Transparency and accountability
Posted on
December 18, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
An alert reader recently decided to get a bit meta and send an FOI request to the BBC about how many FOI requests it got, and how many it responded to with its standard get-out clause that basically amounts to “None of your business, get stuffed”.
This was the response. We’ve added the percentages in red.
You just pay for it, under penalty of law. It doesn’t answer to you.
They’re as corrupt as say the House of Lords, which makes perfect sense if you’re unionist. If you’re not, tick tock BBC vote SLab Scotland. Scottish Democracy is a coming.
The BBC, Great value for money apparently. Even if you don’t watch it.
That’s an absolute disgrace. Well, I suppose it makes no sense for a corrupt, propaganda outfit to be transparent in any way.
Another topic/chapter for WBB2?
Auntie B likes to twitch the curtains and mind everyone else’ business but heaven forefend if anyone wants to know what she is up to.
The way Auntie covered up for Savile right to the bitter end tells us all we need to know.
Yet another good reason to stop paying your tv license. No need to payit anyway when you can be watching tv on the internet catch up services such as BBC iPlayer or YouTube or Amazon Prime. Or why don’t you switch off yer television set and go out and do something less useless instead.
Aye. We certainly paid for it on 18th September 2014.
We all know what to do. If you can, without causing a family disruption, stop watching or recording live TV on any device. I have since last September and do not miss it. Use catch up, YouTube and Netflix.
It’s brutal, and it’s unfair that to access any TV you have to pay tax to the BBC even if you never watch it. But it’s the only way to hit them where it hurts.
Institutions like the BBC only acquire legitimacy through consent of the population. Time this was withdrawn.
Speechless!! I honestly had no idea that they could do this.
It does beg the question though about what is so important that they have to hide so much. That chart clearly indicates that around 90% of requests receive no ,or only partial information.
I am sure you would get a better response from GCHQ.
The way Auntie covered up for Savile right to the bitter end tells us all we need to know.
Almost without any doubt, Saville didn’t get anywhere near BBC staff’s children. A horrifying bunch.
John Birt, noduly rewarded as Baron Birt, he of the £2,000 Armani suits while staff took cuts, was Thatcher’s neo-liberal accountant and stooge.
He was gleefully helped to a vast business company salaries, expenses by the BBC’s then chairman, coincidentally now also a baron, Michael Grade.
What Birt did to the BBC to ‘privatise’ it practically destroyed it as a liberal, tolerant, creative entity.
The BBC is a flat-out disgrace
You just pay for it, under penalty of law. It doesn’t answer to you.
So basically WE pay for THEM to tell US shite and wrap said shite up in a glossy cover and call it *ahem* news. I don’t bloody think so!
Oh wait a minute why am I getting all hot and bothered under the collar … I don’t pay them a penny … LYING HYPOCRITICAL B******S!
Think I’ll just leave these here. 😉
link to bsnews.info
link to yournewswire.com
Considering North Korea would likely be 100% withheld, I reckon we are doing well with 70 odd %.
Go Beeb
here’s something I wrote a while back about the BBC and the TV license. it even mentions Wings!!
link to eurofree3.wordpress.com
This from the organisation which runs an “Investigation Unit” ? Hypocrites. However it allows other organisations to refuse to provide FOI to the BBC because they can argue that the BBC doesn’t play the game so why should they.
The BBC have to be forced to reveal anything, like my email exchange through their complaints process.
Basically I spotted their bull crap on the news at ten on day of MH 17 demise over E Ukraine, their lead bulletin was showing wreckage not of a B777, but an Ilyushin IL-76. So I complained, they denied. And then I sent them a link to my one and only ever upload to YouTube where, because I was so angry, I filmed their BBC bulletin and flicked back and forth to RT from 32 days prior – news report of a shot down military aircraft.
Well, didn’t they just write back and apologise, little mix up on their part.
BBC, don’t ye just love em
Ah guess my FOIs were in the 70% group then.
However I suppose if you run an organisation with lots of peadophiles and sexual abusers it is best to be as unaccountable as possible?
One of the best advantages of an independent Scotland – no BBC anymore.
“You just pay for it, under penalty of law.”
Well, SOME of us pay. It’s surprisingly easy to live without a TV and easier still to declare that you don’t need a licence. Just fill out a form at the TV Licensing website.
It’s also easy to remain in the blissful no-license state. In the twenty months since I made my own declaration I haven’t been bothered once by the BBC’s goons.
I don’t pay for it. If they come round my door I send them away with a flea in their ear.
One wee point for your regular readers, if you answer the door and it’s the TV Licensing mob simply tell them to leave. Don’t answer questions just firmly say ‘please leave’. They are contractually obliged to turn tail and walk away without argument. :o)
The BBC and it’s Branch Offices seem to be having a spot of bother with cancelling and refunding the BBC Poll Tax:
“We are currently experiencing delays to our refund application process. We are working hard to resolve this issue and expect most refunds to be processed within 21 days. Thank you for your patience.”
link to tvlicensing.co.uk
[…] Transparency and accountability […]
Got rid of TV and cancelled the licence last Christmas.
One of the best things we have ever done and life enhancing.
The BBC is nothing more than a propaganda machine and a distraction and deflection for the general populace. Many just want to be sheep and keep their minds closed.
BBC = Part of UK Est system –
Total waste of time raising complaints – Only visual protests work to any degree.
5 complaints / 5 replies exactly same (we don’t think your query is valid now piss off please)
Hopeless patronising corp’ bollox
Well, it IS the state broadcaster.
Now as I understand it, a license is official permission to do something that would otherwise be illegal. So if the wee man comes to your door and tells you you need a license for the telly, what he’s implying is that you’re breaking the law.
What evidence does he have? Most likely none, so in fact he’s defaming your good character, so maybe you could sue him or at the very least put him on the spot and say “prove it!”, I.e. put up or shut up.
How many people these days actually watch programmes as they’re broadcast, as opposed to at some later time of your choosing? People with money on a horse maybe??
Having the equipment is not an offense and never was, the only thing that is is watching programmes as they go out. How the devil are they going to prove that? Maybe back in the day when you needed a box full of hot valves and a crt giving off any amount of electronic radiation, but now??
I submitted a comment in Novembers article Cheils that Ding, about 10.31pm with result of my FOI bbc requests. I would cut and paste it but the figures go all to pot. There’s an amendment near the bottom as well.
For your info.
Who do they think they are?! GCHQ?……..errrr
Just tell the wee licensing person that you like watching the telly snow. Static I think it’s called. Constantly changing patters. Great watching. Gripping stuff. You could even invite them in to watch it with you.
Sure s/he’ll bolt after you tell them that.
It’s not illegal to own a TV without a license – just to watch live programming without one. As far as I uinderstand, TV snow doesn’t count as live programming.
Shhhssshhh, It a secret, don’t tell anyone.
@ Scotspine
Who do they think they are?! GCHQ?
Hardly. I think you’d get more answers from GCHQ.
I would like to know how many FOIs the BBC/Bradford have fired off to NHS Scotland and what processing them has cost the NHS. Probably the only way to find out would be a FOI request to NHS but then that would cost them to reply.
BBC b*****ds, time for another PQ protest – after the rain stops!
I think many of us have already said farewell to a once loved Auntie!
Well, it IS the state broadcaster.
A load of shit. This week their fractious Scotland region’s being blitzed with UKOK propaganda, or the first salvoes of Project Fear 2, vote SLabour or else stuff, focusing on PFI bills.
Rancid The Graun went vote SLab ape shit over PFI bills for their Scotland but somehow, same sneaky liars left out the £300 to £500 million PFI bill dumped on Scotland by the BBC vote SLab Scotland unit at Pacific Quay Funny that.
Here’s a list of the PFI companies, feeding off of a 30 year PFI golden goose, BBC Scotland style. No wonder Jacky Bird looks so happy at the wonder of all that lovely UKOK mullah
link to bbc.co.uk
Unfortunately, due to the tax er mitigating circumstances set up by red tories like Gordon Brown, Lord Darling , BBC’s PFI’s have disappeared to safe and secure tax havens, with all the rest.
Sinister indeed, the beeb are corrupt to the very core.
Still hearing the followers coming out with SNP baaad stuff due to state (ukok) brainwashing, far too often sadly.
It really is scary, but so glad many are seeing through the propaganda of state run tv.
I don’t pay for it, never have, and never will.
I recommend all here to investigate how you too can legally stop paying for this disgusting organisation.
They have breached their charter on so many counts anyway, that in itself could justify not paying.
I was just about to post exactly the same thing GrahamB, regarding the amount of FOI requests the BBC and Eleanor (Scotland’s NHS will kill you) Bradford have sent off in the past year.
They are quick enough at sending them off to various places, although the favoured recipient does indeed seem to be NHS Scotland, but when you want info, it’s 2 fingers up in the air and a massive raspberry to you.
This is one of the very few pieces I had in BellaC, from over three years ago, when the outrage over Savile was raw.
You can tell why I gave up doing this type of thing from the very first sentence – I was wrong, wrong, wrong…
🙁
link to bellacaledonia.org.uk
K.A.Mylchreest at 2:56 pm
… there are some amusing videos on Youtube (search something like “TV License Sellers”) where people record their interaction with TV license people on their doorsteps.
As far as I can make out, it seems that the chasing of non-payers of TV licenses has been “outsourced” to third party companies – and commission only salespeople are given the addresses of households that don’t have a TV license.
The people in the videos know that the “goons” (as they seem to be called) have no real powers whatsoever and just give them a load of “lip”, and a hard time, and send them off with a flea in their ear. Quite funny actually.
I think,perhaps,it’s time we stopped referring to the BBC as “auntie” and “the Beeb”.It is a secretive state broadcaster,not a friendly,trusty old part of your family.
heedtracker says:
18 December, 2015 at 3:36 pm
Well, it IS the state broadcaster.
A load of shit……
That’s the point, they are the states broadcaster, broadcasting propaganda.
Sorry if my comment was a little obtuse.
The bbc is pure BritNat propaganda and it’s getting uglier by the day. It has to be resisted, whether by not paying the licence fee or simply not watching its programmes – preferably both.
Well totally off topic.
I have enjoyed the bitchin and whining from the corrupt and inept Brit Nat Coalition presently misrunning Moray Council. The source of their bleating is Scrooge Swinney who has allegedly force fed them cuts over and above those they had planned to make.
Of course directly funding Educational and Social Care Services means the crooked Brit Nat nut jobs cant get their mitts on that money and divert it.
So several of the Brit Nat nut jobs are threatening to stick up the council tax on the Naw bags that voted them onto the Council in the first place, irony bypass time!
Lazy journalists would never survive without FOIs which are much more freely available in Scotland.
O/T NME has Mhairi Black on their (very) short list of people of the year
link to nme.com
Its all the SNPs fault!
Why have so many BBC presenters been convicted of kiddie fiddling; but none of the management team knew anything about it? I removed my aerial on 19/09/14 and refuse to give another penny to these vile people for their propaganda.
Very good. If some sort of heading “FOI request to the BBC dated xx/xx/15, reply dated yy/yy/15” was put on the table, that would make an excellent graphic to pass around on a constant basis.
Nearly 3yrs without a licence. Life without Auntie is OK plenty to watch on the computer.
FGS!
Jenny Hjul (again) I think she mentions wings here by mistake.
———————————————————
Can we trust the Nationalists to be honest with us? If not, there are other parties waiting in the wings that are prepared to treat voters with less contempt.
link to archive.is
SNP x 2 best solution.
link to caltonjock.com
Iain More says:
18 December, 2015 at 4:43 pm
Ian – I read the whinge by the Convener, Allan Wright yesterday and commented on the Council website that the cuts were a direct result of his party’s (Tory) cut to the block grant. So best suck it up. I also mentioned that the ‘financial penalty’ they/we are to receive because of the teacher issue is directly down to their mismanagement. They were given extra money for teachers and decided to spend it on something else, probably another review on the Elgin link road.
Funnily enough my comment never made it out of moderation :):)
@Call me dave –
Can we trust the Nationalists to be honest with us? If not, there are other parties waiting in the wings that are prepared to treat voters with less contempt
Jeezo what a hard read that was, I wonder who she could mean.. Tupperware Party, Anne Summers Party…
She should be more concerned with her man’s gushing over Lady Flippers fish lasagne..
The BBC is Scotland’s enemy number one.
Our top priority should be to destroy it.
Don’t pay the BBC anti-Scotland, anti-SNP, anti-independence tax.
There is no Auntie, just a Big Brother. One that cares naught.
See when the majority of Scotland understand that fact. We will be free.
If you don’t watch television live, as it is broadcast, then you don’t legally require a TV license.
You can make a declaration to this effect here:
link to tvlicensing.co.uk
I can honestly say, without fear of contradiction, that I do not contribute a brass farthing to that organisation. I haven’t watched as much as a minute of live telly since just after the referendum. I don’t like what they did, I don’t like what they do and I can see no reason why I will like them any better in the future.
The BBC: the state media happy to call other state media the state media but never calls itself the state media and doesn’t like it if anybody else calls it the state media.
BBC Scotland radio chief was on BBC r4 Feedback prog just there, explaining why BBC Scotland is the greatest radio in the world today, tune in anytime and they explain this, but then the Feedback ligger says to Scots ligger, Scotland isn’t actually one country, its “lots of countries”, which is a new one from hard core britnats like this. Its unliklely you’re ever going to any English BBC broadcaster explain that England is not a country but lots of countries.
Then Scotch cringer of 2015 Eddie Mair’s PM news has a half hour party political broadcast on behalf of the Labour party, interview of John McDonnell, who’s lovely, really lovely.
Next week, oor Eddie’s got half an hour with Nic Sturgeon. That’s a lie, shock.
According to an e-mail from 38 degrees:
I wrote back declining to write to my MP as requested because I thought it was too late – there was nothing worthwhile left to save.
@ heedtracker
Lots of different countries? I’m lost with that.
Is this a new line from britnats because UK is lots of different countries and the reasoning would be that an iScotland would eventually break its self up into lots of smaller countries i.e. The Kingdom of Fife would break away, the western isles would go back to having their lords, Galloway would separate, the Angeles would reclaim the Lothian’s, the Scots will be hemmed in Strathclyde and Grampian, Angus & Perthshire shall return to the Kingdom of the Picts?
All of course with border controls.
Just had a thought , what would a Pictish passport look like ?
Hi Ian B.
That’s a fine article!
A bag of mint kudos for you…
8=)
It’s difficult to say without accessing the requests themselves, but surely there is potential to make a case of maladministration?
Fran says:
18 December, 2015 at 6:08 pm
@ heedtracker
Lots of different countries? I’m lost with that.
He says “people talk about Scotland as if its one country, blah blah bleh, I’ve always though of it as a collection of countries”
link to bbc.co.uk
14.30 minutes in. Don’t know what the BBC Scotland radio boss is selling, other than everyone loves us etc.
No mention of their UKOK attack propaganda techniques during the ref fro example, spending 20 minutes peak time radio news reading out every single UKOK newspaper anti independence headline with every newspaper’s anti independence editorial, from the Daily Heil to rancid The Graun, was pretty typical from those fraudsters, who don’t talk about it, just do.
Staggering corruption, world class radio production? They don’t give a UKOK fcuk what you think, especially if you ask via FOI.
@BDTT
Thanks for highlighting Ians article and I’m sorry I missed it first time. Written in Bella in 2012, the man is a soothsayer.
“It’s not easy letting go of a loved one. Most of us have aunties we cherish”
Too true!
link to bellacaledonia.org.uk
@Proud Cybernat says: 18 December, 2015 at 3:13 pm:
“It’s not illegal to own a TV without a license – just to watch live programming without one. As far as I uinderstand, TV snow doesn’t count as live programming.”
I informed them that I have three tv sets in three different rooms of my house. I also have three computers, a PVR and an XBOX 360 and they are all individual parts of a hardwired home network and are all able to go on-line and communicate with each other.
As I also have my own Youtube channel, Netflex and other subscriptions to on-line content such as Dailymation plus my own copies of classic movies and stuff I’ve filmed and videoed myself since way back in the 1950s.
I’ll never be able to watch all the stuff I have archived unless I live a lot longer than the average persons lifespan and then some.
After a long delay they have again began to send me threatening letters – even after I threatened to sue them for harassment under the Scots law of demanding money with menace.
BTW: you can legally inform them you have removed their common law rights of access to your front door in order to contact you.
My Christmans cracker joke
What’s the difference between Daesh and our Tory Government.
One is fighting for a Prophet and the other is fighting for a Profit.
@GrahamB says: 18 December, 2015 at 3:29 pm:
” … BBC b*****ds, time for another PQ protest – after the rain stops!
That may take some time then, GrahamB.
In Scotland we now only have two seasons –
The Rainy Season and the Rainer Season.
I don’t really see the point of writing to inform them you don’t have a telly, or withdrawing your right of access, etc.
Treat them like you do the takeaway leaflets, or double glazing salesmen. Just chuck the letters in the bin, ignore the calls, say “no thanks” and shut the door.
If you don’t watch live telly, you’re not their customer, just like if you’re not currently ordering replacement windows from them you’re not their customer.
Isn’t there a website that records FOI’s? Sure I’ve seen it at some point in recent months. Theyworkforyou maybe?
I would still love to know just who co-ordinates the anti SNP crap.They attack in unison across the Corporate Media, as well as the unionist parties at Holyrood.
There has to be somewhere, where the strategies of shite are gathered and released to the propagandists.
No doubt there is an underground “kill off the SNP” propaganda office hidden somewhere,likely near Westminster, if not in the basement.
The BBC are of course a lead player, if not the hunter gatherers of lies and organisers of misinformation.
@ Fran
See aw this stuff about the angles and lothian , just a wee side note mate.
The lothians we know are a modern invention , the angles going back to ancient times never held the modern lothians.
They held an area inside roughly the lammermuir hills , for about 250 years .
wee bit o history off topic before am off to the pub mate.
Anti SNP Propaganda is organised no doubts about that probably being run by the self named ‘Department of Misinformation’ co. Whitehall London who’s main outlet is the BBC and press briefings will be a daily routine.
The BBC is not fit for purpose and the compulsory licence fee an afront to democracy.
In a Scottish context, it fails Scotland badly. It no longer even tries to disguise its London / Union / Establishment bias. We are fed irrelevant coverage of English regional politics to the exclusion of our own national situation.
My plan is simple. Overall, no licence fee. Implement immediately ….
1) External broadcasting on behalf of the UK State should be separated and paid for by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
2) Entertainment, drama, sport of a UK wide nature should be separated and paid for by advertising and sponsorship. It should show mainly UK content and be semi public service in nature. It should remain in public ownership. Two free view channels. Inclusive of children’s daytime broadcasting.
3) As 2) but for devolved nations. Three free view channels. Devolved control. In addition daytime children, also Gaelic.
4) News, politics, current affairs, should also be separated out and handed over to the devolved nations. Two free view channels. Opt in to a UK wide service for coverage of UK wide debates and politics issues.
5) Radio rearranged along same lines.
Ignoring HD, there are sufficient BBC channels on a limited rural Freeview transmitter. I have suggested 2 UK centralised and 5 devolved to Scotland. There are enough channels everywhere.
During the Yes/No referendum we saw/heard many debates/interviews where there were three unionist politicians against one pro-indy politician. It continues today. Fairness[!] according to the BritNat bbc. Sickening.
I see Orkney has been voted the best place to live in Scotland. You would have to assume that this would be true only when Carmichael’s corpulent posterior is parked, 725 miles away, on the equally well upholstered green benches.
An end to the matter
I waited with bated breath for the BBC to report about the story from Central Fife Times – from Tony Martin but then again that would have put paid to BBC/Lab blame SNP.
I wonder what Baillie pie has to say about it oh forgot she can only say SNP baaaaaaaaaaaaad.
@Helpmaboab says: 18 December, 2015 at 5:28 pm:
“You can make a declaration to this effect here:
link to tvlicensing.co.uk“
First of all there is NO legal requirement for anyone to make a declaration of any kind to the BBC. It is none of their business, just as they tell that to FOI requesters who ask them for information.
The legal onus is upon the BBC, or their commissioned agents, (debt collectors), first of all to have hard evidence that the owner of a property is watching or has watched live TV.
Neither owning a TV receiver, (with or without a connected aerial), is against the law nor is watching a TV, provided it is not a live broadcast. Neither is it a legal requirement to bother telling the BBC anything. It is up to them to prove in a court of law that you have broken the law.
Do not speak or communicate with them as they may attempt to use anything like that against you. If you must do something let it be this – Scottish Law differs from the rest of the UK in that Scots, being sovereign, have the legal right to refuse any particular person, organisation or their agents the legal right to enter your property for the purpose of making contact with you. This right is restricted to only taking the shortest way, (by path), to your front door in order to contact you.
In Scotland only, you can legally inform them they do not legally have that right of access. Scots law has no English style law of trespass but does have legal rights of privacy.
A sort of anti-Peeping Tom law and being in close proximity to a house without due permission for any other purpose is against that law. It plain language anyone can legally open your gat, walk to your door and either post a message through your letter box or knock and speak to you. Unless you have withdrawn permission for that person.
If they then enter your property to knock your door they have broken the law and any evidence they subsequently offer in court has been illegally obtained.
So if you tell them anything let it be that you have withdrawn their legal right to enter your property to contact you.
Anything other than that the onus of proof of you having done anything wrong legally rests with the BBC or their agents who must prove you were watching live TV.
Play the buggers at their own game but do not declare that you do not watch TV – it is up to them to prove it. It may even be illegal for them to presume you have a watched TV on the premises when they have no proof you have.
It actually is illegal to presume guilt and those threatening letter do indeed presume guilt.
Always worth re-reading the thoughts of Christopher Silver, as posted here in March:
link to wingsoverscotland.com
OT Lets make a final wee push to help the Orkney 4 over the line.
About £12,000 still needed. About a fifth of the original amount.
Tonight I’ll contribute a final amount which will be a fifth of the original amount I contributed.
Thank you so much Orkney 4 and a guid stress free festive period to you all.
link to indiegogo.com
We are going to win, sooner than you think! England can not feed itself, it is Greece without the sunshine. We are a small northern European country, rich in natural resources like fish, agriculture, tourism, and 98% of the E.U’s oil. We are the best educated nation in the world. What is not to like about Scotland, freedom is our destiny.
@ Graham B and Bob Y
Newsnet have done a few artcles on the BBC requests to NHS Scotland soaring 700%after the SNP ecame the governing party.
Here’s one:
link to newsnet.scot
I would absolutely expect that there is a Britnat section devoted entirely to undermining the Scottish independence movement. All the disinformation and misinformation will be co-ordinated, just as it would be in relation to what was considered a hostile other country. And I have no doubt that it is that big.
I fully expect that there are security service employees planted directly into the various ‘newspapers’ and other media. Also directly in Slab, Fibdems and Scots Tories to guide their actions.
The funny bit is that, collectively, they are such utter incompetents that they are doing us much more good than harm.
It would be too O/T to go into here, but if you missed Grouse Beater’s comment (a few threads back now) about the BBC’s ‘Christmas Tree Files’, please do your own googling and see what crops up.
A lot of folk just roll their eyes when you bring up this stuff, but it’s real. So far as I know, the BBC has since farmed out such work to private agencies who still retain the original paper files. (If they’re not on BBC premises they can deny having them when served with FOI requests and suchlike.)
GB may be able to confirm and/or elucidate.
BTW, we’re having a disco on O/T, to which all are heartily welcomed, what with this being ‘Mad Friday’ and all that. (BYOL, i.e. Bring Your Own Links):
link to wingsoverscotland.com
@ arthur thomson 8;46
Who do you think those new wide eyed and bushy tailed British Bullshit Corporation recruits in Glasgow were just before the Referendum?The incompetence you refer to is endemic in Britshits as the leaders being pigshit thick cannot risk employing anyone less thick than themselves. Allegedly.
We are going to win, wether it’s a long game or a short one. The people of Scotland are not going to be content voting Labour ever again. The Tory’s are forever tarnished with closing down Scottish industry. As long as the people of Scotland believe in their natural ability we will be fine.
Fran @
A Pictish passport would I’m sure be very artistic. Has nobody made any yet, not even as a tourist scam?
Robert Peffers @
The law on entering property is in practise the same in England as in Scotland, although the technical terminology may differ somewhat.
If you have an unlocked gate, a path to your front door and a knocker or doorbell, that constitutes an ‘implied license’ for potential visitors, even complete strangers like salesmen, to walk up to the door and ring the bell.
But that’s all, they have no right to wander around your garden or snoop through the kitchen window etc. Moreover, such an implied license can be terminated at any time, by you telling them to leave, you don’t need a reason. Or it can be counteracted by putting a ‘no hawkers’ type notice on your gate.
To enter without your say so they’d need a warrant, and hopefully a warrant wouldn’t be issued without them presenting evidence to support their case. Hopefully …
The BBC liars are taking the worst long view. When inevitably we became independent, they will automatically be disbelieved and disregarded, the BBC view will be regarded as propaganda. They have no view to their future.
Do they not think that the people of Scotland are not thick, we have moved on, the UK is finished as long as it takes. Nobody is ever voting Labour again! We will win. Vote Snp,Snp.
Sent today REGARDING THE BRIDGE ENQUIRY
Dear Mr Eadie
Your enquiry seems to be addressing every issue save one.
Why did the second bridge take so long to be commissioned when the best professional advice in the 1990’s was that the bridge needed to be replaced by 2000 at the latest?
I cannot believe that you will let the enquiry proceed without addressing this item
Cllr Cadogan Enright
07590462329
Meanwhile the UKOK Britfest was in full swing on BBC over the FIRST English Cosmanaught this week. But huge embarrasment mid-week when it was discovered or remembered that ITV actually had the first WOMAN British Cosmanaught 24 years ago – Helen Sharman.
No apologies or explanations, but the BBC initially switched to FIRST MAN Cosmanaught. By today on the equally hysterical Sky, the State and Corporate Media had switched to FIRST OFFICIAL (really- onscreen using subtitles-I’m not making this up) Cosmanaught. (Can’t resist using the correct term, it pisses off BBC types who call him an astronaught and can’t seem to remember it’s the Russians wot dun it).
All reminiscent of the BBC’s regular description of the racist and sectarian horror Nancy Shaw as the first British woman MP (they call her Lad Astor in thier eulogies and usually forget she was U.S. born).
Inconveniently for the BBC complaints department and thousands of Irish callers over the years to the complaints department, the real first woman MP was Constance Gore-Booth. A Irish gun-toting Repulican suffergette who won her seat in Holloway prison after shooting several British soldiers in the 1916 rising who never had a racist or sectarian bone in her body – unlike Nancy (details normally not mentioned in any detailed way by BBC).
It also seems to irk BBC-types that Nancy was only a Lady, while Constance was a Countess – albeit guilty of the sort of trade union organising activities loathed by Nancy and also guilty of declaring UDI and setting up her own parliament.
Anyway,me now have an ‘official’ British cosmanaught to join the first ‘official’ woman MP.
@ Call me Dave at 5:05pm
I’ve just read the Jenny Hjul article in the Herald and by God the steam is coming out of my ears. Blatant bias, lie after lie and smears galore. Ten out of ten to her for managing to cram so much propaganda cr*p into one article and SHAME on the HERALD for publishing such garbage. A real journalistic low for the Herald IMO.
The Herald should now publish an article by an SNP politician in response to / to counter Hjul’s.
Dear BBC Scotland.
You are losing. Your propaganda doesn’t work anymore.
SNP x 2 SE2016
If you want to find out about ‘The Christmas Tree Files’, and don’t trust anyone here to tell you the truth about the whole sordid business, you might want to get yourself a wee present for less than three quid:
‘Blacklist: The Inside Story of Political Vetting’, by Mark Hollingsworth & Richard Norton-Taylor (London: Hogarth Press, 1998)
link to abebooks.co.uk
What astonishes me is the extent to which dead tree press and BBC Scotland are willing to watch their readers and subscribers melt away, just to hold the UKOK line. None of them have had a penny or a click from me for a long time.
Look at Johnston Press. Share price lowest ever. £23.9 million loss last year. And still they trot out their spurious pish, with fewer and fewer people gullible enough to even bother to look or comment.
Who’s filling in for Boothman at the Beeb till Gary Smith takes over in the new year?
…and if you can’t be bothered buying the book?
Here’s the relevant chapter…
‘MI5 & the BBC: Stamping the ‘Christmas Tree’ Files’
link to bilderberg.org
Typical Labour nonsense from Brain Wilson in Hootsman over John Swinney’s Scottish budget.
link to archive.is
We do need wingers to be more proactive in the letter pages of the Unionist press as these mainly elderly readers in the main don’t follow online political blogs.
It shouldn’t be too difficult to point out that there is no credible alternative from the red and blue Tories.
Ian Brotherhood says:
“The Christmas Tree Files”
It says …. “….highly secretive political vetting which the BBC had been practising since 1937, a situation only reformed in 1986, after considerable public and trade union pressure.”
Allegedly ended almost 30 years ago? Presumably to be replaced by something even more secretive!
It cannot be coincidence that quite so many UKOK types find their way onto the air.
O/T
Tony running away to Tel Aviv. Can he be extradited if he were to be charged with war crimes?
link to twitter.com
Ok folks here it goes. I’m bored on train from Edinburgh to polmont. Spoke to guy at chippie at Haymarket. Turns out to be a pars fan.Explained I am a Thistle fan. Are you yes or no o said. No definitely he says. Why. Cause the SNP are tartan Tories. Fuck Off I say let the invented past go. Would you rather be run by a pig swagger in London or by elected people in Edinburgh.I end of London was answer..I despair.
@Petra
Och, you don’t need to read more than one of Jenny Hjul’s fabrications before you know the content of all of them. Basically SNP bad, cybernats blah, blah nasty. Salmond/Sturgeon evil dictators… snore. One party state… droooone, etc.
Herself and that baloon Cochrane come from the same school of journalism oot the windae where Scottish politics is concerned and seein’ as how Mr Cochrane has already held his hands up to spouting propaganda, by his own admission mind. Just where would that leave the lady in question?
For your own sake, ignore those two loons and you’ll sleep better. I haven’t spent a penny on corp press in three years and its done wonders for the blood pressure and the local charities. 🙂
Brian Wilson, is he still with us?
I have to say I’m surprised that the figure of 79% refusal to disclose information was released- surely they could have refused to release this information on journalism grounds or whatever.
I filled out the BBC trust survey after a few pints recently – nice of them to give me the chance to get a few things off my chest.
OT wee anecdote from my evening. 3 of my tradesmen, floorlayers doing a job far afield in Oxfordshire this week. Flights booked for 7.45pm and 8pm tonight back up to EDI and GLA. Left Oxfordshire at 5pm. They have 2 hours 15mins to do 45 miles including a stretch on the M25 to Luton. Nae chance- 4 hours later they get into Stanstead to wait for a flight the morn at noon.
This is what happens when commerce is concentrated almost exclusively in one corner of the union. What an absolute shambles. And they want to make that part of the UK even busier by building a new runway at Heathrow or Gatwick! How ridiculous.
@galamcennalath –
Aye, and, if memory serves, MI5 had ‘over a million’ names on file at that time, all worthy of attention for whatever reason.
That book was published in 1988!
Sinky
“We do need wingers to be more proactive in the letter pages of the Unionist press”
Do you mean we should kidnap the editors of the unionist press and hold them at gunpoint? I see no other way to force them to print more pro-indy letters
Tam,
I’m not sure we even need them to publish them, just think of them having to at least read them, and realise howmany of us are onto their propaganda exercise.
I target the local papers and have some success here.
list of local e mail papers here
link to dl.dropboxusercontent.com
Not phoning in legitimate complaints to the BBC or failing to write to the odd Unionist paper pointing out errors in basic facts is a dereliction of duty!
I used to work in the press, complaints are noted, especially if well-written, polite and hitting the point. Even in media with a UKOK SNPBAD agenda
The BBC; Broadcasting pro BritNat propaganda on an industrial scale, since 1937.
Parasitic Quay the clear winner in the ‘Blatantly Biased Coverage’ awards category.
Everyone seems to forget that Jenny Hjuil is best of friends with Maggie Vaughan aka Flippers wife.
Having a wee look at the Chrismas Tree files ( suggest someone archive them) it shows just how devious and corrupt the British state really is. The BBC being complicent must be included in that.
I would love to see their modern equivilant of these files.
( they will certainly have one)
I wonder given the present situation, how many Scots will be on these files. I suspect anyone who posts on Indy sites will be there, at least. All details of our political class, and business people.
Daily adding anyone who, for whatever reason,interests them.
Any whistle blowers???
I used to work in the press, complaints are noted, especially if well-written, polite and hitting the point. Even in media with a UKOK SNPBAD agenda
Only to make sure they can f off FOI requests, which do have some legislative presence. At least they have to think about them.
They own Scotland, they pay themselves a fortune and its a crew made up of the most determined, assured and greedy class in the UKOK, the upper middle of merry olde England. BBC, all newspapers have a revolving door.
Director General Tony Hall £450,000-a-year (a decrease of £221,000 compared with Mark Thomas but the same as George Entwistle)
Managing director, finance and operations Anne Bulford £395,000 (£43,000 more than former chief financial officer Zarin Patel)
Director of news and current affairs James Harding £340,000 (the same as his predacessor Helen Boaden)
Director, television Danny Cohen £320,000 (£50,000 more than George Entwistle’s basic salary as director of vision in 2011/12. Mr Cohen did not receive a pay increase on his promotion from controller of BBC One)
Source: BBC / Sunday Times
BBC Scotland dudes earn two hundred grand a year each and they ain’t giving that up for any kind of democracy anywhere, least of all in their fiefdom of Scotland land.
link to bbc.co.uk
UKOK
BBC news and Unionist press going big on Police Scotland deficit.
They forgot to mention that Labour and Tory MSPs supported the creation of a single Scottish police force.
Or that Northern Ireland has a single police force and is exempt from VAT,
Or that on 3rd June 2015 in House of Commons none of the Tory,Labour or Lib Dem MPs in Scotland supported Early Day Motion 77:
That this House calls on the Government to agree to requests from the Scottish Government for Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to have the same ability to recover VAT as other emergency services across the UK; notes that providing a level playing field for Scotland would free up an additional £33 million to invest in frontline policing, fire and rescue in Scotland at a time when budgets are under real pressure as a result of the Government’s austerity policies; and urges the Government to finally do the right thing and provide a fair deal for Scotland’s emergency services and end the disparity with other emergency services across the UK.
link to parliament.uk
About to hit the sack, so, before I forget…
Item on news earlier mentioned that companies guilty of ‘blacklisting’ employees will not be able to apply for Scottish govt-related contracts…that’s what I ‘heard’ anyway…
…so, how would that relate to the BBC’s alleged ‘Christmas Tree’ activities?
Full disclosure from the Beeb?
Ha!
Even I ain’t THAT pished…
BBC Monitoring collects data for the spy agencies including GCHQ and the CIA. And it’s paid for by the licence fee payers.
link to youtube.com
Thanks for the link Ian B.
Seems familiar somehow!
The sub-committee decided that ‘in time of war or when the threat of an emergency was imminent the government should assume effective control over broadcasting and the BBC’. Two years later, in 1937, the Ullswater Committee on the future of broadcasting recommended that ‘in serious or national emergencies … full government control over the BBC would be necessary.’
Err,oh,argh, mmmm. ..I need a licence to drive a motor car and I can understand why. But remind me again, why do I need a licence to drive a tv set?
Headline Report on £25 million pound police deficit in Scotland (SNPBAD) yet again on BBC, this time reporting Scotland. link to bbc.co.uk
No mention that Scottish police are only police force in UK robbed by Westmonster of VAT amounting to £33 million
03700100222
Option 1, sub option 3
BBC hmmmn!
Eleanor Bradford hmmn!
How the BBC stole by Ponsonby lists Bradford way back in the mists of Project Fear!
B. McD. Involved in original rebuttal of Scottish Six!
BBC Baaaad!
Chortle link to archive.is Labour dawn sarf running away from SLAB
Abbot says Labour North of the border: SNAFU!
Privately senior Labour figures fear that Labour could lose every constituency seat in May.
link to archive.is
@Cadogan Enright
Snap! 🙂
@ Ian Brotherhood at 10:09pm …
A wealth of information on this site as per usual and a book worth buying Ian.
I had been thinking of listing names of BBC personnel and collating information such as department, role, wage, bonuses, perks and more than anything prior appointments and (vested) interests. No mean task as they employ thousands but thought of focusing initially, and maybe even solely, on Heads of Departments. The appointment of Sir Roger Carr (Chairman of BAE Systems) flagging up again, more recently, that something surely stinks at the BBC.
MI5 vetting going on for decades. No doubt still goes on especially as Westminster seems to have been at War constantly, as an example, since the 1707 Union (with a 70 year reprieve for everyone during that time). And isn’t it strange that as MI5 agents delved into the background of every potential / or actual employee of the BBC, and blacklisted many, they somehow knew nothing at all about Saville et al BBC Paedophiles. Aye right! Probably used this knowledge to their (blackmailing) advantage. What a web they weave. What a country we live in. Had a chance to get shot of it all last year but NO. Still shackled to a most despicable, corrupt Dictatorship … Secret Society.
@ Macart at 10:29pm …..
Macart you’re probably right about avoiding reading such trash but on the other hand if I don’t read how will I know what’s actually going on: the extent of what’s going on? And from what I can make out the propaganda situation, has stepped up a gear, is worsening at some rate now.
What really gets to me is that it would seem that there’s absolutely nothing we can do about this as IPSO is less than useless. Why are they so ineffective? I’m beginning to think that just about every agency in this country is now being headed by the ‘chosen ones’. Chosen to protect the interests of the State (note the many ‘replacements’ since Cameron won the Election) with the SNP and supporters deemed to be living and operating beyond the pale, so no available help for us from any source at all. Paranoia setting in?
I often think that if I was an anti-Independence supporter I would be deeply concerned with what’s going on in this country right now. Are there no decent journalists left in Scotland that feel this way too? Or is it the case that there is but they are caught up in this madness / badness too? Have no real authority and are fearful of losing their livelihoods?
@ Cadogan Enright
When you read the report it actually says ” “Could” face a funding gap of “about” £85M by 2018/9″
We also note that the report was written before Mr. Swinney announced an extra £55M for the police in his budget and a commitment to increase the budget in real terms every year of the next Parliament. This would bring the total to £100M. Then another £55M promised for additional transformation work.
Therefore there the weasel words “could” and “about” won’t apply. Of course reporting it that way doesn’t fit in with SNP bad
Tam
“Do you mean we should kidnap the editors of the unionist press and hold them at gunpoint? I see no other way to force them to print more pro-indy letters”
Well that should be enough (ahem) trigger words to get GCHQ interested.
Maybe add the words “hand grenade”… OH?
_________________________________________________________
Cadogan
“Not phoning in legitimate complaints to the BBC or failing to write to the odd Unionist paper pointing out errors in basic facts is a dereliction of duty!”
What? have we become the opposite side of the 77th?
Say stuff like that and Hothershall will be all over it.
_______________________________________________________
Dramfineday
“Err,oh,argh, mmmm. ..I need a licence to drive a motor car and I can understand why. But remind me again, why do I need a licence to drive a tv set?”
I’ve often said that about the removal of dog licences,
I asked why can it be right that you can own a dog let it run free and possibly bite a child, but a tv you need a licence! as far as I’m aware my telly’s never bitten anyone.
_______________________________________________________
Call me Dave
“Privately senior Labour figures fear that Labour could lose every constituency seat in May.”
Well its clear what thats about,
declare a state of emergency, then anything less is displayed as an overwhelming success.
________________________________________________________
Scotsbob
“When you read the report it actually says ” “Could” face a funding gap of “about” £85M by 2018/9?
Lets just remind ourselves, the Governments actions in reducing the force from 8 to a single force was in order to protect the police from the budget pressures caused by Osbournes austerity cuts, had they not done it, the “deficit” would be much worse, also worth remembering that the decision to cut the police to a single force was unanimously carried in Holyrood.
The Police get £1.8Billiion. If they stopped harrassing innocent citizens they could do their job properly. 40% of ‘charges’ are never brought to Court, but are processed through the system. The Police do not know the Law.
The Press ‘function’ is just part of Ministerial duties. It would not be appropriate to cancel. Just let them fail on their nonsense.
5% of people voted NO, 15% didn’t vote.
Thousands are losing their jobs. The Tories are ruining the economy. Oil sector take 50% of production + 25% tax = 75%. Scotland raises £12Billion more in taxes (pro rata). Pays £4Billion on debt repayments, not borrowed or spent in Scotland. Paying for Trident/illegal wars, tax evasion and banking fraud. People are being sanctioned and starved. Scotland was promised FFA, Home Rule, Federalism.
Scotland got tax raising powers to pay even more taxes to Westminster for their incompetence and corruption.
Until the next Referendum. The SNP are winning.
@Petra
Oh, there’s bags worth reading when it comes to corp media and keeping abreast. Personally, I tend to let the authors links on a post do the picking and choosing on the various sites. WoS in particular has an excellent track record of linking to relevant archived articles.
Poor scribes such as Cochrane and Hjul tend to get little page time. They are effectively the press equivalent of flamers who have only one aim in mind ‘bait and play victim’. They tend to post the most outrageous articles in the hope of provoking and attracting outrage and so are best avoided.
The cleverer commentaries are those who mislead with facts or partial facts, who omit relevant data or insinuate with partial stories and that’s why media monitors such as WoS are essential. Being able to sort the wheat from the chaff, translate the meaning of an editorial strategy and put out a full story is a massive aid to ordinary Jock and Jeannie public like us who are not up on wonk speak and media spin techniques. Providing links to missing data encourages folk to fill in the gaps on a current topic and draw their own conclusions for themselves is hugely beneficial.
The corp media and their chain tuggers have manipulated opinion and personal emotions to their own benefit for as long as ink has hit paper. These buggers are good at it and know just how to press your buttons to achieve an effect. Very few are above or beyond that level of saturated manipulation and it gets to us all, me included. That’s why choosing to filter our intake through a few layers of safety netting and letting someone else take the white noise and bullshit out of the equation is good for the nerves. 😀
How and ever if you feel like jump starting your wrath every now and again, remind yourself why we find the corp media beneath contempt, then a visit to some zoomer’s article is just the ticket. Just remember to shout ‘CLEAR’ before diving in and applying the paddles. 😀
@ ken500
First paragraph of your latest assertions.
You are talking through a hole in your arse. Either that, or you have a personal axe to grind.
Hello, hello hell o
Petra wrote:
“it would seem that there’s absolutely nothing we can do about this as IPSO is less than useless. Why are they so ineffective?”
They are a toothless crocodile deliberately designed to be so.
Deception is the name and aim of the unionist game.
Flatter to deceive is what they excel at.
According to the Labour/Unionists all kids have suddenly become inadeqate since the SNP came to power – four years ago. Yet passes are up again.
The only data that has any significance is Primary I to 3. Ie not yet readily available. All the rest is the attainment under the Unionist administration.
O/T links
link to scottishgovernment.presscentre.com
link to zerohedge.com
link to constitution-unit.com
9 pieces of bad news the Tories tried to bury on the last working day before Christmas
link to archive.is
jdman and anyone else reading
I am certainly not advocating that course of action, g-men!
O/T links
David Cameron’s new disabilities minister voted against protecting disabled children’s benefits
link to archive.is
link to sputniknews.com
link to thecanary.co
link to enenews.com
and now for some utter drivel from Jordan Daly [who he?]
link to archive.is
and a few more O/T links
link to energyvoice.com
George Osborne held two meetings with Rupert Murdoch before deciding on BBC cuts, HM Treasury confirms
link to archive.is
George Osborne met with senior bankers five times since election, Treasury confirms
link to archive.is
Very quiet this morning so a wee public service announcement. As I can’t find any of the MSM or BBC reporting this.
Anyone traveling by car across the Forth Estuary will be pleased to note that the Kincardine Bridge and the A985 are now open to ALL traffic in both directions. Thus negating the long (car and small van only) diversion via the Clackmannanshire Bridge and A977.
I did this journey at around 10:30 last night. Big improvement!
Isnt it funny how the Forth Bridge story has vanished from the headlines and the BBC. I wonder why that is? 😉
Oops forgot to mention Regarding my above comment re Kincardine bridge. The lifting of the restrictions / detours at the bridge is temporary for the weekend. Back to “normal” on Monday Im afraid.
Again on BBC Radio Scotland this morning Labour luvvie going on about Council Tax freeze unchallenged when the impartial SPICe reported in September that “The money provided by the government to freeze the council tax has resulted in local authorities receiving more income than they would have done by increasing rates by RPI (retail price index).”
Despite having a 10% cut in real terms to its budget in the last five years the Scottish government is treating local authorities far better than the UK government since 2010.
@dramfineday says: 19 December, 2015 at 12:13 am
“Err,oh,argh, mmmm. ..I need a licence to drive a motor car and I can understand why. But remind me again, why do I need a licence to drive a tv set?
Oh! Come on, dramfineday. Let’s not lower ourselves to the same level as the Establishment and stick to the facts that are true.
Legally you are not licenced to own a TV, nor are paying a fee to fund the BBC.
You are licenced to receive certain radio frequency broadcasts no matter if by an aerial or line.
This is not the only radio frequency signal reception that is licenced. are Radio Amateurs, Taxi and other commercial enterprises, the Military, Ships, aircraft and so on.
The legal thing is not the problem but the way it is being applied and the way the TV licence fee is collected is.
Not so long ago there was only radio broadcasting and the government had no control over foreign stations but the people of the UK still had to pay to receive broadcasts. Then came Radio Luxemburg followed by off-shore pirate stations and the government still licenced us to receive radio signals and to fund the BBC.
Not so long ago either the only TV broadcasting in the UK was confined to only the BBC. There were no commercial TV broadcasters no on-line reception and no satellite broadcasts but the government still continues to licence TV signal reception and fund the BBC.
Thing is that legally you are not paying directly with your licence fee for the BBC. The BBC used to directly collect the licence fee and turn it over to the Treasury. The Government then make a grant to fund the BBC. The BBC out sourced the collection of the licence fee. Which is where we have arrive at today.
The trouble is that it has all been a legal fudge from day one. The real purpose of the licence fee was for the government to control the public’s access to information. It always has been – broadcasting has been treated by all successive governments as their very own propaganda wing and the licence and BBC charter only smoke screens to make it seem like it wasn’t.
So just as the government lost control of the public radio stations as technology improved radio reception and the likes of Radio Luxemburg reliably received in the uk they are now losing control of TV reception.
The real problem is that commercial TV is funded and run by the same Establishment as the financial sector is part of the establishment too. So the advertisers who fund the commercial stations have an interest in controlling the hoi polloi too.
The cure is financial, (as always), as long as Joe & Josephine Public continue to accept paying to be brainwashed then the Establishment will continue to brainwash them.
If you imagine you are not paying for East Enders, Coronation street or even River City – think again. They are funded by advertisers who take your money for their products and part of the cost of those products, whether you watch TV or not, has been added to the products you bought. So you still pay to be brainwashed by the broadcaster whether they be the government or the soap powder maker.
1 .Personally I prefer “Firth of Forth” and Strathspey etc to the other words which surrender to cultural imperialism. Just sayin,
2.I agree about the Labour luvvie being given free reign on Radio Scotland but her comments were so bonkers and distant from reality that most would take the opposite view from what she intended.
3.The sun is out and Scotland looks beautiful this morning,mostly.
Nana says:
19 December, 2015 at 10:02 am
and now for some utter drivel from Jordan Daly [who he?]
Thank you Nana! Jordan, who he, says
“On the one hand, it has inspired many new, vibrant campaigns across the country and a lot of newly politicised activists have found the confidence and drive to tackle social issues in their communities. On the other hand, we’ve got this weird SNP craze to deal with”
link to craigmurray.org.uk
The SNP instead is setting out its stall as a kinder and more efficient manager of the governmental institutions of Scotland within the UK. It is elevating managerialism into a cult.”
SNP bad via all yoon media, a weird cult, a craze, If we allow critical thought to be further stifled, then we’re walking down a dangerous path etc,
People are strange, when youre reading on line:D
re Craig Murrays blog post – IMO the SNP are playing a strategic game. If you dont like it watcha gonna do – whats your alternative vehicle to independence? please tell.
I find it frustrating too as we are so close but we’ve spent 70 years getting to this point and I think we have to be cool and calculating. To win independence the SNP now have to be middle of the road and respectable. They cant be their own outriders. Thats up to others.
That way its the Unionists and Westminster who look more and more barking and a turn-off to those middle of the road voters.
@Petra says: 19 December, 2015 at 1:14 am:
“I had been thinking of listing names of BBC personnel and collating information such as department, role, wage, bonuses, perks and more than anything prior appointments”
Somewhere among my notes there is a, (now long out of date), list of BBC Scotland’s staff, of both inn front and behind microphones and cameras, and their political connections. Both direct and via family/marriage/partners.
Quite shocking, but far enough back in time as to have been extremely difficult to bring to a larger public.
There were more interconnections to SLAB than there are connections in the City of London Telephone exchange.
“IPSO is less than useless. Why are they so ineffective? I’m beginning to think that just about every agency in this country is now being headed by the ‘chosen ones’.”
You would be a fool if you did not realise the Establishment extends its tentacles into every corner and crevice of society.
It consists in a great deal more than the political parties for the Security Services, Armed Forces, Media, Churches, Education, Civil Services, Legal Systems, Financial Services and much more are all, and always have been, parts of the Establishment.
Here is a typical seemingly innoxious example that becomes glaringly obvious when highlighted.
There is also cross-fertilisation into many organisations seemingly unconnected to the government but a glance at those heading up, or endorsing, such seemingly innoxious organs as the RSPCA and other charities is enough to make such links creditable.
The original Establishment began with the royals who granted the aristocracy their titles, estates and powers. These in turn delegated lards and powers to the more minor Lords of the Manor and this extended down to the tradespeople who remained Freemen. This left the rest of the population as serfs or villeins – basically slaves treated worse than the elite’s livestock. A wild deer in the forest was protected from being hunted for food by the serfs or villeins and it was a hanging offence for them to poach game.
Yet we still have hereditary peers, churchmen and law lords sitting in the HOL and we, the serfs and villeins must pay them £300 per day to do so. Yet those same aristocracy’s names can be found on the headed notepaper of the charitable organs and each one not only drawing a salary but being paid for such things as opening bazars.
Examples –
Lieutenant General Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, OM GCMG GCVO KCB . (22 February 1857 – 8 January 1941), was a lieutenant-general in the British Army, a writer and founder of the Scout Movement and first Chief Scout of The Boy Scouts Association. Educated at Charterhouse School in Surrey he served in the British Army from 1876 until 1910.
Several of his military books, (written for military reconnaissance and scout training in his African years), became very popular with boys. In 1907, he held the first Brownsea Island Scout camp,. The beginning of Scouting and it’s offshoots, The Girl Guides and even the wee Brownies are offshoots. There you have it the Scouts, Guides and Brownies were originally an actually part of the Establishment from their very inception. Now consider the numerous schools that run Cadet Corps and …
So NO, Petra, you are NOT being paranoid and neither am I.
(Stands back and awaits incoming).
I believed The National came into existence to cover the aspirations and news for those who supported Independence, indeed being announced at Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘tour’ stop in Glasgow. All SNP supporters were asked to support it.
Today it is touting Labour over full page spreads, front cover, the Labour candidate opposing N Sturgeon at the SGE and London Labour views.
It gets hammered by Unionist politicians and commentators.
There are numerous papers covering Slab, along with the BBC. Are we paying for advertising our own opposition now?
In a broad sense, even with the BritNat media’s hysteria, we are living through a “phony war” period. Things are going to get a lot hotter in 2016.
The Scotland Bill, in its current insulting form, will, I believe, be rejected by Holyrood. This will allow the SNP to put in its May election manifesto a declaration to hold a second referendum some time in the lifetime of the new parliament, should the SNP win a majority of course.
The EU referendum will probably be held in the summer of 2016; if there are significant differences in the voting of Scotland and England towards the EU then I expect the
second Indy referendum to be held sooner than later, regardless of Westminster’s “permission” being withheld.
Before things get hotter it’s sensible for the SNP to play it cool.
@ Macart at 6:05am ”the clever commentaries are those who mislead with facts or partial facts, who omit relevant data or insinuate with partial stories …… providing links to missing data encourages people to fill in the gaps on a current topic and draw conclusions for themselves is hugely beneficial.”
I think this is what annoyed me so much about the Hjul article Macart. It is a ‘clever’ commentary and meets the criteria that you’ve just outlined. Reading through masses of articles for quite some time now I’ve got to say that I reckon the bias is becoming more and more blatant and will be conning many more people that don’t access the Internet or if they do don’t visit sites like this. We can provide as many links to missing data as we like but if they’re not read they’re not going to be hugely beneficial at all. In saying that it’s all we can do … attempt to educate ….. on here and on other sites.
@ Nana at 10:02am … ”Jordan Daly. Who’s he?”
Over and above the CorpMedia upping the ante re. their propaganda I’ve noticed that more and more so-called Yes voters are coming out of the woodwork now and castigating the SNP at every turn. 5th columnists in action in the lead up to May.
Yes Hub and Cafe, Edinburgh, looking for help for its revamp on Indigogo
link to indiegogo.com
Further too my comment on the National, there were two long letters earlier in the week, supporting Foulkes idea of a second chamber for Holyrood.
It was almost as if he wasn’t the buffoon he is and a real politician to be taken seriously.
O/T @ Brian Powell / Agree
I’d rather not read about Labour in the National either – they have at least 50% of the other paper outlet coverage touting for their view + 100% of TV media as it is.
Very disappointing; hoped for much, much better.
Want to keep supporting but they need to up their game somewhat. Have written to them and covered their surveys with ideas but I suppose its the standard of journos that’s the problem. Some who write for them are particularly dire.
In despair; just feel its on a downward spiral (spark is dimming). If anyone has the ear of the Editors / Journos ; they really need to get a grip.
No more Labour issues guff – Lets dig the dirt on the enemy FFS.
I refused o be fleeced by this Government unionist mouthpiece years ago they get nothing from me.
@Famous15 says: 19 December, 2015 at 11:26 am:
” … agree about the Labour luvvie being given free reign on Radio Scotland”
What else could you expect from Sherreen Nangiani?
There was also something about the voice of the Labour Luvvie, (I’ve no idea who she was as I tuned in during and left early in disgust), that was reminiscent of that of James Kelly – a sort of dithering and uncertainty of purpose like someone none too sure of what they were wibbling about.
Like as if they had been coached about the subject matter and did not themselves understand the content.
Much in line with those Labour Party numpties who habitually spring to their feet yelling, “Point of Order Mr/Ms Chairperson”, but who it turns out have no idea of what a point of order actually is. Further, whose claimed Points of order, (POO), turns out to have no rule in standing orders that applies.
Their idea of a POO is like the USAsian court room dramas of Hollywood fame with the famous Lawyer constantly yelling, “Objection”, the launching into a torrent of freshly dug up new evidence that really should, in real life, have been placed before the bench.
All such POO manipulation by these characters is for nothing more than dramatic effect of the, “See me”, type.
The connections between SLab & BBC are well described here & this has always stuck in my memory since i first read it.
link to lenathehyena.wordpress.com
Connections galore for you to ponder over & explore
I’ve noticed that more and more so-called Yes voters are coming out of the woodwork now and castigating the SNP at every turn. 5th columnists in action in the lead up to May
The heats on britnats though. Blether with Brian routinely utters, SNP next… election, will trigger constitutional crisis, and you dont want that do you…That one’s getting even louder for next May, toryboy’s were shrieking it last GE
From Daily Heil
Cameron and Boris warn of ‘constitutional crisis’ if SNP calls the shots by propping up a Labour government
So if BBC vote Slab Scotland region dudes like Taylor are on rule britannia propaganda performance related pay, he’s probably not getting it this year, maybe next May though.
JK’s books sales must be needing a Xmas PR boost, in pile hard core red tory unionists, to lend another very sleazy hand
Scott Arthur ?@DrScottThinks 1h1 hour ago Edinburgh, Scotland
Scott Arthur Retweeted J.K. Rowling
This explains why people that want Scotland to leave the UK need not also act as angry apologists for the SNP. Scott Arthur added,
J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling
Is Critical Thought Being Suppressed in Post Referendum Scotland? link to huffingtonpost.co.uk … # via HPYoungVoices
0 retweets 0 likes
Not in the least angry nor an apologist!
@Petra
It is all we can do Petra, that and arm thousands of doorsteppers with the counter arguments they require during election periods. Sites like this are where the anoraks and activists come regularly and that is where the true benefit accrues.
They can go out to those doorsteps with WBBs and array of counter arguments for the face to face meeting. Its proven remarkably effective so far over the past few years and there isn’t a yoon spad out there who wouldn’t give chunks of their anatomy to see sites like this closed down.
The proof of the pudding? Any poll over the past year you care to mention, be it on the drift of no to yes over the same period or on voting intent for the Holyrood elections.
The media are losing their one time iron grip on the public. What folk don’t or can’t pick up for themselves online, is still delivered to their doorstep by those who can and do.
You’re right on the money about the press too. They are the enemy. There is no right of redress for the SG or significant representation of the independence vote in Scotland and NEVER will be. They are fully paid up members of the state orthodoxy and are under no pressure or requirement to represent anything other than their own interests or those of the state system they support.
You’ve seen how their commentariat regard the independence vote for yourself. Literally naked racism and demonisation without check. Their projection of xenophobia and one party state dogma confirms their status as an irony free zone.
In short the best way to beat them is to starve them. Lending them any weight or notoriety merely encourages yet more frenzied, socially harmful and outrageous behaviour on their part. IMO we focus on making our own new media the norm. Make folk aware that these are the go to sites for news and commentary. As we can see for ourselves, the word gets around and has an effect.
We can’t get to everyone and there are those who can’t or won’t invest in new media. We have to build our media for future generations and wean them from the current corporately and politically compromised bunch of shysters.
Our youth is our future. 🙂
The SNP must retain ‘independence regained’ as its core policy, and never waver from it, until such time as it is achieved. Full stop.
Devolution and DevoMax are democratically useless, phony substitutes. Any evidence of the SNP kicking over the traces should be condemned.
If the SNP remove hope all we have left is the unpalatable example of extreme capitalism at work and play – JK Rowling and her badly written public school yarns in sci-fi guise.
@Macart
Better post than any that get in print. Take it you have you not eaten your cereal yet? Just wondering.
So far, RISE has all the hallmarks of a fifth column organisation.
But that was bound to happen from the left when the SNP got massively popular and was given power.
@Thepnr
The day I sit doon an eat ma cereal… 😀
@ Macart. Agree wholeheartedly with you. We are, where we are, due in large part, because of sites such as this.
The referendum was closer than Cameron’s arrogance told him it would be precisely because we are shaking off the shackles of traditional news media, with it’s hand in glove association with the forces keeping us down.
Stuart does sterling work feeding us the ammunition we then use countering the British state propaganda.
I can’t applaud the rev. enough, or thank him enough, for his output.
I wish I had this resource at hand during the 1970s.
I don’t post on here often, as any input from me would be superfluous.
The quality of contributions are second to none, not just the comments themselves, but the links also. Hats off to nana especially, but all who do are champions in my book.
I’ve noticed a bit of tetchiness recently, which is understandable. The events unfolding are historic and fatigue is a danger. But I would warn against in-fighting. Scottish history is littered with it.
Personally, I look forward to 2016 with confidence. We are living in unprecedented times.
Keep the faith.
Totally agree
@Grouse Beater – ‘Devolution and Devo Max are democratically useless’; I’d get federalism in their also.
Cul-de-sac of emancipation – etc, etc.
Independence – nothing less.
Now and always; anything else is sleekit unionist trap.
(But I’d watch the Labour ranks for this guff emerging in future)
RISE isn’t a fifth column organisation, it’s a political party (I think), and is just as entitled to campaign for itself as any other political party is, including the SSP if they’re standing separately, and the Greens which are – and Solidarity as well.
I guess some members of any political party put down the other parties, and the SNP is no exception – I’ve seen posts against Greens and RISE from people, and there are those that can’t stand Sheridan.
When it comes to the Referendum, we’re all on the same side, that’s how it was in Indy Ref 1, and it’s how it will be again in Indy Ref2. Meanwhile, there’s an election, and political party supporters campaign for their own party, and depending on their own nature, they do so fairly – or unfairly.
In my opinion the National supports Independence. It also supports lef-wing politics. It gives more support to RISE and the Greens, than it does to the SNP. And that’s that!
Oh, that’s not quite that with resepect to the National.
I think it likes Corbynism, and if Scottish Labour were to fully endorse Corbyn, it would like that, and I’m not sure what path it would pursue if it was a choice for the National between supporting Corbynism in Scottish Labour, and Independence.
RISE isn’t a fifth column organisation, it’s a political party
I judge it by what’s written in its name.
I read in the papers today that the UK Government is looking at 16th June 2016 as a possible date for an European Union Referendum. So if true, two elections six weeks apart?
Stephen
The BBC really are the Ministry of Truth.
So far, RISE has all the hallmarks of a fifth column organisation.
But the UK looks like settling in to a generation of blue tory, Cameron, Osborn, BoJo ruled England/UKOK, propped up by ferocious blue tory propaganda pouring out of the BBC alone.
Scotland can see their The Vow has come to nothing much at all, if anything. In fact UKOK BBC propaganda’s biggest success 2015 has been to complete deceive Scotland on vote NO for the, The Vow.
All kinds of chancers and carpet baggers have spotted tasty slots for self adancement in their Scotland region, my Slovene girlfriend cetainly has link to twitter.com
Perfect Britnat UKOK world, blue tory England, red tory Scotland, super heating south east and London.
Give it a decade, Scotland will either be independent or a mere UKOK Slabour enclave, socio economic decline, stagnation, miserably reigned over by BBC Scotland, explaining the opposite.
Vote Toryboy, Scotland?
all gone
link to eti.co.uk
The National isn’t perfect, but it’s a good read and we need a paper which supports Indy and so we should support it. Remember that all other papers such as the mail, express etc lead with SNP bad headlines. The National and the Sunday Herald are the lone voices of sanity on the newsagent shelf.
@Grouse
If I could wave a magic wand over the Holyrood Elections, I’d have Cat Boyd and Tommy Sheridan as MSPs, with one or two more RISE MSPs, maybe one more Solidarity, 2 or 3 SSP if they stand separately which is possible, and a few Green MSPs, as many as 10 or even 12. Not neccessarily because I agree with them, but because I’d like their voices to be heard at Holyrood.
But all at the expense of Labour, LibDems and Conservatives, NOT the SNP.
I used to be an advocate of the BBC, saying ” it’s a privaledge to pay the licence fee” more fool me. On the run up to the referendum it became clear that this was a unionist institution, or more precisely a mouth piece for UK labour Scotland branch office. It is now clear that the UK government has put the wind up the organisation and it is more akin to Pravda. An example would be lead story at 6pm with Chelsea, and no reference to the latest bills being rushed through parliament before Christmas break. A very hollow organisation with no moral centre!
@Heed
Don’t let anyone put you off posting in the Grun by the way, and hey, guess what, to post in it, you have to read it, though Unionists are always an exception to that rule.
I’ve noticed the Herald is not only becoming more Tory, it’s becoming more “Government”, but UK Gov not Scot Gov. It says “Government” about things like the police and fire, which are devolved, and it gives coverage to the likes of Theresa May who has quite little to do with Scotland in terms of control, apart from some reserved matters like the SIS and GCHQ.
I wonder if it’s now moving to the Conservative point of view, they always were basically against Devolution, and whether even it would like to see Devolution strangled and then removed, rather than its previous lying boast about being “for Home Rule” when it came out (openly) for NO?
It would take watching, but that would be a good Unionist way of totally undermining any chance of Independence for Scotland.
That media and that aim must be annihilated!
Is it a we’re trying to look as though we’re being fair newspaper, The National has turned into
If so WHY? When all the other newspapers blatantly support their YOON cause and make no apology for it but lie and say they’re the ones being fair
WHY? When the National states on it’s front page it supports an Independent Scotland does it give it’s pages over to the points of view which are largely untrue, to the YOON cause
It would be too easy to say I’m puzzled by this, would be supportive strategy by the National, but I don’t think I am puzzled, what I do think now and have done for some little time is that, our friendly neighbourhood supportive paper is a commercial venture which saw a market and capitalised on it
Like everybody else at first I was excited by the thought of having something in the print media representing our views but as time has gone by my hopes have dwindled somewhat, as they did for the Sunday version a while back
Evey week I look forward to an expose of something resembling the truth about YOON lies and distortions, and every week I become more disillusioned by the lack of them
Maybe I could try harder to read between the lines at what must be there I’ve thought, but I’m sorry to say Ive tried and it’s not
From my own point of view if I want to read pretendy factual honesty thinly disguised as YOON Shite I can read Arsholes like David Torrance and punch my own face as I’m castigating myself for reading it, or indeed just watch Scotland tonight telling us in a JOHN McKAY loud voice the honest truth really it is and he’ll say it even louder to make the point that the SNP have been SLAMMED or LAMBASTED or HEAVILY SCRUTINISED over nothing
I’m particularly fond of the Heavily Scrutinised phrase which can turn into Heavily Criticised by the next sentence uttered
I know there are many among us who hang on to the hope that the National is genuine and I’m still one of those, but for the moment I am finding it impossible to reach the conclusion it’s on our side and that leaves me with my first thought that it’s just another Newspaper printing what it can get away with for as much as it can get
Hope springs eternal, or is it INFERNAL
gordoz says:
“@Grouse Beater – ‘Devolution and Devo Max are democratically useless’; I’d get federalism in their also. Cul-de-sac of emancipation – etc”
I accept(ed) the general idea of gradualism (eventual independence through devolution) and I believe it is largely why we have got this far.
However, I now think devolution has hit the brick wall at the end of that ‘cul-de-sac’!
Perhaps this was always the case. WM and the Unionist parties always had lines in the sand over devolution. A close run referendum won by blatant lying over promises of more powers should make those limits crystal clear. If Smith Lite is their best offer at this stage, after everything which has happened, then we know they were never serious about serious devolution.
Pisses me off when even now people suggest pursuing DevoMax/HomeRule. FFS WM will never ever give us anything close to it.
IndyRef1 was probably destined to fail because it was a three option affair. Started as Status Quo versus Indy. Ended as DevoMax versus Indy, but as callous lie!
IndyRef2 will be a straight two opinion fight, as it should have been first time. DevoLimited versus Indy.
Yes – Indy as soon as circumstances allow!
yesindyref2 says:
” Not neccessarily because I agree with them, but because I’d like their voices to be heard at Holyrood. But all at the expense of Labour, LibDems and Conservatives, NOT the SNP.”
Agree. I want to see Holyrood with a wide spectrum of parties representing a wide range of views.
BUT, I want those parties/MSPs to always put Scotland first. Every Unionist, as far as I can see, will put their Union first. All Unionists must be hammered in May.
I will vote SNP&SNP, but I have absolutely no objections to other pro-Scottish parties displacing Unionists!
@Dan Huil says: 19 December, 2015 at 1:06 pm
” … Before things get hotter it’s sensible for the SNP to play it cool.”
Well, Dan, you may be correct in your views but may I offer a rather more likely scenario for consideration?
I lost count long ago of the number of times Nicola Sturgeon, and other prominent SNP Government persons, have said something along the lines of, “It is not up to the Scottish Government to choose when, or if, there should be another referendum. It is the choice of the people of Scotland“.
Now I’ve been saying just that, or variations thereof, for several decades. Here’s my thinking : –
There was legally only two British Kingdoms remaining in 1706/7 when the Treaty of Union was signed and only two Kingdoms signatures and Royal Seals can be found on that legally binding document. There was no existing Realm of Wales after the, “Statute Of Rhuddlan”, of 1284, as the Kingdom of England annexed it then.
There had also been no Kingdom of Ireland since the annexation of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Kingdom of England after the, “Crown of Ireland Act”, 1542. Thus both former realms came to the United Kingdom on English coat tails.
So the Treaty of Union, 1706/7, and the ONLY two relevant subsequent Acts of Union, form a bipartite legally binding treaty or agreement by two equally Sovereign Kingdoms. (Note:- Kingdoms not countries).
Here, though, is the legal difference of those two sets of signatures upon the Treaty of Union’s legally binding agreement.
In 1688 the English Parliament deposed the monarch they shared with Scotland and imported a pair of foreign royals as joint King & Queen of England but presumed that this could also legally depose the monarch of the still independent Kingdom of Scotland, as if, (in their minds at least), England has sovereignty over the legally still independent Kingdom of Scotland.
England also then withdrew from their new monarchy the Royal veto over the Parliament of the three country Kingdom of England. All three parts of the Kingdom of England thus became legally, “A Constitutional Monarchy”, but not the still independent Kingdom of Scotland.
Thus began the Jacobite Uprisings the English still claim as rebellions – but you cannot rebel against a monarchy not your own.
These Jacobite Uprisings spanned the Treaty of Union of 1707 and were battle was still being waged in 1745, at Culloden, – nearly 40 years after the Treaty was signed.
So the Parliament of England, and the subsequent parliament of the United Kingdom has always acted illegally as if England & the Westminster Parliament had sovereignty over both Scotland and the legally sovereign People of Scotland.
So after that long convoluted pre-amble here is the legal basis of what I believe Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP and the SG are saying, (without spelling it out in detail).
Legally the UK is a Kingdom:
Legally Westminster is Her Majesty, (of that United Kingdom’s), Parliament:
Legally that United Kingdom is an equally bipartite Union of Kingdoms.
Here now is the massive but always ignored differences between the two partner Kingdoms.
As Her Majesty is still legally sovereign throughout the three country Kingdom of England she is legally sovereign over everything in that kingdom and all in it are Her Majesty’s subjects.
However, the English Kingdom’s Glorious Revolution of 1688 saw the English Monarch’s Royal powers legally delegated to the English Kinngdom’s Parliament who legally exercise her sovereignty for her – in her English Kingdom.
However, in Scotland since, and long before the Treaty of Union, the people, not the Monarchy, are legally sovereign.
Nothing since then has legally altered that fact and this is indeed one of the legal, “Articles of Union”, of the 1706/7 Treaty Of Union, and of both subsequent Acts of the respective pre-union parliaments.
The Scottish Legal System is sacrosanct and remains legally independent. Thus, under Scottish law, it is still the people, and not either Her Majesty nor any government that is legally sovereign in Scotland.
Ergo it is plain that it must legally be the majority of the Sovereign People of Scotland, and not either the Scottish Government or the Scottish National Party that legally demands we hold another independence referendum.
Not only that but it seems to also be what Nicola refers to as a, “significant change”, by a United Kingdom referendum on EU membership where a Kingdom of England majority and a majority of the sovereign people of Scotland reached different conclusions and the will of the legally sovereign people of Scotland is deigned.
How long are we, the sovereign people of Scotland, going to keep Nicola waiting for us to decide?
@ Gordoz at 1:27pm ”I’d rather not read about Labour in the National either ….. ”
I don’t think that the National can continue to print what would be seen by many as pro-Independence bias. They should be interviewing politicians, and so on, from other partys and publishing their stance / views / policies and anti-Independence comments too (within reason). For one it means it encourages a wider range of readers and affords others the opportunity to debate and counter their arguments. In turn educate.
My husband works in a department of over 200 employees. Many buy the National every morning. All Yes voters of course. Occasionally prior no voters, but more so undecided individuals, have picked up the paper to read it and put it down again saying this is very one-sided (biased). To them the newspaper is more biased say than the Daily Record and you can see how they would come to that conclusion.
I still think it’s early days for the National (others been running for decades) and they are trying to find their feet; considering what to print in an attempt to sell more newspapers of course but more than anything offer a platform for the Independence cause. From what I can make out trying to do so on a very tight budget indeed.
There’s more they could do of course. I’ve heard people say that they should include a racing section as many Daily Liar readers only buy the paper for that reason. I would like to see them use the front page more effectively with bold headlines to combat current, significant propaganda issues; have permanent set pages listing particular facts such as Scotlands assets, Scotland financing England, and so on, and articles about famous Scots, great achievers here and abroad. Additionally covering every area of Scotland outlining history of, general information, places of interest, places to visit, how to get there etc. The latter may even attract more expats to purchase the online newspaper..
I am also disillusioned by the National since Richard Walker left. I have decided I won’t be renewing my subscription.
There is not enough analysis, it is full of padding, puff pieces produced by commercial interests as press releases, and stories recycled from elsewhere. It’s stance is insufficiently robust on criticising the union where it produces its own stories.
The final straw for me was when it announced on its front page that it was going to be a series on Scottish history and the image it chose was… Queen Elizabeth of England.
It’s a con.
@Robert Peffers 3:26
I agree with your post, Robert, especially about the people of Scotland being sovereign in Scotland.
If my original post seemed a little too “cool” then I’d just like to add this:
Firstly, I believe Nicola and the SNP can see the same as me concerning the new year ahead. As I stated, the insulting Scotand Bill, the May election with a mandate for Indy2 and the EU referendum result will definitely heat things up allowing Nicola to say the people of Scotland have indeed made their choice to hold another referendum.
Secondly, the SNP has to be careful in showing that it is following the sovereign will of the people of Scotland in wanting Indy2; it must not be seen as pulling or cajoling the people of Scotland into Indy2 and thereby installing doubt into those Scots who are still undecided. A difficut balancing act, I think you’ll agree.
Thirdly, if after all that 2016 brings the SNP continues to play by Westminster’s rules and postpone Indy2 then it may well be that the people of Scotland will make more radical political efforts to confirm its sovereign will. If such a situation ever comes to pass it will have my full support.
@Robert Peffers
Yes, the People of Scotland are Sovereign and the Parliament is ours to vote for, or even disband, whereas the people of England are subject to a Parliament over which the only control they have is, which party they vote for to become their Government.
I Claim my Right. In Scotland where I can. My Parliament serves me and the People of Scotland. Or else.
@KenC
No input is superfluous Ken and every positive voice welcome. 🙂
@galamcennalath
Yes, I’m SNP / SNP as well, it’s the only sensible safe vote at the moment. Nobody can predict the List vote, not even the Constituency one.
I was in Dundee for the Ref, a YES pub up Hill Town for a £2 pint (or two), Mennies for a few and then the Union. YES campaigners I talked to had thought Dundee would be 75% YES, in the event it was 57% YES. Those that attended the polling stations were disappointed right enough, they knew in advance it wasn’t going to be as good as hoped.
Brian Powell,
“I believed The National came into existence to cover the aspirations and news for those who supported Independence, indeed being announced at Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘tour’ stop in Glasgow. All SNP supporters were asked to support it.
Today it is touting Labour over full page spreads, front cover, the Labour candidate opposing N Sturgeon at the SGE and London Labour views.”
As I have been saying all along, The National is a unionist owned paper used as a cash cow to milk gullible Yes supporters, to keep the venomous The Herald alive.
Over to The Nationalist’s Apologist-In-Chief, Dave McEwan Hill.
Just to clarify: “If such a situation ever comes to pass it will have my full support.” “it” being my support for “radical political efforts”.
The National was a bit like the curate’s egg again today but a good read nevertheless. So I’m sticking with it for a while yet.
PS:
Headline is it news? Nah!No story??
All fur coat and no knickers at the Herald.
Just an excuse to rake over the old stuff…again…must have had a spare half page to fill.
——————————————————-
The Tory minister, tipped as a potential successor to David Cameron, warned that Scotland single police service had suffered “real operational problems”.
———————————————————-
That’s it folks.
link to archive.is
SNP x 2 best for all.
Britnat
Bias
Clandestinely
Still early days for the “new ” national” . If they choose a mini Herald approach pro unionist parties it will go bust. 50% of the population want a fair paper. The other 50% are pro RUK but have plenty of competition chasing the same cash.
Will give the National a month but expect a strong pro independence stance . If not I will stick to blogs etc like this.
The question of the Scottish people being sovereign is beyond dispute, in fact, acknowledged in Jack Straws attempts to engage both HoC and HoL to rewrite, or rather write, a constitution not unlike the US where that sovereignty would be legally removed from us, to them. Making it illegal to break away from the UK. And right now, he has the backing of over 55% of the Scottish people to do so – or so he would argue.
Gaining independence might not be as simple as a straightforward referendum.
ahundredthidiot,
“The question of the Scottish people being sovereign is beyond dispute”
In practice, a Scottish dog is more “sovereign” than a Scot.
We don’t even have the “sovereignty” to get rid of a disgraced lying Scottish MP, let alone the purring Queen.
Anyone who keeps on insisting that Scots are “sovereign” is dumber than anyone who keeps on voting Labour.
I bought the National from day one, apart from being away one holidays, I had never missed a copy.
I said a few weeks ago on another post that I was stopping buying it.
If I happen to be in a newsagent/supermarket I have a wee look at the cover, the last copy purchased was the Carbuncle Liar cover.
I realise they cannot openly stand up for the SNP, but the kicking the SNP have taken from the rest of the media outlets,the National missed the boat defending them. If they do not start to take a more SNP stance then they are about as much use as Willie Rennie.
I would buy it again, but only if they start to defend the SNP, or at least take on the lies from the other garbage papers.
OT – Sorry to hear Jimmy Hill died, we used to sing a wee song for him at Hampden RIP Jimmy
yesindyref2 says:
19 December, 2015 at 3:00 pm
@Heed
Don’t let anyone put you off posting in the Grun by the way,
They wont let me:-(
They don’t report anything Scotland now, other than that twit from Sunderland’s weekly UKOK SNP bad drive by. Its one way of dealing with your Scotland region media wise, pretend it simply doesn’t exist. But we do. They’ve always been a pretty insular, England rules the world, America obsessed crew, with Scotland only mentioned when they couldn’t think of anything else, a ray of sunshine and Scotchman with a grievance are hard to tell apart, is probably on the wall of the Graun entrance hall. They didnt really go with the BBC freak show, Westminster’s a Scottish Raj in the Crash Brown era, English nat smear campaigning, via Jezza Paxman. Corbyn’s going to stretch The Graun’s phoney leftie bullshit to breaking point too but they are only chasing the wealthy middle classes of merry olde England, and that wealth’s all down to Bomber Bliar, Crash Gordon, Lord Flipper too. Ingrates that they are.
Scottish democracy and Scotland run by the people of Scotland is such a giant existential leap for many red and blue tories in England, they blank it out, or shit all over it, rancid The Graun style.
After 1979, Scottish democracy went pretty dead but now its unstoppable. We are taking country back whether they like it or not. We’re just taking a little bit longer than hoped for last September.
@ Sunniva at 3:38pm ….. ”Since Richard Walker left ….”
Sunniva Richard Walker hasn’t left entirely so to speak. He’s Consulting Editor of the National.
“… devolution and Devo Max are democratically useless…”
I have always thought along those lines, but since the Indyref, and it’s negative majority, the whole sorry affair revealed to me how deceitful and manipulative the mainstream media actually was.
I firmly believe if Scotland’s news and media programming had been neutral, informed and educational, then I firmly believe YES would have romped home with a thumping majority. Better Together and their Unionist politicians were thoroughly dreadful, and could not articulate any constructive logic for the Union to exist, but they were given such an easy ride by the TV and papers.
Sadly, I fear the media is one of the biggest players governing our constitutional status, and it is very unhealthy for constructive and informed debate when the Unionists command such a monopoly over broadcasting. Given that Broadcasting is in my opinion such an important factor, I believe the chances of Scotland ever becoming independent are greatly impaired, because the real debate is stifled. It is/was quite improper that it was stifled, but the Unionist media held all the cards and we all know how it worked out.
I think it is vital that Scotlands’s people have unfettered access to the arguments, careful and dispassionate opinions, and objective and impartial commentary, and I’m afraid that is just incompatible with the present ‘rigged’ system. It is vital, most vital, that the people of Scotland are never again treated like sheep and have our democratic process so cynically manipulated by such an odious and partisan organisation like the BBC.
Westminster and the BBC know this very well, and will never willingly relinquish control of the political agenda in Scotland. They cannot afford to. This is why I think the Scottish Government needs to hold a plebiscite and receive a mandate from the Scottish people to seize control of Broadcasting. That isn’t devolution. It is in effect a limited coup d’état upon a small segment of Scotland’s governmental activity. If the people of Scotland demand this, and do so democratically, then the Scottish Government will have a mandate to instigate a new Scottish broadcast news service wholly independent from Westminster and the BBC. None of them will have any veto over the declared will of our people.
I appeal again to the SNP government to hold a plebiscite and give the people of Scotland the democratic opportunity to demand our own television broadcasting. We don’t need Westminsters consent, we don’t need the BBC’s consent, we don’t even require them to stop broadcasting, but we could have our own dedicated news network which is loyal to Scotland and Scotland alone, but within that prerequisite, is scrupulously exacting in it’s neutrality and objectivity.
Then, let’s have a discussion about Scotland and our future…
@Croompenstein
Met him once at a footie do! A Gentleman, and took all the criticism in good part…on the chin so to speak.
@yesindyref2 @ 4:19
Don’t know about Dundee explicitly, but there was a correlation between higher turnout and higher NO vote.
Maps …
link to bbc.co.uk
Rev. Stu
My job takes me across the globe,I cannot believe the propaganda ,spewed out by the BBC. and MSM agaInst my country.
I am informed/educated by WoS on a daily basis you are doing a fantatsic job ….the comments from the WoS are invaluable
Keep up your amazing work please,it keeps me alive/breathing..
Thanks
O/T
Lord Janner is dead! BBC radio news.
@Petra. I know Richard Walker is still !consulting editor’, whatever that means. What I’ve noticed is that it doesn’t mean a lot. The whole paper has gone downhill. They’ve raised the price and filled it with dross. Not a successful strategy.
Just remember how far we’ve travelled in the last ten years. We won’t need to wait another ten years to achieve our goal. Scotland will regain its independence.
OT – What’s our hero been up to???
link to elfyourself.com
‘Just remember how far we’ve travelled in the last ten years. We won’t need to wait another ten years to achieve our goal. Scotland will regain its independence.’
Exactly. Even my No-voting friend thinks it will happen. A reason for hope, but not for complacency. Keep working hard at it.
@brian powell 12.49 @Sunniva and others
If Rock is agreeing with you on the National, you should be worried.
I regularly blog the National and criticize articles obviously copied from the Yoony press without stopping to look at Wings to find the lies first.
However it would be insane not to continue to support it.
The article on Labours front bench today abandoning SLAB was very interesting – we need to know this sort of thing.
Likewise the article on the unknown lady put up to oppose Nichola in Glasgow
The article on Police Scotland was dreadful – and I blogged it accordingly
A new National Press was not built in a day STOP MOANING AND POUTING – get onto them and tell them where they are going wrong.
@Cadogan Enright –
Hear hear.
Rock at 5.05
Yes that’s why the national today has Mhairi Black, Wee Ginger Dug, Pat Kane, report of Labour Shadow Cabinet Member Diane Abbott writing off Scottish Labour, report of Scotland’s “positive economic outlook”, strong praise of Health Secretary Shona Robison, a report on the Scottish Government cracking down on anti Trade Union employers and four pages of interesting readers letters (some anti) plus a couple of uninspired and poorly informed pieces from Andrew Learmouth which means it is a NEWSPAPER, not an SNP leaflet.
O/T
The People Versus some lying, waste-of-space politician is 11K short of 208K target.
link to indiegogo.com
Dig deep folks…
🙂
@Breeks -6.18
Excellent post Breeks.
You been bang on the money these last coupla days.
Keep it going.
We need your kinda guidelines for the future.
Superb
Arrgh! I give in. I’ve had several comments just disappear into thin air as I was typing them.
Guess it is time for a thorough clear out of cookies and a really thorough scan for virus and Trojans.
Time to dig out, or download, an Xbox 360 game as those clean ups can take a long time.
Wow! This one has not self destructed … yet!
Now to gently click submit …
Well said Dave!
@Rock –
I’m really REALLY trying to be civil and positive…
I asked Rev, not long after The National appeared, whether or not he’d write a column for it if approached. Can’t remember his exact words, but they were along the lines of ‘don’t see why not’.
I can only assume that no such invitation has been made – yet – but if Rev did have a column in The National, would you support it then? Would you support it in principle, or just buy it on the day Rev’s column was published?
If you’re inclined to respond ‘yes’ to either or both, then why don’t YOU start a petition to have The National take on Rev Stu Campbell?
Of course you have every right to your opinion, and to loudly bellyache each and every time The National is mentioned, but I’m not the only one here to find it tiresome.
Got this in an email tonight
“Dear Sir or Madam,
BBC Radio Scotland’s “The Big Debate” programme is at The DCA in Dundee Friday 15th January 2015.
Presenter, Gordon Brewer, is looking for a lively audience who want to have their say on the big issues of the week and we thought this would appeal to people associated with your group or organisation.
The programme is similar in format to “Question Time” on BBC television. Members of the audience are encouraged to think about the news stories/ talking points of the week and suggest questions to be put to our panel of guests. Normally, four or five topics are chosen for discussion – so there’s plenty of scope to join in.
Folk can apply to come along to the debate via our online booking form link to bbc.in ,by email bigdebate@bbc.co.uk , or by calling the team on 0141 422 7773. Tickets are free. Audience members should be seated by 11.35am. See below invite for full details.
I would be most grateful if you could circulate this information amongst your members as well as friends, family and anyone else you think might be interested in coming along.
Kind regards,
Sarah”
who is for it, we can be sure BBC will have one item that week we could find fault with, I am sure we could put forward a “lively audience” for Gordon
Almost a year ago a one year old in Wales was hospitalised because a supermarket pharmacy wouldn’t fulfil a prescription because it was in Welsh.
The BBC operated a complete news black out of the story on their English language page, when questioned about it they claimed they didn’t have the resources and had to pick and choose stories to run. One of the stories they chose to run with that week was a pissed up girl biting a car.
link to welshnotbritish.com
devo max is dead in the water, the unionists have played that card, they cant play it again after saying they would and have delivered it already.
the devo max promise was their last chance saloon but they blew it,
in the face of a withdrawl from the eu, devo max makes no sense
“Independence in Europe” is the snp slogan for the eu referendum, it will ensure that the unionists wont want to share a platform with the snp during the eu ref. good
This is fun from another toryboy unionist, with all kinds of WTF ukok style in his Scotland region.
In a rule Britannia world of Britishness, where the ghastly BBC flat out refuse 70% FOI’s, a raging unionist says
link to archive.is
We’re all Neuro-Linguistic Programmers now. SO BBC vote SLab Scotland, STV, 37 newspapers, all kinds of BBC UKOK radio propaganda dumped on Scotland, but anyone talks back and its
“But what sets the SNP (the SNLP?) apart is the sheer audacity with which they’re willing to relentlessly repeat not just partial truths but demonstrable falsehoods.”
Kevrage, youre out there dude, but youre making a very big ukok fool of yourself dude, and that’s not neuro-linguistic programming, just stats. You can’t have every single meeja outfit raging NO/SNP bad at Scotland and not have some people disagreeing,
Its called democracy. Better get used to the sheer audacity of it all yoons.
@Croompenstein at 7:17 pm
You gave me an idea.
link to elfyourself.com
schrodingers cat says:
“devo max is dead in the water … the devo max promise was their last chance saloon but they blew it”
Definitely the way I see it.
It may have been option, but now everyone needs to accept it is dead, cannot be resurrected, and needs buried.
Pedantic piece of trivia which may be useful…
It is a convention in publishing that newspapers are referred to as, for example, the Guardian, the Herald, the Press & Journal or whatever, and ‘the’ in never capitalised EXCEPT in the case of The Times and The Sunday Times.
Why and where this became a rule is not to my ken, but doesn’t need someone with a Phd in media studies to work out.
So, please, whenever we refer to the National, let’s make it The National. It won’t mean much to many folk, but it’ll really piss off those who will regard it as an unpardonable effrontery. (Likes of yer Rees-Mogg, ken?)
@Dave McEwan Hill
I certainly don’t want the National to be a pro-SNP mouthpiece, that would be useless. But it’s damaging when a “supposedly” pro-independence newspaper cuts and pastes the very one-sided coverage about the Forth Road Bridge that you can read in any SNP-hating media – i.e. the rest of them.
What it could have done is a bit of journalism instead of sheer laziness, did a bit of easy online research such as I did on my own to comment in the Herald, the Rev has done more extensively, and produced a balanced piece.
That would have hit a hole in the market and might have even got NO or undecided or non-SNP people to buy it, just to see what “the other side” of the argument was.
There’s been several similar pieces that just mirror the biased media, when better informed articles would have left the reader, to judge for themselves.
It not only loses its pro-indy readership with that, it does the YES side, no favours by allowing the SNP and the Scottish Government to be unjustifuiably slagged – and by itself as well as the rest of the junk press.
Mmm, The National. Well OK then.
Right, seen other posts elsewhere about Devo-max and here’s the thing with it. By supporting Devo-Max, the SNP got 50% of the electorate voting for them including a good number of NO voters, and hence got 56 MPs elected to Westminster.
But it also got the Devo-Maxers onside, not all of whom would have voted for them. Roughly speaking there were 25% of the electorate that supported Devo-Max that voted NO. They may not have been taken in by the Vow, but they would still have been supportive of the SNP pushing Devo-Max to the limit going through the Scotland Bill passage through the HoC.
Now Devo-Max is all but dead – but hey, the SNP did their very best, right to the bitter end, they even had an amendment in the last session that got voted down.
All of Scotland knows that whether it was really their preferred policy or not, the SNP kept their promise, were stronger for Scotland, and tried their very best to get it implemented. The “futile 56” failed. Which means, Westminster really is dead for Scotland. It just needs a sufficient number of the
55%now 50% NO voters some of whom would like a strong Parliament at Holyrood (like the STUC and SCVO), to reluctantly give up forever on Devo-Max – and become YES voters to Independence.Anyone who thinks the SNP don’t know exactly what they’re doing or have given up on Independence, is stark, staring bonkers. Or has a non-Independence agenda of their own.
link to inspire360.co.uk
Maybe UKOK kevrage is on to something. You too can become a Neuro-Linguistic Programer like the SNP, in only 7 days.
@heed
Just had a quick look at Rev’s twitter feed, and seems kevverage is behind Dugdale’s graps of maths and economics.
Wonder how much the SNP paid him for that?
So that’s me booked in to the inspire360 Neuro-Linguistic Programer Platinum course, 7 days, all the trimmings, even get a certificate.
And then, next week, I’ll be out and about Neuro-Linguistic Programming Scotland into voting SNP x2 or 3 even and it’ll be Scottish independence by next June at the latest.
After that, who knows, reach for stars, maybe get a job as a pet shop manager.
These are not the guppies youre looking for, Kevrage. You. Plonker.
@yesindyref2 –
Whatever the SNP is up to, and how ‘professional’ it may be in doing it, is one thing, but the role of The National in helping them do it is another – that’s what Rock seems to be confused about. (Rock – I would very much appreciate your answering the simple question I asked at 8.19.)
If The National does nothing else but have ‘THE NEWSPAPER THAT SUPPORTS AN INDEPENDENT SCOTLAND’ directly beneath its masthead it deserves our support. I’m constantly baffled and hacked-off in roughly equal measure at the carping about an article in The National which doesn’t, in whatever respect, ape what Rev happens to have written the day previously.
Anyone capable of seeing further than the end of their own nose can see that newspapers generally are facing a torrid future. Very few can claim to being ‘Scottish’ in any meaningful sense – The National is, at the very least, doing a good job of appearing to support Scottish independence. If – as repeatedly urged to by Rock and some others – we abandon support for The National, no other daily publication will support our cause.
Think because it sounds a bit like ‘snp’ it has been siezed upon. I am sure that kind of thing was used last year to get a nation to vote against itself.
IB
Am starting to suspect that The National is a Trojan Horse, at least in terms of its hind-quarters, covering its Unionist publisher’s bare back-side.
Thus, let it genuinely pony-up; or, hell mend them, too.
@Ian
I agree about not abandoning it, problem is people are because of its line. Which does seem to support RISE and Green, even if the likes of RISE is doing the”list vote for SNP is wasted” garbage as it has at least twice – I don’t always read the articles.
What it needs is criticism to make it think and improve. I note Cadogan does that, I would but even though I have a login, try as I can I can’t post. I presume because I don’t do facebook. So it’s not very accessible, not for forum freaks like me. If it was I would pull appropriate articles apart, as I do mostly in the Herald these days.
Even this headline “Audit reveals Police Scotland could face £85m gap in finances” parrots the Unionist press, and has this line “The prediction came from Scotland’s Auditor General in a damning review of the police watchdog’s accounts.”
But later in the article it seems this isn’t now the case, so a better haedline would be “£85 million gap closed by budget measures”.
Being impartial is one thing, jumping on the anti-SNP bandwagon the rest of the media has is another.
Sticks and stones may break our bones, but we are Nats and will not return to our boxes. The Scottish revolution is happening and there is nothing the unionists can do. We are going to win, there is nothing they can do, the biased media will be disregarded by the nationalist majority and sadly England will be left like Greece without the sunshine wondering why we left the union.
Wonder how much the SNP paid him for that?
I think Kevrage is a great toryboy bullshit artist, with excel, but he’s one of many in the unionist UKOK twitter bubble that think they’re the masters at baiting the YES vote.
Kevrage, the master UKOk baiter.
Its in the inspire360 Neuro-Linguistic Programer Platinum course, Introduction to Neuro-Linguistic Programing, level 1.
Wingers
I am here
Newsroom
Sunday Herald front page;
link to twitter.com
@pete the camera,
Sarah, now would that be Sarah Smith.
Mmm, Sunday Herald front page (thanks Marcia):
“westminster urged to “come clean” over shipment to US of nuclear weapons-grade uranium dumped at Dounereay by Blair”
Ummm, I have a feeling, sadly, that the correct response to the Tories at Westminster is “Thanks for cleaning up Labour’s red-hot mess from Scotland”.
Which, errr, doesn’t do much for the cause of Indy.
Ah wait, I’ve got it. I posted that perhaps the Herald is going stron on supporting the Conservatives, and also perhaps on Westminster versus Holyrood, and anti-Home Rule. Maybe the Sunday Herald (The Blockheads) is joining it, and giving us all “Reasons to be grateful” part 3.
@yesindyref2 –
I hear you loud and clear, and respect what you’re saying.
Regarding the specific case you cite (Police Audit £85m Gap etc) and The National’s presentation of it today, what should ‘we’ prefer them to report?
The National is fulfilling two functions – it is giving us the ‘Establishment’ view, providing the same information that the other dailies are serving-up. Does anyone believe that The National is spinning that data innto the same ‘SNP-Bad’ shite as the rest?
Why is it that well-kent Lefties were often caught reading The Times or, in our case, the Scotsman? ‘Because I want to know how the enemy’s thinking’. Is it beyond the wit of intelligent, worldly Scots to read the same material and NOT fill in the blanks for themselves?
You know the old one about folk buying newspapers to affirm their own affiliations or prejudices. That’s a given, and it’s fair enough. I’d like to think that The National is big enough to print whatever the Londoncentric press is going with, if for no other reason than to let us know what their game is at any given point without actually having to buy their rags or visit their sites. We can – and do – work out what’s really happening via places like this.
It would be naïve to imagine that there isn’t some symbiosis at work here – The National and WOS overlap in ways which we cannot assess accurately, but we shouldn’t doubt the extent to which they are mutually beneficial. Neither of them can keep everyone happy all of the time, so please consider this – how would you feel, as a regular contributor here, if The National started urging a boycott of WOS?
@Ian Brotherhood
Fair point. I also think the National should print valid anti-gov stuff to attract the softer NO voters “If the pro-Indy paper says it, it must be true”.
It would need a very clever person to do that sort of stuff right.
@yesindyref2 –
Agreed.
And we all know someone who fits the bill.
Rev someone or other…
Rock really should get that petition up and running.
😉
@ yesindyref2 9.58 you don’t need Facebook
you can register here at The National for a login link to thenational.scot
and then blog their pages when the screw up and run a yooney tune copy article – linking to the debunk on wings is usually enough
The same login will also serve your Sunday Herald and National subscriptions
Dunno if anyone’s asked, day is nearly over, but where the fuck’s oor cartoon.. 🙁
I have subscribed to The National since the beginning. In response to their readership survey, I recommended that Paul Kavanagh and Rev Stuart Campbell be invited to contribute regular articles. WGD has been a very significant contributor and delighted he now has a column twice weekly. However, I feel The National has to reconsider, it’s obvious decision not to engage Stuart Campbell. If it can give space to Angry Salmond, it can surely make a space for The Cybernat General? From Cybernat HQ.? Or, are they fear’t of the competition!
@ Cadogan Enright 7:36 pm, Dave McEwan Hill 7:51pm, Ian Brotherhood 8:19pm et al …
All making excellent points about The National and giving good examples of the high calibre of just SOME of the individuals who take the time to contribute to the newspaper. Not exactly what I’d call ‘dross’.
We’ve all acknowledged that the biased CorpMedia poses the GREATEST obstacle to achieving our Independence and if it wasn’t for the propaganda machine we would probably have won last year: Definitely would have won, IMO.
Prior to the Referendum the Sunday Herald came out in support followed more recently by The National. In other words after having no Daily or Sunday newspaper, EVER, fighting our corner we do have now.
The least Independence supporters could do is to fork out £3 a week, if they can afford it, rather than just throwing in the towel; worst still constantly griping on about it. I just wonder how some of the dedicated staff (some of whom work for nought) feel reading such comments and additionally the many decent, knowledgeable individuals who contribute articles for publication.
If anyone is unhappy with the content of the articles they should complain to the Editor or better still take the time to post their complaint on the comments page. And as already mentioned, by myself and others, you could request that some of Stu’s articles be published.
We would have to be crazy to give up on The National. Take such a retrograde step now. Support it, if for no other reason than that’s exactly what all Independence haters / opposers / 5th columnists want to see happen …. a return to 100% CorpMedia control that doesn’t ever give the Mhairi Blacks, Wee Ginger Dugs et al the time of day and never will.
@ Welsh not British at 8:36pm …..
Thanks for posting on here WnB. We can sympathise with you as it’s clear that the State controlled BBC don’t give two hoots for any part of the UK (such as their language and culture) other than England. In fact probably just the South of England. The North is of interest to them either. Happy to take our license fee right enough.
Yes, they should ask Rev to do a column, even an occasional one.
@Cadogan Enright
“subscriptions”? I always use ccleaner to vlean out the hidden cookies …
Got a login and tried it a few times, doesn;t work for some reason. Get the “post” box after login, but then it doesn’t appear. Maybe they just pre-moderate me and don’t bother 🙁
‘Where the fucks oor cartoon’
The Cairns cartoon is always a nice boost to start a busy Saturday at work for me,and at this brutal time of year it’s absence was sorely felt.
National Shmational, Herald Schmerald.. at the end of the day we don’t need any of them..
GE 2015.. unionist wipeout
HE 2016.. unionist wipeout
LGE 2017. unionist wipeout
What then, a tory govt in westminster with no mandate to govern Scotland, and 56 SNP MP’s, SNP majority in Holyrood and 32 SNP councils!!!
It’s beginning to look a lot like Xmas.. (UDI)
@Petra (11.38) –
🙂
Cameron hinting at july 2016 eu ref
good, they will be to busy down south campaigning to spend much time up in Scotland
all parties in Scotland support staying in, who will lead the out camp in Scotland?
@schrodingers cat
That ukip hauf wit Coburn ,no doubt .
dakk @11.51
As I often type :
“Nae Rubens i day?”
And yet the BBC and Unionist parties continue to flood the NHS with FOI requests. Orkney alone received some 60 or more requests from thesearch yoons in each of the years from 20q0 – 2014 inclusive.
link to google.com.sa
@Petra and Ian B
RE: The National
If its good enough for both Salmond’s, the sexy socialist and the statesman, then who am I to say they’re wrong?
Personally I don’t expect it to be an SNP newsletter. Party affiliation is kinda the very thing that has compromised the rest of the media in the UK. Why on earth would we want to emulate their example? It also makes them an easy target for dismissal by those opposed to the SNP, but open to persuasion on the independence issue. No, I simply expect it to give the SG a fair hearing and equal platform.
Considering the long standing appalling behaviour of the rest of our press, I get that folk would want a title to be as party politically partisan as the rest of the press. Its human and its understandable. How and ever, if we want a representative press, it has to be capable of reflecting and representing the broad church of its readership. I don’t expect to agree with every article or like every contributor, that’s life and that’s also simple human nature. We’re a thrawn bunch after all. 🙂
The YES movement isn’t the SNP and The National should reflect that above all else IMO. If the SNP is Scotland’s National Party, The National, it goes without saying, should be …
… You get the picture. 🙂
I hope the national stays. I just have to compare our media now with where we were 4 or 5 years ago. I’ll keep it warts and all.
Ideally what we need it some pro Indy wealthy bod to acquire one of the well known titles.
O/T
My missus had a stand up debate in Dunfermline post office yesterday with some elderly Tory claiming we are looked after by Westminster cause we can’t look after ourselves. He was moaning about the queue saying it was the fault of the SNP!! She calmly reminded him that George Osborne had privatised the post office!
Wish I had been there but she is calmer than me!
ScottieDog
I occasionally click a link on Twitter or FB and see “Unioinist” and your Post Office que types.
Like you a I jist canna thole it. Blood boiling moments.
When I step back and think about it , like you say it was GO who privateised PO and was it not Labour who were letting them close smaller / not very profitable counters etc. In fact it does not matter a dam which WM Gvt did what .
It is Fec£ All to do with the SNP and they know it.
I can only assume these “ignorant & arrogant” types are being conned by the media?
What have the SNP actually done to any off them to cause them to be so horrible & venomous towards the SNP . I just cannot get their mindset on it at all.
John Nicolson getting another viewing on TV , A Marr @ 9am
A Somebody who,ll never give in.
link to youtube.com
Keep it tight People , keep getting the message out to the Uninformed.
O/T links
link to tommyballgovan.blogspot.ie
Tory bully Lucy Allen caught on tape…
link to audioboom.com
link to presstv.com
So Janner does a Brittan and the victims lose again…
link to theneedleblog.wordpress.com
O/T links
link to opendemocracy.net
link to priceofoil.org
link to theoccidentalobserver.net
link to gagrule.net
The National is better than nothing. The story about the Police showed that although there were claimed there would be a £85Million shortfall. The Police were getting another £100Million + £50Million for reorganising and cyber crimes. = £150Million more.
The Police get £1.8Billion. 40% of ‘charges’ never get to court, although they are processed through the system. There are a lot of disgruntled ‘customers’. The Police should have more instructions in the Law, instead of harrassing innocent citizens. It is not always their fault.
Too many people on the spectrum are in prison. Teachers should get training in special needs, so people get the proper support. There should be proper counselling and total abstinence drink/drug rehab. It is cheaper than prison.There are too many rehab facilites were people are told they can have a drink on a Saturday night. Addicts, often very talented people can’t.
What abou the nuclear waste being dumped in Ethiopia/Africa along with the rest being exported.
Good for the National to break the story. They should follow it up.
Osbourne’s folly building a new Nuclear station by the sea, a distaster waiting to happen. £25Billion of borrowed Chinese money. It will over budget and over time. The last one in Finland was seven years late and massively over budget. There had to be reconciliation talks. The money would be better spent on renewables, for half the cost and twice the fuel. Westminster cancelled a Humber Tidal barrage cost £9Billion. Hulne LD refused permission CCS project at Longannet in Fife. The Tories have banned coal production. Now coal will ave to be imported, Putting up the balance of payment deficit and the debt.
The Tories have banned wind turbines. Osbourne is taking 50% of NS Oil production + 25% tax = 75%, making it less viable. Losing thousand of jobs. More Oil & Gas has to be imported putting up the balance of payments deficit and the debt. People are losing their jobs. They are having to sell their houses and move in with relatives or take out loans to pay their mortgages, because of
Osbourne. Thatcher all over again. Thatcher had interest rates at 15% and over 3Million
unemployed.
All the things that were supposed to happen if people voted YES are happening because people voted NO. 5% voted NO and 15% did not vote.
O/T links
Re Strathclyde proposals for Hol
link to democraticaudit.com
link to commonspace.scot
link to theweek.com
link to commonspace.scot
and now for the mad musings of a loon…wired to the moon!
Musings on life, business and the Scottish economy
link to archive.is
@Ian Brotherhood says: 19 December, 2015 at 8:19 pm
” … but if Rev did have a column in The National, would you support it then? Would you support it in principle, or just buy it on the day Rev’s column was published?”
One
swallowindependence contributor doth not aSummerindependence supporting paper make.Likewise – One
swallowUnionist contributor doth not aSummerUnionist supporting paper make.There is a fine line between balance and imbalance. To be effective, and accepted, the paper must not fall into the same over biased trap that has resulted in every Unionist supporting rag shedding readership because neither unionist or independence supporters trust them.
“If you’re inclined to respond ‘yes’ to either or both, then why don’t YOU start a petition to have The National take on Rev Stu Campbell?”
Such a petition would be taken as a massive great big sign that the evil SNP, (and it would be they who were accused), had blackmailed the Independent into becoming an independence rag.
We, (as a group), must not be seen to interfere in the editorial choices of the Independent. It is quite a different matter for actual individual readers among us to request the paper use a particular contributor.
“Of course you have every right to your opinion, and to loudly bellyache each and every time The National is mentioned, but I’m not the only one here to find it tiresome.”
Neither are you the only one to find too strong a support for the Independent to become a mirror image of something like Wings. Wings is not a newspaper and the Indy is not a blog. They serve different purposes.
Just my own tuppence worth.
Tackety Beets
Post Office closures have taken place under successive governments at Westminster and the last Labour Government was no exception. Their programme of post office closures was widely seen as a preamble to eventual privatisation of the Royal Mail but they drew back from that.
You can read about PO closures here:
link to politics.co.uk
@Simon Chadwick says: 18 December, 2015 at 7:01 pm:
” … I don’t really see the point of writing to inform them you don’t have a telly, or withdrawing your right of access, etc.”
Sheeesh!
I did not suppose I’d need to spell it out for anyone but I’ll explain the obvious.
There is no legal requirement to tell the BBC, or their debt collectors, that you own a TV, licenced or otherwise.
The point about withdrawing their right of access is that if they then harass you, either with letters threatening you with court action, or attempt to then enter your property to harass you or illegally collect evidence against you, you can legally have them charged with illegal actions – and any evidence they collect is illegally obtained.
You see, as they would then be breaking the Laws of Scotland, it wouldn’t cost you a penny nor have you engage a lawyer. It is a clear case of them breaking the law and a Police Scotland matter.
The Police have legal duty to investigate all reports of any law being broken and must investigate. They then must also make a report to the Procurators Fiscal and it is the Procurator Fiscal who then must decide if their is enough evidence to take the offender to court.
After a spate of complaints about illegal entry to people’s property the PFs would have to act. If for no other reason than to prevent a waste of police time.
If you do not withdraw permission for them to enter your property they have legal right to go to your front door and attempt to contact you as many times as the like.
Thanks Legerwood , that’s how I remember it .
“Fec£ All to do with the SNP”
When I did this 3 or 4 years back it came in for criticism as being too paranoid and exaggerated even from some pro indy folk.
Now it seems very tame.
link to i51.photobucket.com
@Rock says: 19 December, 2015 at 5:45 pm:
“We don’t even have the “sovereignty” to get rid of a disgraced lying Scottish MP, let alone the purring Queen.
Anyone who keeps on insisting that Scots are “sovereign” is dumber than anyone who keeps on voting Labour.”
Utter and complete pish, Rock.
It is established legal fact and has several legal precedents that the People of Scotland are sovereign. A 10 second search threw up this :-
link to wingsoverscotland.com
There is, of course, a couple of practical problems in the exercise of the people’s legal sovereignty. Both can be overcome but only with legal proof of a majority of the sovereign people’s support for it.
In the first place, only a few times in the entire history of Britain have the South Britain Establishment ever admitted it or even acknowledged it existed and only then under extreme duress. The have, otherwise, just ignored the truth.
The key is the support of the majority and that has never been so close as today. We have had several Scottish Claims of Right ignored including the Scottish Claims of Right of 1689 and 1989. You will note they have never ever been legally disproved but have on several occasions been legally proved. The last in 1989 has such prominent Unionist signatures on the claim as Donald Dewar, Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling.
Most recently we had the UK government commissioned paper that was claimed by David Mundell as, “The Treaty of Union extinguished the Kingdom of Scotland and renamed the Kingdom of England as, “The United Kingdom”.
All total pish. Neither the actual Treaty itself nor either subsequent acts of the respective Kingdom’s parliaments says any such thing.
So, Rock, just why are you attempting to push Unionist propaganda?
There is no doubt that armed with a clear majority of the people of Scotland asserting their undisputed legal sovereignty they have a legal right to throw out either or both the Royal Personage and or the Westminster Parliament.
Unless, of course, you can prove otherwise?
So Rock – put up or shut up. You sound like a UK sleeper agent.
I don’t understand the gripes about the National. It is OK and actually improving as time goes on. A decent paper should ask questions and it shouldn’t simply be a party political propaganda sheet.
It will have more credibility if it is seen as a paper that cares about Scotland and holds all politicians to account.
All most people see of other newspapers though is the front page and the National has produced some striking and often very funny pro independence front pages. (I try not to look at the Express or Mail front pages lest I mistakenly think the world is about to end).
Small point about the National… Strikes me as a good idea to encourage readership amongst those undecided / swithering about Independence.
Doesn’t Question Time or any other political discussion lose a lot of its relevance whenever the floor is all Unionist? Engage and conquer… It’s the YES way.
@ Robert Peffers 11:36 am
Well said. The BritNat establishment is depending on what might be termed Private Fraser Pessimism [PFP].
OT … what is all this Brexit talk?
There will be no Brit Exit of the EU.
There may well be a EngExit, though! This doesn’t seem to be appreciated inside the London Bubble.
When Cameron holds his EU referendum, it is also an implied vote on the continuation of the UK.
If IndyRef2 is prompted by England voting to leave the EU, Yes will win this time and the UK will end. England will be a sad sorry wee place on it own outside the EU.
Not sure what the Welsh can or would do about it.
I suspect it will prompt the first reunification referendum in N Ireland. From polls, it appears NI is very pro EU. And while large numbers of loyalists are dyed in the wool BritNats, many others may see reunification as a solution.
Cameron does not understand the Pandora’s Box he is about to open.
I forget to say that the wee packet containing Swizzlers made me smile the other day.
Stu sharing out the sweets and fizzy pop
🙂
@heedtracker says: 19 December, 2015 at 10:02 pm:
“Its in the inspire360 Neuro-Linguistic Programer Platinum course, Introduction to Neuro-Linguistic Programing, level 1.”
Och! I’ve been at that, “Neuro-Linguistic Programing,”, thingy now for years. I now have it down to a very fine art – even to just one word: –
That one word is :-
PISH!
Love the Nash & have to walk a mile & a half to get it!
And a mile & a half back! 🙂
That one word is :-
PISH!
Brain washing by any other name, as in BBC Britnat brainwashing us to love, worship, grovel like the BBC does, at some of the richest and most powerful people in the world, like the UKOK royals.
The point about that yoon bloggers rage at SNP stuff was merely how mental it is, a mountain of UKOK vote SLab media rage every day of our lives, versus a few SNP slogans or views, or how yoons can’t bear any kind of Scotland running Scotland view point at all.
You can see how the right can march their opponents down to the football stadium, no problemo…
@Robert Peffers.
Scotland is actually the senior partner in this union,a united Scotland predates England by over 100 years. Ard Righ na Alban is the Queens senior title and the Scots royal line from Malcolm Canmore and his Saxon wife, Margeret carry the English royal Saxon line.
Needless to say this is downplayed hugely referring to Scotland as a small cog in large wheel, actually Scotland is the wheel.
Upon independence, Scots will have to decide whether Scotland remains the oldest surviving Kingdom in Europe or becomes a republic.
Scots removing the current monarch as Queen of Scots is not a problem for the establishment if we become a republic, however if we appoint someone closer to the throne in Scotland, they may also be closer to the throne in England and senior in lineage and therefore a threat.
Personally, I would prefer Scotland remains the oldest surviving Kingdom, but appoints a Guardian, to represent the crown,and therefore the people of Scotland as there head of State. Bruce and Wallace both, were appointed Guardians at one point.
O/T Talking about newspapers, it has been mentioned here that a lot of people only read the headlines. Recently, I seem to be aware of people saying “I don’t read the papers I just look at the headlines”. Confirmation bias or is it sadly true?.
O/T
I am increasingly concerned by the number of so called “pro indy” factions who mistakenly think it more productive for them to attack the SNP rather than attack the unionists.
Very interesting post, Golfnut. 🙂
We need an independent state broadcaster, pro- independence print media and our collective educational pro- independence movement to strengthen. Some of the jigsaw is complete just a few missing pieces.
Deliberative democracy is now established outside of conventional democratic structures on sites like these and the electorate are beginning to understand that neoliberalism has signified a profound intensification of a historical alignment of journalism and capitalism accelerated by the corporatisation and globalisation of news media systems.
In other words we no longer believe the headlines in the media that are serving profit- orientated concerns- we want the truth.
@ Dave McEwan Hill, well said, hope the likes of Jim Sillars takes note. Rejected politicians of all parties should take up rug-making or knittin and gie us aw peace!
Personally, I would prefer Scotland remains the oldest surviving Kingdom, but appoints a Guardian, to represent the crown,and therefore the people of Scotland as there head of State. Bruce and Wallace both, were appointed Guardians at one point.
I would like to hear one logical reason why Scotland needs monarchy? Monarchy is nothing but an endless money pit and worse, much much worse.
O/T
Was reading a report by the BBC last night. It was somewhat laughable.
(emphasis mine).
The council accepts extra money to retain teacher numbers up – fails to do so and claims it is an absolute scandal by the SNP government. Yet the BBC do not castigate the council.
Now even unionist must know the scandal is a council, who are the employers of the teachers, who are happy to take tax payer’s money to maintain teacher numbers and complains when the money is taken back when they do not do so.
Mind you these are the same councillors who cut teacher numbers and blame the SNP for the reduction in teacher numbers. All hyped up by the corrupt BBC.
They really must imagine the people of Scotland button up the back of there heads.
@ Robert Peffers Dont look under ROCKS Robert you,ll no like what you might find,an I found it out a long time ago,one of the multable Unionist Trolls.
The Monarchy is supposed to be impartial. The Tory cousins are using the Monarchy to sanction and starve vulnerable citizens. Not impressive. The Monarchy take part in illegal wars, banking fraud and massive tax evasion. Kept secret under the Official Secrets Act. Privy Council. Not open government. The hereditary ‘right to rule’.
@Fred
Can you or anyone else explain to me what Jim Sillar’s problem is?
I am not nor have ever been a member of the SNP.
Serious question.
Interesting idea, Golfnut (12.49). Guardian – I like the sound of that.
The Monarchy is supposed to be impartial.
They keep their vast Highland shooting estates bear of any life with yearly muir burning, setting vast fires to what should be Scots pine forests and glens, instead, they’re scorched earth waste lands.
Meanwhile, one more UKOK unionist carpetbagger puts his boot in to Scotland running Scotland again. Alex Salmond bad.
link to archive.is
“While Salmond may be admired as a shrewd political operator, his willingness to cosy up to Trump over a development that contained wildly optimistic economic projections has resulted in the destruction of a unique stretch of coastline for generations to come”
You know rancid The Graun really want to sign off, Rule Britannia, sweaties.
Also, there are several golf clubs along their unique stretch of UKOK coastline. In fact the oldest links club in the world is just along from the horror that is Trump Golf.
link to royalaberdeengolf.com
God spare us tubthumper yoons on the UKOK bandwagon.
I buy The National and thus, support that newspaper. But I have to say, I remain ‘wary’ of it. You might wonder why?
Well, it’s because ‘The National’ only appeared AFTER IndyRef#1.
The veraicty of its claim to support Scottish indy will only be truly tested when the date for IndyRef#2 is announced.
When that date is known, will ‘The National’ still be published and will it, in those circumstances, remain a supporter of Scottish infy? THAT will be the test.
I have to say, I have my doubts.
Robert Peffers says:
20 December, 2015 at 1:23 pm
O/T
Was reading a report by the BBC last night. It was somewhat laughable.
“COUNCIL IN TEACHER NUMBERS FUNDING ROW”.
Dumfries and Galloway Council is to lose out on £300,000 of government cash after a fall in the number of teachers
Aye same cooncil that has wasted £16m in a swimming pool that is not fit for purpose and is likely to be closed for 2 years.
“Personally, I would prefer Scotland remains the oldest surviving Kingdom, but appoints a Guardian, to represent the crown,and therefore the people of Scotland as there head of State.”
Why on earth should we set some-one up in an unelected position of power, privilege and patronage over us?
Why should we hold on to such a totally undemocratic and anachronistic system?
I’d get rid of these spoon fed parasites.
Jimbo@2.01
Monarchy and good democracy are not necessarily incompatible.
For one thing it keeps the head of state as a politically neutral figure and out of the hands of politicians.
All the best democracies in the world are monarchies. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. I rest my case.
Personally I don’t really care as long as we are independent.
Don’t be too hard on old Jim Sillars he’s just like the rest of us frustrated at not being Independent and he’d like it all to be done his way and not enough folk are paying enough attention to him
Trouble is his voice is a bit louder than the rest of us with the Media so they print what he says and have him on the Telly a bit so they can snigger at him and hope he makes the Independence movement look bad and maybe cause some embarrassment to the SNP
We all say silly things at times, I know I do, but when poor Jim Sillars does it it’s public
Although, to be fair he’s not always wrong
@Golfnut says:20 December, 2015 at 12:49 pm:
“Scotland is actually the senior partner in this union,a united Scotland predates England by over 100 years.”
Indeed, Golfnut, up to a certain point. That point is that the legal systems changed in The British Isles at different points in history and this rather knocks some popular notions of history on the head.
Nothing much is known pre-Roman Britain times except as recorded by the Romans. We know that the Roman records are proven to be biased. Roman Generals sent reports back to Rome that contradict each other.
These reports are obviously biased by the authors to enhance their own personal political ambitions back in Rome. However, Roman Britain did not include all of the British Isles. So Roman law only affected South Britain.
Furthermore, Hadrian’s Wall seems more likely to have been constructed to prevent smuggling as the Romans ran their Empire on a customs and excise basis. They Romanised the former rulers and had them run their Empire’s for them and taxed the countries while stripping their assets.
Scotland, much of the south west and what became Wales and Ireland were never ruled by Rome. The Romans left little genetics in the gene pool as they remained a ruling elite.
When the Romans left the Romanised South Britons preferred to invite in the Germanic Tribes to protect them and run south Britain rather than have there own North Briton brother as a whole Britain unit.
Thus we had the beginnings of the Germanic feudal system and the Germanic aristocracy began. Again this hardly affected North Britain and these too became a ruling Elite adding little to the gene pool.
Throughout history those South Briton elite rulers always assumed they owned all Britain and the Vikings and Norsemen were from the same Germanic stock. There is a perception that the Normans were a different lot but the title, “Normans”, was a corruption of, “Norseman”, as the Normans were Norse settlers who gave their name to Normandy as the Angles did to England.
Yes we did get Norman influence in Scotland but in a very different manner. Bruce, Wallace, et al, were Norman Knights but the Normans in Scotland did so by intermarriage. In England they have remained, “The Establishment”, with the old aristocracy still sitting in the HOL to this day.
So when James I inherited the Kingdom of England, (that included the princedom of Wales, (1284), and Ireland, (1542)), he became sovereign in that three country Kingdom. However, as Scotland’s legal system had changed in 1320, (Declaration of Arbroath), he was not sovereign in Scotland. He thus, quite understandably, migrated to England.
In 1688 English law changed, but not in line with Scotland’s law. The English Parliament had their Glorious Revolution and deposed James II – Imported King Billy & Queen Mary – but removed from them the Royal veto over Parliament. Effectively ending The Divine Right of Kings that had ended in Scotland in 1320.
However, in England the Establishment remained as they did not make the people sovereign but created a three country, “Kingdom of England”, as a constitutional Monarchy, which it still is today.
So the Treaty of Union formed a legal bipartite union between two equally sovereign Kingdoms but with their basic legal systems quite different.
There is no written evidence since then that indicates the people of Scotland have given up their sovereignty – not even by the independence referendum though I’m sure the Establishment already claims it did.
Fireproofjim
‘Monarchy not incompatible with democracy’ – give me a break
Where’s the freedom of choice for the weans born into that life.
Go so far as to say that its a breach of their human rights.
Off the back of Robert Peffers post re pre-roman British history.
I recommend Graham Robb’s fascinating stab at it in his book ‘The Ancient Paths’ which just seems to make a lot of sense and might give you a new perspective on our ancestors.
For the info of Robert Peffer –
‘ Police have legal duty to investigate all reports of any law being broken and must investigate. They then must also make a report to the Procurators Fiscal and it is the Procurator Fiscal who then must decide if their is enough evidence to take the offender to court.
After a spate of complaints about illegal entry to people’s property the PFs would have to act. If for no other reason than to prevent a waste of police time.’
This is not strictly accurate, Police have no duty to investigate breaches of Civil Law. Unfortunately I suspect the above described ‘trespass’ would fall into the remit of Civil legislation. Police will only submit a report to the PF where there is a sufficiency of evidence. If there is not enough evidence they do not submit a report and there is no obligation on them to do so.
The Procurator Fiscal makes the decision about whether or not to prosecute ‘if it is in the public interest to do so’.
What the ‘withdrawing of access’ does do, is leave an audit trail of complaint, one which (at the moment) they are not concealing from FOI requests. If you have a look at the FOI results I posted in Cheils that Ding at about 10.30pm, you’ll see what I’m getting at.
Appreciate the thinking behind what you were saying though.
Best wishes to all.
@heedtracker says:20 December, 2015 at 1:13 pm:
” … I would like to hear one logical reason why Scotland needs monarchy? Monarchy is nothing but an endless money pit and worse, much much worse.”
I’ll give you three, heedtracker.
One – In Scottish Law the Royal is the subject of the people. As opposed to other monarchies where the people are the subjects of the monarch. The monarch’s status is as defender of the people’s sovereignty and the monarch can be legally sacked.
Two – the alternative is a President and just look around the World’s at presidents.
Three – We need a neutral to oversee that no particular political faction ever legally becomes a dictatorship as inn certain communist style nations that mainly began life as monarchy/emperor/Shah or whatever.
@ronnie anderson says: 20 December, 2015 at 1:32 pm:
“@ Robert Peffers Dont look under ROCKS Robert you,ll no like what you might find,an I found it out a long time ago,one of the multable Unionist Trolls.”
I’ve been looking under Rocks and stones since I was a wee laddie, ronnie. Mind ye I first started by looking for bugs and worms and creepy crawlies. Nowadays I’m finding lots of creepy things but not so many worms, bugs and crawlies.
@Ken500 says: 20 December, 2015 at 1:32 pm:
” … Not open government. The hereditary ‘right to rule’.”
Which is why I’ve been referring to the whole lot of the interlinked corrupt boorach as, “The Establishment”, since, as a wee schoolboy, I first began putting two and two together way back in the late 1940s.
They are all from the same stable. The royals, aristocracy, the hecht heid ains of the army, navy and air force, top Civil Servants, Security Services, Police chiefs, Top Education leaders, Financial sector top ranks, Law Lords and church leaders and the unionist political parties. There are many such fingers in many large pies.
Three – We need a neutral to oversee that no particular political faction ever legally becomes a dictatorship as inn certain communist style nations that mainly began life as monarchy/emperor/Shah or whatever
The royals are not neutral, Brenda threatened Scotland in that church car park a few meters from her palace of Balmoral, just before the referendum, future king Charles 3 and his son Wills are given all and any secret UK.gov cabinet info they want
link to bbc.co.uk
Most countries with a PR democracy have no royals. Its an arcane power structure and its primary purpose is sustaining wealth and power, for itself and the class that sustain/protect it.
O.T. Don’t know if it’s been posted here yet but Ponsonby’s book “London Calling: How the BBC stole the Referendum” is now free to download and read.
link to ponsonbypost.com
@Robert Kerr says: 20 December, 2015 at 1:33 pm:
“Can you or anyone else explain to me what Jim Sillar’s problem is?”
Aye! Robert, perhaps I can. Jim Sillers is just an extreme left wing socialist. His heart is in the right place. It is his socialism that remains the problem.
Jim told you what his problem was long, long ago. He said, “I didn’t leave the Labour Party – the Labour Party left me”. Which I have no doubt whatsoever is entirely true.
The Blair, Brown, Darling and Mandelson era of the Labour Party drastically altered the view and aims of the Labour Party and it has not as yet, Jeremy Corbyn included, returned to the Labour Party status of old.
Much of which was not a kick up the rectum from communism. Back then some Trade Unions were struggling against undue communist influences. The truth is that as the central area of the political spectrum is left too far left or right will eventually see the system of government fail.
Too far right or two far left government is just not sustainable and breaks down or becomes almost a dictatorship.
So Jim has nowhere to slot in. He is not quite communist but neither does his politics fit with any other party, including the SNP.
“All the best democracies in the world are monarchies. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.”
Switzeerland, one of the richest countries in the world and the best country to live in, isn’t on that list.
For Australia, new Zealand and Canada the British monarchy is purely emblematic. They are what they are in spite of the monarchy, not because of it – and, BTW, all three are considering ditching the monarchy.
The need for a monarch went out with William and Mary. Having a monarch doesn’t make your country a better place or you a better person.
OT
Seems Cameron’s woes over Europe are growing. According to the Guardian, his party are now openly, and publicly, moving to an EU exit.
link to archive.is
Ian Brotherhood,
“@Rock –
“I asked Rev, not long after The National appeared, whether or not he’d write a column for it if approached. Can’t remember his exact words, but they were along the lines of ‘don’t see why not’.
I can only assume that no such invitation has been made – yet – but if Rev did have a column in The National, would you support it then? Would you support it in principle, or just buy it on the day Rev’s column was published?”
I would support The National in principle IF:
1. The Rev. Stuart Campbell wrote the headline and the lead story every day. The articles he publishes here are exactly the sort of news that should be headline news in an “independence supporting” newspaper;
2. At least 25% of The National’s readership was made up of those who voted No.
As I asked you in a previous comment:
Ian Brotherhood,
“The National is a NEWSPAPER.”
What stops it from printing the truth about the Forth Bridge on its front page as has been done by WOS?
@Heed
Basically the answer is that we need a Constitution, which enshrines our rights not any political dogma, and we need an Independent Judiciary where we can enforce that Constitution BY LAW.
Robert Peffers,
“@Rock says: 19 December, 2015 at 5:45 pm:
“We don’t even have the “sovereignty” to get rid of a disgraced lying Scottish MP, let alone the purring Queen.
Anyone who keeps on insisting that Scots are “sovereign” is dumber than anyone who keeps on voting Labour.”
Utter and complete pish, Rock.
It is established legal fact and has several legal precedents that the People of Scotland are sovereign”
The “established legal fact” is completely worthless and useless in practice.
A Scottish dog has more “sovereignty” than the people of Scotland – it can do what it wants in its owner’s home. In contrast, we can only stand and watch as our wealth is plundered.
A “sovereign” Scot would have succeeded in impeaching the disgraced, lying Scottish MP Carmichael.
A “sovereign” Scot could impeach the purring Queen who interfered in our referendum.
A “sovereign” Scot would not be living in an English colony for more than 300 years.
A “sovereign” Scot would be a citizen of Scotland and have a Scottish passport.
The “plebs” never had any “sovereignty”.
It is you who needs to shut up about the Scots being “sovereign”. They most certainly are not in practice.
yesindyref2 says:
20 December, 2015 at 4:12 pm
@Heed
Basically the answer is that we need a Constitution, which enshrines our rights not any political dogma, and we need an Independent Judiciary where we can enforce that Constitution BY LAW.
We do. But at the same time, there’s seems to be a lot of Scots who do want to keep kissing the royal ring. So, as we do proceed towards a PR Scotland running its own affairs, its just good politics not to change too much along the way.
@Daisy Walker says: 20 December, 2015 at 2:44 pm:”
“This is not strictly accurate, Police have no duty to investigate breaches of Civil Law.” Unfortunately I suspect the above described ‘trespass’ would fall into the remit of Civil legislation.
The point, Daisy, is, that to the best of my knowledge the law giving a person access to a property for the purpose of making contact is a civil law matter but if that right is specifically denied to someone, or some organisation, their breach of the owners privacy is under criminal law.
There is no such thing as an English style trespass law in Scotland. With perhaps exceptions of railways and MOD sites. I’ve just cut & pasted this from a quite large legal document :-
The apparent reason being that as the people of Scotland are legally sovereign they own Scotland and have legal right to roam. What they do not have is legal right to infringe the owner’s privacy.
The lady who is joint owner of the Stagecoach business attempted to prevent the public having access to her estate.
The courts ruled she had no such rights to privacy on the main estate, She could only sue individuals for any damage they caused. Her rights to privacy were restricted to close proximity to her home and defined that as the paddock surrounding the immediate home’s area.
I’m no lawyer, so very well could be wrong but have read about the law of access to property for purposes of making contact.
@heed
Yes, which is why the SNP said “we’ll just keep the Queen for the time being”.
Must admit I’m with Robert Peffers. I don’t want a President either. President Salmond? President Sturgeon? No thanks! Not even President Billy Connolly!
The Queen has mostly a nominal role, but is there to prevent a dictatorship, junta, whatever, with the ultimate sanction of dissolving whatever a majority party sets up to try to make itself permanent. That’ll do for me.
Otherwise I want something that brings in tourists and revenue, so the odd procession, pomp and circumstance for foreign tourists cameras buying memorabilia, food, drinks, accomodation, tickets to castles, that sort of stuff. As long as the revenue exceeds the cost – the bottom line. Brenda’s bottom line, perish the irreverent thought 🙂
@Rock
The Scottish People are Sovereign and there’s nothing you can do about it.
@Robert Peffers
I’m pretty sure it’s largely civil (having found out about it before), but you do have the right to ask people to “leave your premises”, and use “reasonable force” if they refuse.
If they resist, or anyone is unable to use “reasonable force”, then they can call the police to help them, on the grounds they fear a confrontation. The police are duty bound then to come to prevent a disturbance.
says Heedtracker:
“Also, there are several golf clubs along their unique stretch of UKOK coastline. In fact the oldest links club in the world is just along from the horror that is Trump Golf.
http://www.royalaberdeengolf.com”
Yes, and the seventh oldest is nearby in Fraserburgh. A very nice course with nice views. 🙂
link to fraserburghgolfclub.org
yesindyref2,
“@Rock
The Scottish People are Sovereign and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Why are those “sovereign” people still fighting for independence after more than 300 years as an English colony?
There are about 200 countries in the world whose citizens can rightly claim to be “sovereign”.
Scotland is most certainly not one of them.
Have you got a Scottish passport?
@RockL “Why are those “sovereign” people still fighting for independence after more than 300 years as an English colony?”
September 18th 2014 Referendum on Independence: YES 45%, NO 55%.
The Scottish people are Sovereign, as will we be the next referendum.
Robert Peffers,
“It is established legal fact and has several legal precedents that the People of Scotland are sovereign”
It is now also an “established legal fact” that a UK minister can lie with impunity and can still remain a legally elected Scottish MP.
The law is always on the side of the establishment and against the “plebs”.
Prove your “sovereignty” by starting impeachment proceedings against the purring queen.
Or shut up if you can’t state what the procedure is for “sovereign” Scots to impeach the purring monarch.
The Scots have absolutely no power to impeach the monarch. Their “sovereignty” is not worth the paper it is written on.
yesindyref2,
“September 18th 2014 Referendum on Independence: YES 45%, NO 55%.
The Scottish people are Sovereign, as will we be the next referendum.”
As long as Scots don’t have Scottish passports and a democratically elected Scottish government in charge of Scotland with the support of the electorate, Scots are not “sovereign”.
We are fighting for our “sovereignty”. We wouldn’t be if we had it.
@Jimbo says: 20 December, 2015 at 4:08 pm:
“The need for a monarch went out with William and Mary. Having a monarch doesn’t make your country a better place or you a better person.”
Err! No, Jimbo, it did not go out with William and Mary.
In any case William & Mary were only legally imported into the three country Kingdom of England after the Kingdom of England parliament had their, “Glorious Revolution”, in 1688. That was 85 years after the King of Scots, James VI of Scotland, became also King of England, James I.
The reason he had to have both titles was because there was no, “Union of the Crowns”, in 1603. Just two crowns on one person’s head. The reason James decamped his entire court to England was he was legally sovereign in the three country Kingdom of England but not legally sovereign in the kingdom of Scotland.
If he had been sovereign inn both the law of the English Kingdom between 1603 and 1688 was The Divine Right of Kings and he would have followed Divine Right and just tagged his new acquisition onto his existing Scottish Kingdom and there would have been no need for the Treaty of Union of 1706/7.
The situation of William & Mary was that they were NOT legally monarchs of any kind in Scotland. Scotland remained independent between 1688 and 1706/7 and the enforced Treaty of Union.
That was the cause of the Jacobite uprisings as the English Parliament had no powers, (except brute military force), to dethrone the King of Scots. By the way that war of Jacobite Uprisings continued up to, during, and for almost 40 years after the Treaty of Union un til the Battle of Culloden in 1745.
So William & Mary were legally joint sovereign monarchs of the Kingdom of England, but with their royal veto over Parliament removed making the three country Kingdom of England a Constitutional Monarchy and were not legally monarchs in the independent kingdom of Scotland until after the Scottish parliamentarians were coerced into illegally signing the Treaty of Union of 1706/7.
That treaty is quite clear that the Scottish Legal system is sacrosanct and thus Scottish Law still has the People, not either the Monarch or Westminster, sovereign under Scottish law.
To sum up. English law has the Monarchy as Sovereign but with parliament at Westminster delegated the power of sovereignty over the English Kingdom but Scottish Law has the people legally sovereign and neither the crown nor the parliament. That means, if the people get together and have a majority, they can legally throw out the Treaty of Union, Both Parliaments and the Monarchy, (or any mixture thereof).
Graf Midgehunter says:
20 December, 2015 at 5:03 pm
says Heedtracker:
Yes, and the seventh oldest is nearby in Fraserburgh.
Looks nice. Is its as wild in winter as Balmedie?
That Trump golf UKOK/BBC smear campaign on Salmond and YES was one of their biggest and stinkiest piles of vote NO or else bullshit.
There’s a dozen Scottish golf clubs on so called legally protected SSSI’s like Mennie, some make it a sales pitch too. Balmedie’s a nice wee village a few hundred meters from Trump and its expanding a hell of a rate as new housing estates get built to feed the new by-pass. That’s what people there couldn’t work with that one Green dude blocking Trump.
Everyone else can build stuff around Mennie’s slice of SSSI except that frightful America, didnt really cut it. Also everyone that wouldn’t move for Trump is still there, they won.
But none of the reality of whats happened makes any difference to the assorted con artists around cashing in on rancid The Graun/BBC yoon attack propaganda.
Its a very nasty business, this rule Britannia game.
@Rock: “We are fighting for our “sovereignty”. We wouldn’t be if we had it.”
No Rock, we have our Sovereignty. 55% of Scotland voted to stay part of the Union. It’s 45%, well, 50% now according to polls, that want Independence. That’s totally different from the People being Sovereign – that’s Self-Determination.
55% Self-Determined and expressed their sovereignty by voting NO to say in the UK, for the time being.
@Rock says: 20 December, 2015 at 5:16 pm:
“It is now also an “established legal fact” that a UK minister can lie with impunity and can still remain a legally elected Scottish MP.”
Pish!
And, Rock, I’ve given this forum more than enough information as to how the legally sovereign people of Scotland can legally assert their authority. None of it is in tune with anything you might attempt to say. All that is required is a direct, and explicate, mandate by a majority of the sovereign people of Scotland to their elected representatives.
As legally sovereign voters our elected representatives are delegated our explicit wishes.
Now goodbye, Rock.
To independence supporters the world over, wherever ye bide.
I sincerely wish you all the very best for 2016 when it comes.
Relax, party and let off some steam but come back fighting fit with all guns blazing in January.
We have another important battle to be fought and won in May in our fight for independence. Lets aim to rid Holyrood of as many London gophers as we can.
Re-charge your batteries, stay safe and prepare for battle.
Meanwhile, i’m off to concentrate on some private legal matters.
See you all come January.
BTW, a special mention for The Rev, thank you for everything and all the very best for 2016 when it comes. Lang may yer lum reek!
Lets give the gophers the new-year from hell.
SNP x 2
@yesindyref2 says: 20 December, 2015 at 4:54 pm:
” .. I’m pretty sure it’s largely civil (having found out about it before), but you do have the right to ask people to “leave your premises”, and use “reasonable force” if they refuse.”
You are correct that it is civil law for implied right of access. That, though, is only the right to enter the property and proceed by the obvious pathway to the main entrance to either post something through a letterbox or ring/knock to contact the owner/occupier.
That implied right can be removed in several ways. An external letterbox and notice of no implied entry. An written explicit denial of entry to named parties or by named alternative arrangements for contact. By chance I saw one such a few weeks back. A notice on a main door. “No deliveries of any kind are acceptable at this address. All Must be made to Number ###”. I’ve no idea why.
The point is it only applies to close proximity to the habitation part of the property.
Thus if permission has been withdrawn from a person or organisation and that person then enters the property it passes from civil law to criminal law.
Far as I can recall the only trespass law in Scotland applies to railways and MOD property. I know for example that, when Rosyth was a full military concern, the MOD Police would stretch a rope across the access road once each year and stop the first person attempting to pass. Then inspect passes, and allow the person to pass. This was well outside the gates Dockyard proper. This was to prevent a right of way being set-up.
Also that, in spite of tight security when the nuclear powered boats were in the yard, members of the public could apply for a pass to visit the ruins of Rosyth Castle and they could not be legally denied.
So if there had been English Style Trespass laws the MOD lawyers would have just used them.
An excellent analysis of the way news is controlled …
link to bellacaledonia.org.uk
“The public … select their opinions from a table d’hôte menu provided by the Westminster Cartel. Politicians love to call this process “choice” ”
… then WoS and others come along and completely undermine their efforts!
@Robert Peffers.
Sorry for wandering off and leaving you holding the baby, so to speak.
I will leave the historical side of this to you, it was not really the main thrust of my comment in any case, I was simply providing a platform from which my suggestion could be put forward.
I agree with you and others here that going down the republican route, though preferable perhaps for Westminster, since it means no change to there current structures and elitist culture, is not perhaps the best route for Scotland.
To be honest there are few countries, whether republican or monarchical, which provide their citizens or subjects with a true system which allow people the mechanisms which allow them to hold to account its politicians.
An elected Gaurdian, representing the crown, on behalf of the people, separate from government has I think possibilities.
Perhaps one of there powers could be, the recall of MSP’s to face the wrath of the constituent’s.
As an aside, I always read and enjoy your comments, don’t always agree with the historical content, but much of that is down to interpretation and personal view.
@ Robert Peffers.
Thanks for your reply, Robert.
I’m well read on Scotland’s history and know exactly how the Union of Crowns came about.
As I said, the need for a monarchy went out with William and Mary. You wrote
:
” The situation of William & Mary was that they were NOT legally monarchs of any kind in Scotland. Scotland remained independent between 1688 and 1706/7 and the enforced Treaty of Union.”
You make the point yourself. We had our own Scottish parliament. We had no monarch and, as you pointed out, no need for one.
@ Robert Peffers
Meant to add: The year of the Battle of Culloden was 1746.
As a committed Republican, from generations of committed republicans, in my view it would be way beyond foolish for any new draft constitution to dump the Queen before independence.
The is no point in trying to jump multiple hurdles simultainiiously when trying to over come a 55/45 vote. Totally unfair to make people go beyond where they are comfortable with just to satisfy the timeline of a few self-serving zealots who have never heard or understood the “young bull, old bull” story.
There can be a referendum on the Queen later. I would add NATO To this as well. Really irked me when the ‘principled’ MSP’s walked over that. It made them feel very virtuous, but left the heavy lifting to the rest of us. I met them, good people, but clueless. No idea what the main event was.
‘What stops it from printing the truth about the Forth Bridge on its front page as has been done by WOS?’
I’m no expert so don’t quote me, but if I was to have my best guess, I think the paper has unionist owners, but I could be wrong.
I met them, good people, but clueless. No idea what the main event was.
Did you try some Neuro Linguistic Programming, what a certain far right yoon nutter says YESers are experts at?
Look into my eyes, look into my eyes, the eyes, the eyes, not around the eyes, don’t look around my eyes, look into my eyes, vote SNP x 2.
I don’t know what Neuro Linguistic Programming means.
Bog off One_Scot – if you are not a Troll, u smell like one, look like one, and are certainly quacking like one.
Happy Christmas Stoker
Sorry O/T
See Clare Balding on SPOTY just wiped out Scottish cyclist Robert Millar’s achievment in becoming the first British winner of the King of the Mountains jersy in the 1984 Tour De France!
Clare just said it was Chris Froome who won it this year while also winning the tour.
I know they don’t think much of us but rewriting history as well now to suit!
So your now a Troll by stating facts, hmm – if you are not an idiot, you are certainly ticking a lot of boxes.
Cadogan Enright at 7.20
With you completely on that.
I actually believe that if an elected member walks out of a party they have been elected for they should stand down and face a re-election (or the next person on the list should take their place).
As far as I’m concerned they took my support,my money and my effort to be elected. They’d think twice about betraying me if they had to leave their position in Parliament.
@graf midgehunter @heedtracker
Can vouch for the Broch being an excellent track. One of my favourites.
Trump’s course to be fair is magnificent. We could always “nationalise” it if things don’t work out.
Cadogan Enright @7.20
“They had no idea what the main event was” – Great quote.
The obsessive zealots who want the SNP to ditch the Monarchy, leave NATO, abandon Europe and form some sort of Socialist collective before the next referendum are only a danger to the cause of independence which is far more important than any of these.
As many have said, these are minor points for another day, and it is foolish to rock the boat and upset potential Yes voters.
An improvement.
Biased
But
Clandestinely
Trump’s course to be fair is magnificent. We could always “nationalise” it if things don’t work out
They wont.
link to archive.is
Rancid The Graun very bitter end of year fcuk you too small, stupid, poor sweaties, Scotland will one day realise its much better to let your neighbours run your country/their region, for you.
“The SNP still commands Scottish politics. But they promised Scots that they could have it all and, right now, the gap between that claim and reality is beginning to show.”
Time for some neuro linguistic programming:D
The first target for takeover by a state hostile to its own people is the Press. We should’ve learned this from the last century. Control the Press and your propaganda will flow. The other institutions like police, health, church, education, etc, all fall into line.
I don’t like a few of the things in the National (I understand that that is because I am an out and out SNP man with little time for the Greens or RISE) and appreciate that it needs a broad convincing appeal to our target audience, the soft No’s.
So I buy it when I can. Any Yessers who publicly supports boycotting it doesn’t understand the first part of my point about the wider war we are fighting. In short, blinkered.
We have entered the Henry Ford era of politics. You can have it in any colour you like provided it is neoliberal (double speak liberal=feudal).
With apologies to HF who treated his workers well and shunned ostentation.
Chic McGregor
Making apologies because Henry ford treated his workers well!
Aye, nae time for Jews though eh?
Fuck HF I say
Henry Ford treated his workers well???????????
Are you living in an alternate universe??
Cadogan Enright@7.20,
After Scotland has won her Independence, and I believe she will, she should have a multiple referendum simultaneously: 1. NATO, 2. European Union, 3. Constitution with a Bill of Rights.
However I think we should wait until Charlie Boy has had a few years on the Throne, and be allowed to interfere in a few bills, enough to piss enough people off. I used to believe, that this should be three separate questions on three separate ballots, i.e. 1: End Union of 1603, YES or NO, 2: Independent Crown or Republic, 3: Leave British Commonwealth, YES or NO.
But now it should be on one ballot only. Do you agree in ending the Union of 1603, thereby creating an Independent Scottish Republic, outwith the British Commonwealth, YES or NO.
No one, and I mean no one, is fit to wear the Crown of Scotland. The Scottish Aristocracy are full of backstabbing ("Tractor" - Ed)s.
Stephen.
Bill Hume
Actually, reading Bill Brysons 1927 certainly led me to believe that Chic McGregor might be right, that he did treat his workers well……but
Big fan of fascism though, no so keen on our Jewish friends, little bit strange by all accounts.
The original point about neo liberal politics becoming feudal is relevant tho.
This pains me as a border line communist and Republican….
I propose Rev Stuart to be next King of Scotland!
5 year term though, then names in hat.
Andy Murray wins Sports personality of the Year.
@One-Scot
Just in case you are not a Troll, mabe I should explain s l o w l y, so you can understand.
Until a daily paper better than the National comes along, it is irrational to constantly advocate boycotting it. Some of the most ableYes campaigners write for it (this is NOT the pattern you find in other papers just in case you have not noticed) Constantly slagging it off in this manner not only irritates those of us who are aware that no other YES daily paper exists but suggests strongly to us that you are not what you claim to be.
If you want an SNP newsletter, apply to SNP head office.
I normally a Green and have campaigned in Scotland for the Greens. However Green objectives are far more likely to be met in an independent Scotland, and far more quickly. Hence I now campaign for the SNP. BUT I appreciate reading about other Yes groups and can even tolerate the odd stupid Yoony article which I blog against in the National website mercilessly as you might notice if you ever went on their web-page, often copying articles in wings to them.
However I have a VERY low threshold of tolerance for people who spend more time organising boycots of the National than boycotts of the Record or Mail
Have a nice Christmas
@Cadogan Enright –
Hear hear. (Again.)
I admire your patience. I’m done with ‘Rock’ and his whingeing, it’d make you lose the will to live listening to his pish. All he’s achieved is emboldening the likes of ‘One-Scot’ to pipe-up and – quelle surprise! – he’s got nothing positive to say about anything either.
Negative, boring, depressing bawbags.
It’s bein cheery that keeps Rock gaun!
O/T…
“Mhairi Black Clinches NME Award For Storming Political Success And Fighting ‘Tory Austerity'”
link to huffingtonpost.co.uk
Bill Hume@8.53,
I believe Henry Ford helped finance, publish and distribute 500,000 copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, in the United States alone, which many believe was Russian Government Propaganda to start with. This being 1903, Russia was an Ultra Capitalist’s wet dream.
Stephen.
Imagine, BBC refuses majority of FOI requests whilst creating majority of SNHS requests to perpetuate its news cycle!
Astonished and confused by blatant hypocracy!
It’s now 22.57 – last comment I see was posted at 9.54.
Back to the old ‘delay’, or have Rock et al succeeded in killing the conversation ‘stone’ dead? 🙁
O/T. But related to transparency, sort of.
If you have a clear sky tonight there is a very good chance of seeing an aurora. Should be visible anywhere in Scotland and maybe as far South as the Midlands. You need a good dark location with a clear view to the northern horizon.
@ian saw your comment at 23.01.
Just beat me to it. I’m a member of Popular Astronomy and I just received notification of an Amber Alert for an Aurora. Seen a few over the years. It’s worth a watch. Amazing.
Stephen.
@Frogesque –
Cheers, and thanks for the ‘heads-up’! 🙂
Going out right now to see how cloudy it is…
Overcast with Drizzle. Bloody Typical.
Stephen.
Andy won Wimbledon
Andy won Olympic Gold
Andy won Davis Cup
Probably the greatest ever winner of Sports Personality of the Year.
Typing about the Northern Lights (of old Aberdeen)…
The Loons from that area are putting together the next Wings get-together, ‘Wings Over Aberdeen’ and thinking about 30th January, 2016.
Get over to ‘off-topic’ and register your interest! As usual, souvenir badges will be offered to those attending the (possibly) two venue shindig. OK, they are across from each other on the same road…
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Ach well, keep looking – the clouds are moving fast, we may get a gap…
In the meantime, ‘here’s what you could’ve won’…
link to youtube.com
Toryboy sez tax me, tax me, I love it when you tax me
YOU know how it is at this time of year. You have a child who has spent months agitating, nay clamouring, for a particular new toy. Fine, you say, and prepare to expend a significant amount of capital on it, if only to earn some peace. By the time the big day comes, however, they’re all but bored by it. They no longer want what they spent so much time pestering you for. There is a newer, shinier, thing they covet instead and so the process begins all over again. It is an exhausting, regrettable experience all round.
As with children, so with this SNP government.”
Its hard to imagine the journo trade getting even more turgid with bullshit than the tory press, but somehow they manage. This is the Times of London, farting out another day’s worth of UKOK SNP bad in their Scotland region, not thundering.
To be fair to the Times cringer producing the above, the FT’s even worse.
Next time your hear UKOK toryboy’s demanding to pay more tax, youre probably in another dimension.
Just to say, apart from the usual ‘father of mass production’ meme and the paraphrased quote, my knowledge of Henry Ford extended only to a documentary I saw some years ago which made no mention of any ant-Jewish sentiment but did extol his treatment of his workers and pointed out he lived very modestly in an apartment on his factory site.
Apologies if this was historically inaccurate but my point was rather the paraphrase.
The Orkney 4’s fundraiser is nearly there. Just four more days to get them to their £208,000 target.
Currently sitting at £197,305 so just over £10,000 to go.
link to indiegogo.com
Some truly shocking anti-scots comments about Murray on Twitter. Deserves an article Stu.
@Golfnut says:20 December, 2015 at 6:42 pm:
“Sorry for wandering off and leaving you holding the baby, so to speak.”
Oops! I just did the same to you. I had visitors.
“An elected Gaurdian, representing the crown, on behalf of the people, separate from government has I think possibilities.”
Now you may not believe it, but that is more or less what the Scottish system became, in 1320, with the Declaration of Arbroath. Perhaps not quite by design but that was more or less the result.
When Alexander III died in 1086, his granddaughter Margaret, Maid of Norway was heir to the Scottish throne. King Edward I of England attempted to take over Scotland by arranging for his son, Edward II to be her husband and thus share the crown of Scotland in, (1289. When Margaret drowned on her way to Scotland, (1290). This period is called the First Interregnum (1290–1292).
Scotland was without a monarch and were daft enough to ask the acknowledged expert on Royal Assent, Edward I, to choose who would succeed to the throne. Edward attempted to turn this to his own advantage by choosing the weak John Balliol as King of Scotland as Edward could manipulate him annd had Balliol swear fealty to Edward and Balliol could do nothing without Edward’s permission.
In July 1295 the Scottish Parliament assumed most of Balliol’s power and gave it to an elected called the “Council of Twelve”, and they made an agreement with King Philip IV of France called, “The Auld Alliance. King Edward gathered an army at Newcastle and was about to invade Scotland. He marched his army to Berwick and captured both town and castle. Balliol’s only action was to send Edward letters refusing to recognize his right to rule Scotland. After Edward captured all the castles in Scotland, Balliol surrendered and was imprisoned in London before being exiled in France.
In 1296 Edward made every landowner man in Scotland swear fealty to Edward, (The Ragman Rolls). Scotland remained without a king until 1306 when Bruce declared himself king of Scotland, thus defying Edward I. This, though, followed Robert the Bruce killing the Red Comyn on the alter steps of Greyfriers High Kirk in Dumfries. In 1306. Again Edward turned this to his own advantage by telling the Pope, (the Head of all Christendom), that it was murder but as the two men were alone it may well have been self defence. Bruce was crowned King at Scone three weeks later.
Accused by Edward of murdering Comyn Bruce was excommunicated by the Pope and Edward sent his men after Bruce but failed to capture Him. As the general law of Christendom was Divine Right of Kings, and Kings own everything, it meant all Scotland was excommunicate and the Pope ordered that all English Church services began by cursing Scotland. The two countries remained at war but the most significant thing, Bannockburn excepted, was the extremely clever get out Scotland came up with to regain the initiative.
The Declaration of Arbroath. This was a letter to the Pope that declared Scotland an independent Kingdom but the really clever part was that it also declared the People of Scotland as Sovereign and the Monarch their subject that if he did not carry out his duties as directed the people could dack him and put another in his place. The status of the Monarchy of Scotland is as appointed leader of the people and defender of the People’s Sovereignty.
This in 1320, and long before the Kingdom of England kept their monarchy as sovereign but removed their veto over the Parliament of England. So there you go, Scotland’s law has a ready made system that can protect the people from their elected representatives but who they can legally choose to throw out if they don’t do their job properly and it’s all documented in the Declaration of Arbroath 1320.
Oops! King Alexander III died in 1286 – excuse my wee typo.
Och Robert, there were loads of typo’s – but you’re excused!
8=)
@ Robert Peffers
I like yer wee history lessons, its not easy tracking down what I want due to the main stream historians and work commitments.
Since I was young, I read the likes of the Lion In The North, A History of Scotland, Scotlands Story and such, but they never explained what actually happened. One minute Scotland was a normal European country, then the next we are a basket case.
I have learned to dig a bit deeper. I’m now after The Terror Of The Seas? by Steve Murdoch. Which I hope gives me more insight into our contribution to our naval endeavours on an international scene.
Any other books I should look at, please let me know.
Keep posting Rab
Fran,
You mentioned the book Scotland’s Story, by, I think, Tom Steele? Do you remember the STV Programmes from 1984 by the same name? And i wonder if any wingers know where to get the complete series from?
There was another series on in 1984 that for the life of me, I can’t find anywhere, even on youtube. I think it was called “Times History of the World?”, and started by showing a spinning globe, then veering through world history from Classical Times to the Modern.
Stephen.
David Mundell says: on the radio this A.M
The Daily Record is an objective political commentator and also Gordon Brown + a lot of SNP Baad
He’s been round the country telling people that and he’s going round to tell them it some more
That’ll definitely work eh
I looked at a post from sept 2014 to see who was posting then but have been missing or posted very few times since,
So Im going to call out your names and I hope you’ll sound off.
Morag,Patrician,Natasia,Graham Doig,Tjenny,LennyHartley,Betty Boop,GrizzeMcPuss,JockScot, Liz,Bugger the Panda, Grendel, robert Louis, Ananurhing, Flower of Scotland, Yesguy, Dorothy Devine,Breastpalte, Tyran, Molly, Calgacus McAndrews,Michael McCabe,Oneironaught,Wanton Wumpum,Conan the Librarian, Haggis Hunter,gfaetheblock,Scunner,Fred Blogger, Desimond,bookiefromhell,Geoff Huijer,JackieG,John Dickson,Ianbeag,gordon,Bald Eagle,Seanair,Auld Rock and Soda,
cumon guys we need you,
I know for a fact I could have EASILY doubled that list but its enough to be getting on with and hopefully encourage the ones that I missed out(sorry) to come back and give us your input as well!
call to arms!
link to youtube.com
O/T links
link to petewishart.wordpress.com
link to fionamoraggrahame.wordpress.com
link to thecanary.co
link to rt.com
I’m sure I have seen bugger the panda posting recently,and Dorothy devine and Betty boop not too long ago (tho i may have been reading and old thead there).
I am certain that BTP is still posting here tho.
Mundell doing a Murphy. That worked well.
A recipe for disaster.
Osbourne has destroyed the Oil sector.
jdman, still here , feeling sorry for myself , I have the lurgy and very unpleasant it is too.
I have posted ,I remember threatening to give JOHN MACKAY an earful if I ever came across him – it had to do with the quote from the Trump or Trump camp ,denigrating Alex Salmond and smugly promoted as news on STV – spite and shite!
@ Robert Peffers
Hi Robert, sorry to be pedantic but Margaret, The Maid of Norway, didn’t drown on her way to Scotland. She fell ill during the journey and died in Orkney.
SILENCE !!!
Your Imperial Master.Governor General.His Eminence,The Righr Honourable David Mundell MP,GCFO,LMFAO,CBE,SWALK,and bar, is about to guide you on the sensible way to live your lives.
Bow down as you listen.He is not happy with you uppity Jocks and his wrath will be wreaked upon you for being too stupid to walk into his traps.
JdMan
I’m still lurking about, have had a few posts mostly in response to the Rock Ape who has been calling me and other readers of the .national “gullible”‘
Was thinking on buying him an idiots guide to economics for his Christmas.
Everybody have a good holiday (if your getting one) and let’s have a brilliant 2016. 🙂
Downside for Mr Swinney! Having to get out of his bed to swat down, with some good examples, Mr Mundell’s latest nonsense.
Gary on interviewing wasn’t getting anywhere with his questioning so at the end flipped the argument on it’s head and said “Is there not to many councils ?” … FGS!
Good old Auntie and by the way listeners the newly opened power line that can supply a city with 1.5 X capacity of Glasgow is still shit!
Five will not get you ten on those gambling machines and the BBC has not got an agenda.
Tom English says Murray is the history man..Well I agree on that and Kaye on holiday but the rubbish continues.
Taking black dog for a wander down the town but I will cheer up later when I take my partners grand-weans to see Star Wars. 🙂
fran
Books I would recommend, maybe not the timeframe you want but well worth reading.
highland Warrior (Alistair Mccolla) David Stevenson
Macbeth Peter Berresford Ellis
The Claim of Scotland HJ Paton
The Scottish Insurrection of 1820 Peter Berresford Ellis/Seumus Mac A Ghobhainn
Many more but I found all of the above illuminating and give a different perspective on the normal UKSpeak we are normally fed.
Dorothy: I remember threatening to give JOHN MACKAY an earful if I ever came across him – it had to do with the quote from the Trump or Trump camp denigrating Salmond
Rochdale-born Anthony Baxter, (not every person with a Scottish surname is Scottish) is also at it. As I read his Guardian article which is full of wild assertions and loose opinion I wondered if he had a third documentary coming out, and sure enough …
Twitter vindictiveness thrown at Andy Murray is actionable.
A lack of modulation in his voice causes people to think it’s a lack of personality. Murray has a huge personality.
Has anybody listened to Federer lately, or Nadal? And Djokovc isn’t much better.
They speak in a monotone, as do other tennis players, and sportsmen generally.
Rochdale-born Anthony Baxter, says Salmond’s a
Anthony Baxter ?@antbaxter Dec 16
Have to say – it’s the height of hypocrisy for @AlexSalmond to criticise @realDonaldTrump when he was all in favour of the development.
Despite Trump unable to block wind energy offshore Trump golf. this tweet’s probably a shyster’s lightbulb on moment, for a tasty Xmas yoon bonus from rancid The Graun.
Of course the Tories want to move responsibility for education away from the centre…
..to create a two tier system, like in England.. of poor state funded vs better (but still state-funded) independent schools.
The only kind of democracy in the English system, is that the rich are free to choose and can afford to move to where the good schools are – the underperforming schools are left to rot.
WHAT DOES THE E.I.S. HAVE TO SAY ABOUT MUNDELLS STATEMENT.
(didn’t we just have OECD report)
(are the Tories actually victims, stymied by their inadequacies, the lack of imagination within the English public school system)
(and conservatives in general)
Dearie me…
@ Lenny Hartley
Cheers Lenny
Heedtracker: it’s the height of hypocrisy for Salmond to criticise Trump when he was all in favour of the development.
Exactly how do you stand up in public and say, it’s come to my notice the millionaire promising jobs in my area is a lying, double-dealing bully?
Come on, Heedtracker, how do you say that and not get sued?
And when your constituents demand the project gets approval because of the severe lack of jobs, how do you say sorry but no? You elected me to create jobs in your area but on this occasion I must counsel against it.
Everybody and their granny knew a line of houses and a hotel would look crap on that coastline, but Salmond had to stay out of that decision legally.
Incidentally, as somebody who works in the arts I can tell you that the SNP generally has a good attitude to the arts but piss poor aesthetic judgement when it comes to the stimulation and creation of good, enduring art.
Jdman@7.57
I’m here! Every day! Many times a day. I was at the Wings night out in Edinburgh a couple of months ago.
You are all very eloquent on here and by the time I’ve read every comment I have nothing to add but my huge support for Wings. I share Nana,s posts and add Robert Peffer,s wonderful history lessons to my notes.
In between my visits here I’m spending good time on Facebook and Twitter too.
Don’t worry I haven’t gone away!
@ bugsbunny
I barely remember the programme, I was still at school.
I cant remember the other programme you mentioned.
Everybody and their granny knew a line of houses and a hotel would look crap on that coastline, but Salmond had to stay out of that decision legally.
Its doesnt have to be like that. Its worth going to Balmedie to see what all the yoon politics bullshit is all about. Great architecture has long gone from Scotland.
Trump attracted the same UKOK freak show that blocked Andy Murray’s tennis center a couple of weeks ago, NOT on my Scotland region youre not building, kind of yoon madness.
As I mentioned earlier, UKOK Green’s couldnt give a flying fcuk about how our great British super rich elite, like the royals, have destroyed the Highlands for their blood sports horror show, but woe betide any sweaties like Salmond building a golf course with a hotel by the sea, a few miles north of Aberdeen, let alone a sports center in a few fields down the side of the M90 near Stirling, the horror!
Baxter’s just another yoon huckster cashing in on relentless BBC SNP bad attack propaganda. He’s got a mortgage to pay for like everyone else, BBC is minted, UKOK tubthumpers like rancid The Graun have gone insane with fury at Scotland not voting how its told…
Where will it all end?
Yes, I also read through the nuances and links on here…if something has been thoroughly exposed my tuppenceworth is usually merely decorative.
A MODERN GOVERNER GENERAL
I am the very model of a Modern Governor General
I’ve information hidden that is horror and is terrible
I worship Kings of England, Lords in ermine and Baronial
I do the Union’s dirty work their lackey and derisible
I never make decisions as I’m always in reflection
Delivering the Vow but not to Scotland’s expectation
When I open a food banks its me leaving by the back door
Every town should have one that is IDS’s signature
I know nothing about Frenchgate, Carbuncle and he should own it
I was reflecting and reflecting so I never ever saw it
It’s all about translation. second chances and the Union
These elections things just happen so it’s damage limitation
I stand up for Scotland and its people with my oratory
I haven’t got a mandate nor even a majority
I’m Establishment, I’m Fluffy and my destinations terminal
And that’s why I ‘m the model of a Modern Governor General
jdman 7:57 am
… I am sorry I don’t always comment on threads. Whilst I am happy to get involved to educate and inform on issues and policies that have a broader context, I don’t feel it is my place to add value to conversations about purely internal Scottish matters. I will if you like though …
sensibledave says:
21 December, 2015 at 10:39 am
jdman 7:57 am
Always important to get the viewpoint of our UKOK toryboy imperial masters sensible:D
Re the Arts,
Generations of misappropriation of intent caused the arts to lose momentun in the 90s..
… Tweaking and rebranding has only moved the goalposts..
The Arts Council (in all its modern guises) is still failing to inspire.
The Curriculum for Excellence places creativity amongst traditional subjects allowing a depth of subjective learning, understanding and application to exist inside the structure of growing and learning.
We feed knowledge to our nations children, to reap the rewards we now know, that we missed ourselves.
A just made it off the back of a Green vote Mundell who has no mandate to do anything or respect from anybody in Scotland except maybe his family and “friend” wants to tell the party we actually did vote for to do things differently
I’d suggest the only ways that might happen is if Scotland votes Tory (never gonnae happen) or he gets his own mind control device like the one we’ve got, Ours is secreted deep within the bowels of Holyrood protected by a force field
For those who aren’t in the SNP an email in this morning informing members “Independence is on it’s way”
That just cheered up my morning
Baxter’s just another yoon huckster cashing in on relentless SNP bad attack propaganda.
I agree. But nobody has challenged Baxter’s mono-manic garbage.
It’s one thing to shoot a documentary on how locals are getting it in the neck from a known gangster and his pals, quite another to insinuate it’s all the connivance of one local politician ‘dominating’ a political process over which he has no authority.
And if Salmond had plotted against Trump behind the scenes and then discovered doing it – a la Carmichael – just think of the tornado of a stooshie the Yoons would have whipped up on that score.
” I am gross and perverted..
I’m obsessed and deranged,
I have existed for years,
But very little has changed,
I’m the tool of your government,
And industry too,
For I am destined to rule and regulate you,
I may be vile and pernicious,
but you can’t look away,
I’ll make you think I’m delicious,
with the stuff that I say,
I’m the best you can get,
Have you guessed me yet,
IM THE SLIME OOZING OUT
OF YOUR TV SET.
(F.Z c.1974ish)
I agree. But nobody has challenged Baxter’s mono-manic garbage.
He’s a good display of British propaganda in action in the Scotland region though.
When Trump was blocked by that one yoon Green, people were in shock. Local councilors had people at the door of their homes going mad at them. About 100 feet from Trump golf course there’s the council’s own huge carpark for the beach, toilets, a play ground etc, to get to the beach, you come off the really busy Peterhead road through the rapidly expanding Balmedie suburb and then one yoon said no to Trump’s plans.
The sand dunes themselves are entirely man made, held in place by a grass to stop them literally washing away into the sea, there’s all kinds of heavy industry all along the dune areas, from the Bridge of Don, all the way up the coast, open cast council tips, shooting ranges, there’s even a rich Scandinavian investors acres of Xmas tree plantations, completely dominating the farm land.
You could do this all day but Green yoons are no different from any other, SNP bad, we’re in charge of you sweaties, UKOK.
Jdman still here , first port of call in the morning , last port of call at night. Just needed to take a step back for a week or two as sometimes it’s just too much
Yesterday, I read a piece in the Herald about how Scotland’s shops were not seeing the same ‘ footfall’ as other parts of the U.K.
It quotes Prof Bell from Stirling Uni .
I wonder if any of the media realise the impact their constant negative views have on people?
Anyway, apparently we’re not shopping enough in the shops and this according to the academics could be down to the impact of the oil.
Now, it might in the North East be having that effect but it might just be because
a) not everyone thinks Christmas is about saving the economy
b) given the rise in food banks not everyone is in a position to buy, buy,buy
c) maybe internet shopping ?
And finally many many people I know are back using catalogues , saving club vouchers etc so it can be paid up over a longer period of time
. (Also be interested to see how B and Ms/ The Range/ Bargain Homes footfall compares to Asda etc)
After reading it, I kind of sat back and thought so is it me or are the Profs out of touch ? Are we really living in such a divided society that even the academics are oblivious to what life is like for an awful lot of people or were they just asked a question and making a point ?
See what I mean ? It just left me thinking after reading it, we’ve either had no pay rise, a limited pay rise or in real terms a cut yet somehow we’re still to blame for not spending enough as the rest of the U.K.
The other thing they did suggest in the article was , instead of spending, the money was being used to save and reduce debt , would that person stand up
Anyway, hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and remember it is your duty to forget all this Goodwill to all men and get out there and save the shops- altho no doubt next weeks report will be we’re spending too much !!
heedtracker 10:48 am
“Always important to get the viewpoint of our UKOK toryboy imperial masters sensible:D”
… I think I detect some affection for me there Heedy. Are you going soft? I think they call it the Stockholm Syndrome where “captives” fall in love with their “captors”?
Chic McGregor at 12.08.
PBS has an excellent documentary on Henry Ford which is broadcast every few months.
It is far from being a whitewash job and paints Ford as a thoroughly nasty bit of work – a ruthless dictator, an Anti-Semite and disciple of Fascism.
Apart from that his bullying treatment of his son Edsel who seemed to be a decent sort was disgusting.
It acknowledges the part he played in the adoption of mass production and the payment of fair wages but apart from that his treatment of his workers was cruel and ruthless.
sensibledave says:
21 December, 2015 at 11:12 am
heedtracker 10:48 am
Just because youre a tory doesnt mean youre not likable sensibledave, although there are clearly several of you too.
We’re not all barbarians in your Scotland region.
We get it sensible, UKOK socio economics has made London and the south east of England rich beyond your wildest dreams, and all by red and blue tories like Crash Gordon and Lord Flipper of expense fraudshire. Nothing’s going to threaten that but then you kicked the red tories out sensibledave. Ingrates!
Red/blue tories don’t want any change to yoononomics and you’re certainly not going to lose near on half you country to vile separatists, like me.
All makes sense sensible.
Molly@11:08am:
I did all my Christmas shopping this year online as I didn’t have time to go near shops. I guess many like me are doing this as it’s a much better option than joining the crowds on the High St.
I’m here reading every post every day but don’t post much as by the time I read through the threads most of the relevant comments and opinions I would post have already been covered. I’m a relative ‘newbie’ to the political situation in the UK and Scotland since about 4 months before Indyref#1 but i’ve always been YES!
Merry Christmas to Stu and all Wingers. May the force be with you all!
Im sorry if I offended anyone who HAS been posting but I’ve just not seen them but it was with the intention of making sure you all know people here (me at least) value your input,
WE’RE A GOOD TEAM
Merry Christmas one an all. 🙂
“… I think I detect some affection for me there Heedy. Are you going soft? I think they call it the Stockholm Syndrome where “captives” fall in love with their “captors”?”
All you have to do is say UNCLE, and we’ll let you go.
Re Scotland’s ongoing problems with Trump, his monstrous ego, and his golf developments at Menie and Turnberry:-
Is there any way that we can pierce his ego and direct a sufficient amount of ridicule and general abuse at him that it will cause him to lose interest in Scotland and decide to offload the 2 courses?
We have got to do something before he turns them into tasteless Las Vegas type eyesores which, while Menie is new and wouldn’t be too bad, would be a disaster for Turnberry.
As regards finding parties with the funds necessary to take them off his hands Sir Ian Wood has plenty of dosh in the koitty to relieve Trump of Menie. Turnberry has changed hands several times in the last few years so it may not be too much of a problem to find a buyer before our monstrous pal with the funny hair destroys it.
@ Fran
“I have learned to dig a bit deeper. I’m now after The Terror Of The Seas? by Steve Murdoch. Which I hope gives me more insight into our contribution to our naval endeavours on an international scene.”
Hi Fran,
Henry VIII is given the accolade of ‘Father of the Royal Navy’. If we genuinely lived in a Union of equals, that accolade would be bestowed upon James IV. However what UK history is to be is decided in London.
James IV built a Royal Navy before Henry had even came to the English throne.
I don’t know if you’re aware of the naval arms race between Scotland and England in the early sixteenth century. To cut a long story short:
In 1504 James decided to build a great warship, greater than any that he had ever previously built. It was to be called Michael (after the Archangel). It was later always referred to as The Great Michael. Michael was too big to be built in any existing Scottish shipyard so a shipyard had to be custom built at Newhaven, Edinburgh. Work began on Michael in 1507 and she was launched in 1511.
While the Michael was being built, Henry VIII got word of it and decided he would not be outdone by James. He ordered his shipbuilders to build the biggest ship ever. It was to be called the Henry Grace à Dieu (referred to as The Great Harry). Work began in 1511 and she was launched in 1514.
The English claimed (as they still do to this day) that it was the biggest ship ever built at that time. Henry Grace à Dieu was 165 feet. The Michael was 240 feet.
The Michael was sold to the French after the death of James IV. The French changed renamed it La Grande Nef d’Ecosse (The Great ship of Scotland). It was claimed that La Grande Nef d’Ecosse was present at the French attack on the Solent when the Mary Rose was sunk in 1545.
It’s a good story – worth a read.
further to Nana’s link (8.24) about the UK government’s push for fracking, this is an interesting post and it has links to articles on the toxic environmental and health effects of this process
link to readersupportednews.org
Jdman no offence I know what you mean and I agree – great team !!
@Alastair
Bravo liked that!
More Gilbert O Sullivan than Gilbert and Sullivan. 🙂
PS:
Times continue to be hard at the BBC.
BBC Sport is to “reluctantly” end its Formula 1 television contract three years early as part of savings across the corporation.
Channel 4 will take on the BBC’s F1 broadcast rights from next season.
PPS:
Scottish Skier on Scot goes Pop ‘comments’ says new poll out TNS.
Gives some figures too. SNP holding Labour down 🙂
I have been an on-line subscriber to The National since Day 1 and at present have no intention of cancelling my subscription.
However, I am concerned at the amount of coverage therein of RISE, SSP, The Greens etc. as regards the destination of second votes next May.
It is generally acknowledged that BT are terrified of REF2 and are desperate to stop the re-election of a majority SNP Government elected on a manifesto committment to hold REF2 when the chances of success seem likely.
Of the BT parties Labour and The LibDems are busted flushes and The Tories are under some sort of illusion that they may beat Labour into 2nd. place.
However, the impression they give is that they have little hope of attracting votes away from The SNP which means that their only hope of stopping The SNP from winning a majority again is to resort to Perfidious Albion’s Oldest Trick In The Book namely – Divide and Rule.
This means splitting the 2nd. vote of those who support Indy between The SNP, RISE, Greens, SSP, Solidarity etc. and the coverage The National is giving these minority parties risks the springing of the Divide and Rule trap.
It must be SNP x 2 next May.
I have no problem with people voting for these minority parties in the 2017 Council Elections – diversity in the Councils would be a good thing and of course once Indy is won the more the merrier.
The first thing is to elect an SNP majority government next May because if we don’t our colonial masters will be laughing once more at the gullible Scots just as they did last year after their fraudulent campaign of lies and threats in REF1.
We must avoid the Old Divide and Rule Trap.
Just in case the lurgy stops me in my tracks again , may I take this opportunity to wish all Wingers , Yessers and even Noers a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy successful 2016.
To the Reverend Stu may I extend my thanks for all his hard work , goodness knows how I would survive without him and WGD .
Good wishes for a great Christmas and New Year Rev.
Why does love of Scotland translate into hate so easily?
Will Podmore says:
21 December, 2015 at 4:16 pm
Why does love of Scotland translate into hate so easily?
And you have a lovely UKOK Xmas too Will.
Seasonal greetings to you all
But…hasn’t the Bbc been giving 100’s of millions of pounds to support ‘local’ news ‘journalists’. Wonder how many Independence supporters
the cash is going to..
Ok, I know. ….none.
Auntie has been in paroxysms of anger over RT’s reporting ie not taking the party line on Salisbury and Syria. They came right out with extreme opinion AS FACT and have openly questioned whether RT will keep it’s license.
Not saying RT is any better – it isn’t, but they DO report on things the BBC won’t, and they DO provide a counterpoint to BBC propaganda with their own propaganda.
Bricks are being sh*t as they realise we won’t keep swallowing the same nonsense night after night as we once did.
As bad as the BBC was, it is undoubtedly worse now. Complete propaganda and not JUST the news. The placement of programmes to coincide with current events is certainly no accident either…