manoeuvring on the part of the SNP is all about. And the outcome, just as hopefully, will indeed be independence. I would have much preferred they go about it a different way, but I am not a politician, and have some sympathy for their difficulties. If the current Scottish leadership do succeed in getting the ball over the line, well and good, I will be the first to rejoice.
But if they then try to keep us out of Europe, or with only one toe in and one toe (or the most of us) out … well, they won’t be getting my vote any longer. And if it turns out that by not sticking to their pro-European policies loudly and clearly enough they have thrown away the best chance we ever had of gaining our independence, well …
My view remains that independence will be won not by strategy, in the end, but by conviction. We need enough people to be convinced, fully convinced, that this is the best way forward. Not just for our advantage, but also because taking responsibility for our own country is the most honest, the most mature and even – why not? – the most noble way to go.
On another note, also in reference to some of the comments above, I am looking forward to an independent Scotland being a tolerant and welcoming place to live in. And I want to see that tolerance enshrined in a written constitution, reflecting not only the concerns of currently popular lobby groups but of everyone, equally.
So that has to include religious toleration. We are all entitled to have our own views of religion, whether for it or against it and all the multiple variations in between. But we don’t have the right to deny people their right to practice their religion freely and peacefully. The right to religious freedom – including the right to have no religion at all – is a fundamental human right.
Take that away, as some might like to do, and the right to freedom of conscience will be gone as well.
You don’t have to believe in any religion to allow those who do the right to practice their faith, in accordance with their own conscience, in the way they choose, provided there is no threat to public order and they do so in a way that accords the same right of conscience to others.
The state always puts some limitations on rights, so as not to curtail the rights of others, and so that good public order is not disturbed. But it is not a crime for people to think and believe differently from each other, or from the way I do, or you do, whoever you are.
When it has been made a crime – and our own Scottish history as well as that of the British state provides plenty of examples of this – the common good and well-being of society as a whole has not been well served. I don’t want to live in a Scotland where everyone thinks the same way, because I know that’s not going to happen. I do want to live in a Scotland in which we all feel at home, as we have a right to do so, and where we welcome one another and listen to each other – no matter what the differences in our views and opinions and, indeed, most deeply cherished beliefs.
@meg merrilees 2.11pm.
I was surprised at how far Bercow went into the subject, considering it was a dig at the tories.
Abulhaq says:
23 October, 2017 at 1:04 pm
We, but not me, are supposed to be celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Protestant reformation.
Hello Abulhaq. Thanks for your post. I don’t suppose you will see this since everyone has now moved on to the next post. However, I hope you do.
If it’s any consolation to you, especially if (as seems to be the case) you are a Protestant, there is a slight but important mistake in your terminology. In all the official literature about it, Protestants are not supposed to be ‘celebrating’ but, rather, ‘commemorating’ the Reformation.
That shift in terminology was deliberately chosen, and for a good reason. Fifty years ago the 450th anniversary of Luther nailing his theses to the door, which is traditionally taken as the Reformation’s starting-point, was indeed ‘celebrated’, but this time round it was decided that that had given the wrong tone to the event, and should not be repeated. There was no desire to go back to the former ‘triumphalism’, as if the Reformation was some kind of victory over other people, Catholics especially.
There was a also a recognition, without putting the blame on anyone, that after the Reformation the Church had become seriously divided. Christians still live with these divisions, but are trying to get over them, and come back together. So the Reformation, it was decided, needs to be remembered (which is the meaning of the word ‘commemorated’), but not celebrated. It was not an entirely joyful event, and Protestants themselves decided that it would be more appropriate to ‘remember’ the down-side of the Reformation as well as what they regard as its positive elements.
In this regard, a couple of weeks ago, I heard two wonderful talks on the down-side of Luther, both given by Professors of Theology, one an American the other a Finn. The Finn spoke on Luther’s attitude towards the Jews, and the American on his attitude towards Muslims. Both were of course critical of Luther in these regards: there was no triumphalism here. Quite the opposite.
With regard to the Jews, Luther had started off very well disposed towards them, but expected that many would convert to his purified form of Christianity. This did not happen, however, and in mid-career ‘something went seriously wrong’ (said the Finnish Professor, and he turned against them. The Prof did not flinch from quoting the kind of dreadful texts you also mention, from the later Luther, and of course condemned them outright.
These ferociously anti-semitic texts of Luther were not popular, and did were hardly ever reprinted during the 16th and 17th Centiries. Other major Lutherans of the Reformation period, like Melanchthon, we were told, specifically disagreed with them. The texts were republished a few times towards the end of the 18th Century – I am not sure by whom, and whether that was before or during the French Revolution. (The Prof told us, but my mind is sieve).
Then the re-publications died away – until the time of Adolf Hitler. During his time they were re-published many times, and, as you said, were popular during those terrible, anti-semitic years of the last century.
The American Prof speaking on Luther and the Muslims was also interesting, and quite different. It is not the same story at all, but he told us you have to remember that the threat of a Turkish and therefore Muslim invasion of Western Europe was an important reality throughout Luther’s lifetime, and played a real role in the way the Reformation – and the Catholic reaction to it – unrolled. I can’t go into the details, but it was fascinating stuff. The Prof even suggested that without that background it would have been a very different story, and that the Reformation might not have taken place in quite the way that it did, if that background threat had not been there.
Anyway, both these talks were clearly critical of Luther, and in a sense penitential. That did not prevent both Profs from pointing out they were Lutheran pastors as well as being academics. But, as they said, it was necessary to be self-critical of one’s own tradition. They were not saying that these negative and even terrible aspects of Luther were the whole story – there were also plenty of good points about him – but they were certainly part of the story. And – they acknowledged we, especially we Lutherans, have to face these negative aspects, and not sweep them under the carpet.
They were great talks, and demonstrate the difference between ‘commemorating’ an event and ‘celebrating’ it.
You might remember that Robert Runcie led a service after the Falklands War, when he was Archbishop of Canterbury (his father, by the way, came from Kilmarnock, and as a boy, probably during the war, he spent two years of his childhood there, living with his aunt – and even supported Kilmarnock Football Club!).
To get back to the point, Margaret Thatcher wanted Runcie to make this service a celebratory event, instead of which he made it penitential, mourning the loss of lives on both sides and praying for reconciliation. To ‘commemorate’ is very different from ‘to celebrate’. And I commend the Lutheran and other Protestant leaders for deciding to approach the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in a properly ‘commemorative’ and not a ‘celebratory’ frame of mind.
It reminds me of an official Catholic document that was published during the Pontificate of John Paul II. It was called ‘memory and reconciliation’. Note the link between MEMOR-y and com-MEMOR-ation. This too was a penitential style document, pointing out things in the history of the Catholic Church that Catholics now reject and abhor, and are not permitted to repeat.
The talks of the two Lutheran Professors also reminded me of that document. This is the spirit in which we need to move forward. Sorrow for the mistakes of the past, mutual forgiveness where possible, and reconciling with one another.
I hope someone alerts you to this post, Abulhaq, and that you find it useful. I have presumed you are a Protestant, but please accept my apologies if you are not. You might still find it useful all the same.
just reading on CNews twitter feed that none other than the King of Spain phoned Volkswagen and asked them to take their factory out of Catalonia!!!!!
https://twitter.com/CNEWS/status/922353208001024000
with friends ( fellow citizens) like this – who needs enemies.
Here’s a good speech from Tommy Sheppard re the recent debate on the devolution settlement in WM last week – debate called by Stephen Kerr Con MP for Stirling.
Great speech.
Helps if you remember to attach the link…
http://tommysheppardmp.scot/index.php/blog/tommys-blog/entry/devolved-powers-debate
sorry.
Robert J. Sutherland,
“Sorry to be so direct, but you really need to face up to the truth.”
I post the truth, which is often bitter at times given Scotland’s 310 years history as a “sovereign” colony.
This irritates the clueless pompous armchair pundits posting here who are unable to counter the points I make.
Despite numerous appeals by the owner of this website, they use the “t word” against anyone who post a different opinion to theirs.
Thank you for your concern, but I will post my views and am perfectly capable of standing up to the aggressive verbal bullies who think this site belongs to them.
heedtracker,
“Reading newspapers is low risk health wise.”
Guardian reader with a Slovene (ex?)girlfriend, I guess reading The Guardian just to moan about it here gives you a much needed health boost every day.
@Rock
LOLOL
geeo says up there somewhere
If the Catalan referendum had a 30% turnout and 90% voted Yes, then that absolutely IS a pro indy majority.
If the SNP maths are as bad as this, we are all in deep, deep trouble.
BBC news reporting that Spanish parliament is debating to
‘depose Puigdemont…. and remove…with force – if necessary”
The way the current snp government is going you will also soon be able to add Jobs, Enterprise and Sanity boxes to the list!