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Truth in numbers

Posted on October 21, 2022 by

A year and a quarter ago, we contrasted the performance of the SNP’s last two leaders in terms of building support for independence. As the First Minister crows about how much better she’s been at staying in power than a succession of UK leaders, it seems only proper to bring the stats up to date.

(Click pic to enlarge.)

There was only one Tory leader during Alex Salmond’s entire period as First Minister (David Cameron), and two Labour ones (Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband). Salmond had to fight against a fairly competent, fairly centrist Labour government and then a fairly competent, fairly centrist coalition UK government, in a reasonably economically stable UK inside the EU.

He left office between two 52% Yes polls, having hauled support up from barely 30%.

Nicola Sturgeon has faced a series of staggeringly inept hardline Tory governments who have dragged the UK and Scotland hamfistedly and catastrophically out of the EU, overseen 200,000 deaths in a grotesquely botched virus pandemic, created the worst economic crisis since World War 2 and turned the UK into a global laughing stock with three Prime Ministers and four Chancellors in the space of a few months.

She’s also been able to watch as the Labour Party, the SNP’s traditional opponents, has torn itself apart with bitter infighting, and as the Lib Dems dwindled from a serious force commanding a quarter of the popular vote into an irrelevant joke whose nadir was the brief comedy tenure of Jo Swinson as leader.

She’s led a party with financial resources at its disposal that Salmond’s SNP could never have dreamed of in a million years, resources created by his work in turning it into a mass-membership party of power.

And what’s she achieved with that incredible, once-in-a-lifetime gift of circumstances? Turned the 52% she inherited into 49%, while not taking Scotland a single step closer to a second referendum. Perhaps a little bit less gloating might be in order until such times as something’s been done to merit it.

Because all she’s done so far is prove that there’s no UK leader SO incompetent that they can’t, at a bare minimum, successfully foil Nicola Sturgeon.

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1035 to “Truth in numbers”

  1. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    “Because all she’s done so far is prove that there’s no UK leader SO incompetent that they can’t, at a bare minimum, successfully foil Nicola Sturgeon.”

    And the worst of them all just ignored her.

  2. The Tree of Liberty
    Ignored
    says:

    And the open goal is standing right in front of her now, and what have we got? Tumbleweed.

  3. Ruglonian
    Ignored
    says:

    One day soon all her gloating will be thrown back at her.
    All things must pass and she’ll soon be seen as an embarrassing footnote in the story of Scottish independence.

  4. Willie
    Ignored
    says:

    Sturgeon is worse than incompetent.

    She is in fact an undermining collaborator acting on behalf of the British establishment. She is to use the Gauleiter for Scotland.

    Not even the most incompetent fool could do what this woman has done.

  5. Another_Ian_Blackford_Speech
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s a grim truth and yet, people still think she’s some kind of hero. For whom?

    This WM shitshow is the last of the many golden gifts to the cause of Scots independence that will come before people’s appetite for change is erroneously satisfied by a Labour government. After those 5 years, the whole world will be in spiralling out of control and survival will occupy too much of people’s thoughts and actions to leave room for constitutional politics.

  6. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks posts on 20 October 2022 at 5:53 pm:
    https://www.albaparty.org/we_need_independence_now

  7. Rev. Stuart Campbell
    Ignored
    says:

    “And the open goal is standing right in front of her now, and what have we got? Tumbleweed.”

    Worse than tumbleweed. She’s calling for a general election that would push the supposed de-facto indyref election from 2024 to 2027.

  8. Rev. Stuart Campbell
    Ignored
    says:

    “It’s a grim truth and yet, people still think she’s some kind of hero.”

    Swear to God I saw someone on Twitter call her a “genius” this morning.

  9. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    When it comes to providing Scottish independence, Sturgeon the betrayers incompetence knows no bounds. It won’t matter how inept or how much infighting breaks out within the Tory party or Westminster in general, Sturgeon will cling onto this union and Scots will suffer the consequences.

  10. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Check out the responses to this tweet from Peter Murrell.

    He’s laughing at us all, and so is she.

    https://twitter.com/PeterMurrell/status/1583119594440777728

  11. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian.

    So, Sturgeon the betrayer intends to see off other PM’s, that tells me independence isn’t on the cards at all.

  12. robertkknight
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh, be fair guys…

    Takes a lot for someone suffering from chronic amnesia to run a small country, rich in natural resources and with the potential to maximize it’s own home-grown talent and attract similar from elsewhere, into the buffers. Especially when there’s an alternative route staring you in the face.

    I doubt Salmond could’ve done it so spectacularly, so credit where it’s due. It’s not easy being shit at your job – just ask Liz Truss!

  13. Johnny
    Ignored
    says:

    The issue is too many see it as “us v them”, for which read “Holyrood v Westminster” but with some ordinary punters imagining that Holyrood is “on their side” and they are part of “a team”, as opposed to both Parliaments being rammed to the gunwales with self-interested catchphrase spewers.

    The idea that you could be unhappy to varying degrees with the performance of the main parties/politicians at both Holyrood AND Westminster is alien to far too many folk (I include here unionists who pretend that what the Westminster parties are serving up is somehow acceptable, because that’s their “team” and therefore they must laud that and denigrate Holyrood at all turns).

    Until that changes (for enough people), we are stuck in this endless loop of “Nicola need not do anything much at all to be a hero, and if you disagree you are a Yoon!”. The tragedy is that the folk who think like that do not understand they permit the stasis and lack of action, which results in the decline we can all see. If you are happy with politicians doing nothing, they WILL do nothing, because it’s the easiest thing to do.

  14. Johnny
    Ignored
    says:

    To add, with her gloating tweets, Sturgeon is encouraging those who see it as a matter of “teams” and “Westminster v Holyrood” to see it as some sort of victory for THEM, i.e. Joe Nationalist, that she’s stayed in place, when the only winner from such low expectations of what constitutes success is her (and all those under her patronage).

  15. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    The British state broadcaster doesn’t want you to see this.

    “Thousands of views and growing for our Party Political Broadcast on the Cost of Living Crisis that the BBC wouldn’t let us broadcast this autumn.”

    https://twitter.com/ChrisMcEleny/status/1583426150117744640?cxt=HHwWgICp3bbsuvkrAAAA

  16. Desimond
    Ignored
    says:

    Its the classic “My God will save me” gag.
    We have had the car, the boat and the helicopter as exit vehicles to save us from the Westminster Flood yet still we refuse help and watch the water rise and rise. Its now above our heads and we are left gesturing “Hey what can you do eh?”

    How did it all go to pot in 8 small years. Absolute Power corrupts, end of.

  17. 100%Yes
    Ignored
    says:

    Sturgeon could be the only person on the football field and still she wouldn’t score a goal for Scotland.

  18. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    An absolute belter of an article from Craig Murray showing that the SNP/Labour and the Tories don’t actually need or want the membership.

    With John Swinney telling the media at the SNP conference that the membership can go and whistle with regards to what it wants to happen, I think Murray’s hit the nail on the head with this.

    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/10/the-party-is-over/

  19. Derek
    Ignored
    says:

    “Rev. Stuart Campbell says:
    21 October, 2022 at 1:52 pm

    Swear to God I saw someone on Twitter call her a “genius” this morning.”

    Twitter strikes me as the manifestation of the “infinite number of monkeys” idea, so someone somewhere must therefore be proclaiming that vbery thing…

  20. Gordon Currie
    Ignored
    says:

    At last, some good news from the Westminster Creche:

    Angus MacNeil, the nationalist MP for the Western Isles, broke ranks by criticising Ms Sturgeon’s “tired” strategy of asking the Tories to call a general election, something he said would not happen.

    He instead urged her to force a new Holyrood vote, something that is theoretically possible under the rules that underpin devolution.

    “The Scotland Act gives a mechanism for having an election, and that’s the only game in town,” said Mr MacNeil, an MP since 2005 and chair of Westminster’s international trade committee.

    And I got that from The Torygraph! It pays to keep an eye on the opposition….

  21. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Grodon Currie 3.32 pm

    Good to see Angus talking sense, although it’ll never catch on the the SNP of course.

    If only we had a functioning media in Scotland that could hold all these SNP MPs and MSPs to account and doorstep and hassle every one of them relentlessly until they answered why they weren’t supporting Angus’ idea.

  22. Astonished
    Ignored
    says:

    Ruglonian says:
    21 October, 2022 at 1:37 pm
    One day soon all her gloating will be thrown back at her.
    All things must pass and she’ll soon be seen as an embarrassing footnote in the story of Scottish independence.

    SPOT ON.

    I firmly believe Sturgeon/Murrell will become the most hated people in Scottish history. And the vile alphabetties, the plotters and the cowardly nuSNP MSPs and MPs not far behind.

    I don’t think she can survive much longer. Tick tock.

  23. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    A few ‘Alphabetties’ making charges of sexual assault against Angus MacNeil will soon shut him up!

    Wot? You think she’s not that devious?

    Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and right now Angus MacNeil is pushing his luck.

    He’s looking like one of these ‘Albists’ which Sturgeon hates.

    Sturgeon will dismiss any criticism of the SNP coming from Independence supporters as coming from these Albists.

    She’s got the cult all worked about Alba.

  24. Dave Llewellyn
    Ignored
    says:

    Sturgeon the Chris Iwelumo of politics

  25. Johnny
    Ignored
    says:

    Dave, Iwelumo missed but he at least took the shot…

  26. wullie
    Ignored
    says:

    Sturgoen is Scotlands Liz Truss

  27. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    Astonished says:
    21 October, 2022 at 3:55 pm

    I firmly believe Sturgeon/Murrell will become the most hated people in Scottish history. And the vile alphabetties, the plotters and the cowardly nuSNP MSPs and MPs not far behind.

    Hopefully before it reaches that stage they will gone!

  28. Stuart MacKay
    Ignored
    says:

    Flat-lining support for eights years given the parade of circus clowns down south is a remarkable achievement.

    It is likely there is anything suppressing the percentage or propping it up even? I’d have thought with immigration and demographic changes we’d be seeing a long term decline.

    Also given the general apathy towards politics may the polls are not even close to being realistic. Perhaps the real figure is actually a lot worse but Sturgeon getting booted out would upset some carefully laid plans.

  29. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Thing is, she was given one job… To witness the LAST UK Prime Minister, not sit on her arse while five of them roll past.

    Now she’s even gloating because she’s spun the job out for 8 painful years, still hasn’t delivered a damned thing, drained the coffers empty, but wants a pat on the back for nothing except indolence and failure. She makes my skin crawl.

    Still, I wonder how many Independent Scottish First Ministers she’ll see come and go while she’s serving time in prison. I hope it’s a round half dozen, and one or two of those are Alex Salmond… 🙂

  30. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    So how do you fit the snippets of information together over a long period of time. With Snp, Labour, and Tory government collapse. Perhaps a new joined parliament.
    A few theories.
    Lets start with some old news headlines.

    The Guardian headlines, wed 23, Feb, 2022.
    It will cost the government …. an estimated minimum £22 billion to restore Westminster. And does not take into account inflation.

    City Monitor. Government, February 12, 2018.
    Mps voted to move out of the crumbling Palace of Westminster. With calls for parliament to relocate out of London.perhaps to Hull, Sheffield, Birmingham or Manchester.
    This article worries about toppling Londons Supremacy.

    The Evening Standard,
    10 July 2009.
    Climate Change,
    The Palace of Westminster, Whitehall, M15s HQ, and Scotland Yard are built on flood plains.
    The government are aware of rising sea levels that may cause future flooding around the Thames and Westminster.

    House of Commons,Hansard Volume 700, Tuesday 7 September, 2021.
    Impact of Floods in North Westminster.

    HM Government, white paper: Levelling up the United Kingdom, presented to Parliament by Secretary of State for levelling up, Housing and Communities.
    By Command of Her Majesty, 2 February, 2022.

    A Recommended read: if you want to see Westminsters present and future plans for Scotland ) and whom is controlling Scotlands areas. Land etc.

    So the SNP will no doubt be fully aware of this [ White Paper ] as the devolved Government,
    Is labour and the Snp already joined together?
    Have they agreed that the future running Great Britain will be done by a Scotland/ England Coalition to hold the Union together.?

    With Westminsters levelling up and out sourcing responsibility to many devolved areas across Britain.
    Do you need such a big building and HQ as Westminster At all.
    Perhaps not. It certainly appears that Westminster is winding down behind the scenes, and the clowns are in Charge of what remains,

    Ruthie wanted to be queen of Scotland.
    NS perhaps is more ambitious and may want to be queen of Scotland and England and Wales.

  31. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1583076874535981058?cxt=HHwWhMDS7fSBnPgrAAAA

    Truss was only in PM for 44 days, but ignored Sturgeon throughout. I think that puts Truss ahead in the “promises kept” score.

    She also nearly wrecked the UK, bless her, which Sturgeon hasn’t even attempted in 8 years, so that’s Liz Truss two ahead isn’t it?

  32. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708019
    Correction to above post.

    Hopefully before it reaches that stage they will be
    gone!

    I’m saying this because I’m envisaging things getting very ugly.

    Ach maybe my imagination is in overdrive having just read this

    https://archive.ph/IuQgN

    People do seem very angry.

    Has there ever been an event in history where something similar to what we are experiencing here in Scotland has happened.

  33. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    https://twitter.com/AngryScotland/status/1583126347190177792

    Jesus wept… Mhairi Black clearly doesn’t do irony…

    I’m fucking speechless.

  34. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    The money folk have spoken, and they didn’t fancy ‘Trussonomics, so she’s out the door faster than you can blink. Democracy UK-style!

    This is a very good example of why there should be a qualifying period (say 1 whole term) before anyone is entitled to all the benefits of being a former Prime Minister. Why should this sort of failure be rewarded and why should the taxpayer be expected to keep these failures in a life of luxury?

    Other rules that have to change are the one’s addressing PM’s resigning or being ousted. If a PM is booted/resigns, then the Deputy PM should take over to the end of the term then a General Election held. Same if a PM snuffs it.

    I don’t agree either with the current situation that allows them to remain in post until a successor is found. It should be instant dismissal and the ‘Deputy’ taking the helm until a successor is put in place. The rules as they stand are seriously questionable.

    The most shambolic bunch of clowns ever to take control of Westminster, delivering nothing but chronic shambolic instability.

  35. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks posted on 21 October 2022 at 5:06 pm
    https://twitter.com/AngryScotland/status/1583126347190177792

    “I’m fucking speechless.”

    And no fuckin wonder you’re speechless. She was given an open goal; her English interviewer states a very good point about all these reasons being arguments for independence and what does she say?

    “Ah’d take a General Election right now, tee hee hee”

    There you go, folks, proof if you ever needed it. Sturgeon’s Nasty Party have went to Westminster to settle-in rather than settle-up. What a fricken self-serving embarrassment. Boycott Westminster elections.

  36. schrodingers cat
    Ignored
    says:

    @stoker
    The rules as they stand……..

    there are rules?

  37. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    It is likely there is anything suppressing the percentage or propping it up even? I’d have thought with immigration and demographic changes we’d be seeing a long term decline.

    That’s an interesting one. You’d think that with demographic change if nothing else the % in favour of indy would be growing as we keep being told the younger generations are much more in favour of indy than the older generation. That means some other factor must be in play.

    Can we really be losing as many or more folk who formerly supported indy than we’re gaining from “new” voters who have come on to the electoral register over the past 8 years? Maybe it’s women horrified at the rank misogyny of GRA reform/Self-ID?

    I wonder how many % points BoJo’s second stint as PM will be worth?

  38. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    What makes me really angry is the amount of fucking idiots we have in Scotland who keep voting for this parasitical perverted deviant and her party , people like to claim that Scots are politically aware WTAF does this incompetent dwarf and her clownshow have to do for Scots to waken up and get rabid

    Talking of stupid I watched the pravda beeb news at lunchtime , they were in Grimsby interviewing people and the amount of idiots pushing for bojo to return was horrifying , I have always believed the english were stupid and deluded voting for tories but the devastation they have heaped on towns like Grimsby and yet these fools still cannot see them for what they are only reinforces my belief

  39. James Gardner
    Ignored
    says:

    It only takes one rotten apple to spoil the barrel !

  40. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    “As a former prime minister, Mr Johnson is entitled to claim up to £115,000 per year to run his private office.” https://archive.ph/7LbNh

    “If Boris Johnson is about to make a fresh bid for Downing Street, he should certainly be refreshed. Since he resigned as prime minister in early July, he appears to have been on three foreign holidays – the latest trip being to the Caribbean.” https://archive.ph/jURU3

  41. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    “A ‘shock and awe’ campaign is under way to revive Johnson, but a win isn’t in the bag” https://archive.ph/lvr8g

  42. Stuart MacKay
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis

    Well that was my question. It’s sort of taken as a given that young folks are more pro-indy but specific numbers aren’t published very often.

    I don’t doubt Sturgeon has done nothing to move the needle on independence but I wonder how much of this flat-line is down to the variables inherent in polling, sample size, likelihood on responding or telling the pollster where to shove it, etc. Throw in tales of the immigrants proudly flying their aprons and I start to wonder if the figures are worth anything at all.

  43. Stuart MacKay
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis

    Well that was my question.

    It’s sort of taken as a given that young folks are more pro-indy but specific numbers aren’t published very often. Then you add in all the anguish of all the aprons being flown by the immigrants and it’s surprising the figure is flat, given that there must have been substantial underlying changes in the voting base over the past years. Add to that all the uncertainties over how polls are conducted and it’s starting to look like the numbers might be getting the same treatment as the inflation figures.

    I doubt that BoJo will make a difference. This whole situation has been a clown-show from start to finish. An encore by the clown-in-chief isn’t likely to swing people one way or another. Sitting in a cold house for the bulk of the winter will.

  44. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Stuart MacKay says: at 4:45 pm

    Flat-lining support for eights years given the parade of circus clowns down south is a remarkable achievement.

    It is likely there is anything suppressing the percentage or propping it up even? I’d have thought with immigration and demographic changes we’d be seeing a long term decline.

    Rev had a relatively recent poll that showed that “the younger folk wanting indy” statement actually showed a less significant amount of the very youngest groups of voters being much more in favour of returning Scotland to self governing status. Aye they were still slightly in favour, but not as much as the older ones that first voted in 2014.
    Do you recall what Mia was saying…

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-last-ten-seconds-of-life/comment-page-1/#comment-2673159

  45. Stuart MacKay
    Ignored
    says:

    Dan, thanks for that. I’m sure the details are way more complicated than Mia portrays, for example, all my Geordie workmates want to move to an independent Scotland. Still it’s pretty clear that the SNP dragging their feet until the magic 60% is just a fantasy / delaying tactics and they know it.

    The next few months should stir things up a lot. We should know by mid-November whether the doom and gloom merchants (I’m one) are right and there will be widespread hardship. That will do more for independence than anything else. By that time the SNP leadership will likely have lost control of the ball – maybe a communist revolution will be the thing that saves the Union.

  46. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Stuart MacKay

    Looks like you got Ronsealed with yer double post there! “Ronsealed” is the newly applicable to the site term when the guru takes a meditation break whilst you varnish the server cache.

    Oh, there’s no doubt many factors in the mix so difficult to nail down with absolute clarity without having access to data.
    On that subject was speaking with someone recently that has found another potential angle to help work out true demographic changes. Don’t want to say what it is but it shows that those in positions of power have access to a huge array of data that could be used to steer a course which could nullify grassroots activism efforts.
    Think of all the data the various civil servant departments must hold and what they could do with such information in terms of generating a narrative to influence elements of the population along with policy development.

  47. Robert G
    Ignored
    says:

    I have absolutely no time for the conservatives, but at least they have the guts to get rid of the person in charge when they are not up to the job. I just wish some in the SNP would develop a spine and do the same.

  48. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Stuart MacKay

    If I remember rightly one of the polls after indy – I don’t remember if it was one of Rev Stu’s or not – actually showed that a significant number of people had switched both ways. I suppose we tend to assume most people, most of the time, have set positions, or that once they switch, they don’t switch back?

    There are obviously committed folk on both sides who will never change sides, but is it feasible that all of the pro-indy folk now are the same as those in 2014? Or that all of the undecideds now are the same as those in 2014 or since?

    I don’t buy polling being inaccurate or biased: it’s easy to write off results you don’t agree with, but I don’t see many folk questioning the polls Rev Stu commissions? If they’re reputable companies, and there’s a spread of different companies, I think it’s unlikely they’re all going to be wrong, even if they sometimes make the wrong call or get it wrong.

    From memory Rev Stu is famously dismissive of those who question the validity of polling as a whole, and unlike most he does have experience of actually commissioning and paying good money for “proper” polls.

  49. PhilM
    Ignored
    says:

    If I was/were English, whether from Newcastle, Norwich, Manchester or Winchester I hope I would have enough backbone to stay and fight for a better country than to think Scotland is some kind of lifeboat built just for me. Scotland is not the answer to England’s north-south divide.

  50. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m trying to figure out what I’m more bored with… Nicola moaning about the obstinance of successive Tory leaders or people on our side moaning about Nicola’s. In both cases there doesn’t seem to be any desire to move beyond moaning which means we are all stuck.

    Oh well.

    Moving on (constructively), I sense a General Election is in the pipeline… is it time to consider voting Labour?

    I know, I know, it won’t make any difference because Labour are no better than Tories, two cheeks of the same arse, etc., and that was true 7 years ago, but things have changed; the Tories are now dangerously ultra right wing and capable of anything.

    If Labour can pick up say 10 to 20 seats in Scotland, it could make a big difference in terms of deciding which party governs. What have we got to lose when the SNP do fuck all anyway?

    Of course, if an Alba candidate has a realistic chance I’d say vote for Alba, but it’s hard to see that being the case in most constituencies.

    The choice for most of us in the next General Election is really between wasting our vote on the SNP again or voting in a way that might might actually make a difference in terms of getting rid of the Tories and replacing them with people that couldn’t possibly be worse.

    (And yes, I’m aware that history suggests the way Scotland votes hasn’t made much difference as far as who gets into Downing Street goes, but we all know it potentially could.)

  51. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis says: at 7:30 pm

    If I remember rightly one of the polls after indy – I don’t remember if it was one of Rev Stu’s or not – actually showed that a significant number of people had switched both ways. I suppose we tend to assume most people, most of the time, have set positions, or that once they switch, they don’t switch back?

    There are obviously committed folk on both sides who will never change sides, but is it feasible that all of the pro-indy folk now are the same as those in 2014? Or that all of the undecideds now are the same as those in 2014 or since?

    Well duh, obviously folk are influenced to change their positions on Scotland returning to self-governing status for many reasons, such as membership of EU / Single Market access, or women and girl’s rights being severely impacted by Self ID policy, having confidence in the competence of the current Scottish Administers of devolved powers, I’ll tack on war and NATO too now whilst I’m here…

    So folk come and go. Yet you have been very antagonistic to folk about scaring the horses of the current corralled less than majority support for Scottish self-governance, which only benefits the current status quo…
    I’ve asked you previously about the Venn Diagram of YES supporters, it was along the lines of would you accept gaining 20% of new folk for YES on a new policy position if it meant losing 10% of current Yessers which included yourself.
    Fairly sure you have stated you would work against Indy in such circumstances. So it’s only Indy for you if it’s your type of Indy and not what the majority of Scots want.

  52. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis says at 5:35 pm
    Can we really be losing as many or more folk who formerly supported indy than we’re gaining from “new” voters who have come on to the electoral register over the past 8 years? Maybe it’s women horrified at the rank misogyny of GRA reform/Self-ID?

    From July this year re. GRA

    Andy Ellis says:
    As it is, I doubt the matter will be as big an issue as many think when it comes to a general campaign.

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/cracking-the-code/comment-page-1/#comment-2699855

    Make your mind up matey.

  53. Stuart MacKay
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis

    There are two things that brought up whether the polls are showing a true picture or not.

    The first is the obvious one. Why so flat for such a long period, given nothing has really stayed the same while stuff like Brexit, participation in elections is declining, etc. etc.

    The second comes from a discussion on The Duran (yes, I know) on the upcoming mid-term elections in the USA. The upshot was that the polls were considered wildly inaccurate as they tended, quite obviously, to target people who were receptive to being polled, i.e. those prepared to answer phone calls from random strangers, etc.

    The numbers being polled are not that high so it seems that they’d be subject to all kinds of variance. Sample size is a killer in science so that pollsters have the problem solved is stretching things a bit. Then again, they may just be phoning up the same people each time. The whole process might be precise but is it accurate.

    That the SNP want to move the needle on a target that never seems to change, come rain or shine, is altogether a little too convenient 😉

  54. Stuart MacKay
    Ignored
    says:

    PhilM

    Well my workmates openly say they are second class citizens in England and their history under the Conservatives would seem to confirm that.

    I’ve been pushing them to consider moving the border south or at least declaring Northumbrian independence. The general idea is to get a divorce from London so anything that achieves that would probably get the thumbs up.

  55. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert G says on 21 October 2022 at 7:25 pm:
    “I have absolutely no time for the conservatives, but at least they have the guts to get rid of the person in charge when they are not up to the job. I just wish some in the SNP would develop a spine and do the same.”

    Correct, Robert! Just yesterday i found my self contemplating just how much more i detest Sturgeon than Ruth ‘The Mooth’ Davidson. And i never in a million years thought i’d find my self thinking like that. My conclusion was that as loathsome as she is, at least ‘The Mooth’ doesn’t hide the fact she’s a Unionist. 😉

  56. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    Stuart MacKay says:

    “The numbers being polled are not that high, so it seems that they’d be subject to all kinds of variance.”

    No idea what the numbers are, Stuart, but should they not be at least 1000 before they can even begin to be taken seriously? Then of course it all depends on who is running the poll, some companies such as YouGov have questionable reputations. Then there is a load of other considerations on top of that, some of which you already mention.

  57. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dan

    So folk come and go. Yet you have been very antagonistic to folk about scaring the horses of the current corralled less than majority support for Scottish self-governance, which only benefits the current status quo…

    That’s a misrepresentation. Colour me unsurprised. I’m antagonistic to roasters. My concern has been to stop moonhowlers with extremist positions adversely impacting the chances of converting undecided voters.

    Even you are able to discern that those still (just?) in the majority opposed to independence will tend to be fairly far removed from the moonhowlers views on issues. The last thing the movement needs is to be identified with sub-Trumpian conspiracy theorists, Vlad fluffers and covidiots. Sorry if that’s hard for you and others to accept, but it’s just the way it is.

    I’ve asked you previously about the Venn Diagram of YES supporters, it was along the lines of would you accept gaining 20% of new folk for YES on a new policy position if it meant losing 10% of current Yessers which included yourself.

    You may have done so. I don’t recall the detail. I imagine the devil would be in the detail, no? It would have to be something pretty major for me to think it made independence unpalatable or something I’d actively oppose. Presumably most if not all people would have some red lines. Others may be absolutists and would accept independence no matter what the policy position.

    I’ve heard a number of people – mostly GC women – saying they’d now find it hard to support independence because the SNP and Greens would be able to push through GRA reform and self-ID.

    I’d certainly campaign – hard – against franchise restriction, but I’m pretty convinced it wouldn’t fly with the movement as a whole anyway, particularly after the Alba leadership poured cold water on it. I doubt I’d be alone on the issue, and from what I’ve seen I’d be happier standing shoulder to shoulder with those who agree with my views, than the views of nativists in here.

    On other issues, I’d prefer for example a movement that was pro NATO and pro-EU, and republican but wouldn’t die in a ditch about any of them, and in any case I suspect most will be business for after we actually achieve independence.

    Unsurprisingly, I think my views tend to represent those of the majority. If I’m in the minority ona given issue, fair enough. Certainly I think my takes on most of the issues are more representative than those of the moonhowling claque in here, however much they insist they’re in the right, or actually represent the majority. The only thing that would prove it on any given issue is polling I suppose.

    I still have some sympathy for Rev Stu’s point from last year WRT the nativism debate:

    If we got a referendum tomorrow I don’t in all honesty know if I could bring myself to campaign in it, because it’d be a *de facto* campaign for Nicola Sturgeon’s vision of a hellish, intolerant, incompetent and corrupt Scotland.

    I’m not sure I could bring myself to campaign along side the SNP just because we share a common goal, but I’d campaign for the movement in general.

  58. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    Has it ever occurred to anyone that maybes the voters calling for the return of BoJo are on to something?

    What if these voters are savvy enough to have realised that whoever is “in power” things stay much the same, so why not just enjoy the cabaret?

    I guess that idea won’t get much traction with those for whom hatred of NS is what sends them to sleep at night, and gets them out of bed in the morning. The idea that a politician is as powerless as a dustman to force change on society won’t resonate. Rather cling to the illusion that on Day 1 of taking office, the politician is issued with a magic wand and a light sabre.

    Maybes Rev Stu should introduce a qualification requirement for BTL posters. Before anybody can post about the uselessness of a public figure, the poster should demonstrate what they have ever managed to achieve, or what lasting change they have brought about in the world.

  59. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    If ‘politics is the art of the possible’ then the return of Boris Johnson may be proof whether we like it or not. There doesn’t seem to be any legal or constitutional hurdle, it’s all about whether or not he can resist the temptation to emulate Churchill.

    Sturgeon can bump her gums about it all she likes, it won’t make any difference. Her opining on ‘democractic imperatives’ and suchlike only underscores the impression that she is succumbing to some form of messianic complex. It’s almost as if she feels she’s too big for the Scottish stage, that the rest of the world needs and deserves her help. (A bit like Blair come to think of it.)

    If we reduce everything to basics, no matter how unlikely or unpalatable they may be, we have to imagine whether or not there is any realistic prospect of her leading the SNP into the referendum, be it next October or years down the line.

    If the answer to that simple question is ‘no’ then we have to work out how she can be removed. Because if she cannot be removed – by legal, peaceful means of course – then some of us are not prepared to waste any more time and hope on the independence cause. We can’t be expected to linger forever, waiting for something which is never going to happen.

    She is not just damaging the prospects for independence – she is causing mental health problems with her behaviour and policies.

    As a friend wrote to me recently (he is a long-suffering Motherwell fan) – ‘It’s the hope that kills you.’

  60. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dan

    It’s a truism that “the yoof” rebel against the prevailing orthodoxy.

    The prevailing orthodoxy in Scotland is the SNP, and hence by extrapolation, Indy.

    I’ve drawn the dots for you, see if you can join them.

  61. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    The second comes from a discussion on The Duran (yes, I know) …

    Oh FFS…you “know” but you’re still just going to limbo right under that bar huh?

    “Overall, we rate The Duran as a Questionable source based on far-right-wing bias, promotion of Russian propaganda, right-wing conspiracies, a lack of transparency, use of poor sources, plagiarism, and failed fact checks.”

    https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-duran/

  62. Anne Johnston
    Ignored
    says:

    “As Mrs Death laughs”…and takes a selfie.

  63. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m gonna post here, something I posted on Facebook a wee while ago.
    —————————————

    The problem we have in Scotland is that, for years, under Alex Salmond, the SNP did a good job of managing Scotland and attracted voters to the concept of “SNP”, whose initial principle in their constitution is the independence of Scotland. Under his management, we had indyref 2014, which we, for some unfathomable reasons, declined.

    When we declined to vote for independence, Alex resigned and entered the world of media production, via his show on RT.

    His successor, Ms Sturgeon, saw this as a threat to her power and put together a plot to “kill him dead”, resulting in all the “Alphebetties” crawling out of the SNP woodwork to make spurious accusations against him. It was proved in court that the most serious accusation of (attempted) rape couldn’t have happened – because she wasn’t in the building that night!

    Then the Alba Party was formed in early 2021, and Alex was asked to be leader. He accepted. There has been an almost total blackout in the mainstream media regarding Alba.
    Neal Hanvey and Kenny McAskill (both ex-SNP, now Alba) have been doing the work in Westminster, that we would expect from the SNP. But the SNP have settled in to Westminster, rather than settling up.

    The majority of voters are, comfortably, voting for the SNP in local council, Holyrood and Westminster elections, not realising that the SNP no longer fights for its first principle, i.e., an independent Scotland.

    And what about the SNP policy of allowing men to declare themselves women in 3 months, with no medical intervention? Men, saying they are women, going into female prisons, then committing rape on real women?
    This country, Scotland, used to be inhabited by people with common sense. Seems that ‘common sense’ is not required by those in charge of the SNP these days.
    And it’s not just we voters they’re ignoring, it’s the party membership as well.
    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/10/the-party-is-over/

  64. Merganser
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian B. @ 9.20pm

    I agree with your comparison of Sturgeon to Blair.

    Blair thought he was a gonner over, I think, the Ecclestone affair amongst several others. He came to believe he was untouchable and therefore was sent by a divine force to save mankind.

    Sturgeon thought she was going to be toast over the Salmond affair and couldn’t believe her luck when she came through it all practically unscathed. She now feels the same way as Blair did – untouchable by divine intervention.

    Self delusion has no bounds for such people. Blair still thinks he is the Messiah. Sturgeon will never be any different.

  65. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    That video of Mhairi Black… no sense of urgency, highly entertained at the ‘drama’ of Westminster, not the multitude of use of the words ‘Britain’ and ‘we’ when talking about ‘we are a laughing stock’, ‘we can’t keep doing this’ (NB – not real quotes, writing from memory and paraphrasing).

    Very firmly placing herself in team GB’s camp, with a late shout for the company slogan, ‘Independence?, Oh yes, that thing’.

    One commentator below the line, stated she looked like an unwashed, itchy, junkie and wondered when she last washed her hair.

    Sadly, I don’t think they were being unfair.

    Sold out.. for a KitKat.

    Wha wid be a ("Tractor" - Ed)s knave? If only the SNP MP’s had such high standards.

  66. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis says: at 9:16 pm

    Unsurprisingly, I think my views tend to represent those of the majority

    Aye, but as has been pointed out to you previously, that “majority” you want to protect so much continues to be jist a minority in terms of numbers wanting to return Scotland to self-governing status, see the problem there.

    John Main says: at 9:24 pm

    It’s a truism that “the yoof” rebel against the prevailing orthodoxy.

    I’ve drawn the dots for you, see if you can join them.

    Hmm, are they lsd microdots you’ve been playing with again John. It’s jist that yer truism kinda falls apart with the way those youngsters voted in the EU membership referendum.

  67. crazycat
    Ignored
    says:

    Well Off-Topic, but I hope a few people will see it.

    Yes East Ayrshire’s hub/shop in Kilmarnock will be closing at the end of the month. We will be having a closing down sale tomorrow and Sunday 10-4 (with the possibility of opening by arrangement at other times during the following week, or the next weekend if there’s still stuff to shift).

    It’s at 31C Titchfield Street, Kilmarnock, KA1 1QW. That’s a couple of doors down from the MP’s office, and a block or two up from the Galleon Centre. If you want to contact us about weekday opening, we are at yeseastayrshire[at]gmail[dot]com and on twitter, facebook, and LinkedIn.

  68. Shug
    Ignored
    says:

    Is there any likelihood that snp MPs or MSPs might pressure sturgeon into acting or do something anything

    If blackford says again” Scotland won’t put up with this” I will scream

    One can only assume the security services have the top office in their grip

    If the Tories need real talent to crash the economy it took real talent to take the snp from 120k members to 60k. Yep that took talent

  69. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dan 10:32

    How did “the yoof” vote in the EU referendum then?

    The overwhelming orthodoxy was that we should vote to stay – is that how they voted?

    Alf Baird reckons an inability to break free from the dead hand of external control is dead cert evidence of colonisation. Are you saying it’s only some of us older Scots who have the smarts to work this out?

    If so, not looking good for Scotland’s future.

    But to be fair. If the next generation of Scots don’t want Indy, as in they don’t want control from Edinburgh, and they do want control from Brussels, then at least they are capable of logical thinking.

    Cos that’s a fundamental fact that seems to elude many on here, including yourself. There are no independent nations in the EU.

    Independence, or EU membership. Think it through and pick one, Dan.

  70. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    If Andy’s views represented those of the majority, well, we really would be in trouble.

    The evidence suggests his views are not popular though.

    So far in here his majority views have been well received by a whole two people, Chas and John Main… that doesn’t bode well for one so concerned about the impression given to voters, etc.

    Personally I think he’d be more at home with the SNP’s NATO cheerleader, Stewart McDonald, than say Alba’s Sheridan.

    The protests in France and elsewhere today suggest there are alternative approaches to politics available to us and should give us all hope — more hope than is offered by sitting on the sidelines moaning and pointing to Nicola’s obvious flaws, without advocating for anything that resembles a solution.

  71. Rab Davis
    Ignored
    says:

    Crazycat 10.43pm

    Sorry to hear your Yes Hub is closing.

    Is that due to lack of local Interest?

    If it is, it is surely another sign of the impact (or lack of it) Sturgeon is having on the Yes movement Scotland wide.

    Everything about Sturgeon is designed to suppress interest in the YES Movement and any independence campaign.

    She is one detestable spiteful bitch.

  72. Iain More
    Ignored
    says:

    Every time I see Blackford or Sturgeon on the English goggle box I switch off. English MI6 plants the two of them.

  73. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    John Main says:
    21 October, at 11:46 pm

    How did “the yoof” vote in the EU referendum then?

    The overwhelming orthodoxy was that we should vote to stay – is that how they voted?

    You were saying it’s a truism that the yoof rebel against the prevailing orthodoxy, and that the overwhelming orthodoxy on the question of EU membership was to stay, so…

    https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=How+did+young+folk+vote+in+EU+Referendum

  74. Rab Davis
    Ignored
    says:

    There are hundreds of thousands of very experienced Indy campaigners sitting in their homes doing absolutely nothing to further the cause of Scottish Independence.

    All because of one short arsed twisted bitch called Nicola Sturgeon.

    How has this poison Dwarf built up so much power?

    All we are waiting on is one change in direction, from the mindset of being happy with Devolution, to a mindset of all out war against the English state, who is not for giving up its Northern Territory easily.

    It is going to take someone with fire in their belly to lead the Indy charge,,,and take no more shit from the English establishment.

    That person will awaken the massive slumbering YES Movement.

  75. PacMan
    Ignored
    says:

    The only way that Labour can be electable in Westminster is if Tories get to the point where they are utterly un-electable. By the way things are going, that will be happening in the next two years.

    When this happens, what will happen to the SNP support? It is fair to say that the recent electoral success of the SNP has been done to ex-Labour supporters. If so, if Labour looks electable in Westminster, it is also fair to say that they will ditch the SNP in the hope of a Labour Westminster victory.

    Could by the SNP ambition with the support for the Union is due to holding onto these ex-Labour voters and desire to have a General election now is to get another term in Westminster before the hypothetical disintegration of voters that I had previously mentioned?

  76. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dan 10.32 pm

    Aye, but as has been pointed out to you previously, that “majority” you want to protect so much continues to be jist a minority in terms of numbers wanting to return Scotland to self-governing status, see the problem there.

    The problem isn’t the current Yes/No split it relates to the broader issues under discussion. Whether it’s EU membership, NATO membership or monarchy versus republic, my views ARE those of the majority. Even on franchise restriction, where I don’t think there’s any specific polling on the topic, I’m convinced there’s no popular majority for excluding random % of New Scots, and there CERTAINLY isn’t any agreement for it in the independence parties. The same goes for the response to Russian aggression against country 404. If you’ve got polling evidence showing the contrary, then fill your boots….we’ll wait….

    The current polls seem to indicate that pro and anti independence sides are pretty evenly balanced, certainly within the usual polling margin of error of 3%. The extremist fringe in here banging on about their hobby horse issues, fluffing conspiracy theories and war criminals and woo-woo a-scientific anti vaxxerism on the worlds most read and popular pro independence site isn’t helping convince floating voters, or indeed encouraging those already within the fold to stay if they think the movement will deliver a society directed by moonhowlers.

  77. Alf Baird
    Ignored
    says:

    James Che @ 4:48 pm

    “A few theories.”

    Yes, theory explains what we see in practice, and postcolonial theory tells us all we need to know about how a national party behaves to delay and block independence during the decolonization process.

    As Frantz Fanon said: “inside the dominant National Party the will to break colonialism is linked with another quite different will: that of coming to a friendly agreement with it.”

    https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2021/07/18/determinants-of-independence-colonialism/

  78. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis says: at 9:10 am

    Even on franchise restriction, where I don’t think there’s any specific polling on the topic, I’m convinced there’s no popular majority for excluding random % of New Scots, and there CERTAINLY isn’t any agreement for it in the independence parties.

    Are you convinced a majority of Scots would agree with you if they were asked: “Should temporary residents in Scotland such as transient workers and students be eligible to vote in Scotland’s long term future status?”

    I previously floated the idea that Stu could poll Scots on their views regarding who should be eligible to vote on Scotland’s long term constitutional future.
    You said tightening up the voting register is a no brainer, so in what way should it be tightened up as that is altering the franchise.
    Would you fall in line with the majority views on that subject once they were established?

    Many of the subjects that are banded about and used to divide folk through perpetual bickering, like the questions of the monarchy, Scotland’s future relationship with rest of Europe, NATO, etc, are really for Scots to determine after returning to self-governing status when a proper truly Scottish discussion can be had about them, and not now whilst we are in no position to do much about those choices, and whilst they are tainted by the very significant external influences of those that control the narrative through broadcasting and media ownership.
    You regularly mention Catalonia and highlight that Scotland doesn’t have the La Diada sort of thing going on. There will be many factors for that, but a stand out one is that Catalonia has its own public broadcasting channel.

  79. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Hatuey

    The evidence suggests his views are not popular though.

    OK, let’s see your evidence. This is WoS: you have a fine example over years of Rev Stu marshalling evidence and fisking the cliams of unionists and British nationalists.

    The fact that a handful of contrarians in here agree with you on some issues proves precisely nothing. We’re talking about how these issues and policies play out amongst the Scottish electorate as a whole, the independence movement more narrowly, and amongst swing voters we need to convince to change from No to Yes.

    The fact that James Che is monomaniacally obsessed with the Treaties of Union and uses an intellectual splatter gun to spam this place with her pearls of wisdom doesn’t mean her views are popular, still less that they have any intellectual or academic weight. Similarly with those pushing conspiracy theory based stances on vaccination, Vlad’s aggression and war crimes or restricting the franchise.

    Even someone with your obviously limited horizons can’t honestly be expecting us to accept that the views of a handful of moonhowlers is at all representative? We know there’s an overwhelming – and growing – majority in support of EU membership for example. There zero evidence of any desire by the majority to be neutral and not join NATO: if there was the opponents and folks who view the USA and NATO as the “Great Satan” would be shouting it from the rooftops.

    So…again…show us the money.

    Personally I think he’d be more at home with the SNP’s NATO cheerleader, Stewart McDonald, than say Alba’s Sheridan.

    I’m certainly closer to the the mainstream on issues like NATO and the EU, but I’ve got little else in common with SNP loyalists. You’re going to have to up your game a bit if you’re insisting there is only one true path to independence Hatuey.

    Most folk will have a a range of views on different subjects: we’re not all obliged to agree on every topic. On lots of issues I’m probably closer to Sheridan’s views than those of McDonald and others, but I’m certainly not as far left as Sheridan or the SSP kind of platform some would like to see. It is worth remembering the % of votes the far left gets in Holyrood elections though.

    I disagree with Alba on NATO membership, just as some people in the SNP disagree with their party’s stance on NATO and the EU. I agree with Alba not the SNP on GRA reform and self ID. I agree with Alex Salmond that franchise restriction is a bad idea.

    It’s not easy to see an ill-intentioned actor like you clumsily trying to other people who have the temerity to disagree with their woo-woo views as Sturgeonites, closet yoons or tractors*.

    The protests in France and elsewhere today suggest there are alternative approaches to politics available to us and should give us all hope — more hope than is offered by sitting on the sidelines moaning and pointing to Nicola’s obvious flaws, without advocating for anything that resembles a solution.

    When has the UK or Scotland ever looked to the French example? I know a fair few folks are predicting civil disobedience and barricades on the streets, but a lot of the rest of us have our doubts.

    However hard it may be to accept, the likelihood is that most folk will wait it out hoping for some external intervention to bring about early elections (whether Tory party internal politics or the markets making it known the Tories time is up), or they’ll wait for the next scheduled elections.

    Extra parliamentary routes are possible of course: they always have been. Whether the predictions of some that they are imminent, and what form they take, remains to be seen.

  80. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Mia answers a few questions, I particularly like this one, that a certain commentor in here harps on about.

    “—“An indyref usually uses different franchises to internal referendums held by already independent countries”

    Possibly because, quite deliberately, in occupied countries there is not a system of citizenship in place that allows for that. The Falklands and Gibraltar have that system though. If they can, which are substantially smaller than Scotland both in geographical size and population, and did not enter the UK after an international treaty like Scotland did, surely Scotland can have that system too. The only thing you need is the will to do it. Clearly Sturgeon never had that will.”

    https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2022/10/22/mia-answers-some-challenges/

  81. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    And this one is well…so very true.

    “You should be able to exit a treaty in the same way you entered it. International law recognises the three: changes of circumstances, violation of fundamental conditions of the treaty and lack of good faith from a partner in the treaty as perfectly valid reasons to unilaterally terminate the treaty. We have experienced the three. Scotland does not need a referendum to exit this treaty in the same way it did not need one to enter it. The only thing we need is a majority of anti-union MPs WILLING to use their mandate to terminate the union. Clearly the overwhelming majority of those we elect in 2019 are not willing.”

  82. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Andy Ellis 9:52

    A comprehensive summary of where we are now IMO.

    I trust your typing skills are good. You are going to have to post text much like that, over and over, in the months to come!

    This is Scotland, national characteristics small ‘c’ conservatism, thrift, endurance, thrawnness, and an almost pathological need to avoid being seen as not one of the herd.

    Very hard to man a barricade with these building materials.

    But, given the right leadership, possible to build a democratic political movement. We did it before (SLab), we could do it again.

    So, step 1, find that leadership. IMO, it has to be somebody new. All the familiar names are tainted by past failures.

  83. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    This happens unfortunately to most organisations. Instead of serving the people who elected them for a specific purpose, they have become self serving.

    It’s a pity the SNP have become so bereft of ambitions of Independence but that’s how it is.

    It is good to try and improve society as a whole but that’s not why most people vote for them. What should be their prime goal has become nothing more than an election time catchphrase, to be used and then dumped due to “circumstances”.

  84. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Republic 10:29

    Seems a bit harsh to expect elected politicians to act on their mandate for Indy when they routinely (and predictably) fail to act on their mandates for everything else.

    Just think how much simpler this would be if we (the voters) had consistently punished lying politicians and parties in the past.

    But naw, tribalism always trumped anger over broken manifesto promises.

  85. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    During the last GE, (or perhaps HE, they are beginning to blur) the tory party in Scotland put a large picture of Nikla on their campaign billboards outside all the polling stations.

    Not only was this a breach of the law in terms of campaign material at polling stations, (should only be the name of the party/emblem and candidate name)… but it was a fundamental strategic error in terms of campaigning, and is known to backfire all the way.

    Psychologically, people see the face and the name, remember them and vote for that person.

    Not to put too fine a point on it, no matter how ironic and cutting you think your message is about a politician – you never put their picture and name on your literature. Never.

    Given the experience the Tory Party has, and the resources… and for all their sins, they do know how campaigning works, all the tricks of the trade so to speak, then this ‘error’ was inexplicable.

    Today, the National newspaper, has a picture of Boris on the front cover.

    It is possibly the only picture on earth where Boris has his hair combed, his shirt pressed, his suit buttoned up and looking smart, and it has him standing outside No 10, looking nothing short of presidential.

    Any minute now, SNP loyalists will come out with the tired old phrase… ‘best recruiting sergeant Indy every had’… and all talk from our SNP leadership will be of a GE.

  86. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://archive.ph/K8aFn

    It was not just the EU, but the UN, G7 and NATO that made an independent Scotland attractive to Yes voters. According to the poll,26% of current Yes voters would oppose independence if it meant Scotland losing its presence in these international bodies.
    Nicola Sturgeon has committed to re-joining NATO if Scotland becomes independent.

    I find it pretty strange that independence supports would vote NO if it meant not being in either the UN, G7 and NATO.

    I wonder if the 26% are hard core Nicola Cultists. Nicola says NATO membership so we say NATO membership.

  87. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    Nicola Sturgeon has committed to re-joining NATO if Scotland becomes independent.

    What Nicola needs to say is when we are independent we can make decisions about Nato, the EU, the UN G7 and all the rest.

    It will be up to the Scottish electorate and only the Scottish electorate to decide and that is the beauty of independence.

    You want Scotland to be a member of NATO then vote for a party that supports NATO membership.

  88. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m confused, Andy.

    On one hand you talk about changing public opinion in order to galvanise support for independence, whilst on the other, when it suits you, you define public opinion in static immovable and god-like terms.

    But if public opinion can be changed on independence, it can be changed on other things too. That’s axiomatic.

    I think most people accept that the level of support for independence is suppressed by MSM bias. Project Fear was new to us in 2014 but today it’s institutionalised, constant, and ongoing. With more honest reporting, it isn’t unreasonable to assume it would probably settle above 65%.

    So what else is subject to blatant MSM bias?

    Starting with the obvious, the ongoing war for one, discussion on the vaccine safety and efficacy, the failure of the underlying economic system (which hasn’t functioned properly without massive state interventions for about 15 years), Brexit, the role of the monarchy, and a bunch of other things like the debate on transgenderism, anything involving Israel, etc.

    There’s nothing like honest debate on any of those things and that means public opinion is skewed. So, what do we do?

    Do we surrender and rigidly tailor our political views to bring them into line with public opinion when we all know public opinion has essentially been shaped — at the very least contorted — by the self-serving sociopathic crackpots that have editorial control over the MSM?

    Do we commit to waiting at the bus stop for 10 years in the hope that public opinion will miraculously change? And while we wait, do we stand abusing and belittling others who are trying to challenge MSM-induced orthodoxies?

    Or do we do what conscientious people have always done in situations like this; resist, organise, challenge the diktats, try and look at things honestly, try and change things for the better?

    There are maybe one or two exceptions to the rule, but when you find yourself toasting an organisation like NATO and celebrating war, you’re probably going to find yourself on the wrong side of history.

    Public opinion in Nazi Germany was firmly behind Hitler until about 1943, when they stopped measuring it. Is that an argument for fascism?

  89. Stuart MacKay
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis

    >Oh FFS…you “know” but you’re still just going to limbo right
    >under that bar huh?

    Nobody is free of bias and everyone has an agenda. That’s been written in mile high letters for the past few years so it’s impossible to be objective. The best one can hope for is compare opposites and dig around for nuggets of reality somewhere in the middle.

    For extra halo points: I try to be upfront on where I am coming from. If I get info from somewhere I like to state the source so people can make their own judgement.

    Lets take a look at that site:

    https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/wings-over-scotland/

    “Overall, we rate Wings Over Scotland Left-Center Biased and Questionable based on the promotion of conspiracy theories, poor sourcing, a failed fact check, and the use of hate speech.”

    And yet here you are.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Bias/Fact_Check

    Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC) is an American website founded in 2015 by editor Dave M. Van Zandt. It uses a 0–10 scale to rate sites on two areas: bias and factual accuracy. It has been criticised for its methodology and accuracy.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_E._Van_Zandt

  90. Fran
    Ignored
    says:

    She doesn’t see the irony in her comments. The hopeless UK governments but as leader of the largest indy party she can’t make any headway against them. St Nic is wasting our time and energies

  91. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @RoS 10.22 pm

    Possibly because, quite deliberately, in occupied countries there is not a system of citizenship in place that allows for that. The Falklands and Gibraltar have that system though.

    A simple category error on you part. No matter how many times this is explained to hard of thinking nativists, they just don’t get it. It’s like explaining “small….and far away” to Father Dougal FFS!

    Scotland is not an occupied country or a colony however hard the proponents of the colonialism snake oil tout it. Only the nutter fringe believe this. The UN does not accept Scotland as a non-self governing territory. It DOES accept that Gibraltar and the Falklands are non-self governing territories.

    However hard you, Mia and “Scott” try to insist Scotland is the same as Gibraltar, The Falkland Islands or New Caledonia it just isn’t true.

    As a result, the comparison is false. The CORRECT comparison is with other countries which have held self determination referendums, which have all used residence rather than ethnicity, blood line or citizenship criteria. Of those that have applied a qualifying period of residence, most have used 24 months.

    These are the facts. Nativists might not like them, but they can’t change them.

    RoS @ 10.29 am

    The only thing we need is a majority of anti-union MPs WILLING to use their mandate to terminate the union. Clearly the overwhelming majority of those we elect in 2019 are not willing.

    That’s an assertion, not a fact. The accepted hurdle for achieving independence is demonstrating that a majority of Scots voters support it. The number of MPs supporting it is immaterial, because as we saw in 2015 it was possible to gain 56 of 59 MPs on 49.97% of the vote.

    To be accepted by the international community and Scottish and British unionists the movement needs to demonstrate a clear majority in favour, in response to a clear question from parties or a movement which has asked for a clear mandate for independence in a referendum or plebiscitary elections.

    Cunning plans for indy will only be countenanced in the event of the British nationalists being seen to act in bad faith, and/or using repression or violence to stop the exercise of self determination.

  92. Robert Hughes
    Ignored
    says:

    ” Nicola Sturgeon has committed to re-joining NATO if Scotland becomes independent. ”

    We needn’t waste a second on that proposition – Scotland will never become Independent under Sturgeon .

    ” It was not just the EU, but the UN, G7 and NATO that made an independent Scotland attractive to Yes voters.”

    Why not go the whole hog and join WEF – get the Schwabster , Wee Willie Gates n aw the Philanthrocrats , Free World Hookers n Jaggers ( except Mick ) War Gurus n Mil Ind Comp Profit Prophets to show us how to run a * real * Independent country ?

  93. Scott
    Ignored
    says:

    “Cunning plans for indy will only be countenanced in the event of the British nationalists being seen to act in bad faith, and/or using repression or violence to stop the exercise of self determination.” – Ellis

    Does refusing to countenance another referendum count as bad faith or repression?

  94. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m voting NO if Sturgeon doesn’t commit to iScotland joining the CND, PPU & Leaders for World Peace.

    Actually that’s not true. I would vote NO if I thought Sturgeon would have any power in iScotland.

    As someone said on Twitter ‘I’m voting YES to get rid of the SNP.

  95. stuart mctavish
    Ignored
    says:

    Stuart MacKay @11:36

    I care even less since I was told a story of Edinburgh’s pubs being full of men painting their nails because the girls didnt think they were hard enough or something but it seemed fairly obvious to this non paying consumer that that description is based on btl rather than abl (which is always sourced and nearly always obvious when being serious, satirical or exasperated by the out and out dishonesty)..

    Accordingly I did what any sane person would to to verify its credentials and checked what it had to say about SMSM.

    The acronym ROFLMAO springs to mind.

  96. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    Ruby says:
    22 October, 2022 at 12:06 pm

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708106

    Excellent question Scott.

    Ooops sorry I want to take that back.

    All these questions are all being to look like

    ‘Ask the professors’ The two professors being Andy Ellis & John Main 🙂

  97. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708110

    Edit

    All these questions are beginning to look like ‘Ask the professors!’ or maybe it’s an interview with mega stars.

    I can’t figure out who is at fault here re all these questions. Well I can but I’m being good today!

  98. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    So that’s another piece in the jigsaw of where gas comes from and where it goes, this time for Bacton Shell and Seal Terminals.

    https://mip-prd-web.azurewebsites.net/InstantaneousView

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacton_Gas_Terminal

  99. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Hatuey

    I’m confused, Andy.

    On one hand you talk about changing public opinion in order to galvanise support for independence, whilst on the other, when it suits you, you define public opinion in static immovable and god-like terms.

    But if public opinion can be changed on independence, it can be changed on other things too. That’s axiomatic.

    Yes, your posts are often confused. We’re trying our best to set you right, but sometimes people are just beyond help. Still, it’s worth pointing out where they are wrong (or just trolling for the bantz) “pour encourager les autres” who might be less confused.

    I already said that it was possible for people to change, and that this had been shown in previous polls one of which was referenced by Rev Stu a while ago. An opinion poll is a snap shot of peoples views at the time they are asked. The poll discussed asked if people had changed their views on independence and showed that indeed a reasonable % of folk (I think it may have been as much as 10% but it was a while ago….) had changed from supporting Yes in 2014, to supporting No.

    I remember it surprised me at the time as I’d seen hardly any public evidence of people going from Yes to No. Similarly however, the poll showed quit a lot of former No voters switching to Yes.

    I neither said, nor to I believe, that individual people’s views are fixed and immutable. What we have to go on however is what their views are now. Unless you’re one of those who doesn’t trust any polling, such opinion polls and the results of elections are all we have to go on.

    We can’t continually focus on the the deck being stacked against us (whether the MSM deck, the “Western liberal economic orthodoxy” deck, or the “scientific orthodoxy” deck, as an excuse for the lack of progress in the independence movement. Media bias between 2012-14 didn’t stop us adding >15% to the number of people supporting independence, so what explains the fact it’s been in stasis for much of the last 8 years?

    It’s a huge cop out used by those lacking in imagination. You can insist all you like that e.g. the views of those who think Vlad and his nice bunch of lads are right, and that the folk of country 404 “had it coming”, but that doesn’t mean it’s accepted by more than a handful of cranks, still less that it is objectively true.

    Even this week, we’ve seen evidence of swathes of opinion amongst Tories that BoJo should become Prime Minster. I doubt there are many takers in here that this would be the right thing to do, but we all know lots of frothing brexiteers and those John Major used to refer to as “the bastards” in his own cabinet many moons ago, who think there is a conspiracy to keep him out an that they represent mainstream opinion.

  100. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Hatuey

    There are maybe one or two exceptions to the rule, but when you find yourself toasting an organisation like NATO and celebrating war, you’re probably going to find yourself on the wrong side of history.

    Public opinion in Nazi Germany was firmly behind Hitler until about 1943, when they stopped measuring it. Is that an argument for fascism?

    Unsurprisingly, I don’t think you’re going to get too many takers in Scotland generally, or the independence movement more narrowly, for the view that supporting NATO and opposing Vlad’s war of aggression is being on the wrong side of history.

    I’m not sure comparing the opinion of the majority in modern day Scotland with the majority living in Nazi Germany is the slam dunk rebuttal you think it is. It speaks to the underlying ideological worldview of many of the moonhowlers in here of course, who firmly believe that the USA is, if not the Great Satan, at least as bad as authoritarian regimes like Vlad’s and Xi Jinping’s. It’s hard to argue with such faith based positions of course, as it’s usually accompanied by a flat denial of things which most other people consider to be self evident.

    Many of the arguments over particular issues have been well rehearsed, not least in here. It’s pointless – and over long – to constantly rehash them here. It’s doubtful you’ll ever see a meeting of minds or agreement on diametrically opposed views on things like the current war, or the EU, or NATO membership.

    You and others are of course quit entitled your views on all these things. Some of them are subjective judgement calls: few would deny that the west is lily white or without blame in this or any other issue. Similarly, few would agree with Republic of Scotland that the folk of country 404 “had it coming”.

    However, even you would (I hope?) admit that there are some issues which are binary, where only one side is right. Thus, the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight was either the responsibility of the Donbas separatists / Vlad’s nice bunch of lads, or it was “country 404”. Both of these things can’t be true.

    Incidents like that are in some ways easier to “decide” than a larger multi faceted issue encompassing many strands like: “was the West behind the overthrow of Yunukovich’s regime”, or “”was country 404 in need of denazifaction and demilitarisation” or “is Vlad entitled to a sphere of influence and to dictate whether country 404 joins NATO and/or the EU”.

  101. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Hatuey

    Do we surrender and rigidly tailor our political views to bring them into line with public opinion when we all know public opinion has essentially been shaped — at the very least contorted — by the self-serving sociopathic crackpots that have editorial control over the MSM?

    Who is doing or advocating that? Of course public opinion can change. You can’t think the “sociopathic crackpots that have control over the MSM” are simultaneously all-powerful and yet unable to roll back the % in favour of independence. If they were, wouldn’t we be on less than 45-50% in favour? Of course the MSM can help shape and direct opinion, but it also reflects it.

    However hard you and other wish it were otherwise, the fact that an overwhelming majority believes in something doesn’t mean they are wrong or being manipulated, and it doesn’t mean that those holding a minority view are party to some secret knowledge or information that the public are either not privy to, or too dumb to understand, it’s just that they won’t necessarily agree with the take of the minority on any particular issue.

    I can for example argue with John Main that he’s wrong about the EU, but I suspect it would do no good. He’s convinced being in the EU is a mistake. Similarly, I’ll never convince RoS that Vlad is a sociopathic war criminal and this his views on country 404 are deeply repugnant and reflect only a tiny majority of the movement. Even Craig Murray, whose take on international issues I don’t always agree with, was moved to post recently in his piece on Vlad’s illegal annexations:

    I probably dislike western governments in a deeper and more informed way than they do; it just does not lead me to the ridiculous illogicality of believing that because the west is bad and run by warmongers, rival warmonger P utin and his oligarchs must be better.

  102. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Hatuey

    Do we commit to waiting at the bus stop for 10 years in the hope that public opinion will miraculously change? And while we wait, do we stand abusing and belittling others who are trying to challenge MSM-induced orthodoxies?

    There’s no reason it should take 10 years. I suspect pursuing “cunning plans for indy” will take longer than just bucking down and winning the argument in a referendum or plebiscitary election, but the proponents of non-parliamentary / novel routes to independence appear convinced they can do it faster.

    Maybe they are right. I’ll happily admit my mistake if they deliver. I reckon changing opinion necessitates a campaign. I don’t think we help the cause by pandering to a small claque of magical thinkers, Treaty of Union obsessives, ideological extremists, Vlad fluffers, conspiracy theorists and repetitive cunt-callers who other those who disagree with them as tractors*.

  103. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    If you want to understand NuSNP on the Britain first mantra,

    Read the White Paper, Levelling up Britain.

  104. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @”Scott” 11.50 am

    Does refusing to countenance another referendum count as bad faith or repression?

    Almost certainly bad faith. It could also amount to repression if the British nationalists than tried to stop the use of alternative methods.

    I agree with Sionaidh Douglas-Scott’s piece on the Verfassungsblog I linked to before:

    If the Scottish people have an entitlement to self-determination, and the only way to actualize that is through a referendum, or at least negotiations with the UK Government, then it follows that such negotiation may not be unreasonably withheld. As the SNP brief in this case argued, if there is no way to exercise a right, then it is no right at all: ubi jus ibi remedium.

    HOWEVER, if the UK government continues to reject any negotiation with Scotland, or to countenance any further independence referendum, then, as Ciaran Martin has written, ‘you have to give up the pretence that this is a voluntary union, that Scotland is allowed to leave’. This reduces Scotland to the status of a colony, or a region with no history of independent statehood, which flies in the face of history, and also undermines any claims for the exceptional, voluntary, ‘family’, nature of the UK Union.

    And before the “Scotland as colony” folks get all excited, note the “however” statement in the middle I’ve put in capitals . It’s a process: we have to demonstrate the bad faith on the part of the British nationalists, that we’ve tried the reasonable and precedented route, and now have no other way to exercise our rights.

    The Scottish Government should have course have done this an age ago as Rev Stu and others – including me – have been saying for the past few years. If they had, we’d be a lot closer to independence than we are now.

    Exhibiting bad faith on the part of britnats proves we’re not in a voluntary union and that we don’t have a legal way to exercise the remedy within the union, then we are being denied our rights. In that event, we would be within our rights to claim non-self governing territory status and act as other colonies have done.

    https://verfassungsblog.de/a-second-scottish-independence-referendum-in-the-uk-supreme-court/

  105. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Anyone really interested in independence would be looking more seriously at the Treaty of the Union,

    For that is what ( union ) people do not want you to question, and quickly dismiss the idea from your thoughts.

    It just happens to be the very thing that Westminster is trying to re-new into a more compelling treaty format.

    One wonders why they feel the need to do that?

  106. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    When does a Country and its people have to ask for permission to be free from a voluntary Treaty?

    When perhaps the treaty is Colonised.

  107. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    AHemmm.

    Reading you’re posts from the past year you have been in hot denial that Scotland has been Colonised at all in any way whatsoever.

    While Alf Baird and others were alert to that political position of Scotland,

  108. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    FFS, someone’s been on the blue smarties…

    🙁

  109. Lorna Campbell
    Ignored
    says:

    I don’t think it is incompetence per se. It is precisely as she has always said, at each step. She hasn’t actually lied to us in a straightforward manner: she has implied all along that she will not take us to independence, will do nothing to push for it. It is we – or at least, some of us, who have interpreted her every move as being for independence. The faithful still believe she will take us to independence by nothing at all to advance independence – just read the letters page in The National every day. Full of statements of faith, and faith alone.

    When the Supreme Court says NO, or if it fudges the question, she will blame it and Westminster again, the faithful will scream and shout, the plebiscitary GE will be raised yet again, and gradually, as the clamour dies down, an excuse for dumping that will emerge. The mouthpieces are already creating caveats. All NS has ever done since 2014 is to dangle carrots and withdraw them again.

    It has not been a case of Westminster doing this that or the other, it is, as the Rev says, the determination by NS not to take advantage of any of the opportunities presented. It is determination because no one could be that timid or cautious (and she is rarely timid or cautious in any other context – think GRA Reform). Nah. This has been the game all along: continued and lucrative devolution, troughing for MPs and MSPs, SPADS and other hangers-on without any plan for our future except broad hints that we will all have to suffer even more pain.

    The SNP is a British party now, settled in and cosy. All the spleen is manufactured. All of it is quite deliberate. It will continue till the SNP is voted out of power eventually, as all governments are, unless something dynamic occurs. Soon. Whether she goes now or later, she will waltz off into the sunset and straight into another lucrative sinecure. These b******s always do, leaving the rest of us to our exquisite agonies.

  110. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood.
    And I suspect they have been bulk buying.

  111. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Andy Ellis

    I am on balance opposed to the EU because there is plenty of hard evidence of how it shafts small countries like Greece. There is plenty of hard evidence of how it denies democracy in large countries like Italy.

    That said, if the people of Scotland, having been told accurately and fairly what the pros and cons of EU membership would mean for them, and then having decided we want In, I would have no problem with that.

    I have always had, have now and will continue to have in the future, a reasoned aversion to anybody describing a country that is within the EU as independent. That won’t change.

    Seems to me that anybody lying through their teeth to claim that Scotland can be both independent and in the EU is a malign actor. I can think of no good reasons why anybody would persist with that self-evident, self-contradicting lie.

  112. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Hats

    “when you find yourself … celebrating war”

    Who’s been celebrating war, Hats?

    Name & shame. Let’s out the bastards. Obviously, you will have links to back up your claim.

    Lay out the whole, sorry, shameful story so that we, the under-achievers, can see and understand it for ourselves.

  113. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Lorna Campbell.

    I agree with your comments, But take it one step further,

    Not only is the snp working and settled into a Nu British snp party trying to rule England and Wales as party, but the place they rule the roost from in Scotland is also British Legislated,

    That reduces the chances of self determination for the nation and Country of Scotland under our Claim of Right to a suppressed people with no voice.

  114. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ruby 12:31

    “Ask the professors”

    Does that mean you have abandoned your belief there is only one of us?

    Asking for a doppelgänger.

  115. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Lorna Campbell.

    It has gone under the radar for a long time that Scotland is governed by two British governments. Not one.

  116. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @John Main 2.25 pm

    I’m by no means uncritical of the EU, particularly with respect to its actions during the Greek economic crisis, its inaction during the Spanish suppression of the Catalans, and it’s current pusillanimous approach to the attacks on judicial independence and civil rights in Hungary and Poland.

    However, a lot of the EU’s problems are attributable to the member states hobbling the organisation and preventing more decision making by majority decision making and allowing reactionary actors like Hungary and Poland to veto things, or act contrary to the general interest.

    Many of Greece’s problems were self imposed, but the EU certainly didn’t help. The plain fact is Greece, Spain, Portugal and probably Italy should never have been integrated in to the Eurozone when they were: many warned against it at the time. You were never going to persuade the Germans they should subsidise Greece in the same way the subsidised poorer regions of Germany, which rather gives the lie to the brexiteer / eurosceptic agitprop about the dangers of a superstate.

    As you say, the Scots are overwhelmingly likely to ensure we join, whether eurosceptics like it or not. I’m aware of your argument, echoed by many brexiteers, that EU membership means we’re not truly independent. I think it’s a fallacious argument. The limited surrender of sovereignty involved in EU membership is nothing like the union we are in now: several hundred million folk in the very independent countries in the EU laugh at that argument, and with good reason.

  117. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    I think Scotland may be more inclined to near a split on joining the EU,

    But The British snp party in Scotland trying to gain a foothold across the border might be thinking along the same lines as the Anti brexiteers down south fighting to oust the vote of England and Wales in Westminster.

    This Nusnp are not considering putting the vote to the Scottish people should we gain our independence, but rather takes the dictorial position and undemocratic approach of railroading the Scottish people into their policies of war, trans, and the EU.

  118. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @John Main 12.31 pm

    “Ask the professors”

    Does that mean you have abandoned your belief there is only one of us?

    Asking for a doppelgänger.

    Maybe it’s just a bit early for her benilyn and buckie cocktails, so she’s not seeing double at present? 🙂

  119. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis

    But it’s not guaranteed to be a “limited surrender of sovereignty”. There’s the rub.

    Look at the situation in Italy right now. Italian voters have delivered a mandate for radical change to the Italian government.

    But it’s not going to happen, because fundamentally, the EU says it can’t be allowed.

    Now ask yourself: does Scotland have a cadre of towering intellects and competent managers with their hands on the levers of devolved power, all ready and waiting to take us full throttle to the sunlit uplands of Indy? Does it fuck.

    I can see why the dross infesting ScotGov are so keen to hand all the major and difficult decisions to Brussels. The only reason I can see for ordinary Scots to agree with this is that they share the same assessment of ScotGov’s abysmal abilities.

    Too wee, too incompetent, a view held by the majority of Scots? That’s a crying shame.

  120. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “Scotland is not an occupied country or a colony however hard the proponents of the colonialism snake oil tout it. Only the nutter fringe believe this. The UN does not accept Scotland as a non-self governing territory”

    Ellis.

    The paragraph doesn’t state that Scotland is an occupied country, I take from it that it merely points alternative views on types of votes, besides the one that you often insist much be the route, even though there’s no laws governing that.

    “That’s an assertion, not a fact.”

    Ellis.

    Is it not a fact that we entered into this union in a similar fashion and without the public having no vote on it, and with Scotland being a sovereign nation as it was at the time of joining the union, and still is for that matter. I’d find it very difficult to argue that we cannot leave this union in the same way it came about.

    “To be accepted by the international community and Scottish and British unionists the movement”

    Ellis.

    Assertion, I doubt you know what would be acceptable and what wouldn’t, the international community had no problems and have had no problems with how we entered the union, a majority of MPs is the only thing we need.

    Unfortunately for centuries our MPs have put party and self-interests ahead of Scotland.

  121. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    But it’s not guaranteed to be a “limited surrender of sovereignty”. There’s the rub.

    It’s not fucking Hotel California! 🙂 There’s an off ramp as our friends down south just showed us.

    You’re over estimating the power and will of the EU. If it was so all powerful, it would have slapped down the Hungarians and Poles long since for their anti-democratic stances on judicial independence for example.

    With respect to your point about the depth of the talent puddle in Scotland, and the prospects of rule by the likes of the SNP, isn’t that another argument for having more talented EU technocrats doing it properly on our behalf? 🙂

  122. gregor
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC (22/10/2022): SNP preparing for general election, says Ian Blackford:

    https://archive.ph/QDbTs

  123. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/#comment-2708135

    Oooh oh!

    It’s ‘cunt calling!’

    I wonder which of his two personalities it is today?

    I think I’ll just say ‘hello’ and hang up!

    Nah nah na nah nah!

    I hung up before he could even say ‘moonhowler’!

  124. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Dan re Franklin gas field pipeline down to Norfolk!!!

    I notice its a 20 year contract Total is operating.

    @Gregor re Blackford confirming SNP on GE electorial footing… well that confirms they couldn’t or wouldn’t get in to campaing footing for IndyRef 2 next October… but when it comes to grabbing 5 more years at the Gravy trough, these seat warmers can’t be held back.

    Even that though is probably not enough to convince the church of Nikla followers that she’s sold the jerseys.

    Poor auld Scotia, too stupid right enough.

  125. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    It seems that many Countries are beginning to suffer under EU policies and the financial funding given OR withheld to Countries depending wether or not a Country agree with all EU policies,

    There is a lack of compassion from the EU to individual Countries that are struggling, and the bigger construction of the EU favours the top down method of politics.

    Germany is not doing so well right now, nor is france, Italy, I can see the original EU folding as the smaller Countries want out.

  126. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘fool me once’ goes the slogan, and the Nikla SNP loyalists went, ‘No, that’s not a big enough number, do it again and again and again’.

    Nelson Mandela wrote his book ‘long walk to freedom’

    Nikla’s will be entitled, ‘Moonwalk to becoming the Official Opposition at Westminster’.

    Bought and sold for English £’s – the most pathetic Viche sell outs in the worlds history.

    Still, look on the bright side… carrots in our gruel.

  127. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    The paragraph doesn’t state that Scotland is an occupied country, I take from it that it merely points alternative views on types of votes, besides the one that you often insist much be the route, even though there’s no laws governing that.

    No idea what that word salad even means. Can you say it again in English?

    Is it not a fact that we entered into this union in a similar fashion and without the public having no vote on it, and with Scotland being a sovereign nation as it was at the time of joining the union, and still is for that matter. I’d find it very difficult to argue that we cannot leave this union in the same way it came about.

    It’s a fact, but I’m struggling to see the relevance to our current situation. We can’t just say because parliament 300 years ago voted for the union, our MPs tomorrow can just vote to dissolve the union. Have at it though if you’re so convinced and see how far you get. What you find hard to argue is neither here nor there really. You’re just some guy online, as for that matter am I.

    Actually leaving the union involves a process which will have to be arranged, agreed, put in to operation and accepted not just by Scots, but by the rest of the world…..unless you’re happy to live in the equivalent Northern Cyprus without the sun

    Assertion, I doubt you know what would be acceptable and what wouldn’t, the international community had no problems and have had no problems with how we entered the union, a majority of MPs is the only thing we need.

    Unfortunately for centuries our MPs have put party and self-interests ahead of Scotland.

    Of course I don’t know, it a best guess. You don’t know either. There is no supra national King of the World to impose a solution either, so…..what’s your point caller? That’s right, you don’t have one, because you don’t know what you’re talking about. The international community 300 years ago wasn’t the same.

    The international community today doesn’t really give a flying fuck at a rolling donut about the Treaties of Union, Claim of Right, Declaration of Arbroath. They’ll be more impressed with a majority of Scots having the balls just to vote for it.

    If we keep voting for such feckless MPs is that somebody else’s fault, or our own?

  128. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Daisy

    Aye, and the Elgin field produced its 1 billionth barrel around 2020.

    https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/north-sea/242801/total-celebrates-1-billion-barrels-from-elgin-franklin/

  129. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708131

    John Main says:
    22 October, 2022 at 2:37 pm

    @Ruby 12:31

    “Ask the professors”

    Does that mean you have abandoned your belief there is only one of us?

    Asking for a doppelgänger.

    You talkin’ to me you ‘ignorant racist cunt’?

    I’m saying nothing regarding your multiple personalities that would be cruel & schizophobic.

    I’ve notice a shit load of fuck words appearing in your posts. Have you decided to abandon your pearls and become foul mouthed harridans or should we add tourettes to your list of mental illnesses?

  130. gregor
    Ignored
    says:

    @Daisy Walker

    It’s good to know SNP priorities.

    We can better determine our own future…

  131. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708145

    Oh no! Vichy sellouts!

    Any ‘collaboration horizontale’ involved that merits a very, very short haircut?

    I do like a good sex scandal and there hasn’t really been one since the Perfumo, Keiller, Mandy Rice affair.

    Lord Sewell in his orange bra was getting close but it ended very abruptly.

    It would be great if we could hear more about the ‘crime passionnelle’ invovling a ‘fer a repasser’ & loads of french kissing. Ooh la la!

    I guess money talks or maybe the expression in this case should be ‘money means no talk’

  132. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://www.harrison-drury.com/business-law/dispute-resolution/what-is-an-injunction-and-who-can-use-them/

    I have to go now. I’ll be back to do some research into the history of super-injunctions.

  133. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    The people of Scotland did not have a democratic vote that put NS into office.
    That she falsely claimed that the Snp were head of the independence movement was echoed in the MSM and Westminster corridors.
    And still had that perception until recently when the Snp realised that the independence movement were talking and thinking on a alternative path,

    Up pops the illegal code of Conduct where a political party tries to enforce its views on the whole population and nation of Scots.
    Even if the people are in another political party or non at all,
    like a yellow star principle that would be the ultimate control of the people and thus the grassroots independence movement they had little control of.

    This pattern of dictatorship is long standing, and soon enough she would have us in the economical ghettos under surveillance she could.

    But this top down unelected politicians dictatorship methods can also be noticed with non elected leaders ( by the people ) in the EU,
    Which originally we joined for trade reasons but eventually became all consuming and controlling towards other Countries finances and politics,

    I am not surprised that NS has followed the same template for the Scots,
    Little by little eating away at the rights of a people, of a nation, of a Country. By a small and steady change of laws that at first go unnoticed until the ideology becomes so large you cannot help but notice the snp misled you in the same way we entered the EU,

  134. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “It’s a fact, but I’m struggling to see the relevance to our current situation. We can’t just say because parliament 300 years ago voted for the union, our MPs tomorrow can just vote to dissolve the union. Have at it though if you’re so convinced and see how far you get.”

    Ellis.

    You may struggle with its relevance Ellis, but many folk do not, that’s how we got into the union and that’s how we’ll get out. We can use a majority of MPs votes to leave this union, and there’s not a thing Westminster could do about it, law wise that is.

    “Of course I don’t know, it a best guess.”

    Ellis.

    Well, it isn’t a guess as to how we entered this union, and as we’ve entered that way, I see no reason why we can’t exit it in a similar fashion. Don’t start mumbling on about the international community and Britnats you’ve already stated that you are guessing on that front.

  135. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    No indyref, we should exit the union the way we entered it, it been good enough for Westminster and the international community, for over three-hundred years as to how we entered this union WITHOUT an indyref, it should be good enough for them that we exit it without one.

  136. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy.

    What is a fact is that the Scottish people and nation did not vote to join the treaty of the union all.

    What is a fact is they were not asked in 1707.
    What is fact is that the people of Scotland have never been asked that question.

    The UK parliament site states this in 2022.

  137. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “What is a fact is that the Scottish people and nation did not vote to join the treaty of the union all.”

    James Che.

    That is correct, English spy Daniel Defoe, reported widespread rioting on the streets on entering the union, the people were NOT represented, yet the likes of Ellis is adamant that we must have an indyref to leave the union.

  138. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    … it should be good enough for them

    Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Asking Santa for a magic unicorn that shits money is as realistic.

  139. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “The international community today doesn’t really give a flying fuck at a rolling donut about the Treaties of Union, Claim of Right, Declaration of Arbroath.”

    Elis.

    And you know this because, or are you guessing again Ellis? checking your past form the latter seems more likely, wouldn’t you agree?

  140. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Republicofscotland.

    Here is another quote from the UK Parliament site 2022.

    By agreeing to the Treaty the Scottish Parliament had also voted for its extinction.

    A extinct parliament cannot be in the treaty of Union of parliaments,
    or is that to much logic,
    that only the English parliament is in the Treaty?

  141. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ruby 3:56

    Pace yourself, otherwise you’ll never see last orders.

    Do you have a favourite A&E, or do you prefer the frisson of never knowing where you will regain consciousness of a Sunday morning?

  142. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “By agreeing to the Treaty the Scottish Parliament had also voted for its extinction.”

    Jame Che.

    That’s what they want Scots to think, we are two sovereign nations in a union, a union of which we can leave, and we don’t need Westminster’s consent to do so. It’s not Westminster that’s stopping us from ditching the union, it’s our very own FM.

  143. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Hey Johnny M, talking of folk getting tired an emotional at the end of the nicht, what’s yer (not)truism for this evening? 🙂

    And seeing it’s teatime and some folk may be having chips… Had one of these machines working in the field next to my hoose today. Very impressive display of engineering product at around half a million quid!

    2 min vid of modern tattie lifting machine.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEbSPPz3ErY

    Now tell me the engineers that designed and built this couldn’t run a country better than the current crop (farming pun) of politicians…

  144. Shug
    Ignored
    says:

    I see the apn is now preparing for an election

    I feel a big bus on the horizon with a big sign on it saying??

    Vote SNP to save the UK.

    Vote SNP to save the UK economy.

    Vote SNP to beg permission to ask a Westminster court for permission to ask the people to ask Westminster if we could possibly are some better time in the future

  145. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    Nick Walsh is the new Hugh Dallas, a cheat and an incompetent. There, just had to get that off my chest, ever since Celtic/Hearts’ first clash of this season. OK! As Yous were, back to politics now. 😉 LOL!

  146. Shug
    Ignored
    says:

    You think you could not make up the shit show in Westminster!!!

    The SNP under the Murrels is as bad

  147. Chas
    Ignored
    says:

    To the founder members of the Bonnie Purple Heather Brigade, continually boring the sane amongst us to death, with their constant repetitive drivel.
    Please tell us how we will leave this Union and when?
    Please tell us who will govern an Independent Scotland?
    Please tell us how the majority of the electorate, who currently do not seek Independence, will simply accept the wishes of the minority.

    Mental instability is not pleasant to read or watch.

  148. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Republicofscotland.

    Possibly a few ways of looking at this info from UK parliament site.

    1: That the Scottish parliament has been extinquished by agreeing to the treaty of union agreement and therefore in UK parliament eyes Scotland canceled its own parliament.

    2: IF that is true it cancels the treaty of the union, as there can be no Scottish parliament Representatives sitting in Westminster, from a extinct Scottish parliament.

    3: This again places the old British parliament as solely a English parliament.
    Westminsters view ends the treaty of union.

    4: This also factually implies that although this is how the latter UK parliament presently holds this perception with regards the treaty,
    It confirms that the old English parliament entered into the treaty of Union without ending its session until 1708, as the British parliament on its own.

    However prior to The Scottish parliament in Scotland mythically entering the British treaty, it chose to Close its parliament doors at the end of its 1707 session as a independent Scottish parliament as it had always done with , Sine Die.

  149. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    The non logical boast by the UK parliament site blasts its own foundational existence to smithereans.

    Without a Scottish parliament still in existence there is no treaty of the union,

  150. George Ferguson
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dan 5:31pm
    I agree with you and I add anybody with life experience would do a better job than the politicians. That used to be the case. Now its a degree in whatever and pink hair. And be a young person, progressive, inclusive and do a wee twirl. We handed our welfare and lives over to the politicians and they failed us.

  151. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    Another act of treachery – an SNP NEC member has told Allan Petrie that the SNP and Greens have agreed that their policy is NOT to move on regaining independence UNTIL there is a Labour government in Westminster which will not interfere with the GRA.

    Allan Petrie tweeted this today. [He is an Alba party NEC member.]

    Scottish politics is insane and horrifying. For heavens sake – surely there must be some sane, decent SNP MSPs and MPs to oppose the mad dictatorship that is running, no ruining, our lives?

  152. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Posting this link again, curious for any feedback.

    Why is it relevant?

    Public Health Authority Scotland (dunno if that’s the correct title) has dismissed concerns over spikes in still-births in Scotland and said that revealing any correlation with the mothers’ vaccination status wouldn’t be in the public interest.

    Huh?

    Regardless of what you believe, or how many jags you’ve had, it’s probably fair to say that you don’t want a return to the misery of lockdown, social distancing etc.

    Is there anyone in Scotland who would benefit from a return to that dark landscape?

    Aye, there is, and you know her name.

    If in doubt, check the transcript of her conference address – we can’t say we weren’t warned.

    (Please beware – the final half hour or so of this film is quite disturbing.)

    https://www.therealanthonyfaucimovie.com/viewing/

  153. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    It continues to astound me that those with such a profound dislike of posters here and who make so many disparaging remarks, frequent this site.

    I wonder why they don’t have a site all to themselves – maybe they do and no-one visits and they are lonely.

  154. stuart mctavish
    Ignored
    says:

    @Chas
    The mental instability part of your comment caught my eye as I was thinking about something related to Ruby’s gag order reference so I’d hazard a guess response as follows:

    1. Independence means ending the union, not leaving it

    2. In the apparent absence of centre left, centre, centre right, right or extreme right independence seeking parties it looks a lot like it could be between SNP-A, Greens and Alba (SNP-B) for the foreseeable

    3. 5 stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance so although that answers your last question, the smart move would be to keep that in mind for the things that really matter and not worry too much either way about who’s doing public relations for the magic money distribution network (unless and to extent you have a vested interest)

    Point I was thinking about on the injunctions was that as open to abuse as these things might be, its not at all clear that anyone responding to Sandy Hook, or prosecuting whats become a $2.75 trillion defamation trial, thought to slap a relevant gagging order on Alex Jones AT ANY TIME (far less within the statute of limitations) – with result that lawyers supposedly acting for the families of victims have, for nearly a decade, kept them at (or worse yet repeatedly returned them to) stage 2 of grief (ie being encouraged to project their anger from the killer onto an inquisitive third party), and stage 3 of grief (ie seduced them with promisses of great, irrecoverable, wealth in return for sharing their emotional purgatory and risking yet more defamatory publication).

  155. George Ferguson
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ian Brotherhood 9:03pm
    I have been on Wings before about infant deaths. We had a red flag, when I commented on that, no response and now another red flag recently. Its how we are set up as a National Health Service. When women in Caithness or Moray decide not to have children should tell you a story. No maternity support there. I have done no research on still births. I am thinking the lost of infants is just as important than any vaccine consideration and associated still births. Of course the lost is equally devastating. Many months ago I commented. Nothing happens in Scotland.

  156. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @George Ferguson (9.43) –

    Aye.

    I can’t remember if I read or responded to your remarks but I do remember Radio Scotland doing a report on the ‘spike’ in stillbirths and talk of an inquiry.

    If that ‘inquiry’ has now resulted in ‘nothing to see here’ then they can only get away with that if we let them.

    With all that’s happened with these ‘vaccines’ and the adverse reactions, more and more people are starting to join dots and ask questions about what’s happened in decades past.

    ‘Sudden Infant Death Syndrome’?

    The explosion of autism and all manner of neurological ailments?

    Just the tip of something horrendous, and yet, for whatever reason, it seems impossible to bring these evil characters – like Fauci and Gates – to account.

    When someone of the status of Robert F. Kennedy calls for action and MSM decides to ignore him, we have a choice to make.

  157. William G Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    HOW DID THE SNP END UP IN THIS GROTESQUE CUL-de-SAC?

    **************************************************************

    1. When I joined the SNP in 1974, a mandate for Independence would be obtained when the Party won a majority of the Scottish MPs sent to Westminster. This “Big Bang Theory” was accepted by (almost) everyone, including Margaret Thatcher and, way before her, Winston Churchill. Devolution changed everything in the 1990s when Alex Salmond persuaded most Nationalists (including me) to accept Devolution as a “first step to Independence”. “If only we could show the poor Scottish people that, with limited self-government powers, we could make a go of running things for ourselves, surely the path to full-blooded Independence would be obvious!” This route was to prove an unattainable mirage.

    2. Salmond put far too much faith in Nicola Sturgeon in the old days, thinking he could control her. While he attended to constitutional and economics matters as FM, she was his deputy who had free rein over health, social care and other social matters – a huge remit. He trusted her, which he must bitterly regret now! However, she was not on the same personal agenda which I have discovered in my research. Whether they had a “lavender marriage” or not, the Murrells, Peter and Nicola, had a plan for private power and control in political life. I believe Salmond, who is on record as objecting to the pair being at the top of the Party and Government, stated when he was on his way out as FM. It was too late then and the Murrells just ignored him. He should have done something about it when he was in power, not complained afterwards. A few high-profile people, such as Kenny MacAskill, objected but it was also too late. Since then, Sturgeon has successfully ridden two horses as Leader of the Party, with her husband as a mere apparatchik, and, separately, as First Minister, . She has successfully convinced many people – for example within the MSM – that she has Chinese walls in her brain. No pillow talk between the Murrells, of course!

    3. One crucial thing that Salmond did was introduce a popular referendum of the Scottish electorate as a necessary step to go through to achieve Independence. “Surely after achieving a majority of SNP MSPs at Holyrood (as in 2011 but not repeated since then) and at Westminster (as in 2015 and thereafter), we could win a referendum of the people”. But it was not to be.

    4. This alternative Gradualism (akin to “Steady State Theory” in Physics), plus a a steady Party growth, allowed the SNP to attract: (a) lots of mediocre carpet-baggers who saw a career at Holyrood, one that they couldn’t achieve outside, and (b) lobby and other action groups to latch on to this new rising political movement, not just the usual lefty-liberal types but emerging forces like Feminism, LGBT and others, who seldom saw the pursuit of Independence as their cause, but a suitable “local” vehicle to associate with. These groups returned little to us but Sturgeon (and others) were receptive, new forces within politics to court – and with her particular persona and psyche, she reciprocated.

    4. From 1999 to 2007, SNP MSPs were mostly people with real-life baggage with them. In other words, they had earned a living and inhabited the outside world, free from immersion within the political bubble. Salmond did the right thing in 2007 in assembling a pretty competent government who didn’t make too many mistakes. The message was minority, but competent government. Sturgeon was one of the few who didn’t have much experience after she qualified as a solicitor – and a chequered short career it was too. Our circumstances changes in 2011 when in the Scottish Election we were able to “game the electoral system”, winning 69 seats out of 129 (53% of the total) with only 46% of the vote. (Labour choose the wrong “game” by concentrating on constituencies with no dual nominations to constituency and region.)

    5. We lost the Independence Referendum in 2014 by 55.3% to 44.7%, a huge margin of 10.6%. In my opinion, Salmond was wrong to resign – stupidly he thought he could still control Sturgeon who was “crowned” with his blessing. Big mistake. The MSP 2011 input had produced a cohort who often thought, largely, that they could rule the world but they had little experience of the actual world outside politics. Few had earned a living in trade, business and the professions. The result has been growing governmental incompetence ever since.

    6. Nevertheless, the Government and many MSPs were easy meat for Wokish lobby groups, either due to: their own orientation, being flattered by attention, seeking an easy, cumfy life, or occasionally thinking they were doing good. Also, the Party has been completely corrupted internally, starting in 2017 with the abolition of National Council and the reduction of ordinary member representation and the proliferation of overlapping special interest groups on the NEC. Now NEC controls everything, including direct candidate selection, through the Murrells, Angus Robertson (predictably), Michael Russell (sadly) and several others in the Nicola band of acolytes. Conferences for many years are just Nicola fan-club rallies.

    7. There will be no indyref2 next year and Sturgeon and her coterie will play us for sheepish fools until the Party collapses or they leave at their own choice.

    This is the story of many organisations, not just political parties. A complete change, either internal generated, or forced upon it, will be required to reverse out this nasty cul-de-sac.

  158. George Ferguson
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ian Brotherhood 10:03pm
    It was a spike in the death of new born infants I commented on. So living infants at least, they were living. I have done no research on stillbirths. The evidence I commented on was living infants. Perhaps an Inquiry into living infant deaths and still born deaths is needed. But I put a lot of belief into the Lady Poole Public Inquiry and what a waste of time that was. Set up beautifully by academic inputs. In other words what killed our old people?. Resigned for personal reasons whilst thousands have died. Of course the 250 million that the SG set aside for the Scottish Public Inquiry had nothing to do with it.

  159. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @William G Walker (10.26) –

    Thanks for that.

    Have posted a link to your comment via Twitter.

    Can I ask – what is your take on Swinney?

  160. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Sarah @7.51pm.

    Thanks Sarah, though nothing this SNP government does whilst Sturgeon is at the helm surprises me anymore.

    For everyone else here’s the link.

    https://twitter.com/Allanpetrie91/status/1583741575452295173

  161. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    William G Walker.

    A good over view analyses of events with in the Snp.

  162. Robert Hughes
    Ignored
    says:

    ” Listen ” to these CUNTS like ” Ellis ” , ” Main ” n the laughable – as in HAHAHAHAHA – ” where’s Dave ? ” ..” Chas ” n ask yourselves – ” What are these CUNTS about ? ”

    Do any of them EVER say or propose anything that departs even slightly from the ” mainstream ” fckn mind-numbingly ” orthodox ” view of * Reality ” ? NAW , they don’t .

    They do nothing but spew out utter banal pish you can see vomited-out on the front pages of every pish-stained YOO K MSM tabloid n – so-called ” quality ” broadsheet rag n their TV equivalents .

    Blank the fuckers , ignore them – above all – don’t engage with them .

    This is not a question of ” respecting other people’s ( different ) opinions ” . Any intelligent person does that instinctively .

    These CUNTS are not worthy of that respect . All they ever do is promote the most imbecilic ( ” Vlad’s fluffers ” FFS !! Is that the level yr at ya fckn clown ? ) MSM intelligence-insulting keech , whether it be vis-a-vis Independence ( Ho Ho Ho ! ) or geopolitical * crises * .

    I’m struggling to continue believing Scotland has a chance – not only to become Independent , but to be genuinely better by becoming so : the prognosis is grim , compadres .

    What we don’t need is CUNTS supposedly on * our side * continually telling us what we can n can’t do , what we can n can’t think / imagine – based on THEIR fckn juvenile , * consensual * worldviews

  163. Graf Midgehunter
    Ignored
    says:

    William G. Walker, that was a very interesting comment.

    In particular regarding the attraction of a rising successful party with independence at its heart and the outside parasites who latched themselves on to it.

    AS is a man that I greatly admire and regard as the best politician in Scotland, he was however much too naive in trusting NS and the upcoming cabal, thinking he could control them AND bring Indy in 2014 to Scotland.

    He should never have resigned.

  164. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    Did anyone ask crazycat why Yes East Ayrshire was closing?

    Aren’t we supposed to be opening Yes hubs in anticipation of a referendum rather than closing them down? No laughing at the back, eh…

    I agree most of it is banal, Robert, “very, very” banal at that — the sort of shallow crap churned out by the tabloids and MSM daily — but it’s probably good for people to test their views against that stuff on some level and, as an added bonus, we get to see them crash and burn when reality confounds them (as it just did when Alba came out against NATO).

    What’s increasingly obvious is that there’s no real prospect of independence in the next 10 years if we restrict ourselves to the Section 30 / ballot box route. It’s all rigged and they’ll just keep moving the goalposts if it looks like we are getting anywhere, as they’ve already demonstrated.

    If people are genuinely concerned about a minority of us declaring UDI or anything like that, well, there’s no need; we can conduct an honest referendum once we get the British State’s magnificent men and their lying machines out of the equation.

    The only way forward for Scotland if the people want independence is a mass movement that is so big and undeniable that its gravitational force pulls everything they built to constrain us apart. Nobody is doing more to create that sort of mass movement than the blundering British government.

    Power cuts? In a country that’s drowning in all sorts of energy resources? Give me a fucking break. I beg them to try it.

  165. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Robert Hughes 11.54pm I wholeheartedly agree , he apparently had his own blog which naebody visited ( I wonder why ) so he and his negative tory (show us the money pals) have decided to usurp WOS and claim it as theirs , very enlightening instructions and directions to the assembly from people who will ONLY accept indy under their conditions or they will ACTIVELY work against indy

  166. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s that man Scott Ritter again, but I think it’s worth an hour of your time to listen to him.

    https://bam.news/interviews/scott-ritter-ancien-inspecteur-onu-et-analyste-militaire

    Especially interesting that reading between the lines, the French interviewer suggests Europe’s politicians are not idiots, but have been “obliged” to align themselves with idiocy when it came to economic sanctions with Ruskiland.

    Ritter seems to have a knack for putting what you’re thinking into words.

    The more I learn about BRICS, the more I fear about Europe, UK included, and it’s decades of complacency in the thrall of the USA. It’s not BRICS I fear, it’s the US in particular being confronted with BRICS and the declining hegemony of the dollar.

    Where I disagree with Ritter, or rather have a different philosophy, is that Europe and the EU represents something much greater than an economic community, and actually has a much more progressive philosophy which doesn’t want the US model of massive spending on military. That’s a good thing in my opinion. Ideologically, the US is stuck in the 20th Century, with a dated WW2 mentality..

    I think it’s very true to say Europe might well be having a crisis in confidence, and also true that Europe has been very complacent about it’s reliance on the US and NATO for defence, but there’s an ominous third truth, in that Europe’s crisis is being “contrived” because it’s the US and NATO agitating for war with Russk, and is graphically illustrating that Europe’s reliance upon NATO might be a grave mistake.

    Let me stress, I don’t mean that from a pro-Russ perspective, but rather, Western Europe made a deal to sell it’s soul to the USA post WW2, and now it seems, the USA intends to collect…

    There seems to be a MASSIVE question looming whether the US hegemony on the wane can find a way to live with BRICS on the rise, because unless some kind of equilibrium is reached, Western Europe and the EU seems doomed to be piggy in the middle, and ominously, with a much larger reliance on BRICS nations while BRICS nations have no reliance upon us.

    I want the EU to survive this crisis, because for over 70 years, peace has reigned throughout most of Europe, and that created an atmosphere where Nations felt happy and comfortable NOT to cripple themselves with military spending. Now the Militarists in the US and Russ are trying to make that look like an error of judgement and lack of preparedness, but Europe needs to stay strong and defend it’s effective rejection of militarism.

    Europe is not perfect by a long shot, but the aspiration to live in peace and trade with your neighbours is a far, far, brighter picture than anything I see in other parts of the world. Please Europe, do not slide back into the swamp of humanity’s appetite for destruction.

    I would rather Europe be known for the number of tanks and missiles it DOESN’T have, rather than those that it does. Of all places, Europe should know what that leads to.

  167. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dorothy Devine 9.31 am

    It continues to astound me that those with such a profound dislike of posters here and who make so many disparaging remarks, frequent this site.

    I wonder why they don’t have a site all to themselves – maybe they do and no-one visits and they are lonely.

    It continues to astound me that some those in here are so tolerant of others who continually cunt call other poster, who blame the victims, and clutch their pearls and have an attack of the vapours when anyone dares to disagree with their idee fixe or try to suggest that they don’t need to spam the place with interminable ill-thought out drivel about 300 year old treaties or outlandish conspiracy theories that enjoy negligible popular support?

    Odd that you’ve got nothing to say about low lives like Ruby, Robert Hughes and others, although like Ruby I see you’re up for being site prefect and deciding who should and shouldn’t be listened to, or cast aspersions about others yourself.

    Oddly, I’ve rarely seen you contribute anything of value to the below the line discussions or have any original thoughts of your own.

    Why is it OK for you and those you agree with come on here, but not those you disagree with or don’t approve of?

    Is it because you’re just not very confident of your own abilities to make any worthwhile contribution?

  168. McDuff
    Ignored
    says:

    William G Walker
    Excellent article.

  169. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @twathater 2.49 am

    @ Robert Hughes 11.54pm I wholeheartedly agree , he apparently had his own blog which naebody visited ( I wonder why ) so he and his negative tory (show us the money pals) have decided to usurp WOS and claim it as theirs , very enlightening instructions and directions to the assembly from people who will ONLY accept indy under their conditions or they will ACTIVELY work against indy.

    I see you and the moonhowlers are still banging on about a wordpress site I haven’t done anything with for years? you all seem a bit obsessed with it after the creepy as fuck stalker “Scott” kept going on and on about it. It’s pretty telling that I can live inside your heads so easily. Is it because they are otherwise pretty empty of ideas of their own?

    Why have John Main, or Chas or me got less right to post here than pieces of work like Ruby, “Scott”, Robert Hughes or the barely literate James Che? “Othering” those who disagree with you as Tories, tractors* and not real independence supporters is all you lot really have, because in general you lack the wit to actually engage with the arguments being made. Even those (relatively few) that try invariably end up descending in to common abuse and othering.

    Luckily for us and the movement, you and the handful of others polluting BTL comments here represent only the nutter fringe. It seems odd that y’all are so triggered by a few people on here daring to call you out on your extremism and conspiracy theorising, when it is your worldviews and policy platforms which have negligible support in the movement as a whole, still less amongst Scottish voters generally.

    You keep being asked for evidence to support your contention that your views have any support, but answer comes there nane. One might almost think it’s because you’re all talking to yourselves in yer wee cappuccino commie bubbles: the modern equivalent of the SSP/RISE and about as relevant to achieving indy. Carry on. Hardly anybody is listening to you, but it’s still fun to point and laugh at your inanities and show the bulk of the movement that the loonies haven’t quite managed to take over the asylum yet.

  170. Rab Davis
    Ignored
    says:

    That fat useless fuckin wanker Blackford screaming for ANOTHER General Election.

    Message to Blackford and Co.

    “Fuck England,,,Fuck the Tory Party,,,start fighting for Scottish independence”

    And the members of the SNP cult shouting in the background “Independence here we come “.

    What is is going to take to wake this shower up?

    They are as culpable as Sturgeon for the shit hole we are in.

  171. Rab Davis
    Ignored
    says:

    Talking about wankers,,,

    Andy Ellis, Fuck Off!!!

  172. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/#comment-2708199

    oh-oh! ‘Cunt calling Dorothy!
    Hang up Dorothy!

    Best wishes from one site prefect to another.

    Keep up the good work Dorothy!

    Bon Dimanche!

    I’m off to do some chores and then I will listen to what Scott Ritter has to say.

    Thanks for the link Breeks!

  173. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    Rab Davis says:
    23 October, 2022 at 9:11 am

    What is is going to take to wake this shower up?

    An exorcist?

  174. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Hats 1:06 am

    Widespread power cuts across Scotland last winter.

    Did you forget, or are you just uninterested in anything beyond Edinburgh?

    Anyways, I have forgotten all about the resulting mass protests. Maybes they never happened.

  175. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks

    I would rather Europe be known for the number of tanks and missiles it DOESN’T have, rather than those that it does. Of all places, Europe should know what that leads to.

    If Europe wants to be a “third pole” independent in security terms from either the USA or Russia, China, BRICS or any other group though, it can’t be demilitarised though Breeks. It would only be a matter of how strong their collective armed forces would have to be, wouldn’t it?

    Unless you’re actually advocating that we have no or negligible armed forces. The reason advanced, progressive, social democratic countries like Sweden and Finland had relatively high defence expenditures was because they saw it as in their national interest to do so, and they needed to at least be able to give ANY opponent who was trying to invade them a bloody nose.

    The whole history of post WW2 security policy is that the Europeans were happy to rely on the US security guarantee – and free ride on US security spending so they could spend less on their own defence, often to the extent that they were laughably under equipped – because it suited them politically to do so.

    I’m sure lots of Europeans would be attracted to a European based security organisation, but many others would hate the idea. If if you have a majority for it, will they support the level of defence expenditure necessary to ensure Europe could defend itself and deter any invader, or other group subjecting it to nuclear blackmail if we had no nuclear weapons?

    There are lots of “possible futures” of course, but given the current war and the decision of Sweden and Finland to abandon their neutrality to JOIN NATO, the prospects of an independent European defence identity are further away than ever. We might see the European pillar of NATO becoming more co-ordinated, or some defence and security role for the EU, either in partnership with NATO or as a stand alone group for defence co-operation, procurement and rationalisation.

    The idea that you and some others appear to have that you can convince the general public that we can wash our hands of involvement with the USA, or should cosy up to some of the deeply regressive and authoritarian / totalitarian regimes in BRICS is for the birds.

  176. Rab Davis
    Ignored
    says:

    Ruby, 9.27am

    I am convinced every member of the modern day NuSNP is a clone of Cosy feet Wishart.

  177. Rab Davis
    Ignored
    says:

    The Ellis/Main tag-team are on early shift this morning.

  178. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    Interesting isn’t it….all we ever hear from the likes of Ruby, Dorothy, Rab Davis, twathater et al as evidenced in the posts above is inchoate screeching and hysterical attempts to silence me, John Main, Chas and tell us to fuck off or call us cunts. It seems more important to them than any issues, or engaging positively on any of them. It’s almost as though they maybe just don’t ahve any original thoughts of their own, eh?

    I thought we were supposed to be putting all this playground shit behind us?

    It’s not really hard to see who is responsible for the tone and quantity of that is it alert readers?

  179. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks 5:53

    Your entire spiel can be cancelled by pondering the fates of those prosperous groups, countries, nations and cultures that have no tanks, missiles, aircraft or guns. Over and over again throughout history.

    As for your assertion that the EU guaranteed peace in Europe, you obviously need to expel the former Yugoslavia from the European land mass.

    Rational, factual folk are unable to perform that level of cognitive gymnastics.

    Soz, Breeks.

    30 seconds of internet research details that the PRC has near 3 million personnel in active military and paramilitary roles. What’s that all about, eh? Are they concerned about being invaded by one of the assorted Satans?

  180. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    The Ellis/Main tag-team are on early shift this morning.

    Ask yourselves if most folk would prefer the Ellis/Main output or the Ruby/Rab Davis output, and which reflects best on the movement. Wall to wall expletives, most of their output attacking other posters and accusing them of being tractors*, and the usual “Sturgeon is the anti-christ” bullshit nobody really cares about any more.

    Same old, same old.

  181. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @George Ferguson 10:32

    Is that figure of 250 million for the Public Inquiry correct?

    Wondering if it’s a typo 🙂

  182. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    Morning Ruby. Because I have a list of those I pass by – growing by the day- I had to scroll back to find that one contributor assumed I was commenting on him. If the glove fits as they say.

    Bon Dimanche a vous aussi!

  183. Willie
    Ignored
    says:

    Just reading this morning that US General Petraeus is now saying that aside of NATO, the US and selected allies, could go head to head with Russia engaging in warfare greater than just sinking the Russian Black Sea fleet and commited troops.

    Big balls all round – it’s clear where we are all headed.

  184. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    Anybody who is interested in military spending as a percentage of GDP can do their own 30 seconds of online research. Latest figures I can find are good to 2021.

    Look away now if you don’t want to know the winner: it’s Saudi Arabia.

    Keep looking away if you don’t want to know if the Russtis beat Republic’s Great Satan: they sure do.

    Hot damn, fucking facts eh?

  185. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Another great reason (one of many) to ditch this onesided rancid union, this (below) doesn’t take into account further rises from April. Scotland produces more energy than it needs, the surplus is sent to England and we get no payment for it. It’s pretty obvious the SNP are not going to take us to independence, they have their own agenda which doesn’t include an indy Scotland.

    We MUST vote for the Alba party, and at the very least take back some sort of control of our energy and reduce energy bills for Scots.

    https://twitter.com/IndigoFast/status/1583946084572725248?cxt=HHwWgICgpcykp_srAAAA

    “SCOTTISH people’s energy bills are set to rise significantly in order to fund the construction of new nuclear power plants in England, the Sunday National can reveal.

    The increase in bills will be a direct consequence of the UK Government’s decision to use a Regulated Asset Base (RAB) funding model in their plans to license up to eight new nuclear plants south of the Border by 2030.

    Scots could see their energy bills rise by around £100 every year (extrapolating from UK Government estimates) collectively and eventually coughing up more than £2 billion.

    However, former chief statistician at the Scottish Office Jim Cuthbert – the author of a new report for Jubilee Scotland and the Common Weal think tank on RAB funding and nuclear power – warned that “nobody knows” how much energy bills will go up.”

    https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenational.scot%2Fnews%2F23071051.energy-bills-scotland-set-rise-finance-englands-nuclear-power-plants%2F

  186. gregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Wikipedia: False dilemma:

    “A false dilemma, also referred to as false dichotomy or false binary, is an informal fallacy based on a premise that erroneously limits what options are available. The source of the fallacy lies not in an invalid form of inference but in a false premise. This premise has the form of a disjunctive claim: it asserts that one among a number of alternatives must be true. This disjunction is problematic because it oversimplifies the choice by excluding viable alternatives, presenting the viewer with only two absolute choices when in fact, there could be many…”:

    https://archive.ph/nZuI0

  187. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2022/10/23/busy-doing-nothing/

    The WoS site is not known for the intellectual quality of its contributer’s too often over-long arguments and endless repetitive disputes…

    Gareth, there’s a reason one has to pan for gold and mine for diamonds. It’s because these things are rare, and anyone that expects to find valuable nuggets and gems scattered everywhere they look needs to wise up. And also don’t be overly judgemental of all the different types of folk with their respective life experiences and abilities to form views and express what they want to say.
    Don’t be getting all elitist because not all folk have the same intellectual height as yourself. Plus a smart person would also know that clearly there’s deliberate agitation to diminish and tarnish the quality of discourse across the genuine movement of folk that seek to return Scotland to self-governing status.

  188. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Willie 10:01

    “It’s clear where we are all headed”

    Soz, it’s not at all clear to me, Willie.

    Care to enlighten us?

    Best case I can come up with is a comprehensive Russti defeat, no escalation to nuclear, Russti military castrated for the next decade, and Vlad on permanent holiday, waiting for his Novochik portion.

    Worst case is that Vlad presses the button. Only silver lining I can see in that scenario is that his nuclear capability might be as under-maintained and poorly organised as his conventional forces. But if he does press that button, the end result will see Russtiland under Chinese occupation, where irradiation permits.

    I think you will agree we must all hope for the best case scenario I outline. And the sooner the better.

    TBH, I struggle to understand why anybody in Scotland could ever have been wishing for any other outcome since 24 February 2022.

  189. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Said Sturgeon the Betrayer. I wonder how many more PM’s she wants to outlast, every one she outlasts is a abject failure on her part on not achieving Scottish independence, she’s let us down badly, and she doesn’t care that Scots are suffering terribly in this horrible union.

    “If she doesn’t mind, I’ll now just wait for whoever will become the 5th PM (so far) during my time as FM”

  190. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Another gem from the Betrayer, she spouted this one with the Tories in mind, however, it fits in better here in Scotland, and Sturgeon’s utter betrayal of the Scottish people on Scottish independence, multiple mandates wasted, broken promises and deceit and corruption, and ordinary Scots are paying the price for it.

    “There are no words to describe this utter shambles adequately. It’s beyond hyperbole – & parody.
    Reality tho is that ordinary people are paying the price.”

  191. Scott
    Ignored
    says:

    Wrt one of the wars currently raging, Scotland could be the place where a peace deal is brokered.

    Invite Z & P to St Andrews on 30th November.

    We share a patron saint, and once we got them both pished alongside all the fishermen, fishmongers, rope-makers, textile workers, singers, miners, pregnant women, butchers and farm workers during the annual celebration, they’d shirley sign anything…

  192. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    When Alex Salmond was FM of Scotland, he built things a bridge and a railway, since Sturgeon the Betrayer has become FM it’s been all downhill for Scots, longer waiting times at doctors and A&E cuts to public services, millions wasted on non-existent ferries, the latest is the cost of living crisis, I bet you Sturgeon isn’t struggling to heat or eat, nor will her troughing SNP MPS/MSPs be suffering.

    We had the COPFS waste most of its budget in paying out people of whom it was judged to be prejudiced against, a string of Lord Advocates hasn’t been up to the task including the current one.

    Then there’s the tens of millions wasted by twenty-two Police Scotland officers who searched for four years to find any kind of dirt on the only person ever to hold an indyref Alex Salmond.

    Which takes me nicely to this.

    “SCOTTISH Government spending plans could result in a “fundamental reduction” in policing, MSPs have been warned, with police chiefs claiming they could be forced to make savings of up to £300 million over the next few years.

    A new paper, prepared for Holyrood’s Criminal Justice Committee, warns that “the outlook is extremely challenging and concerning”.

    It comes after the Scottish Government’s resource spending review said both the police and the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) should “plan for a flat-cash settlement over the period” up to 2026-27.

    The paper – due to be discussed by MSPs on Wednesday – sets out the impact that could have on policing in Scotland, with warnings that the force could have to cut officer numbers or impose a pay freeze in the future.”

    https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenational.scot%2Fnews%2F23070609.police-scotland-warning-impact-scottish-governments-resource-spending-review%2F

  193. George Ferguson
    Ignored
    says:

    @John Main 9:49am
    I stand corrected it is 250 thousand or a quarter of million set aside for legal costs of Scot Gov staffers for the Covid Public Inquiry.

  194. stuart mctavish
    Ignored
    says:

    Alyn (gravy bus) tardily explaining (confessing?) to Edinburgh how much he loves UK.. (:))

    Far bigger issue requiring an explanation though* was his expression of great pride in Holyrood changing definition of voting entitlement from nationality to residence.

    Holyrood being hitherto governed as a regional parliament, under EU rules for local elections, the claim rings false (particularly with the referendum bill not having been presented yet) and since nationality, immigration and national elections are reserved it is most intriguing why any such decision (if true) was not referred to the Supreme Court earlier (UK delight at the potential footshooting element notwithstanding)

    That said, UK delight at the alleged potential footshootig element notwithstanding, and thanks in large part to the excellent Lord Advocate, there’s absolutely nothing to stop an equally proud backbencher from tabling such a bill as early as tomorrow – if only to settle the horses and remove at least one element of division from the debate.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS5JEqTwmOY&t=2125s

    *alternative explanation for the error in semantics being the possibility of a lifelong habit of correcting new scots that every time they referred to England they actually meant UK

  195. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    Don’t be getting all elitist because not all folk have the same intellectual height as yourself.” Dan 10.07

    If I thought my output for the Cause ‘elitist’ – a lazy criticism – I’d never have accepted ALBA’s honorary membership. The party’s adherents are 95% working class, the people who voted Yes and were betrayed by the colonial-minded bourgeoisie. I assume readers are intelligent no matter their social status.

  196. Ebok
    Ignored
    says:

    @William G Walker (10.26)

    ‘In other words, they had earned a living and inhabited the outside world, free from immersion within the political bubble’

    This is similar to what I’d said in reply to a comment recently. Unless politicians have experienced the real world, unless they can understand the plight of those who live and work in our poorest communities and housing estates, those who didn’t get a winning ticket in births lottery, they cannot speak for a nation.

    IF we do gain independence anytime soon, I hope the over-riding policies will focus on education, health, and the eradication of poverty. Only then can we be considered a caring compassionate country.

    It is interesting to note that many, (dare I say – most?) contributors to WoS DO empathize with the poor, weak and downtrodden in society, while some, who are blinded by their own amour-propre, never discuss such issues.

  197. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Gareth

    And this isn’t a lazy criticism?

    The WoS site is not known for the intellectual quality of its contributer’s too often over-long arguments and endless repetitive disputes…

  198. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy @ 9.46

    Sincerely, I’d much rather read what Ruby and Rab have to say. I usually skim over what you and the hunionist JM write… not because I disagree with it, but because it’s usually of “very, very” dumbed down standard.

    I also disagree with the lazy use of words like “moonhowlers” and “covidiot” as a sort of punctuation. There’s no need for that.

    On the vaccine efficacy and safety, btw, you don’t have a leg to stand on. The vaccines are much more harmful and much less efficacious than you want to admit.

    The contingent that we slated last year on vaccines turned out to be largely right, and that’s now more or less accepted by just about everyone — why do you think so many European countries have prohibited them when it comes to younger age groups? No need to guess, they have told us; it’s because the dangers (particularly to heart function) are much greater than the potential benefits.

    It’s also quietly accepted that the protection conferred by the vaccines is fleeting — the most positive accounts suggest it last about 12 weeks before you end up no better off. There are respected studies that suggest after 12 weeks you end up more vulnerable to the virus than you would be if you hadn’t been vaccinated (BMJ sourced), explained by declining general immune system performance.

    Incidentally, the latest ScotGov adverts on the radio urging people to get vaccinated give emphasis to the temporary protection vaccines offer…

    I’d be happy to provide highly respected sources on all of this if you exhibit a genuine desire to learn rather than just insult and belittle, but that’s your choice.

  199. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/#comment-2708230

    What is the definition of ‘intelligent’?

    What happens if a reader/voter is not ‘intelligent’

    Is there any space for them in the Independence movement?

    Highly intellectual posts are pretty useless when it comes to voters who are not big readers.

    I would guess the 10% we want to attract come into that category.

  200. Geri
    Ignored
    says:

    Gordon Currie 21st Oct

    To be fair he’s been saying it for ages – he was so scunnered he even asked for the section 30 himself. It fell on Sturgeons cloth ears. He’s been on interviews to say they’ll never grant one & to keep asking was a pointless exercise & the WM group just weren’t interested. I’ve even seen him tweet that Sturgeon doesn’t keep those duds in WM in the loop.

    To craw at seeing off 4 PMs is an embarrassment & a failure. It’s hardly a winning CV. With the might of the Yes movement of 2014/15 she should’ve been saying bye to only one of them.

    She needs to get her coat.

  201. Geri
    Ignored
    says:

    *meant to add he’s been saying that since 2017/18

    It’s why he made a move for plan B

    I dunno why he hasn’t jumped ship tbh. Or why him & Cherry haven’t tried to oust Sturgeon on her failures.

  202. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708188

    Whether they had a “lavender marriage” or not, the Murrells, Peter and Nicola, had a plan for private power and control in political life. I believe Salmond, who is on record as objecting to the pair being at the top of the Party and Government, stated when he was on his way out as FM. It was too late then and the Murrells just ignored him. He should have done something about it when he was in power, not complained afterwards. A few high-profile people, such as Kenny MacAskill, objected but it was also too late.

    At what point should Alex Salmond & Kenny MacAskill have complained?

    When they got married or when she became First Minister or maybe even when they started a relationship. Apparently they met when she was 18 years old.

    I don’t think it matters if they are married or not what they are doing now could be done if they were just ‘partners in crime’

    I would think it’s down to the SNP membership to complain.

  203. Geri
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s a conflict of interest.

    It’s why most organisations don’t employ family members in key roles.

    When she became FM he should’ve stepped down. No need for the two of them to be on over £100k each & of course, when any shit hits the fan, as it did with those parliamentary enquiries, they’ll not ever dobb each other in.

  204. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708188

    We lost the Independence Referendum in 2014 by 55.3% to 44.7%, a huge margin of 10.6%. In my opinion, Salmond was wrong to resign – stupidly he thought he could still control Sturgeon who was “crowned” with his blessing. Big mistake.

    Thanks to Grousebeater promoting the above post I had a scan through.

    If Salmond hadn’t resigned would that have prevented him being on trial in the High Court?

    Would there have been any way for him to say no to Leslie Evans request for former politicians being investigated?

    If the ‘Alphabetties’ didn’t come from the Scottish civil service whoever was behind the plan to get rid of Salmond would have would have found ‘Alphabetties’ else where.

    It could have been much worse if he hadn’t retired.

  205. Geri
    Ignored
    says:

    SNP party members should complain.

    WTF does he do that justifies such a hefty pay packet?
    A few tweets a year at how great his wife is?

  206. Willie
    Ignored
    says:

    The Status Quo rock band certainly got the words in their line ” down, down, depper and down” for that is exactly where the UK economy and the UK standard of living is going.

    Decades of economic vandalism under the Tories. Selling off the family silver, destroying our manufacturing base whilst all the while failing to invest, the chickens have now come home to roost.

    And Brexit, that big wonderful bounce that was going to soar prosperity and make Britain great has been shown to me nothing of the kind but rather an act of belligerent self flaggalation.

    And boy are the chickens roosting. Soaring debt, collapsing pound, flailing exports, collapsing Economy, failing international credit rating, collapsing living standards the list goes on and on.

    And with an absolute joke of a merry go round government reminiscent of the Latin American Republics of old, the UK has now gotten itself aligned into a hugely expensive war with Russia.

    Listening to Lord Mervyn King on the Sunday Morning Show today his assessment was grim. Debt, inflation, economic outlook and living standards are all heading down, Any reversal will take decades and he recommended being level with people, explaining how the war with Russia will only add to the economic distress.

    Like the Titanic, the HMS Britannia is headed down and with it will go Scotland,its bountiful resources plundered and blown on the busted flush that is Britannia.

    Decline, its written on all the pages John Main, why can’t you see it

  207. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708245

    when any shit hits the fan, as it did with those parliamentary enquiries, they’ll not ever dobb each other in.

    Does that not also apply to every SNP politician? Was that not the case during the parliamentary enquiry when Sturgeon had numerous bouts of amnesia.

  208. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye a educated man has no more ability to think for himself or out side the box than a poorly educated one.

    If fact the educated man resorts to name calling when his brain and the english language fails and no longer can function with sentences required for a reply.

    Where as the not so well educated person whom has had less opportunities outshines him in their control of thought and lacks the bombastic personality traits emotions towards their fellow man kind.

    The poorly educated man outshines the bombastic nature of a particular educated man simply Due to the fact, his education has been earned the hard way. The poorly educated man has had to think for himself more often to survive,
    than the man taught how to think. Where thoughts are put in his head by others,

    If the connection between what he was taught to think and. Then being confronted with a problem that does not fit the script he followed.
    The educated man has a communications breakdown.

    And he resorts backwards into childlike mentality of name calling and bombastic verbal bullying.

    It is easy to see the difference between the the uneducated man that has had to use his alternative intelligence.
    And the man that cannot cope with the limited boxed script he has been taught.

  209. Willie
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh and the Credit Ratings Agency Moodys have put the UK on negative.

    What on earth is this a fore teller of.

    I mean Britain used to have a Triple AAA rating.

    ( And in another hallmark of bloated belligerent failure, it wasn’t so long ago that a certain Tory defence minister was crowing about Britain being able to project beautiful lethal force around the world. Or at least that was before all the new £1bn type 45 destroyers engines packed up and the new multi billion QE aircraft carrier broke down after leaving Portsmouth to be towed back for major drive shaft repairs.)

    ” Down, down, deeper and down”. Or is it ” rocking all over the world” with ” pictures of matchstick men”

    It sure ain’t the Status Quo
    .

  210. Geri
    Ignored
    says:

    Thier best friend in the whole wide world is going down with them if reports are true regards India, China, Russia, middle east moving away from trading in $.

    Oh deary.

  211. Geri
    Ignored
    says:

    Ruby.

    It’s a sackable offence. BoJo was tossed & he wasn’t even in court. The SNP should’ve ejected the pair of them from the moment the judge deemed they’d mishandled that shitshow & awarded costs. Her party are spineless – they should’ve moved for a vote of no confidence & rebelled against her until the feckers took the walk of shame, but you know, self interest & all that. self-ID wallpapers over everything it seems.

  212. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Willie.

    That was the Henry Kissinger plan.

    To take down the eastern Countries first, and leave the Ruskies and China to the last phase,
    It seems that plan is still being followed,

  213. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    Willie

    Of course I can see it.

    If you are saying that all of this could be avoided if we just let Vlad annexe Eastern Europe, including a good chunk of our beloved EU, then I don’t see that. Enlighten me on how giving in to an aggressive bully will come good for us all.

    As for Scotland’s bountiful resources. Nobody can ever outline a plausible mechanism which will ensure that post-Indy, me and every other Scot will be rolling in filthy lucre. It’s always just have faith, or stands to reason.

    I’m waiting to hear your explanation – on you go.

    Show us the money.

  214. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Is this true? if it is it certainly doesn’t surprise me in the slightest, nothing this wretched SNP government does under Sturgeon the betrayer’s tenure surprises me anymore.

    https://yoursforscotlandcom.files.wordpress.com/2022/10/image-7.png

  215. Geri
    Ignored
    says:

    John,

    Why don’t you show us how it will get better under an English government?

    Show us the money.

  216. Liz
    Ignored
    says:

    US saber rattling, chest beating is because they know they are in decline.
    The WEF have been manouvering for ages putting their people in positions of authority and power.

    IMO the proposed war with Russia, is their last throw of the dice.
    Biden is a senile puppet.
    All of the UK leaders have been bought.

    No idea how it will end but India is having none of the USs bullying, they are also a nuclear power.
    Will China, Russia and India join a coalition?
    Depends how threatened they feel by the US warhawks.

    The people of Europe and the UK deserve better leaders.

  217. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Geri.

    Better together?

    I doubt they could sell that line to the Scots a second time around.

  218. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    An excellent article by Sarah Salyers in the iScot magazine.

    We MUST vote for the Alba party at every turn to get rid of Sturgeon the Betrayer, and her treacherous minion Bain.

    “The evidence that both kingdoms have continued and were expected to continue is so overwhelming that presenting here would be a bit like arguing that rain is wet. Yet Dorothy Bain opened the case for the right of the Scottish Government to call a referendum by explaining that Scotland was extinguished, no longer exists, and is just a region of a country now known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain. This is so blatantly false that the immediate question is why, in the name of sanity and reason, would the appointee of the First Minister, tasked with presenting Scotland’s case for a referendum, make such a blunder or else knowingly publish such an assault on Scotland’s constitutional integrity? Why would FM Sturgeon approve it?”

    https://www.iscot.scot/article/politics/whats-in-a-name/

  219. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Liz.

    The WEF policies and bought politicians plans are beginning to break slowly but surely in many directions.how long it will hold together now is the question.

    I see Sweden has just thrown all its Green party out.

    We will wait and see what Elon Musk does with his new power over free speech, could be a turning point.

    Climate change activists that glued themselves to the VW floor did not receive the outcome they expected of disruption.
    When the workers and management left the building, turned the heating and the lights off, and locked up behind them,

  220. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    A wee bit more from Sarah’s super article for those to lazy to click the link.

    “The ground we are speaking of, here, is the fact that Scotland entered into a political, not a territorial union, that it retained its own law in whole, not just in part, (a law that vests authority in the nation, the people and not the government or monarch), that it remains a separate nation historically, culturally and linguistically and that it remains a separate kingdom under a separate crown with a separate coronation oath and a separate constitutional character from the crown in England. (This turns out to be of vital importance to the rights of the Scottish people, so watch out for a forthcoming article on the subject!) In other words, Scotland is not a territory within the UK but a distinct, geographically and legally separate nation within the political union that is the United Kingdom.

    To be clear, a kingdom is normally the geographical area that comes under the government of a particular monarch. (The constitutional character of the monarchy varies in every case.) But in the case of Scotland and England, when those two countries came under the rule of a single monarch, (James VI and I), the crowns were not united; the kingdoms remained separate. James remained the King of Scots and became, also, King of England. Note the difference. No Scottish monarch is ever king or queen of the land of Scotland. Because, unlike England, the people of Scotland, the community of the realm, are represented in and by the Scottish crown. This is both why we continue to be a distinct kingdom, why the two crowns remain distinct and why the territory of Scotland was never incorporated into the Union.”

  221. Gordon Currie
    Ignored
    says:

    @Geri 1.10pm

    Too right, she never though it through – my immediate reaction was; faced with the 4 worst PMs in living memory, she couldn’t achieve any progress towards independence or even a meaningful increase in the yes vote.

    All the twat’s tweet has done is show the world her narcissism.

  222. Geri
    Ignored
    says:

    There was an interesting discussion on barheadboys podcast (YouTube -3rd April) with Stuart Ballantyne regards his experience trying to work with the Scottish government. It’s stuffed full of suits to hinder Scots potential at every turn. They’re always on hand to throw a spanner in the works (re ferries as an example of driving talent out of Scotland & to kybosh anything that potentially makes Scotland look good & wealthy.
    McCrone all over again. Scots can’t be shown to be rich & the potential to break away.

    We won’t get anywhere with Holyrood even if Sturgeon walks.

  223. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Liz 3:13

    Check out reports of Indian-Chinese fighting in their disputed border regions.

  224. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Geri 3:08

    Things won’t get better under the status quo.

    That’s a given.

    Now you convincingly demonstrate that change away from the status quo will be change for the better.

    Why is that so goddamn difficult for every BTL poster on here?

  225. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Republicofscotland.

    Scotland is still a Country and the Scots are still sovereign in their Country, but perhaps from a different angle,
    Sarah Salyers looks at the Treaty of Union as if it had actually happened.
    Which it may have done.

    However I purpose that it may never have been completed,
    Due to the way the English paliament/government went about it and entered on its own into the newly named english parliament as British parliament.
    Changing the name of the English parliament to Great British parliament is not enough evidence, that it included the Scots.

    The perception that Scots voted to Join the Treaty never Happened. The question or vote has never been asked of the Scots.

    The Scottish parliament voted to join, against the Sovereign Scots wishes.

    However the British/ UK parliament States the Scottish Parliament was canceled by Agreeing to the Treaty of the union, and became extinct.

    That means that no Scottish parliament nor Scottish parliament representatives could have entered the British parliament as was supposed to.

    So a conundrum arises for the British government,
    The Scottish Parliament of 1707 has to still exist as the English parliament did.
    Or there can be no agreed treaty of union between the parliament of Scotland 1707, and the parliament of England 1706.

  226. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dan 10.07

    Gareth, there’s a reason one has to pan for gold and mine for diamonds. It’s because these things are rare, and anyone that expects to find valuable nuggets and gems scattered everywhere they look needs to wise up.

    That’s always been the way on here though, for as long as I can remember. The only real difference now is that rather than daily posts from Stu we get infrequent ones, and rather than have several hundred BTL posts for each piece within a matter of hours, we have a few hundred usually over many days.

    There are still nuggets of good stuff to be found, it’s just that the relative proportion of fringe nutters is higher than it was, or at least previously it was more diluted with folk with more mainstream views that reflected the concerns of ordinary folk, rather than concentrating on the hobby horse issues of a small cadre of conspiracy theorists and ideological extremists.

    And also don’t be overly judgemental of all the different types of folk with their respective life experiences and abilities to form views and express what they want to say.
    Don’t be getting all elitist because not all folk have the same intellectual height as yourself.

    For all his intellectual height, Gareth isn’t above using the epithet “English Ellis” to describe me, presumably on the basis that he thinks this makes my opinions on Scottish independence less valid, and because weirdly he thinks it is appropriate to describe a fellow Scot and fellow party member as “English” as some sort of insult. I wonder how that would play out if he thought I was Polish, or Asian or Jewish?

    Plus a smart person would also know that clearly there’s deliberate agitation to diminish and tarnish the quality of discourse across the genuine movement of folk that seek to return Scotland to self-governing status.

    Is there really? Or are you just asserting that because you “feel it in your water”? It sounds a lot more like a daft conspiracy theory to me. Certain individuals in here are certainly no ornament to the independence movement. I definitely think some of them and their woo-woo worldviews probably do a lot more to harm our cause than they do to help it.

    Even then however I really don’t believe any of them, however “out there” their views on any given topic are, are actual plants or “not real independence supporters”. In fact, I’d say it’s a pretty easy way to identify moonhowlers by seeing who in here accuses others of being a secret unionist / Sturgeonite plant / MI5 or 77th Brigade operative. It’s all a bit well….Trumpist isn’t it?

    The opposition, or folk who disagree with them, can’t just be wrong in their through the looking glass world, they have to be tractors*(Ed) and othered as not part of “us”.

    I doubt Gareth would be the kind of person whose word I’d trust to pontificate on the state of Wings Over Scotland.

  227. Geri
    Ignored
    says:

    Liz, that was what I’ve read into it too & India added a bonus – they’ll never ever be brought under colonial rule again so they can piss off asking for backup. Regards China, the US is up to its eyeballs in debt. Thier imports would grind to a halt. China makes everything. Seems they’ve fecked with the wrong countries. They always do & end up gubbed.

  228. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    James Che.

    As Sarah says we’ll need to go to the international community to seek justice for Scotland on leaving this union, there’s no route out of this union via Westminster. First I think we need to get Sturgeon the Judas out and the Alba party in to office.

    Incidentally you may find this interesting, it’s from Salvo, it’s a timeline of sorts on Scotland’s history of popular democracy, of human rights, of a code of justice.

    https://salvo1689.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/Time+Line+3.pdf

    https://salvo1689.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/Time+Line+3.pdf

  229. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Republicofscotland.

    If you check the history of when the English parliament session ended it was in 1708. In England.

    If you check the history of when the Scottish parliament officially closed it doors under Sine Die it was 1707, in Scotland.

    The english parliament were running the British parliament until 1708.

  230. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    If I thought my output for the Cause ‘elitist’ – a lazy criticism – I’d never have accepted ALBA’s honorary membership. The party’s adherents are 95% working class, the people who voted Yes and were betrayed by the colonial-minded bourgeoisie. I assume readers are intelligent no matter their social status.

    I wonder how Gareth knows 95% of Alba members are working class? It certainly wouldn’t appear to be true of my branch from what I’ve seen, but then maybe Edinburgh isn’t 95% working class?

    It’d be rather remarkable if that figure was true I’d have thought. What % of the Scots population as a whole is working class I wonder? Is there some set of criteria identifying what working class is? Income level, where you live, educational level reached, whether you self identify as working class even if you’re a millionaire, whether you call it “tea” or “dinner”?

    I don’t know about all the alert readers left on here, but I’m instinctively suspicious of middle class people metrosplaining to everyone else that the bourgeoisie have cheated the lumpen working class out of something.

    Still, if you fall for the “Scotland is a colony” narrative there isn’t really much hope for you.

  231. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Republicofscotland,

    Thank for the link, I will take time to read that.

  232. Geri
    Ignored
    says:

    John Main 3:44pm

    I’ve gone into it with you before, re Scotlands wealth of natural resources & being in charge of our own accounts & decisions rather than those decided for us by another country’s government. We have an abundance of what the world wants. The UK thinks so too! They’re hardly chaining us in our the goodness of thier hearts. You continually ignore replies which suggests you’re not even interested. So I won’t bore others with it. Change your broken record or use Google.

    & Stop peddling the pish no one ever answers you. They do. Like the typical naw voter you just go round in a loop while greeting no one answers you. Are you batshit Jill by any chance?

  233. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Republicofscotland.

    If you check the date for when the Scottish parliament agreed to join the treaty of union it was 1707.
    If you check the date that Englands parliament ratified Scotlands agreement to join the treaty it was in 1706.

    [ Meaning that England ratified the treaty of the union before the Scottish parliament had agreed to join ]

    Causing a fault timeline in ratification.

    This discrepancy was not remedied until 1752. When England decided to bring its calendar in line with Scotland and other Countries,

    Correcting the fault timeline many years later might not be enough to hold the treaty ratification agreement as being valid until 1752.
    When Scotland independently as a Country had already closed it parliament in 1707 under Sine Die.

    The discrepancy in Calendar dates also caused England to loose 11 days,
    11 days there was no British parliament. Was it prorogued?

  234. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Hatuey

    Sincerely, I’d much rather read what Ruby and Rab have to say. I usually skim over what you and the hunionist JM write… not because I disagree with it, but because it’s usually of “very, very” dumbed down standard.

    Horses for courses Hatuey. you obviously have a stronger stomach than most, or perhaps you’re just inured to the tourrettes addled level of discourse that low lives like Ruby and Rab have introduced and normalised?

    It’s instructive that so many of those fluffing for the moonhowlers, even if not paid up pack members themselves, will bang on endlessly about the hurty feelz of people being described as nativists, moonhowlers or vaccine deniers, or monomaniacs for spamming threads with ill-researched BS about 300 year old treaties, but are totally sanguine about people being called cunts, or to fuck off, or told they are unionists and/or tractors*

    Of course back in the day when Stu was paying attention, he’d probably have booted most of you in to touch for repetitive othering of fellow indy supporters using the tractor* attack. I wonder how many of those you’re keen on hearing from would disappear if that rule was enforced?

    I also disagree with the lazy use of words like “moonhowlers” and “covidiot” as a sort of punctuation. There’s no need for that.

    Aw diddums. Can you wait while I look for my smallest violin? How about constant cunt calling and telling people to fuck off? I’ve never heard much complaint from you and the rest of the moonhowlers about that.

    Do you really think it helps or is a good look for the place? How about people pontificating about how the folk of Country 404 “had it coming”, and then doubling down on it when challenged?

    I even seem to recall that back in the day you were one of the few – to your credit – who called “Scott” out for his creepy as fuck stalking activity of me, and then my daughter, in here. It’s pretty obvious where the real issues are BTL here Hatuey, and it isn’t with contributions from me and John Main. You appear to have picked a side and as they say, you can tell a lot about people from the company they keep.

    On the vaccine efficacy and safety, btw, you don’t have a leg to stand on. The vaccines are much more harmful and much less efficacious than you want to admit.

    Not touching that one with a barge pole mate. The general public doesn’t buy the vaccine denial schtick. It never has and it never will. They’re as likely to believe you and your mates as they are the ones still banging on about how the MMR vaccine is unsafe. Let it go. Nobody cares, nobody believes the a-scientific conspiracy theorising. Stop trying to paint yourself as the voice of reason with peer reviewed “accepted” data to back your woo-woo up. Nobody sane buys the covidiocy snake oil.

  235. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Geri.

    The white paper on the Uk parliaments Levelling up Britain provides ample Clues to why the UK government cling with slipping claws to Scotland.

  236. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    I note Foghorn Leghorn trying to lever in on any semblance of an opportunity to return to spouting his usual btl divisive drivel.
    But alert readers will recall he was actually one of those original “covidiots” spouting scorn on anybody that validly questioned or had concerns about the whole pandemic thang. And he has the temerity to call folk covidiots who were actually correct to have had reservations about the unproven and highly questionable efficacy of the “vaccines” rollout and lockdowns.
    As Hank Hill often said “that boy ain’t right”…
    So it turns out Foghorn himself was also one of those conspiracy theorists he despises so much, because he was punting shite btl that the narrative the mainstream media was stating to the sheep was correct.
    At least Hatuey has the decency to admit they were wrong, and they were even up for removing the legs off the unvaccinated!

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-opposite-of-intelligence/#comment-2592992

    Tbf there are some belters from other folk too when reading back through the older posts of the time.

  237. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Republicofscotland says:
    23 October, 2022 at 4:00 pm

    ….First I think we need to get Sturgeon the Judas out and the Alba party in to office.

    Just think of the time we’d have saved if Rev Stu’s initial warnings had been heeded, and taken seriously. This whole lamentable series of events, the infiltration of the Trans Taliban and Sturgeon’s emasculation of the SNP might all have been nipped in the bud and avoided.

    Yet even now, the dim witted useful idiots who were so essential to this all happening, not least the Wee Ginger Dug types who poured such toxic vitriol on Wings and Rev Stu, have still learned absolutely nothing and are still praising Sturgeon to the rafters as a strategic genius. It would be comedy gold if it wasn’t such an absolutely withering tragedy for Scotland.

    The curious bit is why the Unionist’s don’t find it funny. I don’t know why they’re not rolling about the floor laughing. Truthfully, I think they realise that Sturgeon’s calamitous misadventure and betrayal of the cause is the only thing they have which currently holds the Union together.

    Take Sturgeon out of the picture, (I know, happy days eh?), and precisely what have the Unionists got to crow about?

  238. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/#comment-2708273

    It certainly wouldn’t appear to be true of my branch from what I’ve seen, but then maybe Edinburgh isn’t 95% working class?

    Is there some set of criteria identifying what working class is?

    Is there some set of criteria identifying the non-working class members of your Alba group?

    What if you make of list of whatever makes them non-working class in your opinion then you could then be close to how you identify the working class. DAH!

  239. LeggyPeggy
    Ignored
    says:

    Can I ask everyone who has not yet emailed your MSPs re the Gender Recognition Reform Bill to do so now as the Stage 1 debate is being held this Thursday pm in the chamber. We have to let them know that we object to women and girls losing our sex protected spaces.

    Link to – For Women Scotland with all the information that you need to do this, Thanks.

    https://forwomen.scot/08/10/2022/gender-recognition-reform-bill-stage-1-action/

  240. wull
    Ignored
    says:

    It seems to me that there are only two possibilities with regard to the Constitution of the UK.

    EITHER the Treaty/ Treaties of Union between Scotland and England, as set out during the first decade of the 18th Century, brought the UK into existence: the said Treaty/ Treaties are therefore the basic constitutional documents of the UK. That means they, both in what they affirmed and what they presumed, remain the basis of the UK. Insofar as any further constitutional elements have subsequently been added to that basis these are precisely that: additions to it but not substitutions for it, or even ‘overturnings’ of it. If the Treaties cease to exist or to have force of law, for instance by one of the two parties rescinding them, then the UK itself ceases to exist.

    OR *here comes the alternative): the UK was never properly constituted, rests on no proper and commonly agreed constitutional basis, and has no legal standing. In other words, as I think James seeks to convince us, the whole thing is a fiction. If so, it surely has to be counted as the biggest-ever and most long-lasting international con that has ever existed in the history of law or, indeed, the history of crime.

    In which case, you really have to hand it to England: not only did they pull a fast one over us, they also did it over the whole world. There is often something attractive about conmen, at least when they appear as main characters in novels and short stories. Everyone loves a con-man!

    Everyone, that is, except the person who has been conned. He might love the conman for a while, even for a very long time. Thinking he is his best buddy. Until, one fine day, he wakes up. And discovers he has been robbed of everything he ever had, or thought he had. Even his dignity. And the illusion he had believed in suddenly disappears before his eyes, like a puff of smoke. His so-called ‘friend’ has made a complete fool of him.

    C’mon Scotland – gi’e yersel’ a shake, an’ wake up!

  241. DaveL
    Ignored
    says:

    Maybe this site should be renamed ‘Ellis over Wings’.

    He knows everything the general population think and even what their dogs think. He knows that he’s right and there is no debate…people are just moonhowlers if they dare to put forward a thought that Ellis thinks he should destroy and he absolutely must educate the readers here against such wrongthink.

    What would he have to say if he wasn’t calling people out, throwing a spanner in the works of any idea that he doesn’t agree; nothing…oh maybe he can just keep calling Russian folk Orcs, which is a step away from how the Nazis and Japanese dehumanised their hundreds thousand and millions of victims, they were just ‘logs’ or ‘units’ not human no, of course not.

    I’m sick and tired of seeing him here, I’d get back Cameron Brodie with his links machine just to screw with his head. CB really wound him up. I’m away to howl at the moon so he can save his much callused ‘moonhowler’ quick key finger at least one more stab. But he won’t.

  242. wull
    Ignored
    says:

    Ruby @ 5.31 pm is right. We should all bombard Holyrood on the GRA issue which comes up for a vote next week in the parliament, I think on Thursday. Unless I missed it, there seems to be almost no publicity about this vote.

    This void in the media suggests deliberate efforts at a ‘news blackout’ ordered and organised by the very low people belonging to Scotland’s self-appointed ‘high command’. The rumour is that some on the SNP benches are pressing for a free vote on the matter. Although it is hard to imagine such jellyfishes standing up, since (as far as I know) their spinelessness does not allow them to do so, this might just be the beginning of some kind of resistance to the idiots running the show at the top of the SNP. I am not holding my breath, but while there is a chance of that we should certainly do what we can to encourage them.

    C’mon you two-legged Jellyfish, stand up! And resist!

    The idea that you lot can – at last – self-identify as having some vertebrae (vertebrates?) may indeed be a highly unlikely move. However, it is, at least, within the bounds of biological possibility!

    Which is more than can be said for the prospect of biological women, or biological men, being able to change their chromosomes by signing a piece of paper.

  243. William G Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    THE SNP CUL-DE-SAC
    **********************

    Ian Brotherstone gave me a great compliment at 10:42pm yesterday (and James Che, Graf Midgehunter and McDuff later) when he thanked me for my “history lesson” and provided a link to my piese through Twitter.

    Ian also asked me what was my take on John Swinney? Here goes:

    1. I like to see a local boy from Carrick Knowe in Edinburgh do well! Although a lifelong Nationalist, John had a successful professional career in the outside world before entering Westminster Parliament in 1997. He then joined Alex Salmond’s compact Cabinet of only seven members (including Salmond himself and Nicola Sturgeon) as Finance Secretary in which job he stayed, including under Sturgeon, until 2016. I regarded him as a safe pair of hands in this critical position and at a personal level he was a thoroughy decent man in my experience.

    2. Financial prudence (avoidance of risk) probably led him to choose a bridge over an immersed tube tunnel for the Queensferry Crossing, although so many ITT are now in operation throughout the world. Also, I don’t know how involved he was with the decision to place a nonsensical order with Ferguson Marine for two new ferries for CALMAC. The contract was all wrong and the fundamental type of ship wasn’t right – they should have been well-proven modern catamarans, rather than traditional monohulls! (Memories of the expensive shambles over the building of Donald Dewar’s Holyrood Parliament building.)

    3. In 2016, Sturgeon had a very shallow pool to choose from, in a depleted SNP Group, to appoint a new Education Secretary for her “Education, education, education” mantra. John left Finance in the unstable hands of the unqualified Derek Mackay and, in my opinion, found himself out of his depth in Education, in which he stayed in until 2021. I guess there were no takers!

    4. Along the way since 2014, he has been a loyal member of the Nicola Sturgeon clique, whether an active member or survivor I do not know. Certainly, Sturgeon used him successfully as a buffer at the time of the Salmond trial and Parliamentary investigation.

    5. Only this morning I saw him on BBC Scotland giving a stout defence of the SNP Government’s latest white paper on the economic prospects for an independent Scotland. Really pathetic – it was all assertion, full of ifs and conditions. At least in 2014 we had a plan! This “plan” consists of throwing everything into the long grass. Twenty years perhaps? Sounds like too many people like their cushy lifestyles – forever!

    Sorry to be so dismal about a man I had once a lot of time for.

  244. wull
    Ignored
    says:

    And don’t forget to bombard Kenny Gibson MSP. My understanding that he has said that he would oppose GRA if it ever came before the parliament. Time to keep your word, Mr. Gibson.

  245. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @DaveL

    As fine an example as you’ll find of playing the man, rather than the ball. Same old, same old with the unthinking moonhowler fraternity. Welcome along to it though “DaveL”: always good to have more low quality grist for the mill!

    Nobody is stopping anyone debating. Of course I think I’m right on the issues we’re discussing. Doubtless the moonhowlers think they’re right too…unless they’re just here for the bantz. It seems a rather odd attack line though. Why is it wrong for me to try and educate readers when I see them saying things I believe to be wrong, but OK for the loonies to have free run of the asylum?

    It’s pretty obvious what I think about various issues other than the hobby horse issues that many of the moonhowlers post about ad nauseam and to the exclusion of anything else. I think Russians invading Country 404 are little better than Orcs. I don’t give a toss whether you don’t like it. You patently haven’t done your research about how the Allies routinely referred to the Japanese, Germans and Italians during the war.

    Perhaps you just have a greater tolerance for war criminals and their fluffers in here than normal people?

    Good to know you’re a fully paid up member of the no moral compass club though: it makes it easier to scroll past your vomitus in future. I recommend it.

  246. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @LeggyPeggy (5.33) –

    Thanks for that reminder. I knew there was something I meant to do, weeks ago too!

    Here’s a C&P of the text I sent. It’s a tweaked version of one of the options you provided via that link. Some folk may wish to use it as it lessens the risk of Writetothem rejecting C&Ped text.

    Dear (MSP names)

    I am a constituent of yours.

    Scottish Ministers have been inconsistent on the definition of ‘woman’ and the operation of the Equality Act.

    The purpose of this letter is to request that you consider voting against the The Gender Recognition Reform Bill moving to Stage 2 until such time as clarity is provided in these matters and we can be sure that women’s rights will be protected.

    I appreciate that this topic generates strong feelings and that you may be strongly in favour of swift progress. However, I hope you can also appreciate that there is genuine and growing concern over the haste with which this proposed legislation is being processed through parliament.

    I am also aware that you will have a heavy mailbag at this time but would appreciate a response in due course.

    Thanks for your attention.

    Yours sincerely,

  247. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “Just think of the time we’d have saved if Rev Stu’s initial warnings had been heeded, and taken seriously. This whole lamentable series of events, the infiltration of the Trans Taliban and Sturgeon’s emasculation of the SNP might all have been nipped in the bud and avoided.”

    Indeed Breeks, I think most of us were astonished when the Rev came out with the Betrayer thread, but we must give credit where its due and he was bang on the money, many indy supporters still refuse to believe it even though the evidence is overwhelming.

    What’s kept it going is the SNPs MPs and MSP who MUST know what’s going on but refuse to speak out about it, instead they chose to keep their heads down and their mouths shut putting self and party interest ahead of the nations interests, Christ the Tories are evil b*stards but even they know when to remove a poor leader, what does that say about SNP MPs and MSPs? I’d sack every single one of the spineless and gutless self-serving treacherous shits, but not before I read them the Riot Act, that’s if I were the SNP leader.

    For those unaware, the SNP doesn’t give a toss about the membership or what they want, Craig Murray has an eye opening article on his blog on this.

    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/10/the-party-is-over/

    Sturgeon is a treacherous b*stard, but what’s worse is that her MPs and MSPs know what’s going on, and are not willing to do anything about it, and because of their reticence to make things right the people of Scotland will continue to suffer, until the SNP is voted out of office and the only way to do that is to vote for the Alba party.

  248. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708285

    wull I think you meant Leggy Peggy!

    I’m past bothering about self-id.

    I did post my views on this a a few days ago. Basically I said self-id or no-self id it really wont make any difference. It could be a good thing as it will free up the doctors to see other patients.

    The problems for me is the claim that transwomen are women whether they self-id or see a doctor.

  249. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @William G Walker (6.04) –

    Thanks for that.

    Swinney is certainly an interesting case and doesn’t seem to attract nearly as much vitriol as his boss.

    The only time I ever saw him speak in public was outside the SECC when there was that huge gathering to tell Tony Blair ‘Not In Our Name’ on the same day that millions were assembling in London. It was the day Sheridan delivered his great ‘Strathclyde Polis canny count!’ line. And Swinney’s presence there was revealing because right up until he took the mike that day he had refused (as SNP leader at the time) to get off the fence on the imminent invasion of Iraq. We know now, from testimony from Dorothy Grace Elder and others, that he was besties with Nicola Sturgeon even back then.

    If his continued loyalty to Mrs Murrell stems from genuine friendship or something more sinister, we may never know I suppose. But one thing’s for sure – he looks more like a cornered shoplifter than you would think possible for someone not doing it intentionally i.e. he’s hiding something.

  250. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @ LeggyPeggy, wull: bombard MSPs to vote against the GRA Bill.

    Am emailing my 8 MSPs – who include Maree Todd Minister for Public Health, Women’s health, and Sport, who says self-id is all about being “kind” [to men, of course] and there have been no problems in the countries who have self-id in law!!

    I wonder how she can reconcile her role as Minister for women’s health and for Sport to include males in both?

  251. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “Sorry to be so dismal about a man I had once a lot of time for.”

    William G. Walker.

    Far from it William, in my opinion you have been overly polite, Swinney is part of the problem not the solution, twice the Greens have saved Swinney the king of winning VONCs, he’s as guilty as Sturgeon, and like the other spineless and gutless SNP MSPs he has kept quiet on what has happened to the once independence party.

  252. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    Talking of numbers, has anyone any insight on the SNP membership number nowadays?

    Yvonne Ridley on Through a Scottish Prism today said that it was thought to be down to around 25,000.

    Sadly Craig Murray says in “the party is over” linked to by Republicofscotland above that the leadership won’t care as the short money is enough, and they don’t need members for delivering leaflets and canvassing anymore as it is all done online.

    The plus side of only 25,000 is that it makes it easier for the salvo/SSRG/Liberation.scot Edinburgh Proclamation to get enough signatures to match the largest party in Scotland!

  253. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ mean even the Red Tories (Labour) rounded on their leader (Corbyn) and appointed a millionaire knight of the realm and Tory in disguise Sir Kier Starmer, okay it was a disgrace and made Labour even more toxic than normal, but again they at least they removed him even though it wasn’t the right thing to do, as he was a socialist leader that wanted to change things.

    But the SNP MSPs and MPs, by not taking action and removing Sturgeon the betrayer, are sticking two-fingers up to the nation are saying f*ck-you, we’re looking after number one first, and the country can piss-off. SNP MPs and MSPs are an absolute disgrace, and we MUST vote for the Alba party to remove them from office.

  254. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708288

    Why is it wrong for me to try and educate readers when I see them saying things I believe to be wrong, but OK for the loonies to have free run of the asylum?

    Using the words ‘educate’ & ‘loonies’ might be where you are going wrong.

  255. Willie
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks @5.10. Your comments grimly remind us of the wasted years, the wasted mandates, the backward progress (oxymoron speak) of our delectable Queen Nikola the Gauleiter.

    Progress will not be made until she and her rotten clique are gone.

    But for her, and for whatever the hold the establishment security services have over her through the threat of scandal exposure or the promise of a big job she must live with the threat of exposure and wouldn’t there be a cheer were exposure to occur.

    As for the other impediments and you raise the name of one in that of the Wee Ginger Dug, people like him are just lushes, looking for the free hand out. Grim that the guy took a stroke. A horrible disease for anyone. But by goodness didn’t he use it to go round with the begging bowl. Not for him a replacement council house with ads and adaptations. No, the begging bowl to crowd fund a ” wee cottage to suit his needs in the East End ” And the Dug, who was supposed to be his companion, and who the blog was named after, well he got put down toot sweet.

    Sadly, WGD, with or without his disability has shown himself to be like so many of the SNP to be individuals who would sell their Granny for a couple of quid. And the Wee Dug found that out and now too the remaining SNP members and the wider electorate.

    But the recent conference showed exactly what the members remaining think. NEC members elected with 26 votes, around 700 delegates from a party that is supposed to have around 119,000 members but in reality now has the same as ALBA.

    And where the SNP members have departed, the voters will follow. Death hangs around the SNP. And, sadly, the sooner the better. The SNP is now an impediment, a blocker, a tool of the establishment. Corrupt through and through.

    But a new movement is rising, and it will grow, is growing with huge numbers of people signing up.

  256. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Ian B

    Can you recall the article that was floating around twitter a year or so ago. It was about back in the day about SNP internal stuff with Swinney and Sturgeon. It may have been by Campbell Martin.

    Found and archived a couple of articles from 2004 though that have elements that may interest folk.

    Swinney’s victory fails to silence party critics

    https://archive.ph/hwRCY

    Secret dossier adds to Swinney’s problems in disciplining rebel MSP Papers alleged to reveal

    https://archive.ph/KK9pu

  257. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Willie (7.04) –

    ‘But a new movement is rising, and it will grow, is growing with huge numbers of people signing up.’

    I’m not sure about any membership numbers, SNP or ALBA, but Craig Murray’s latest blogpost lays out reasoned guesstimates for the former based on attendance at the conference.

    I hope you’re right about folk shifting in large numbers from SNP to ALBA (if that’s what you were implying) but why has their petition not drawn more signatures? I don’t understand. here’s the text of the petition:

    ‘Westminster is in chaos and every day we remain tied to the sinking ship more and more Scottish households are being plunged into poverty.

    We therefore call on the Scottish Government to act now.

    Recall the Scottish Parliament
    Present the Scottish Independence Referendum Bill
    Give Scots the right to choose a better future
    The people of Scotland can’t afford to wait any longer.

    Will you sign?’

    It’s hard to see anything in there that would frighten the proverbial horses. And in any case, it currently has only 2175 signatures. ALBA’s current membership must -surely! – be at least 4 or 5 times that number.

    So why aren’t they signing?

    https://www.albaparty.org/we_need_independence_now

  258. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Dan: archived articles re Swinney’s leadership.

    I note with interest that at least Swinney proposed one member, one vote on who was to be party leader and who a parliamentary candidate. If only this had happened – there might be some different faces in the parliamentary groups. Mind you Angus Robertson would soon have got the rules changed again.

  259. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dan (7.10) –

    That’s the article I was thinking of. Rev used it as a post, way back, I’d found it in an old magazine. Can’t put my hand on it but someone will have it. It crops up on Twitter from time to time.

    From memory, Dorothy-Grace elder was saying that Swinney/Sturgeon had it in for her and Margo MacDonald.

  260. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Ian B

    Doh! As soon as I posted I thought it may have been Campbell Martin I recalled it may actually have been by a woman. Then it all fell into place with you naming DGE.

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/some-things-stay-the-same/

  261. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dan –

    I went looking for it too and stumbled across this.

    Can’t remember reading it at the time, but ooooooft!

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/two-liars/#comments

  262. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    House of Commons Library gives latest party membership figures available to it e.g. SNP 104,884 December 2021 Electoral Commission. Craig Murray’s blog doesn’t give a figure so far as I can see.

    No data on Alba from the Library. And no other information by Googling other than the fanfare over the 6000th member in July 2021.

    It would be cheering to know that Alba had reached say 10,000.

    And even more to know the SNP had slumped to 25,000 – but I’m not that optimistic.

    @ Dan: in the first Swinney link I expect you spotted his policy of “one member, one vote” for party leader, and parliamentary candidates! Sounds very democratic – but Angus Robertson would have crushed that idea, I’m sure.

  263. PacMan
    Ignored
    says:

    Willie says: 23 October, 2022 at 10:01 am

    Just reading this morning that US General Petraeus is now saying that aside of NATO, the US and selected allies, could go head to head with Russia engaging in warfare greater than just sinking the Russian Black Sea fleet and commited troops.

    Big balls all round – it’s clear where we are all headed.

    Hmmm.

    Thinking off the top of my head, could he answer these questions.

    What strategy does he have to fight with a nuclear power before it escalates into a nuclear confrontation?

    Given that Russia has some comparable military technology with the US and in some areas like Surface to Air missile technology is superior, how well will the US and it’s allies succeed in a potential confrontation?

    What will the casualty/death rates amongst friendly troops be that his thinks the general public will tolerate?

    According to some reports, Russia has about 622 military personnel per 100,000 citizens which is about 10% more than the US. Add this to various other police and security services who will have basic military training, what is his estimate of success in a military confrontation with Russia?

    Given that this could well end up in total war, can the US and it’s allies be economically capable of sustaining a long term war given the current difficulties we are experiencing?

    Complete nonsense on his part but with a lack of credible journalists taking the likes of him to task, it is easy to see how people can be lead into such foolery until it is too late.

  264. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    Using the words ‘educate’ & ‘loonies’ might be where you are going wrong.

    Yeah, so much worse than using the word cunt with the frequency of drunk sailor with Tourette’s and anger management issues, huh…..

    Away and gie year head a shake, the two brain cells in there might bash together and spark a thought….

  265. PacMan
    Ignored
    says:

    Willie says: 23 October, 2022 at 7:04 pm

    As for the other impediments and you raise the name of one in that of the Wee Ginger Dug, people like him are just lushes, looking for the free hand out. Grim that the guy took a stroke. A horrible disease for anyone. But by goodness didn’t he use it to go round with the begging bowl. Not for him a replacement council house with ads and adaptations. No, the begging bowl to crowd fund a ” wee cottage to suit his needs in the East End ” And the Dug, who was supposed to be his companion, and who the blog was named after, well he got put down toot sweet.

    Sadly, WGD, with or without his disability has shown himself to be like so many of the SNP to be individuals who would sell their Granny for a couple of quid. And the Wee Dug found that out and now too the remaining SNP members and the wider electorate.

    I noticed in his recent blog entry that he couldn’t go to America with his husband only for health crisis.

    He’s definitely doing alright by the hard donations he’s getting from indy supporters.

  266. PacMan
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks says: 23 October, 2022 at 5:53 am

    Especially interesting that reading between the lines, the French interviewer suggests Europe’s politicians are not idiots, but have been “obliged” to align themselves with idiocy when it came to economic sanctions with Ruskiland.

    The Japanese economy has been fecked up since they signed up to the Louvre accord in the eighties to help the then US faltering economy.

    https://heimduo.org/how-did-the-plaza-accord-effect-japan/

    Of course there was economic reasons at the time for Japan to sign up for this but I wonder if it was also because Japan was relying too much on the US for military protection that give the US significant leverage over domestic Japanese political policy similar to what is being suggested by the French interviewer you mentioned?

  267. PacMan
    Ignored
    says:

    PIMF. Sorry should be the Plaza Accord that started Japans economic decline which while today they are the world’s third largest economy, it has only been achieved through exports and has detrimental to the living standards of it’s citizens.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_Accord

  268. PacMan
    Ignored
    says:

    Dan says: 23 October, 2022 at 10:07 am

    there’s a reason one has to pan for gold and mine for diamonds. It’s because these things are rare, and anyone that expects to find valuable nuggets and gems scattered everywhere they look needs to wise up.

    My mouse scroll button is going to get broke having to scroll through all the white noise of BTL to get to these gems that you do rightly mention is worth looking for here.

  269. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Pac Man et al

    So what is it you think could or should happen if Vlad – for the sake of argument – used tactical nuclear weapons against country 404 to avert defeat of his already struggling “special military operation”?

    I’m genuinely interested how you see that panning out. You think the correct response from the USA and west generally is just to shrug our soldiers and say, sorry Volodomyr, we just can’t risk it any more, you’re on your own.

    Leaving aside whether Vlad’s regime won’t be overthrown by wiser heads if they think he’s going to use nuclear weapons – even if it’s tactical ones and solely against country 404, the Russki’s can’t even defeat country 404. Petraeus is undoubtedly right.

    The USA and selected allies could wipe out Vlad’s forces in country 404 and destroy what remains of the Black Sea fleet (and doubtless the Kerch birdge) within days. The current war shows that Vlad’s forces would be no match for western forces, particularly after the drubbing handed to them in country 404.

    Of course, it’s all pretty unlikely as a scenario. Vlad may be a war criminal, but even he’s probably not that insane.

  270. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “Just reading this morning that US General Petraeus is now saying that aside of NATO, the US and selected allies, could go head to head with Russia engaging in warfare greater than just sinking the Russian Black Sea fleet and commited troops.”

    This may come as a surprise to some but Nato troops are already on the ground in 404. It began with Nato countries special forces backing up and training 404’s troops, now they are fighting along side them in the trenches.

  271. Ebok
    Ignored
    says:

    Republicofscotland says:
    23 October, 2022 at 6:31 pm

    ‘… but what’s worse is that her MPs and MSPs know what’s going on, and are not willing to do anything about it’

    RoS, I share your frustration, though both Alex and Neale Hanvey insisted during Fridays Wee Alba Book event in Aberdeen that there are still ‘many good people’ in SNP.
    That’s the second time in recent months I’ve been present at a Wee Book event when this was said, similar to what Alex said on ‘Prism’ last Dec.
    The panel were quite scathing of MPs failure to react to the ongoing shambles at WM and of SNP’s HR and WM leadership vacuum, so I’m not quite sure who these good people are. However, Alba is the only vehicle around that is pointing in the right direction so despite some misgivings, I’m in it for the long haul.

    sarah @6.52 pm
    ‘… it was thought (SNP membership) to be down to around 25,000’
    Mmm? That wouldn’t surprise me Sarah, but where, oh where has 100,000 members gone? I posed this question months ago when they were said to be down 60,000. Again, we can say with certainty ‘not Alba’.
    I asked around on Friday about Alba membership, but to no avail. A month or so ago it was 7,000, and I’m confident that number is rising, though if it had reached, say, 10,000 there would have been an announcement.

    I only wish that recent departures from SNP membership could be encouraged to come on to Wings and share their thoughts, explain why not Alba, are they still committed to Indy, what are their voting intentions etc.

    PS the next Wee Alba Book Event (the 37th in total) is in Dundee, next Friday I think was said, Alex is main speaker.

  272. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “The Japanese economy has been fecked up since they signed up to the Louvre accord in the eighties to help the then US faltering economy.”

    Japan was fecked as you say long before that, post WWII Japan fell under the control of the USA, it wasn’t allowed a fighting force and was protected by the USA, there was a golden period for Japan in exports as its technology leapt forward in electronic and car production etc.

    However, Edward Snowden revealed the downside, in that the USA had hacked Japan’s entire infrastructure, and that the US could shutdown everything in Japan including the street lights if it wanted to, this was at the time Snowden also revealed the extent of the PRISM programme.

    Japan’s now one big US airbase in the island arc chain, in an attempt to contain China.

  273. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “I share your frustration, though both Alex and Neale Hanvey insisted during Fridays Wee Alba Book event in Aberdeen that there are still ‘many good people’ in SNP.
    That’s the second time in recent months I’ve been present at a Wee Book event when this was said, similar to what Alex said on ‘Prism’ last Dec.”

    Ebok.

    I’d have thought all the half-decent ones, the ones with a conscience and who cared for their country would’ve jumped ship to Alba. I get that there’s a few informants still inside, but in reality, this SNP can of worms is a can that can only be opened from the inside.

    Tories ousting a leader, Labour ousting a leader SNP…Tumbleweed, as the country circles the plughole, how many more years are we to wait until these “good people” decide right we’d better get a move on and do something, it’s not going to happen they are first and foremost informants, and I thank them for that contribution, but the SNP is now a lame duck on the indyfront.

  274. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    This may come as a surprise to some but Nato troops are already on the ground in 404. It began with Nato countries special forces backing up and training 404’s troops, now they are fighting along side them in the trenches.

    I think it may come as a surprise because it is utter bollocks. Of course it is pointless to say that what can be asserted without evidence can be similarly dismissed in your case.

    You are renowned for being a slavishly loyal fluffer for Vlad, so utterly lacking in a moral compass that you continue to double down on your shameful view that the people of country 404 “had it coming”. The troubling thing is that some of the pieces of work who frequent this place appear to agree with you, or at least lack the guts to call you out for it.

    Doubtless your ridiculous lies will soon prove about as reliable as your earlier claims about Cloutier being in the Azovstahl complex, or the secret biolabs all over the country 404. For a purported Alba supporter, you don’t half hold some “out there” views.

  275. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708310

    Yes it is so much worse.

    You don’t specify who your comments are directed at.

    Whereas I am very specific. Nobody apart from yourself & John Main can complain about about being called a cunt.

    Is referring to someone as a cunt worse than calling someone a ‘low life’ ‘a schemie’ ‘a looney’?

    I really don’t think so!

    You asked the question and I gave you a genuine answer.

    Maybe if you had paid attention when I called you a cunt six months instead of dismissing me as a low life schemie who couldn’t be educated due to me being a pig you might not be having to ask what it is you are doing wrong.

    I think you should seek help. Your ‘incredible fragile ego’ seems to be causing you major problems.

    Why not give saying sorry a go?

    There will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent

    I’m pretty sure that would be the case here on Wings too!

  276. Chas
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood 7.51

    I had a look at your link. The article itself was of no surprise, then and now.

    What I did note was the number of comments posted by individuals who no longer contribute to Wings. Perhaps they have been ‘put off’ by the sheer number of inarticulate tripe by the ‘regulars’ who infest this site multiple times every day. Che, RoS, Hateuy are names that immediately spring to mind. Closely followed by the illiterate who can hardly write a sentence without profanity.

    The SNP announced their latest economic/financial strategy paper over a week ago. Nary a comment on here about how shallow and poorly researched it was! Of course plenty about 300 year old stuff, sovereignty, colonialism that no one, other than the mentally unstable, are remotely interested in. In the minds of the BPHB it is all so unfair. So unfair that they submit umpteen posts for ridicule by the sane amongst

    Wings used to be an Independence for Scotland site, promoting the Alba Party and deriding the ineffectiveness of the SNP. Reading the comments, it is now simply a caricature of it’s formal self. In saying that I apportion no blame to Rev Stu who continually provides accurate and forensic articles.

    Imagine that you are a disillusioned SNP supporter or a soft No voter appalled at the circus that is Westminster. You come on to Wings wondering what it has to offer. I suspect that you would not be here very long, never to return.

    Cue the cunt, yoon, calling from the usual suspects with the added bonus of some Scottish vernacular.

    I am an Independence supporter but have no affinity to the majority of closed mind, bitter idiots on here. Many are exactly the same as the SNP cult followers they supposedly ridicule and detest.

    Keep taking the tablets!

  277. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @chas (9.15) –

    ‘I am an Independence supporter but have no affinity to the majority of closed mind, bitter idiots on here. Many are exactly the same as the SNP cult followers they supposedly ridicule and detest.’

    Priceless.

    🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

  278. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Ebok: Agree – depressing and frustrating that no SNP MSPs/MPs have asserted themselves against the leadership.

    Although with so many hideous examples of what has happened to others – Mark Macdonald, Margaret Ferrier, Joanna Cherry, Joan McAlpine, let alone Alex Salmond – it is actually not so surprising.

    It would take a lot of guts to make a stand alone – really it would need a group of about ten to make a difference as that would remove the coalition majority and be a large enough group to make a mark on the public consciousness.

  279. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708324

    Of course it isn’t. I specify that those who hold outlandish views are captured within the general definition. You’re delusional…..as well as being a low life cunt calling ignoramus.

    There’s as much prospect of me apologising to you as there is of me voting Tory. My ego is fine thanks. I laugh at your attempts to justify the fact you’re nothing but a thoroughly nasty piece of work with an ego a mile wide like your mouth but graphene thin.

  280. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “You are renowned for being a slavishly loyal fluffer for Vlad, so utterly lacking in a moral compass ”

    That’s rich coming from you, Noam Chomsky said that every single US president from 1900 onwards should’ve been standing in the dock at the Hague and that doesn’t include other European leaders, y’know the same countries (Nato/EU) that you vehemently support.

    I simply don’t care if you do not believe me that Nato troops are on the ground in 404.

  281. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708325

    Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

    My opinion is that the above post is a load of drivel however it gave me a good laugh but I was disappointed there was no mention of my name or the ‘Bonny Purple Heather Brigade’

    Just wondering who ‘the illiterate who can hardly write a sentence without profanity’ might be?

  282. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Chas 9.15 pm

    What I did note was the number of comments posted by individuals who no longer contribute to Wings. Perhaps they have been ‘put off’ by the sheer number of inarticulate tripe by the ‘regulars’ who infest this site multiple times every day. Che, RoS, Hateuy are names that immediately spring to mind. Closely followed by the illiterate who can hardly write a sentence without profanity.

    Yeah, I noticed that too. It made me laugh earlier when some no-mark complained about this place becoming Ellis Over Scotland, and when I checked, Republic Over Scotland, James Che and Ruby had each made around the same number of posts I had.

    Can you just imagine Ruby Over Scotland? It’d be like watching a female Rab C Nesbitt trying to convince undecideds. I think I’ve been a wee bit sick in my mouth.

    I see BoJo has withdrawn from the Tory leadership race: seems a shame. Him winning would have been a huge plus for the indy movement. 🙂

  283. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    I simply don’t care if you do not believe me that Nato troops are on the ground in 404.

    I know you don’t care, because reason and your woo-woo beliefs are two circles that intersect at no point in the Venn diagram of life.

    Other people do care however. Your lies have consequences, not least for the movement your shameful opinions soil. It’s obvious why you guard your anonymity so closely, because Alba has a pretty low tolerance for folk who crow about Vlad being a nice chap: ask John Jones and Konrad R?kas.

  284. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Soz if this link is posted twice but posted previously but even with my page refreshing to show a comment after AE’s 9.49 pm post it still doesn’t appear, even with a hard page refresh.

    https://caltonjock.com/2022/10/23/swinney-a-political-numnut-whose-25-year-career-is-blotted-by-costly-blunders-and-abject-failure-wasting-many-millions-of-scottish-taxpayers-hard-earned-tax-contributions/

  285. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708333

    Spot the snob!

    What on earth would be wrong with Rab C Nesbitt trying to convince undecideds?

    Would someone who sounds like ‘Rees Mogg’ be better or maybe thon Scottish journalist with the dodgy accent.

    Andy believes we need someone posh & middle class!

  286. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Ian Brotherhood: thank you for publicising the Alba petition. The only way to spread the word is by people such as yourself plugging away.

    And also thank you for sharing your letter to MSPs re the Gender Reform Bill.

  287. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “Other people do care however. Your lies have consequences, not least for the movement your shameful opinions soil. It’s obvious why you guard your anonymity so closely, because Alba has a pretty low tolerance for folk who crow about Vlad being a nice chap: ask John Jones and Konrad R?kas.”

    Ha, comedy gold from the Nato shill, anyway, last I recalled I’m not in office for Alba, and going by your two names that were in Alba some obviously don’t take Nato’s view point as well, a broad church and all that.

    When did I say Vlad was a nice guy, I didn’t, I said he knew when to stand up for his country (unlike Sturgeon) for your information there are no good guys, all countries governments have skeletons in their closets.

    I’ve been using my username for over twelve years, and you are the only one that I can recall in that time that has a problem with it, albeit there was a Hasbara troll on Crag Murray’s blog about five years ago who was also desperate to know my identity.

  288. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dan (10.04) –

    Thanks for that link.

    They’re just having a laugh, eh?

    And they don’t care who sees it.

  289. Willie
    Ignored
    says:

    Interesting comments commentators all.

    Cutting through the bullshit about country 404, it’s clear that country 101 and its side kick 201 are up to their oxters in a war that they cannot win.

    Country 999 has effectively as much weaponry as 101, and of course 201 is a bit player tagging on the side lines. Moreover 999 has not keeled over despite 101 and 201 having upped the economic sanctions multiple times. And pumped in much weaponry and support too. In fact, in particular with bit player 201’s economy in the doo-doo, and set to get worse, much worse, one does wonder who is winning the sanctions war.

    Moreover with 999 now aligning with 1099 who is a bigger number than 999, and bigger some say than 101 what will this mean. 999 and 1099 also have some pals who between them also have a bit of military, economic and resource muscle.

    Petraeus from 101 screams war-war but is he, like Baw Jaws from 201 a busted flush.

    Well, I don’t think we’ll have long to wait to find out where we are headed. All balls, no brains, down, down deeper and down. Nothing like starting a fight you cannot finish.

    It’s an interesting fight altogether. Glad our media and government here in 201 are keeping us abreast of how it really is.

  290. PacMan
    Ignored
    says:

    Republicofscotland says: 23 October, 2022 at 9:34 pm

    “You are renowned for being a slavishly loyal fluffer for Vlad, so utterly lacking in a moral compass ”

    That’s rich coming from you, Noam Chomsky said that every single US president from 1900 onwards should’ve been standing in the dock at the Hague and that doesn’t include other European leaders, y’know the same countries (Nato/EU) that you vehemently support.

    I simply don’t care if you do not believe me that Nato troops are on the ground in 404.

    It’s interesting that Meloni had been portrayed as a fascist and far-right and now that she is Prime Minister she is presenting a more far acceptable position.

  291. Geri
    Ignored
    says:

    Repubicofscotland
    I agree with you. My last post flew to moderation. I forgot it hadn’t to be named. Feck!
    Of course they’re there. That info is freely available on thier own website. There since 2014. Boots, training, weapons, special forces & beefed up at the start of this year.

    Willie. I must remember those numbers. It might keep me out of jail. ?

  292. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Leggypeggy like others I have emailed my msp’s and included a copy of template 2 with slight adjustments to also include

    It is outrageous that the current Scottish Government are so determined to force through this
    legislation despite the overwhelming opposition by ordinary citizens to this reviled legislation
    which people are aware can and will be used by bad actors for nefarious purposes
    I will remind politicians that they have a duty to serve and protect the citizenry of Scotland and they
    will be held accountable and responsible for any damage or injury to our womenfolk resulting from
    the consequences of this unwanted and unnecessary legislation despite the clear and unambiguous
    opposition to it

  293. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood says:
    23 October, 2022 at 9:24 pm
    @chas (9.15) –

    ‘I am an Independence supporter but have no affinity to the majority of closed mind, bitter idiots on here. Many are exactly the same as the SNP cult followers they supposedly ridicule and detest.’

    Priceless.

    ? ? ? ? ?

    It isn’t just the SNP thoroughly infiltrated with disingenuous bullshitters who are not what they seem. The only thing steadfast about them is a disruptive contribution. There is never anything more. Never any initiative, never anything progressive, never anything constructive or likely to be taken as discussion amongst comrades.

    They are just the party going types, who always turn up but never bring any booze. They are the anti life and soul of the party.

    Their objective is to do to Wings what Sturgeon’s infiltrators have done to the SNP, rendering it powerless and impotent and no longer a threat to UK stability. They want everybody disappointed, sorry for coming, and to go home miserable and disillusioned.

    Now ask yourself who would want that.

  294. stuart mctavish
    Ignored
    says:

    Gordon Curie @3:32
    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/#comment-2708264

    Kiss principle :

    Given the treason/karma element of Zelenski’s greatest ally on world stage being cheated out of office and likelihood of it being 5 by Christmas regardless, its also a quiet demonstration of competence, eg:

    Better together & vow – check
    Strong and steady, not the time – check
    Brexit with besties – check
    In Liz we Truss – check
    Back Boris better – no longer available, best double check
    Support Penny and pound looks after itself – has potential, check bounce cheque
    Shell out rishies, or Sunak out soon – check mates either way

  295. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    Ha, comedy gold from the Nato shill, anyway, last I recalled I’m not in office for Alba, and going by your two names that were in Alba some obviously don’t take Nato’s view point as well, a broad church and all that.

    The two individuals concerned weren’t in office either. Their expressed admiration for Vlad was enough to get them kicked in to touch, so I’m pretty sure your repeated sound bite that the people of country 404 had it coming would also qualify, not that you have the balls to publicly own your odious words of course.

    When did I say Vlad was a nice guy, I didn’t, I said he knew when to stand up for his country (unlike Sturgeon) for your information there are no good guys, all countries governments have skeletons in their closets.

    Whataboutery wouldn’t save you any more than it saved John Jones who was trying to get selected as an Alba candidate when expressed his admiration for Vlad in the same terms as yours. I understand from the party membership secretary that he jumped before he was pushed, but he’d definitely have been pushed if he hadn’t run away first.

    I’ve been using my username for over twelve years, and you are the only one that I can recall in that time that has a problem with it, albeit there was a Hasbara troll on Crag Murray’s blog about five years ago who was also desperate to know my identity.

    I didn’t say I had a problem with your user name, I merely pointed out that the fact you won’t publicly own your admiration for Vlad and your comments about the people of country 404 “having it coming” demonstrate that you know they wouldn’t be acceptable in Alba. The fact you’ve used the moniker for 12 years is neither here nor there.

    The light to some is of course an unwelcome friend when they know their views are disreputable and would bring the party in to disrepute, which is why I’m sceptical that you are a party member or real supporter.

  296. Willie
    Ignored
    says:

    Just been reading that due to countries 101 and 201’s sanctions on country 999, that country 999 has put into place a deal with another Middle power that has the technology and capacity to supply 85% of 999’s gas turbine requirements.

    Another economic sanction gone bad for 101, the world is realigning and 101 and its acolytes appear to have bitten off much much more than they can chew.

    Anyway, 201 might have a new prime Ministerial coronation later today, and given past failures in steering economically to the busted flush in economic crisis that 201 is in today, it’s an all out certainty that things are going to get much worse.

    The ships going down
    … deeper and down. They chartered the course and now the scuttled boat goes to join the other wrecks of history

  297. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:


    Willie says:
    24 October, 2022 at 7:56 am

    … put into place a deal with another Middle power that has the technology and capacity to supply 85% of 999’s gas turbine requirements.

    I saw that too… I thought somebody has been quick off the mark, perhaps suspiciously so, but then, thinking about it, for an oil and gas producing nation, the capacity to step in maybe isn’t very remarkable. The turbines might even be stock items for all I know.

    It might however be a taste of things to come…

  298. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    OT by a mile..

    Not worth archiving, but who in the world ever thought this was a good idea? Maybe Turkey doesn’t have a word for “stop”.

    https://www.cntraveller.com/gallery/burj-al-babas-turkey-an-abandoned-town-of-castles?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB

    “…There’s something about the dwellings’ undeniable extravagance and opulence that makes them utterly timeless. “

    Timeless? What on earth are you smoking?

    Now obviously, if they’d build them all as mock Tudor houses, added a garage, doubled the price and squeezed a few more onto the site, they’d have been absolutely fine… 😉

    Bet that poor wee tree right in the middle needs counseling.

  299. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/#comment-2708350

    I definitely don’t like the sound of Alba as portrayed in the above post.

    Do they really dictate how members should think?

    No worries ‘cos I wouldn’t be joining. I don’t fancy attending branch meetings jam packed the with the Edinburgh middle classes. Fuck that!

    I wonder if you get booted out if you live in a scheme or have a Rab C Nesbit accent?

  300. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @DaveL 6:01

    How did the Russians dehumanise their tens of millions of victims under that great, failed experiment, revolutionary communism?

    That’s a most telling omission in your post, given that the number of their victims far outstrips the German and Japanese totals put together.

    Don’t tell me you are still carrying a torch for the auld Bolshevist manifesto! Maybes think it needs a second chance, but this time done right!

    Nae half measures the next time around. Pile the bodies roof high. Swim out of your depth in lakes of blood.

  301. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    I wonder if you get booted out if you live in a scheme or have a Rab C Nesbit accent?

    No, but you probably would for calling folk cunts every time you interacted with them. I doubt Alba members would like you as part of the branch Ruby, but feel free to join up and we’ll soon find out if other members find your behaviour appropriate.

  302. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    Chas 9:15

    Good post making some good points.

    I note in particular your mention of the lack of interest in the SNP economic strategy paper. This is exactly the subject that, handled properly, is most likely to have the biggest effects when it comes to converting new Yes voters. Yet my efforts to get this centre stage, to show us the money in other words, are routinely derided, or ignored.

    I was even verbally abused just last week for stating that when it comes to self-interest, the desire to get on, and to improve personal financial security, Scots are no different to anybody else!

    Yet, and here’s where the lunacy really kicks in: never-ending, interminable posts about the SNP politicos troughing it, coining it in, the Murrell’s salaries, short money, etc, etc. Also, the cash-raking antics of WGD and all the tractors who have settled in, in return for a regular, fat pay check.

    Cognitive dissonance writ large, day after day, on Wings BTL.

  303. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ruby

    Fuck the Edinburgh middle classes?

    What a callous, cold-hearted way to break it to your former bestie, Hatuey.

  304. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    The GRA bill is scheduled to come before the chamber in Holyrood on Thursday for its first proper debate. I see many folk screaming trans-rights matter, but what are “trans-rights” trans folk are already covered like the rest of us under the Human Rights Act.

    So, what exactly is it that the LGBTI+ community wants, is it access to women and girl’s private spaces, such as locker rooms and toilets for those that do not possess a transgender certificate. What’s more do they support medical experiments on children, for that what it boils down to, by giving under eighteens life changing hormone drugs.

  305. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @John Main

    It’s almost comical the level of understanding exhibited by some BTL here isn’t it? Doesn’t say a lot about the standard of education on history and current affairs, but then there isn’t really any excuse these days for folk not to know about the back story of Russian imperialism, both before and after the fall of the Czarist regime.

    There appears to be a hard core of what used to be known as “tankies” back in the day, whose default response on any issue is to attack the Great Satan as the root of all evil and indulge in pointless whataboutery and false equivalence between the sins of “the West” going back several hundred years, and the sins of authoritarian regimes like Vlad’s or Xi’s.

    It’s an interesting pathology really. Just as you found plenty of fellow travellers in the past willing to defend the suppression of Hungary in 1956, the Czechs in 1968 or the Poles in the 1980’s, we’re now asked to believe that the folk of country 404 had it coming (presumably much like those of Chechnya and Georgia had it coming too?).

    There’s a sort of gleefulness about the asserted imminent collapse of the west, the Great Satan and the world economy I find kinda fascinating. What do these airheads think their new world order controlled by the authoritarian and absolutist in the BRICS alternative will look like?

    Delusional hardly seems an adequate description!

  306. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Main @9.06am.

    Not that I’m a communist, but capitalism has in my opinion killed far more folk than communism.

  307. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708357

    Nae worries I have absolutely no intention of joining these ‘posh cunts’ in the Edinburgh Middle Class Alba Party.

    Although I do think they would benefit greatly from my presence even if it was just to give them a few fashion tips & some health & fitness advice.

    Look at the state of them:

    https://tinyurl.com/yu75ppr6

  308. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    @ John Main & Chas

    For folk with such a keen eye for money and supposedly independence supporters too, it seems odd that you’ve both missed the numerous links posted btl to articles by reputable folk critiquing and suggesting alternative economic strategies that would better benefit Scotland, compared to being stuck in what is the current circling the pan UK economy.
    Ya ken, those positive initiatives that you could actually get behind because they aligned with what you supposedly want. Surely that would be the better option for you both rather than acting like the lazy unfit couch potato twats of supporters that stand on the sidelines shouting at the fit and skilled athlete telling them how to perform better.

  309. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    The US is indeed without doubt the Great Satan.

    Just taking ONE country the USA’s Eye of Sauron gazed upon, Haiti, for example the first country to abolish slavery and have in its constitution an act outlawing racism, only for it to fall prey to the Great Satan.

    Much of what ails the world today, is down to acts past and present carried out by US administrations.

    https://consortiumnews.com/2022/10/21/the-last-thing-haiti-needs-is-another-military-intervention/

  310. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    On the subject of folk believing in magical thinking with respect to BRICS and the new world order in here, it’s interesting to reflect that it’s not just the anti Tories that indulge in it. Guy Hands the long term Tory supporter and founder of investment firm Terra Firma is quoted by the BBC as saying the Tories aren’t fit for office:

    I think [the Tory party] has got to move on from fighting its own internal wars and actually focus on what needs to be done in the economy and admitting some of the mistakes they’ve made in the last six years which have frankly put this country on the path to be the sick man of Europe.”

    Of course it’s the brexiteer ranters within the Tory party who have brought us to where we are. An independence movement worth its salt, and a Scottish government that actually had a clue, should have no problem constructing a pro indy majority on the basis that an independent Scotland is the ideal lifeboat from the sinking British nationalist ship.

    Beset as it is with Scottish unionist “hingers on” who still believe the risks of independence are greater than the risks of independence, and ranters polluting our own movement fluffing for Vlad and the sunny uplands of splendid isolation and the new BRICS led world order, it’s hardly surprising indy is mired in a bog struggling to construct a majority in the face of the most inept government in the modern era.

  311. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708360

    Self-id or no self-id it doesn’t make any difference.

    There is no self-id at the moment yet we have a man in a dress at the Rape Crisis centre pretending to be a woman.

    We have men in women’s prisons, in changing rooms, winning prizes as ‘woman of the year’ and entering women’s sport.

    We have India Willoughby claiming to be a woman and all the rest.

    Over twenty years ago I had the experience of having a man in the ladies changing room. I don’t know what his circumstance were but he was dressed in women’s clothes and was allowed into the ladies changing room.

    The self-id is pretty crazy but no more crazy than claiming a man is a woman which is what the 2004 Gender Recognition Act states.

    Self-id has the advantage of freeing up doctors time and allowing them to deal with other patients.

    I’m hoping in an iScotland there is no Gender Recognition Act that states a man can be a woman.

    My solution to all of this is to say trans women are trans women and they should have their own spaces, sports, hospital wards, rape crisis centres and prisons.

    Even without self-id or a GRC men can go into women’s spaces because the 2004 GRA states men must ‘live as a woman for a period of two years’ How can you live as a woman if you aren’t using women’s spaces ie the toilet, changing rooms, refuges, hospital wards and serving your time in a woman’s prison?

    It’s all out the bag now and being trans is very very trendy.

    Nobody is going to ask for a GRC all it takes is for a man to put on women’s clothing and hey presto they can enter any space they want.

  312. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Here’s the link if you’d like advice on how to contact your MSPs before the GRA Bill vote on Thursday.

    Doesn’t take long at all – just follow the steps, use Writetothem, and keep it polite.

    😉

    https://forwomen.scot

  313. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Andy Ellis 9:57

    “ideal lifeboat from the sinking British ship”

    Of course, Andy.

    I have long thought that “New Scots” are more likely to want to launch that lifeboat than the tired old SS Great Britain crew who have developed some fondness for the old girl.

    Which makes the idea of excluding these New Scots from the Indy Ref an obvious nonsense.

    Perhaps the problem is just that the self-appointed lifeboat crew have failed to convince a majority of the passengers, including the New Scots, that they are competent to sail it.

    And to stretch the analogy to breaking point, a route map, showing the destination as a land flowing with milk and honey would be a boon.

    Enough of this staring out over a waste of uncharted, stormy ocean and crying, “have faith, there’s dry land and treasure out there somewhere”.

  314. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    79 year old President of the USA and the most powerful figure in the world (until China takes over) just gave a cookie (biscuit) to a man who dresses as a girl.

    Dame Keir Starmer refuses to rule out Eddie Izzard from woman`s list for MP.

    Nicola SHE/HER is going to whip SHE/HER`s MSPs to vote to let men Self Id without any restrictions.

  315. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @John Main

    And to stretch the analogy to breaking point, a route map, showing the destination as a land flowing with milk and honey would be a boon.

    The way things stand now, I don’t think we have to guarantee that it will be “the best of all possible worlds” post indy. The “offer” has if anything changes from that which was required in 2012-14. Then, Project Fear was able to concentrate on the risks of indy outweighing the potential benefits, concentrating on the stability argument and predicting the sky would fall if we voted Yes, because we’d be out of the EU, have a huge fiscal black hole, and no friends internationally.

    That prospectus has been holed below the water line now. Even if Sunak is appointed PM, he’ll struggle to tackle the bùrach inherited from Truss’ train wreck premiership on top of the kind of systemic economic problems referred to by Guy Hands in the earlier quote. Brexit was always an exercise in shooting ourselves in the foot economically, but it took the ideologically based incompetence and extremism of the “no deal is better than a bad deal” types to turn a drama in to a crisis.

  316. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Republic 9:31

    “Capitalism has killed far more folk than communism”

    Maybes aye, maybes naw.

    How many billions of folk has capitalism lifted out of absolute, desperate poverty then?

    How does communism’s record compare?

  317. Scott
    Ignored
    says:

    Main & Ellis should get a room to beg questions and give the rest of us some peace for a while…and trollhag Ruby can listen at the door.

  318. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708370

    Being trans is very trendy!

    Eddie Izzard & Keir Starmer live in England.

    There is no self-id in England as far as I’m aware.

    The problem is this claim that trans women are women.

    Whether it’s the 2004 Gender Recognition Act or self-id the claim is still the same.

  319. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis

    I am not really seeing what has changed from iScotland’s perspective.

    We will still be out of the EU. As for having no international “friends”, no country has friends. Countries have interests. An iScotland will indeed be inundated with “friendly” neighbours, all salivating over our energy potential. We will need to be very canny indeed to ensure we don’t lose our hard-won Indy to the wiles and promises of all our desperate new “friends”. Aided and abetted by our internal, faith-based Europhiles.

    As for ideologically based incompetence and extremism down south, WTF do you think gender self-id is up here?

    I don’t think the balance has shifted all that much. You could possibly argue that if Sunak comes through and the Tories come to heel behind him, that the Tories have finally at least woken up to and accepted the gravity of the situation. Has the SNP yet had that bruising collision with the real world?

    I don’t think so.

    What about the wider Indy movement? IMO, Alba ditching NATO signals they too are still at odds with reality.

    But, to return to the original scenario. When the ship is sinking, you get into the lifeboat. You don’t waste precious time looking for en-suite facilities, you are simply grateful there is room. It’s a disappointing and demoralising come down from what you were originally promised – the SS Indy was supposed to have provided even more opulent and luxurious accommodation than the SS Great Britain.

    Still, what did you expect from the builders of the Scottish ferries?

    Haud oan, though. Is that Captain Starmer steaming full speed ahead to our rescue? That’s a bonnie boat he’s managed to put together, with a canny crew. Could be there’s plenty of room aboard her for Scotland!

  320. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    Hey Scott

    Plenty of alternative routes to “peace”. A good book, or daytime telly, etc etc.

    I have heard you can even use this internet thingy to look at sites other than Wings!

    Could this gob-smacking, jaw-dropping rumour be true?

  321. stuart mctavish
    Ignored
    says:

    Ruby @10:11

    Can’t imagine Edinburgh’s elite (or even middle class) gentlemen tolerating a man pretending to be a woman in order to access vulnerable ladies, far less its extremely well educated ladies, so guessing the character is flying under the radar in a voluntary post elsewhere.

    Then again, I think it was miss H who said she froze and wished she’d decked her admirer in the face of his unwanted advance.

    Irrespective of the confusion as to whether she herself was actually present during the exchange, the reaction (or surprise at lack of it) is commonly described in response to rape so the legislation enforcing anonymity and encouraging victim shaming (which must have begun life long before the #me2 hysteria invented to defame former ambassador Trump) is extraordinarily counter intuitive too.

    Not impossible then that there’s a rat problem (the reason you specify being a symptom) not unlike like the one getting a bit of exposure in Ottawa lately, but its Scotland FFS (or vice versa) so perhaps just as likely that the law allowing such anonymity to be enforced was brought with good intent (albeit I cannot think of one) but has proven to be open to abuse in practice – and fundamentally flawed regardless.

  322. Chas
    Ignored
    says:

    Dan

    Most links I have seen are 6/8 years old. I have not seen ANYTHING current which stands up to close scrutiny. The world is a different place now.
    I have seen some very recent articles, from respected sources, stating that the recently produced SNP ‘paper’, is simply a waste of time and clarifies nothing.

    Ruby

    Apologies for not mentioning you in despatches. I simply find that the stuff you write is really not worthy of comment. No doubt this will spur you on to again call me a cunt or something similar, but, in all honesty, this is water off a duck’s back. Is it true you have a complexion like corned beef?
    Hope me mentioning you now makes you happy. No need to reply.

  323. Geri
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks 5:27am

    100%

    Ellis

    You really need to drop your bs regards ppl suggesting 404 had it coming. I’ve never read anything like that here. What has been said is if you deliberately & willfully poke 999 for a reaction – don’t swallow the media bs being peddled by 101 & 102 *it wisnae me*
    They wanted a reaction.
    They got one.
    Now they’ve ran away – leaving 404 to throw the grenades on thier behalf.
    It’s 101 repeated foreign policy to dismantle 999. Evidence is clear. Locked documents unsealed. They willfully broke int pacts before the ink was even dry. To expand into every surrounding area under the Trojan horse of NATO.

    Your attempts to portray that as Vlad supporters is deliberate bait & cuntish behaviour! No, we’re just not dumb fucks & can use the world wide web & see Thier track record of destabilising ever fecking thing they touch!

    I’ll revert back to scrolling past you now. It’s true what ppl say, your just here to be a fucking irritant. A wasp at a picnic. The bore every fecker avoids in the pub.

  324. Effijy
    Ignored
    says:

    Reece Mogg to kill thousands of U.K. laws and rights now that the EU and decency cannot save us

    https://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/oct/24/post-brexit-proposals-mean-2400-laws-could-disappear-lawyers-warn

  325. Chas
    Ignored
    says:

    Geri

    I have seen plenty of comments on here that a certain country ‘had it coming’. Andy Ellis is correct in calling out these posters for what they are.
    No doubt a few of the mentally unhinged will be along shortly to claim that Ellis/Main and myself are one and the same person. Such is life on Wings nowadays.
    Did you really mean to imply in your post that you ARE a Vlad supporter?
    I dispute your claim that you are not a dumb fuck.
    Have a lovely day.

  326. Rab Davis
    Ignored
    says:

    Chas 12.37pm

    Not a very gentlemanly comment about Ruby there.

    Try to up your game ya fuckin dildo.

    Is it true your auld maw was effectionatly known as the “Town Bike”

  327. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Geri

    You really need to do your homework. Republic of Scotland has indeed said on more than one occasion that the people of country 404 had it coming. He even doubled down on it when challenged. Many of the other Vlad fluffers in here may not have gone so far, but they have certainly been nodding dogs for the more extreme fellow travellers like RoS.

    The rest of your post is just your tendentious and fallacious misreading of events, or things you wish were true but aren’t. Same old, same old really.

    It simply isn’t true that there were guarantees that NATO wouldn’t expand. Discussions that were had with Gorbachev on the break up of the Warsaw Pact were not perpetual guarantees that the Russians were entitled to permanent “spheres of influence” which allowed them to dictate whether independent countries on its borders were “allowed” to join NATO or the EU or take any other policy direction they chose.

    No real nationalist worthy of the name would accept such terms. Would you accept the UK government dictating that post independence Scotland wasn’t allowed to join NATO or the EU? Why should Russia get to dictate what country 404 can do, or Finland, Sweden, Georgia, Moldova? Are you really a nationalist at all?

    You really are dumb fucks if you believe the agitprop being trotted out by RoS and his ilk.

    It’d be good if you no longer interact, it will save me having to waste time on you and other similar oxygen thieves. Luckily, whilst you are sadly over represented BTL here, your worldview is shared by a vanishingly small % of the movement as a whole, as empty of ideas as you are of principle, but as we know empty barrels always make the most noise.

  328. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Rab 12:58

    The reasoned logic of your arguments and the forensic dissection of your opponent’s position has garnered many, many Yes votes for Indy this day.

    Take a bow.

  329. Scott
    Ignored
    says:

    Ellis’s narcissism really is in overdrive today.

    He should stick to twitter, where sympathy is doled out for free if you choose the right words.

  330. Geri
    Ignored
    says:

    Effigy – yes, that’s what they’ve wanted all along.
    Especially environmental & workers protections.

    & No one can protest or they’re arrested.

    We can’t say we weren’t warned we’re moving at a rate of knots to fascism.

    Did you see DD news regards membership votes? Anyone from anywhere in the world can vote on membership government policies.

    I think this is what’s forcing through Sturgeons GRA – especially given the results of the first consultation. I did wonder at the wave of new converts to the SNP who openly stated on twitter they’d become a member despite not being able to vote. It appears to be so they can vote on consultations & shaping policy?

  331. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “How many billions of folk has capitalism lifted out of absolute, desperate poverty then?”

    A typical reply.

    How many millions has capitalism thrown into poverty, as resources are stripped and the indigenous folks living standards plummet. One could quite easily say that Scottish living standards which should’ve been raised quite significantly, did not after oil and gas was discovered in huge quantities in Scottish waters, capitalism, at its worst at work.

    Then there’s the unfettered type of capitalism, which seeks to maximise profits, and the first thing to go is workers rights, rights that workers forefathers fought tooth and nail for some shedding their blood in the process.

    Even now the capitalist loving corporate media are demonising unions and workers who want to strike for better pay and conditions so they can support their families. The same corporate media ran a smear campaign against a socialist leader of the Labour party.

  332. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    A prime example of the liars and deceitful individuals of Nato, and we have the usual suspect shilling for them in here.

    History shows us that we cannot believe a words Nato leaders say.

    “U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University

    The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels.

    The documents reinforce former CIA Director Robert Gates’s criticism of “pressing ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.”[1] The key phrase, buttressed by the documents, is “led to believe.”

    President George H.W. Bush had assured Gorbachev during the Malta summit in December 1989 that the U.S. would not take advantage (“I have not jumped up and down on the Berlin Wall”) of the revolutions in Eastern Europe to harm Soviet interests”

  333. Rab Davis
    Ignored
    says:

    John Main

    I’ve told you before,,, don’t fuckin annoy me!!!

  334. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    The idea that those who want a negotiated settlement in Eastern Europe are supporters of Vlad is an insult to readers of this website and whoever says that should be ashamed. Stop treating people like idiots, you weirdos.

    Nobody who genuinely cares about the people over there could oppose a negotiated settlement.

    Pumping ever more arms and weapons in will achieve nothing but prolong the war, lead to more innocent people suffering and dying, and lead to the destruction of more cities and infrastructure.

    As if all that isn’t reason enough to bring this war to an end, the negative consequences of prolonging the war on the economies of Europe is bad now and going to get a lot worse.

    There is one country that is benefitting from all this, making a fortune in arms contracts and gas sales. It’s the same country that was largely responsible for starting it with its meddling, despite years of warning from respected experts like John Mearsheimer. And (surprise, surprise) it’s the same country that is blocking any move towards a negotiated settlement.

    In the coming months, more and more people are going to be drawn to agree with the above and the propaganda will be seen for what it is. If I have one hope for something constructive coming out of this, it will be that those responsible for the propaganda will be held to account.

    Preventing people from expressing legitimate concerns and opinions isn’t the same as winning the argument; it’s crass totalitarian bullshit.

    People aren’t as stupid as some would like to think.

  335. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Republic 1:27

    Jeezo, it’s no glass half empty for you, in your eyes there’s nae even a fucking glass!

    And as per usual, my question goes unanswered.

    But see this bit, Republic:

    “Rights that workers forefathers fought tooth and nail for”

    There’s plenty of stuff our ancestors fought tooth and nail for. It’s our own apathy and laziness that has allowed their gains to be clawed back. It’s rare, but for once I agree with you.

  336. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/#comment-2708373

    Why do you want me to do that Scott?

    Are you hoping I overhear some details about Andy Ellis’ daughter?

  337. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Hats 1:51

    “People aren’t as stupid as some would like to think”

    What about those people who take you as their benchmark, eh Hats? Doesn’t that jaundice their outlook a smudge?

    But by all means, favour us with an insight into the shape of the negotiated settlement you genuinely care about.

    Start with “God told me to rebuild Holy Mother Russia within its ancestral borders and threaten wreckers with nukes” Vlad and negotiate (hypothetically) from there. Treat us all to a glimpse of your over-achieving world view.

  338. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Rab 1:46

    ,,,

    Fucked if I know what it means, but you keep posting it, so it must be good.

  339. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    William G Walker.

    I apologise for late response on you’re John Swinney analyses,

    I read it with interest as I never knew to much about his background.
    Although my instincts led me to believe he was a old flop flop at the edge of the waves on a beach.
    Perhaps not as eloquent as you put it, but nevertheless that was my first thoughts on hearing him.

    May I be forward in requesting another analyses on the following theory Rumbling around my head regards the Snp aims for the future.

    I have the impression that the reason the Snp have not shifted up gears on Scottish independence is due to their wish to become the main opposition at Westminster as a stage one goal,

    This automatically would seat them in the position as having infiltrated Westminster to become second in line for the main party position and perhaps leader and Pm in years shortly following.

    Perhaps their aims and long term goals are not to run a independent Scotland country on its own. But to run all of Britain,

    Just my instinct again maybe?

  340. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    “Rishi Sunak will become Britain’s youngest prime minister in modern times and the country’s first non-white leader after Conservative MPs overwhelmingly backed him to succeed Liz Truss.”

    https://archive.ph/f7pWX

  341. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Hatuey 1.51 pm

    Some people are undoubtedly as stupid as we think: it’s odd that you think otherwise particularly given all the available evidence in this place. The time for a negotiated settlement was either before Vlad launched his war of aggression and committed war crimes, or it will be after his defeat to arrange suitable reparations from Russia and set the terms for dropping sanctions.

    There is currently no negotiated settlement that will be acceptable to either side. Vlad’s regime will not accept a return to the status quo ante of February, because they’ve assured their people they face an existential threat from imaginary nazis and militarists in country 404, and that the 4 oblasts years to rejoin mother Russia.

    On the other hand after months of war, thousands of dead, all the destruction and the many war crimes, the folk of country 404 are never going to accept anything but a total withdrawal from all their territory, including the Crimea. The west is likely to fully support that outcome.

    The western countries aren’t going to abandon country 404 due to temporary economic difficulties. The prospect of Vlad being able to carve up country 404 and get away with his war are just too serious to contemplate. Your sub “Great Satan” arguments still don’t really get any traction in the real world outside the moonhowler bubble here Hatuey.

    Normal folks just don’t accept the false moral equivalences you and others continually make between the faults of western liberal democracies and those of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes like Russia and China. However furiously you and others keep flogging that horse, it remains dead.

    How you think those responsible for what you regard as propaganda will be held to account within a few months I can’t imagine. It’ll be interesting to re-group early next year and see if the sky has fallen, if these nasty propagandists have been held to the account you crave.

    More likely, back in the real world, you’ll be left making excuses about why the sky didn’t fall, and explaining like some weird cult leader why your new date for armageddon will definitely be right NEXT time, yes sirree!

    Nobody is being prevented from expressing concerns, legitimate or otherwise. Indeed I’ve always said it’s better for conspiracy theorists and moonhowlers to be held up to the full glare of reason, all the better to laugh at their woo-woo later. Nobody here is being shut down, or jailed for calling a special military operation a war, nor are they fleeing the country to avoid being called up to serve in an army committing widespread war crimes.

    If you’re so convinced country 404 should negotiate a settlement with Vlad, what do you think it look like by the way?

    Perhaps you could seek out some of its citizens currently resident here and ask them?

  342. Scott
    Ignored
    says:

    “If you’re so convinced country 404 should negotiate a settlement with Vlad, what do you think it look [sic] like by the way?” – Ellis

    What the fuck has it got to do with us, ya psychopath?

  343. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Wull.
    23 Oct 2022, 5: 41pm.

    I apologise for slow response to you’re comments yesterday, I got busy around meal time.

    The realisation that a certain group on here considered the Treaty of the Union as a subject to be readily dismissed and consigned to the bin, ie, not relevant to Scotland today certainly inspired a closer look at the the conception of the union.

    Why anyone here on this site with their main benchmark of fighting for Scottish independence from England with the result of ending the treaty of union, would attempt to derail and dismiss that very subject was curious they Were polar opposite positions.

    I suggest a closer look at the the dates and events not only prior to the Treaty of the Union but also through to 1752 by all those here,

    It must arouse all those being called nativist, moonhowlers and Vlad supporters curiosity as to why it is the same group vocally telling you not to dig to deep into the creation of the treaty of the Union.

  344. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @RoS 1.37 pm

    More disinformatsia tovarich. You really must try harder. The 1990 stuff has all been done to death.

    We now have a very authoritative voice from Moscow confirming this understanding. Russia behind the Headlines has published an interview with Gorbachev, who was Soviet president during the discussions and treaty negotiations concerning German reunification. The interviewer asked why Gorbachev did not “insist that the promises made to you [Gorbachev]—particularly U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s promise that NATO would not expand into the East—be legally encoded?” Gorbachev replied: The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. … Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement was made in that context… Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.

    Gorbachev continued that: The agreement on a final settlement with Germany said that no new military structures would be created in the eastern part of the country; no additional troops would be deployed; no weapons of mass destruction would be placed there. It has been obeyed all these years. To be sure, the former Soviet president criticized NATO enlargement and called it a violation of the spirit of the assurances given Moscow in 1990, but he made clear there was no promise regarding broader enlargement.

    Of course you won’t accept any references to western sources, MSM reports, think tanks etc because they are suspect in your eyes and part of the “Great Satan’s Plan”, but most balanced individuals are capable of examining both sides of the argument and seeing Vlad’s agitprop for what it is. Apart from shills like you obvs.

    https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2014/11/06/did-nato-promise-not-to-enlarge-gorbachev-says-no/

  345. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @”Scott”

    What the fuck has it got to do with us, ya psychopath?

    Hatuey he’s the one asserting that a negotiated settlement is achievable and desirable. Neither is true of course, but since he’s making the assertion, it is contingent on him to tell us how it might work. It has something to do with us, because we’re the ones helping to ensure country 404 hasn’t already been over-run by the Orcs, and it’s in our interests to see how it all ends. A defeat for country 404 would be a defeat for all of us too, because Vlad won’t stop with country 404: dictators like him aren’t going to stop.

    It’s obvious to all but the most avid friends of Vlad that country 404 will never accept Vlad being able to claim victory by retaining any of the territory invaded since February, and given what has happened since, probably none of the territory they occupied before then, including Crimea. Similarly, it’s obvious the west will continue to support country 404 for as long as it takes to ensure they ultimately prevail.

  346. Scott
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis says:
    24 October, 2022 at 3:24 pm

    @”Scott”

    What the fuck has it got to do with us, ya psychopath?

    Hatuey he’s the one asserting that a negotiated settlement is achievable and desirable. Neither is true of course

    Jesus fucking christ, what a cunt you really are.

    Do you quack like a yank, anaw?

    Do you wish you’d been born on 4th July, rather than St Andrew’s Day?

  347. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @”Scott”

    Do you wish you’d been born on 4th July, rather than St Andrew’s Day?

    No, I’m just not an appeasement loving friend of Vlad like some of the moral compass-less dregs in here. Happily my views reflect those of the overwhelming majority of ordinary Scots and those in the independence movement.

    I know it triggers the moonhowlers to hear it, but the rest of us just think they’re snivelling cowards, as no real nationalist would be content to see Vlad prevail after what he’s done to Chechnya, Georgia and country 404.

  348. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “More disinformatsia tovarich. You really must try harder. The 1990 stuff has all been done to death.”

    Oh, right I see I’m posting disinformation, but you are not and that is because the link and your comment are true whilst mine are propaganda.

    Yet here we are time doesn’t lie, the 2014 coup by the Great Satan (USA) in 404 via the USA’s Kiev embassy where it was all planned and overseen by Victoria Nuland, and when the EU found out what was really planned Nuland said “F*ck the EU” when it was revealed EU interests would be pushed aside for US ones, and in your warped and twisted mind it’s all propaganda bollocks dreamt up in some dark room in the basement of the Kremlin.

    Have you any idea how foolish that sounds, and how it reflects on you, I know it’s your day job and all, but c’mon surely even you must know people will see through it.

    Anyway, you are so confident in your set out propaganda that you even linked to Brookings, anyone in the know will have wry smile on their faces right now.

    Sponsored by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Democracy Fund, Koch family foundations, Lumina Foundation, Omidyar Network, Open Society Foundations, PepsiCo, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Rockefeller Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation.

  349. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “The FM had initially written that Sunak was the first prime minister from “any minority ethnic background” before hastily deleting the tweet to remove the reference.”

    I say that Sturgeon the Betrayer should suffer the same fate as Iain Macwhirter for the above, get her out, oh that’s right SNP MSPs are gutless and spineless.

    https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenational.scot%2Fnews%2F23074102.nicola-sturgeon-advice-rishi-sunak-becomes-prime-minister%2F

  350. Rab Davis
    Ignored
    says:

    Ruby 1.57pm

    What’s this about Andy Ellis daughter?

    Has she got a bit of a name for herself?

    A bit like Chas and his auld Maw being known as the “Town Bike”.

    So is the Ellis daughter a bit of a Bicycle” as well?

    Just asking like!!!

    I’ve heard these diseases are very infectious.

    Don’t want Ellis coming onto Wings and spreading all sorts of infections about the place.

  351. gregor
    Ignored
    says:

    The Brookings Institution (2022): A Conversation With Nicola Sturgeon: Washington, D.C.:

    “…honor to welcome to us for an enlightening discussion, the first minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon…”:

    https://archive.ph/KmhLa

    Brookings (2021): Future Development: Navigating the debt legacy of the pandemic:

    “Covid-19 has left a legacy of record-high debt and shifted the trade-offs between benefits and costs of accumulating government debt.

    The recent fiscal deterioration in advanced economies and emerging market and developing economies stands apart over the past half-century. Output collapses and government spending to keep economies afloat triggered a massive increase in global debt levels…

    Even before the pandemic, the global economy experienced an unprecedented wave of debt accumulation…”:

    https://archive.ph/X6TD0

    ScotGov (17/10/2022): Building a New Scotland…:

    “This paper sets out the Scottish Government’s proposals for the economy…

    It explains what these proposals would mean for you…

    …Borrowing is a normal part of government activity for all major advanced economies.

    Running a deficit is not unusual. All but two of the 35 Advanced IMF Economies ran a deficit in 2021…

    An independent Scotland would have the full borrowing powers available to other countries…”:

    https://archive.ph/l092w

  352. Geri
    Ignored
    says:

    James Che re SNP as opposition.

    It’d never happen. Everyone tells them to feck off, everyday.
    No one ever votes for thier motions. Everyone always evacuates the chamber. England would never allow a Scot a glance at the accounts for a start.
    They 100% believe WM is England’s parliament & it’s set up to always win.

    Someone said somewhere (can’t remember where) SNP are holding out for a Labour government in the hopes to drive change to the Equality Act.

    Sturgeon isn’t driving independence for the exact same reasons Corbyn was ousted. She’s fell victim to the dark forces at play. Nuke withdrawal & clutches on our oil isn’t compatible with thier world view. She’ll have been given the option – Drop it or you’ll use the same exit as Corbyn. Looks like her & her crones have dropped it & this SC farce is make it look like she tried so indy movement will fk off & stop bothering them.

  353. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    He’s certainly the first Indian billionaire to be UK PM.

    Such a shame we will soon be at war with India, as India throws in its lot with Vlad & Xi.

    Haud oan though. That story is pish.

    As you were Wingers.

  354. Geri
    Ignored
    says:

    Repubicofscotland

    She’s in possession of the golden ticket that gets her off the hook now. She’s fallen into line like a good little soldier. The media will let her off with that. The attack dogs have been called off.

  355. Geri
    Ignored
    says:

    He is British. He was born in England. Tsk!

  356. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @RoS

    Oh, right I see I’m posting disinformation, but you are not and that is because the link and your comment are true whilst mine are propaganda.

    How else do you think this works? People look at the available evidence and make a judgement which alternative view that find most convincing. Since the vast majority of folk won’t have direct experience or be present at any given event, that’s how it works surely? Even this actually in the room to hear what was discussed at e.g discussions with Gorbachev in the 1990’s might come away with very different interpretations of what was said, what they agreed or even what written statements meant. If that wasn’t true, lawyers would be pretty short of work.

    Nobody apart from a fringe group of kranks buys the line that country 404s government was overthrown by the USA, any more than they buy your streadfast belief that the Malaysian airlines flight was shot down by country 404, or that it needed to be de nazified and demilitarised, or that there were high ranking NATO officers in the Azovstahl complex who were captured but have never been produced by Vlad’s nice bunch of lads.

    The fact you believe these things to be true or self evident doesn’t render them factual, it’s just your faulty take on the evidence, skewed by your ideological blinkers.

    Who is it that funds the sources you’re relying on then? It’s always a tell when fringe extremists rubbish the output of any and every source on the basis that they have insider knowledge from alternative sources which trumps every other source, just because *reasons. Most reasonable folk honestly wouldn’t expect us to take that worldview and approach to analysing different source material at face value.

    As we’ve seen however, you and the moonhowlers in here don’t represent reason, or the views of any but a tiny fraction of the movement. Perhaps that’s what triggers all of you and makes you so personally unpleasant and unable to marshal any coherent argument?

  357. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Have just received the following from one of my MSPs, Pam Gosal:

    ‘Thank you for contacting me regarding the SNP Government’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill.

    Since the SNP Government published their Bill, we have been constructively scrutinising to ensure the Bill has no unintended consequences.

    However, as drafted, we have heard legitimate and reasonable concerns about sections of this Bill, and it is essential that the SNP Government both listens to and addresses those concerns.

    I am aware that there have been concerns raised regarding safeguards for children and young people in relation to the Gender Recognition Reform Bill. While the Scottish Conservatives recognise that improvements to the system of gender recognition would be beneficial for trans people, the welfare of children and young people must come first. That means balancing the need of those who are definitely suffering from gender dysphoria with the need to protect vulnerable children and young people who are unsure of their identity and risk embarking on gender hormone treatment prematurely.

    The Scottish Conservatives have called for a public inquiry to be held into the increase in children being referred to the Sandyford Sexual Health Service for gender dysphoria, with child referrals to the service increasing fifteen-fold from 2013 to 2019. It is essential that an inquiry is taken forward to ensure that the appropriate safeguards for vulnerable children are in place.

    As a member of the Equalities, Human Rights, and Civil Justice (EHRCJ) Committee tasked with scrutinising the Bill, it was important to me in my role that we strike a fair balance with this legislation and ensure there are no unintended consequences.

    The EHRCJ Committee have since published our Stage 1 report on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, which can be found here: Stage 1 Report on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill | Scottish Parliament

    The Stage 1 report outlines conclusions and recommendations on the general principles of the Bill. As you will see from the report, by a majority of 5 to 2, the committee recommended that the general principles of the Bill be approved.

    As part of the minority who do not support the general principles of the Bill, it is my hope that the SNP Government will be open to some of the recommendations and conclusions drawn by the committee and amend the Bill as such.

    In the coming weeks, the Gender Recognition Reform Bill will be brought to the Scottish Parliament for a Stage 1 debate. My colleagues and I will scrutinise this legislation very carefully as it progresses through the Scottish Parliament, to ensure that appropriate protections for vulnerable children and young people are not undermined. We will not support any reforms that put the welfare of children and young people at risk.

    Thank you once again for taking the time to contact me on this issue.’

  358. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Rab 4:05

    That’s quite a post.

    I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes when Ruby, Geri, Dorothy, James Che and Fionan jump you, kneeing you in the balls and gouging at your eyes, for your unforgivable, slanderous, personal and vilely misogynistic attacks on an innocently unconnected member of the fairer sex.

    Hell, even Dan’s strongly developed chivalrous instincts will be triggered by that post.

    If I have correctly assessed their characters, their outraged posts will be along …

    Any …

    Minute …

    Now …

  359. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Ellis @4.42pm.

    You don’t disappoint that’s for sure, that’s exactly what I expected from you, Brigadier Alexander Turner will be so proud of you.

    Maybe you can help with this one Ellis, I often wonder, in the philosophical side of things such as people like you, and the job you do, how you manage to sleep at night, what I mean is doesn’t your conscience bother you knowing that day in and day you try to defend and justify the indefensible, it must be exhausting trying to shore up the multitude of lies 24/7, but then again I guess they train you to handle it, though some probably get cut from the course, I’d imagine that it sits uneasy with their conscience to lie day in and day out, I suppose a certain kind of individual is required such as yourself.

  360. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks, Ian, for posting the reply the Westminster government sees fit to close the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust which administered horomes to young children among other shady practices.

    Here in Scotland the Sandy Clinic Gender Services MUST be closed down to safeguard our young children from the same thing.

  361. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Ian B at 4:52 pm

    Mind there’s this Gordon Dangerfield article from a couple of months back which is useful to share with folk re. the GRA subject.

    WHY SINGLE SEX FEMALE SERVICES ARE NOT FOR BIOLOGICAL MALES

    https://gordondangerfield.com/2022/08/12/why-single-sex-female-services-are-not-for-biological-males/

  362. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @John Main 4.55 pm

    The moonhowlers have form for this sort of thing. Back in the day I recall a few – even including Hatuey – called “Scott” out for his creepy as fuck stalking of me online, particularly when he saw fit to bring my daughter in to the discussion for no reason that could be discerned. I’d complain to Rev Stu if I thought it would do any good, but I doubt it would make any difference: he seems prepared to tolerate virtually anything.

    Dregs like Rab Davis – who appears to be the sites male equivalent of Ruby – are just symptomatic of the MO of too many of the moonhowlers in here.

    They’ll all be along directly with lots of whataboutery explaining why it’s totally fine for Rab to say these things because I call folk moonhowlers and nativists.

    It’s what people without moral compasses do: they just limbo right under that bar of acceptable behaviour.

    I wonder how Rab would feel if people said that about his children, or perhaps it’s just impossible for someone to empathise when they’re such an unpleasant piece of work that nobody would want to help them reproduce?

  363. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood.

    Did I miss the bit in their reply to you about protecting women born as women biologically.

  364. Stuart MacKay
    Ignored
    says:

    gregor @4:08pm

    Thanks very much for that link to the First Minister’s speech to the Brookings Institution. Only read the first few pages but I can’t say I’m impressed – very much the work of a middle manager making all the right noises to get that promotion. I seriously doubt we’d be any better off with masters in Brussels than we are with masters in Westminster. She singularly fails to play the hand we have and instead whatever the question the answer will be yes, after some suitable cringing – dismal.

  365. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @RoS 4.58 pm

    Why would someone who retired from the army in 2017 be proud of me?

    I sleep like a baby thanks with a clean conscious knowing that I’m not a shill for a mass murdering war criminal. No special training is required just to be a good person.

    What the circumstances that turned you in to the piece of work you are we will likely never know, and should probably be thankful for.

  366. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Geri.

    With most of the Tories in a mess, under investigations, of always on holidays, and a bit of a democratic sham politically.
    The labour and Snp have pretty much the same global policies, in and out of Westminster.

    I think regardless of the SNP being the laughing stock in the past, it is the Tories that hold that position at the moment in Westminster. and with little respect from the public, they seem to be on a suicide mission.

    The Snp also seem determined that Westminster is its political home and base.
    They behinds are well glued to the seats and the perks offered. It would not be the first time that Scots would sell their soul for money nor give up their own government and Country for Englands bigger luxuries drawn down from the other Countries and nations of Britain.

    I afraid the scenario is not looking well for a party that is supposed to be aiming for independence.

  367. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    A read for a bit more focus on Scotland rather than every other country on the planet…

    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2022/10/covid-inquiry-mystery/

  368. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Britain has been involved in most of the wars that have ever existed if not direct then by proxy or at the back of coup’s.

    Someone once listed the amount of wars that Britain has been involved in since WW2 alone, it was staggering.

  369. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Dan,

    Hear hear, thanks for the link.

  370. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @Andy 5:20

    It has certainly been an interesting day on Wings BTL.

    I have learned that nothing is ruled out when trying to close down discussion on here. That’s new, I think. There used to be some kind of consensus on what passed for acceptable behaviour, and what crossed the line.

    Oh well. Every day a school day.

    Got to say though. The next poster on here pontificating about how the Indy movement will lead Scotland to its destiny as the nicest, friendliest, wee country on the international scene will come in for some pelters.

    Just imagine if iScotland extrapolated its common personality failure of aggressive, hair-trigger, chip-on-the-shoulder offence taking to the realms of international foreign policy! The mind boggles.

  371. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    I have just recd a response from the office of my msp George Adam SNP where it states that George will be voting IN LINE with the SG position on the GRA (or IMO I believe fair comment the perverts charter) , this is just information in the event that prospective Renfrewshire snp voters may not know what George’s intentions are , it appears party loyalty trumps voters views or opinions

  372. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Females are born female. Biological female.

    Males are born male, Biological male.

    It begs the question why male born transgender people have tried hijacking female born women and female born children’s spaces doesn’t it?

    Until they have under gone a operation they are after all still male born, even after a operation they are still classed as male born legally.

    It is verging on perversion.

    Why do they not fight for their rights to have separate spaces from female children, female women, male born boys, unless this does not suit their purposes.

  373. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Must be a awful lot of SNPs that can’t wait to legally break the law and enter pervert stage to watch and perhaps abuse females in female spaces and ready to ogle little children.

    Its as close as one can be to coming out the closet and admitting one might be perverted towards little children and females.

    Anyone that votes for this Bill to go through on Thursday, will pretty much LABEL themselves as coming out of that closet in the eyes of the public.

  374. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Some reading for SNP MSPs to mull over before they cast their vote.

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-cuckoo-principle/

  375. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    Jesus, some people have a lot of time on their hands. I suppose that explains the hate-filled torment on display.

    This isn’t a life, guys, it’s just sad.

    If you need help with your CV or something, just shout.

  376. Chas
    Ignored
    says:

    Rab Davis

    What a big, brave keyboard warrior you are.
    You actually remind me of snake shit. The lowest off the low and not very bright with it.
    Another tosser to be ignored.

  377. Rab Davis
    Ignored
    says:

    Was it something I said?

    I was merely asking a question.

    Did I hit a raw nerve?

    Ellis/Main is a Wanker!!!

    FACT!!!

  378. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/mens-needs/

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/greens-in-black-and-white/

    Well I may have lost my Freedom of Movement around Europe, but with posting those links I may be able to claim refugee status somewhere sensible once the Scottish authorities come after me…

  379. Rab Davis
    Ignored
    says:

    Chas.

    I think you will find that it was your disgraceful post at 12.37pm, regards Ruby’s appearance that kicked all this shit off

    So dry your fuckin eyes ya prick

  380. Merganser
    Ignored
    says:

    Rishi comes across as being polite, well educated, knowledgeable, caring, genuine, honest and open. Fairly useless qualities for a political leader. Nicola could put him right about all of these.

  381. Rab Davis
    Ignored
    says:

    Chas

    Howz yer mammy?

  382. Rab Davis
    Ignored
    says:

    Ellis

    Howz the daughter?

  383. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    I felt sick to my stomach watching those Tory scumbags backslap each other and Sunak on f*cking over the public yet again, what made it even worse was knowing that Sturgeon the Betrayer of Scots watched it all from her ivory tower in Bute House, and all she could muster for Scots was a whimper on a GE and a congrats to Sunak via a tweet.

    It doesn’t matter how bad things get in Scotland as part of this vile union, Sturgeon the Betrayer will attempt to keep us tied to it. Craig Murray’s The Party is Over article explains a lot, the SNP no longer needs the membership, corporate cash and short money and whatever else they can come by is enough for them to prosper, the only time they need us is at election time, and they no longer need door to door canvassers either, the corporate media does that particular job in persuading voters now.

    Independence would f*ck all that up, so it will never be obtained it will only be wheeled out by the SNP when necessary, the odd competent policy and a wee bit of cash thrown to the masses such as an extra £10 quid on child support and so forth is Sturgeon’s bread and circuses act to shut up some of the indy masses, its worked so far, and will continue to work as times get tougher.

    Meanwhile our country’s wealth will continue to be syphoned-off and the proceeds from it will benefit a few House Jock and the corporations that they serve, along with some down South and abroad. Scots will receive very little.

    The West will keep pushing and using our cash to fund the conflict in 404, Sturgeon has already sent cash and aid when our own folk are suffering, though she hasn’t sent cash and aid to Palestine or Yemen as they don’t fit the agenda.

  384. Ebok
    Ignored
    says:

    I don’t like Andy Ellis.
    I don’t like the repetitive, boring, derisive cliches he uses as critiques.
    I don’t like the two parrots that sit on his shoulders, echoing his views.

    BUT … some comments upthread has brought WoS below gutter level.
    If this is representative of an Independence debate, I fear we are lost.

  385. Robert Hughes
    Ignored
    says:

    Has Rishi Rich told Sturgeon to fck-off yet ?

    This is set to become another time-honoured , arcane WM tradition

    Like Rodney of Colour chapping on the doors of the Commons ( even though he knows it’s no locked n he could easily put his stick doon n open it himself – lazy bastard ) .

    ” Catching The Speaker’s Eye ” ( by waving a photo of that august personage in delicto flagrante with a goat )

    ” Dragging ” ( think that may have been replaced with ” Dogging ” )

    The Ritual of the JockRef Rebuff will surely add yet more lustre to the greatest of all Parliaments

  386. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ebok

    Sadly there are too few with a conscience on here any longer to make a difference.

    FWIW I don’t like you either. However I’d never stoop to some of the gutter level stuff you rightly call out above. Interesting that so few of the other usual suspects in here have followed suit.

    Perhaps you might like to consider that reflects the fact that my criticisms of their lack of moral compasses was correct.

    They don’t represent the movement, but they do adversely impact on it.

    Stii, we should be grateful for small mercies. At least one of you has a conscience.

  387. Geri
    Ignored
    says:

    They remind me of PIE.

    Pedophile Information Exchange.
    They tried to hijack the gay cause too (mid 80s I think) same arguements of *born that way* & wanted to lower the age of consent of children.
    They were told to feck off.

    Looks like they’ve regrouped & emerged from under thier rocks. They don’t want thier own spaces – they want access to children because they’re easy to bully & manipulate.
    They’re coming out with the same bs. It didn’t take them long. *children know thier own mind at what age to be sexually active & children as young as two years old can know they’re trans*

    WTAF is a normal persons response to that. Sturgeons seems to be where do we sign Scotland up?

  388. Geri
    Ignored
    says:

    Regards last post – it was to James Che.

    Republic

    Scotland had to pay it or it was being deducted from our budget. Wales had to pay it too but they went ballistic – they’re not in charge or have any say to UK government Aid or foreign policy so why is it taken from a devolved budget?
    In stark contrast to our eejits who just whimpered ‘Oh, OK, just this once mind! Promise?’

    FFS!

  389. Rab Davis
    Ignored
    says:

    Ebok

    Totally agree.

    The comment by Chas at 12.37pm was a disgrace,,,and as such he should apologise to Ruby immediately,,,if not sooner.

    As for the “other two chancers”,,,
    Their name calling is renowned on Wings.

    They block up every thread with their mind numbing bullshit.

    So here here Ebok,,,good call.

  390. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    Rab Davis says:
    24 October, 2022 at 7:13 pm

    Chas.

    I think you will find that it was your disgraceful post at 12.37pm, regards Ruby’s appearance that kicked all this shit off

    So dry your fuckin eyes ya prick

    I don’t mind what he says.
    The thing I mind most about the posts by Ellis, Chas & Main is their total lack any sense of humour.

    I’ve heard of ‘corned beef legs’ & ‘corned beef’ used in ‘Scottish rhyming slang’ but never ‘corned beef complexion’.

    My complexion is nothing like corned beef it’s more like a pizza.

    The really curious thing about Chas’ post is he claims I called him a cunt. I have never called Chas a cunt which makes me even more suspicious that the Ellis, Chas, Main trio is one person with three accounts.

    The other curious thing about Chas & Co is they claim they never read my posts and they just ignore me but never a day goes by without at least a good half dozen mentions of me in their humourless posts.

    So Rab don’t go holding your breath thinking Chas is going to ignore you.

  391. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708452

    The schools sex survey was very suspicious.

    I’m done now with the whole trans thing.
    They can self-id until the cows come home but I’ll never believe that a man is a woman.

  392. Rab Davis
    Ignored
    says:

    Ruby

    No problem.

    I just thought I would give them back a little of what they hand out on a daily basis.

    And I’m sure your complexion is nothing like a Pizza.

    Always look on the bright side of life!!!

    And yes,,,I think only the dumbest of all dummies thinks that these three names are actually three individual posters.

    We know different.

    Only one “Cunt” operates all three voices.

  393. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Does anyone remember (and I paraphrase) when Shona Robison said that there was no evidence that self-ID’d ‘transwomen’ were a threat to real females?

    How about this, from Fife?

    https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/transgender-pedophile-who-assaulted?

  394. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye, BDtt it’s almost like she was misleading parliament…

    According to this article she said: “There is not a body of evidence pointing to “bad faith actors” trying to use statutory processes to do so.
    Which is weasel worded to give wiggle room, but when you think about those actual words used it is a terribly phrased sentence in the context.

    https://news.stv.tv/politics/no-evidence-that-predatory-men-use-gender-recognition-to-abuse-women

  395. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Well, I’ve emailed my MSP (Dundee West).
    ————————————-
    Hi Joe.

    I email you as my MSP.

    You should read the content at these two links.

    https://news.stv.tv/politics/no-evidence-that-predatory-men-use-gender-recognition-to-abuse-women

    https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/transgender-pedophile-who-assaulted?

    The SNP seems to be going against popular opinion with this gender self-ID nonsense.

    Both of these links appeared in the btl comments at Wings Over Scotland tonight.

    It may come home to roost…

    Brian Massie, Dundee West.
    ————————————-

    I’ve had an auto reply so far, asking for full contact details, which I have provided.

    Let’s see what transpires…

  396. Merganser
    Ignored
    says:

    An auspicious day for Rishi to become PM. Amavasya: the day of the new moon. Could be significant for the moon howlers of the SNP.

  397. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    I have had a very good, reasonable, reply from Douglas Ross to my email asking him to vote against the GRR Bill due to the lack of protections for single-sex spaces for women and girls. The overall content was impressively balanced and thoughtful.

    He says the Conservatives support making procedures easier for gender recognition but are concerned that the Bill’s proposals don’t protect women’s rights and safety.

    He also says that the Conservatives are calling for a public inquiry into the increase in children being referred to Sandyford Clinic for gender dysphoria – between 2013 and 2019 the number increased fifteen-fold, and there are nearly 1000 on the waiting list.

    He is the only one of the 7 MSPs I have contacted to have replied as yet. Presumably the other three Conservatives in Highlands will take the same line.

  398. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    “And this isn’t a lazy criticism?” Dan 23 Oct 12.19

    Correct. You can tell by the number of people who make the same observation – and that’s limiting it to contributers on Wings.

  399. Iain More
    Ignored
    says:

    So does anybody here have anything to say about replacing Sturgeon and advancing the cause of Scots Indy. Wake me up if we ever get a Referendum.

  400. Scott
    Ignored
    says:

    Grouse Beater says:
    24 October, 2022 at 10:53 pm

    “And this isn’t a lazy criticism?” Dan 23 Oct 12.19

    Correct. You can tell by the number of people who make the same observation – and that’s limiting it to contributers on Wings.

    Gareth the sanctimonious snowflake dismissing a valid observation. Must be an Edinburgh thing – where do they get their water? (h/t – Rikki Fulton)

  401. gregor
    Ignored
    says:

    @Stuart MacKay

    While Scotland is being sold-out and mutilated by its protectors – look who’s still standing resolute and determined as ever, enduring the brunt of this abomination (and keep holding your heads high).

  402. Stuart MacKay
    Ignored
    says:

    gregor

    That Brookings Institiion speech is remarkable in it’s blandness. Sturgeon has swallowed every aspect of the Green Agenda hook, line and sinker. She sees herself as the messiah continuing Thatcher’s work on deinstrialising Scotland (talk about whitewashing history) and now she will decarbonise what’s left.

    There’s the now fashionable bullshit about the new hydrogen economy – off course that comes from wind and it could not possibly be that blue hydrogen generated from fossil fuels, oh no. Hydrogen must be one of the most difficult substances to deal with yet we’re supposedly on the verge of an entirely new source of energy.

    And I’m only on page 28.

    Every piece of hand wavy, wishful thinking is in here so far. Regurgitated in word perfect form to signal just how virtuous she and the Scots under her benevolent gaze will be.

    So it will be business as usual. We’ll just swap our petrol and diesel vehicles for electric ones, throw up a few wind turbines and we can all continue life in the green economy as turbine maintenance professionals and well being coaches.

    It’s only green-washing. There’s nothing that would make a real difference. In the remaining pages I’ll be looking for electrification of an expanded rail network, money being poured into high availability public transport in cities, new insulation materials, high speed computer networks, taxes on companies that require people to commute to an office to do “paperwork” on a computer, high taxes on flight, bans on private jets, etc. etc. etc.

    Never mind by the time COP241 comes along I’m sure we’ll have figured it out.

  403. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Stuart MacKay

    Aye, there was a bit of btl train discussion a while back around COP26 where it was pointed out the lack of electrification of track north of Dunblane basically means all the rolling stock used there cannot be electric driven. Ergo it’s diesel powered and not “green”.
    If going “green” is genuinely what they want to do, then why not legislate that any significant track maintenance and alteration works on a section of track must incorporate the basic upgraded technical specifications required to be able to run electric trains at some point in the future.

    People and business building new or renovating existing properties have to conform to modern building regulations with regard to insulation efficiency to reduce heating requirements and carbon emissions, so why should other elements of our societal infrastructure not have to adhere to similar principles.

  404. George Ferguson
    Ignored
    says:

    @Sarah 9:59pm
    That is an encouraging response but I fear the numbers in Parliament are there to approve this legislation with minor concessions only. It’s about ‘winning’ and not doing the right thing for safe spaces for women and girls. Rather like the Named Person leglisation the redoubt of a Supreme Court referral to strike down the leglisation as unlawful would appear to be the best hope. If Women for Scotland et al start a crowdfunder for this action I would contribute a substantial amount to that cause. There is already lots of academic evidence that transgender intact males are committing sexual offences. It just being ignored. Hats off to the women who are conducting this campaign they are doing a great job in a difficult political environment.

  405. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    Any politician who claims ‘trans women are women’ does not get my respect and most definitely not my vote.

    Any transwomen who claims to be a women does not get my respect particular if they enter women’s sport.

    Douglas Ross can jump on the self-id bandwagon looking for votes all he likes but unless he disagrees with the UK Gov’s 2004 Gender recognition act he too believes transwomen are women.

    The reform we need is to this idea that ‘transwomen are women’.

    I have absolutely no problem with transwomen being transwomen except of course when they are misogynists but one thing is certain they are not women.

  406. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    “Sunak, a fiscal conservative who has vowed to “fix the economy”, promised in a statement on Saturday: “There will be integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level of the government I lead.” https://archive.ph/f7pWX

    Let’s see just how long that lasts (not including that statement).
    __________

    “New Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s ‘horror’ 55 percent pension tax to hit millions of savers” https://archive.ph/1QtdM

  407. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    Douglas Ross is London’s Scottish branch manager, he will do whatever he’s told. Just look at his history and U-turns. Like every other Unionist he will say anything that buys your vote but he will do what his London master tells him.

    Make them pay and hold the SNP to account. Boycott Westminster!

  408. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    No such problems here, when Charles III visited Scotland recently Sturgeon (a supposed indy leader) bowed so deeply towards him that I though at one point she might kiss his shoes. Sturgeon also swore an oath to King Charles at Bute House.

    She’s no indy leader she’s a unionist.

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FeKVxsOXoAUigou?format=jpg&name=small

    “MEMBERS of the Quebec parliament have sparked a conversation in Canada after refusing to swear allegiance to King Charles III.

    Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, who leads the pro-independence Parti Québécois, said the oath of fealty to the King was a “straitjacket that condemns each elected representative of the people of Quebec to hypocrisy”.

    Speaking in French, he went on: “A straitjacket that forces democrats of all parties to take an oath they do not believe in and therefore to perjure themselves, to sully the value of their word and to do that in the first act they are called on to take as representatives of citizens.””

    https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenational.scot%2Fnews%2F23075813.quebec-politicians-refuse-swear-oath-king-charles-iii%2F

  409. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    If this doesn’t take our minds off Sunak, Sturgeon et al then nothing will…

    “No one’s been asked about it, informed about it, told about it and here we are at the brink of nuclear war. We got here because the United States just can’t keep its goddamn nose out of anyone’s backyard. US media doesn’t want to have any debate at all.”

    — Jeffrey Sachs

    https://twitter.com/citizentommy/status/1584801409819901953

  410. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Soon Westminster will delve far more deeply into devolved areas, not that, that will bother the Betrayer too much she can always use Westminster interference to garner more support for her NuSNP/unionist party by fingering pointing and railing.

    “FEARS have been raised that the Scottish Parliament will not get a say on the main “missions” of the UK Government’s Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.

    Research by the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) has highlighted concerns that if the bill is passed, these missions will only be set out in a statement to the UK Parliament – meaning they will not receive any scrutiny from MSPs.”

    https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenational.scot%2Fnews%2F23074339.concerns-raised-scottish-parliament-wont-get-say-levelling-bill-missions%2F

  411. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian.

    Sachs also spoke out about this.

    https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1543259218995687424

  412. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    At least Vlad’s media are having a debate I suppose, huh?

    https://archive.ph/mmRml

    Russian state broadcaster RT has suspended and condemned one of its top presenters, Anton Krasovsky, after he called for the burning and drowning of Uk rainian children.
    His remarks on TV provoked uproar on social media and he has now apologised.
    Krasovsky was responding to science fiction writer Sergei Lukyanenko, who said that in western Uk raine back in 1980 he had heard children saying “Uk raine is occupied by Muscovites”.
    RT news is staunchly pro-Kremlin.
    In the interview Krasovsky smirked as he said “just drown those children, drown them”. Alternatively, he said, they could be shoved into huts and burned.
    He also joked about Russian soldiers raping Uk rainian grandmothers.
    RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, condemned Krasovsky’s comments as “wild and disgusting”.
    Uk raine has accused the channel of inciting genocide. Russian state television has given much air time to pundits and presenters who strongly support the war against Uk raine and call for more military aggression. They routinely dismiss evidence of Russian atrocities, alleging they are Uk rainian “fabrications” – echoing the Kremlin’s position.

    Perhaps the threats to their children will take the minds of folk in country 404 off Vlad’s Orcs using tactical nukes, or setting of a dirt bomb and blaming the victims, or destroying their energy infrastructure so they all freeze this winter?

  413. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    I didn’t realise you took a dim view of that sort of thing, Andy. When it happened back in March you didn’t bat an eyelid. https://tinyurl.com/4de2f858

  414. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Republicofscotland (10.53) –

    Yeah, I saw that one.

    Fair play to the man, he’s trying, and probably cancelling his career in the process.

    And kudos to Tommy Sheridan as well for having the balls to call this stuff out.

  415. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    The propaganda portrayal of Vlad as a complete barbarian doesn’t add up, though, does it? Anyone can see he is holding back.

    Has anyone seen his airforce flattening cities Fallujah-style? Have any of you even seen a single clip of even one of his planes in action?

    It’s almost as if he’s trying to minimise the death and destruction, an approach that’s quite alien to the US in its wars, which brings us on to the biggest hole of all in the propaganda…

    Nobody anywhere in the real world could possibly take the US seriously when it complains about the war crimes and aggression of others. All the lies they’ve got won’t erase the memories or the trail of charred bodies they have left around the world.

    And that’s important. It’s one of the main reasons the US can’t galvanise even basic majority support in the UN. And it’s one of the main reasons that second and third world countries are queuing up to join the new Chinese-led global economy which they know couldn’t possibly be any more corrupt and rigged than the US global system.

    They think it’s all over. It is now…

  416. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Hatuey

    Ah, the auld whataboutery straight out of the traps there huh Hatuey? Colour us unsurprised. You can’t even bring yourself to condemn Krasovsky beforehand. Interesting.

    Of course Sharafmal’s comments are equally loathsome. If anyone had brought those comments to the attention of BTL commentators here, I’m sure any right thinking person would condemn them, just as they’d condemn Krasovsky’s.

    I see some in Russia are still happy to claim black is white though:

    In a since-deleted post, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denounced what she called a “targeted information attack” against Krasovsky, calling the RT host a “fantastically talented” commentator of “obvious and truthful” information.

    https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/10/24/rt-host-suspended-for-calls-to-drown-burn-ukrainian-children-a79172

  417. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @ George Ferguson at 9.27: re GRR Bill “…I fear the numbers in Parliament are there to approve..”.

    I agree but am hoping there are enough SNP MSPs who will force capitulation, as they did with the Lamont amendment. So now is the time for all of us to tell our SNP MSPs that we want them to oppose, or withdraw, the Bill for further consideration.

    Mind you, between the crooked civil service and the crooked legal officers and the obsessed FM I doubt anything better will emerge. Sigh.

  418. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Hatuey

    The residents of Mariupol and quite a few other places flattened by Russian artillery and missiles might disagree with you.

    The reason Vlad’s airforce hasn’t been much in evidence is he can’t afford to loose too many aircraft. Country 404 has been supplied with sufficient MANPADS by the west to make it prohibitive for his air force to provide close air support, hence their widespread use of artillery, multiple launch rocket systems and cruise missiles.

    No serious military authority would give your claim the Russians are concerned with avoiding civilian casualties given the the systems they’re using.

    Still fluffing the fantasy alternative New World Order I see? When can we expect this new Chinese / BRIC led nirvana of progressive, non-corrupt and non-rigged system to be up and running.

    All of those countries have such great records of course……

  419. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Here’s another one of Sachs being muzzled.

    https://twitter.com/Lowkey0nline/status/1584525956009496576

  420. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @sarah

    I agree but am hoping there are enough SNP MSPs who will force capitulation, as they did with the Lamont amendment.

    It’s a nice thought, but you have to wonder if there are enough (any?) folk left in the HR SNP intake with the political balls to face Sturgeon down again?

    It’s not as if it would take many given the precarious nature of her majority, but there’s no real evidence that there’s any charismatic figure or group of MSPs who are prepared to step of line, still less form a nucleus of a “hell no” group to stop these and other measures in their tracks.

  421. Scott
    Ignored
    says:

    The most dangerous man in the world is the most powerful.

    We’re always told that’s the President of USA, so…logic demands we fear USA more than any other nation state outside our own.

    I have never been scared of any Russian leader, apart from Andropov when he was lying in state, despite the prevailing mainstream narrative.

    USA is a racist hellhole inhabited by fucking idiots who think the world runs on their feelings – Fuck all of them, twice.

    Stick that in yer pipe and smoke it, Ellis McCarthy.

    PS You were the one that brought your daughter into the discussion btl, ya big Jessie. I just linked to her thesis about Vikings that’s based entirely on guesswork and wishful thinking. Like father, like daughter, eh?

  422. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    The dirty bomb story has legs. It looks like Vlad has written to the IAEA and invited them to investigate. The usual suspects are pretending it was Z that invited them…

    For the record, this is the second dirty bomb story we have heard since February.

    Last week there was speculation that Russo forces were about to withdraw from Kherson. That was wishful thinking.

    Certain people are clearly getting quite desperate.

    Biden’s gang wanted a big victory before the mid-terms. All they got was another pished couch in the Oval Office.

  423. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    Anyone for an EFTA?

    If Sunak is guided by the light of reason, it won’t be long before he realises that a lot of the economic problems the UK faces would disappear if the UK joined EFTA.

    There’s a sense that the UK has turned a corner. Nobody is saying it, it’s not the right time to say it, but it’s in the air.

    Brexit for a lot of those who supported it was driven by racial prejudice. Sunak represents the backlash to that.

    Read it and weep, Brexit racists.

  424. Dickie
    Ignored
    says:

    When the Supreme Court reject the application why does Sturgeon not call a Holyrood Election immediately?

    I may be wrong but I believe she can

    I wonder why she will not.

  425. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    Dickie and others who make similar suggestions… when will you realise and really understand that she isn’t interested in independence?

    We aren’t making it up.

  426. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dickie

    There would be nothing to stop Sturgeon precipitating HR immediately. If she stands down as FM and the SNP/Green majority stop the election of an alternative FM, the Presiding Officer is obliged to call new elections within a couple of weeks.

    There’s as much chance of Sturgeon doing that as there is of the Tory turkeys in WM voting for an early GE there.

  427. Scott
    Ignored
    says:

    Dickie says:
    25 October, 2022 at 1:12 pm

    When the Supreme Court reject the application why does Sturgeon not call a Holyrood Election immediately?

    I may be wrong but I believe she can

    I wonder why she will not.

    You are wrong.

    Also, asking hypothetical questions about unknown future events is really lazy and also wrong.

  428. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Part of Sergei Lavrov’s statement re ‘dirty bomb’.

    https://twitter.com/IntelRepublic/status/1584530410499080192

  429. Scott
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis says:
    25 October, 2022 at 1:24 pm

    @Dickie

    There would be nothing to stop Sturgeon precipitating HR immediately. If she stands down as FM and the SNP/Green majority stop the election of an alternative FM, the Presiding Officer is obliged to call new elections within a couple of weeks.

    How would that work, numbnuts?

    Who would SNP/Greens be voting for to stop a coalition of STories/SLABS/LSDs?

    And do you really think the Greens would give up the chance of power and influence on a whim?

    Get fucking real, idiot.

  430. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    Press Release.

    “As the risk of nuclear war increases, fighting in [redacted] escalates, and global economic insecurity deepens, 30 members of Congress urged President Biden to pursue direct diplomacy for a negotiated settlement…”

    https://progressives.house.gov/press-releases?ID=9794E013-6346-45FF-97B1-E922318D47C8

    I hear that Macron has also asked The Pope to intervene. That’s an interesting choice, given that the pope accused the US of being partly responsible for causing it, something the shills in the UK can’t allow anyone to admit.

    I guess the protests in Paris did the trick. Just a matter of time before German politicians are forced to listen to protestors too. And soon it’ll be the UK’s turn.

    All predicted. And I predict more protests and more backtracking.

    Messing with Vlad in his own back yard was always going to make life more difficult for those that need to live there.

  431. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @“Scott”

    It would work as outlined. Try to wipe enough of the spittle from your monitor, or ask your carer to adjust your meds so you stop making a fool of yourself.

    If the FM resigns, the opposition would try to appoint a new FM. As they don’t have enough MSPs, the SNP/Greens simply vote against any yoon party appointing any of their candidates as FM. If no FM can be appointed, the PO is legally obliged to call fresh elections.

    The Greens would probably hope they’d gain more MSPs in fresh elections. It’s the spineless SNP and its leadership that is the obstacle.

    Isn’t it a bit early to have been on the bevvy?

  432. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Republicofscoctland,

    There is a lot of information in the the Levelling up white paper with regards plans for Scotlands future.

    But the sad thing is most people cant be bothered to study it in greater detail just the same as the mythical treaty we imagine we are in,.

    Picking out selective bits of information does not alter (your) metaphorically speaking, live or your future. It simple leaves people in the dark.
    Ian Brotherhood had a post at 10: 41 am just prior to yours, with a statement from Jeffrey Sachs,

    “No one has has been asked, informed about it,And here we are at the brink of nuclear war”

    That reminds me of the Scots lack involvement in the the Treaty of the Union. “No Scot has been asked, or informed about it” And here we are at the brink of nuclear war.”
    And I ask myself would Scotland have such a fear of nuclear war and nuclear Weapons being in Scotland at all if englands Westminster had not planted them in Scotland.

    If Scotland paid attention to the Details of the Treaty , We could at least make our country one less country carrying nuclear threat to the rest of world,

    None here should rely on being asked or informed of the truth, for there is a political veil set up to disguise truths.

  433. Scott
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis says:
    25 October, 2022 at 1:56 pm

    @“Scott”

    It would work as outlined. Try to wipe enough of the spittle from your monitor, or ask your carer to adjust your meds so you stop making a fool of yourself.

    If the FM resigns, the opposition would try to appoint a new FM. As they don’t have enough MSPs, the SNP/Greens simply vote against any yoon party appointing any of their candidates as FM.

    Dear prune, you really should stop thinking you know it all, ya plamf.

    Extraordinary General Election would require a supermajority in favour, or if FM resigns and no candidates are put forward…but

    1. Candidates would stand for FM.

    2. MSPs would vote.

    3. Winner would become FM

    That’s the rules, see Scotland Act 1998

    3. Extraordinary general elections

    (1)The Presiding Officer shall propose a day for the holding of a poll if—

    (a)the Parliament resolves that it should be dissolved and, if the resolution is passed on a division, the number of members voting in favour of it is not less than two-thirds of the total number of seats for members of the Parliament, or

    (b)any period during which the Parliament is required under section 46 to nominate one of its members for appointment as First Minister ends without such a nomination being made.

    http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/46/section/3

    46. Choice of the First Minister.

    (1)If one of the following events occurs, the Parliament shall within the period allowed nominate one of its members for appointment as First Minister.

    (2)The events are—

    (a)the holding of a poll at a general election,

    (b)the First Minister tendering his resignation to Her Majesty,

    (c)the office of First Minister becoming vacant (otherwise than in consequence of his so tendering his resignation),

    (d)the First Minister ceasing to be a member of the Parliament otherwise than by virtue of a dissolution.

    (3)The period allowed is the period of 28 days which begins with the day on which the event in question occurs; but—

    (a)if another of those events occurs within the period allowed, that period shall be extended (subject to paragraph (b)) so that it ends with the period of 28 days beginning with the day on which that other event occurred, and

    (b)the period shall end if the Parliament passes a resolution under section 3(1)(a) or when Her Majesty appoints a person as First Minister.

    (4)The Presiding Officer shall recommend to Her Majesty the appointment of any member of the Parliament who is nominated by the Parliament under this section.

    http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/46/section/46

    Whoever gets appointed FM gets to appoint the Cabinet – this means the party with most seats aren’t elected by the people as the party of Government at any stage

    yw,hth

  434. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian @11.21am and 11.36am.

    Yeah Ian, Mr Sachs, of whom Craig Murray recently said he had much respect for, has probably burned his bridges by speaking out, but I suppose knowing the truth eventually weighs too heavily on the minds of some, and they speak out.

    11.36am.

    Thanks for that link.

  435. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @“Scott”

    As I said, under the rules since the SNP/Greens in Parliament have a majority, they can ensure new elections come about if they really want them. We all know they currently don’t, but it doesn’t alter the fact that the procedures of Parliament allow it. Ill informed people often come out with the canard that the only route is via a 2/3 majority.

    Even under the scenario above, where the SNP/Greens agree not to nominate a FM, and make it clear they will trigger a vote of no confidence in any yoon that tries to become FM, then new elections are not just inevitable but required. Unlike Westminster an FM at Holyrood is obliged to resign if they loose a no confidence vote.

    This was all discussed some time ago, including contributions from Patricia Marwick who confirmed how it would work. Who to believe, some random creepy as fuck stalker on WoS, or the former Presiding Officer of Holyrood. It’s a toughie right enough. 🙂

    yw/hth. Hope your meds kick in soon.

  436. Scott
    Ignored
    says:

    “Even under the scenario above, where the SNP/Greens agree not to nominate a FM, and make it clear they will trigger a vote of no confidence in any yoon that tries to become FM, then new elections are not just inevitable but required” – Ellis the clueless cunt

    If a VONC was ‘won’ against a previously unopposed FM, forcing resignation of Govt, the procedure for choosing a new FM would be the same…

    If no nominations for FM were forthcoming, an election would be mandatory…

    If a supermajority want to dissolve parliament, we have an election.

    You really are fucking stoopid, Ellis. Did you fall down a spiral staircase and bang your head?

  437. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @“Scott”

    You haven’t understood how it works. Go and look again.

    The provision in a section 3.1 (b) does not presuppose a dissolution approved by a 2/3 majority under 3.1 (a), it’s an alternative to it, hence the “or” at the end of 3.1(a).

    The PO is obliged to propose new elections (under 3.1 (b)) where the 28 day period allowed to the Parliament to appoint a FM ends without such a nomination being made.

    You insisting a supermajority is required in all circumstances is just factually wrong, as confirmed by a former PO in the past. People will be able to draw their own conclusions on whose take is likely to be more accurate “Scott”.

  438. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    What is/was US Osprey military aircraft doing in Shetland?

    Thes kind of military aircraft are usually deployed to illegal Great Satan (US) warzones such as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Kuwait.

    And there’s this very unusual event.

    “On Thursday, October 20, an exceptional event took place in the Arabian Sea. It was publicly announced that Michael Kurilla, commander of the US Central Command, paid a visit to the Ohio-class West Virginia SSBN (submarine with ballistic nuclear missiles), which specially surfaced in the Arabian Sea.”

    On these nuclear subs whilst on tour their remit is one of stealth and to keep their positions unknown, something important is happening here.

    “But the fact is that the purpose of such vessels is always to be secretive and never to reveal the location of their patrol. The fact that now the location of this SSB [ballistic missile submarine] is expressly highlighted, it is impossible to understand otherwise than a special signal. It is difficult to remember when earlier in this way any American military commander so clearly and openly visited a boat at sea on combat duty.”

  439. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian B , thanks for the link to Lavrov.

    Scott , I haven’t heard or seen the word ‘plamf’ since I retired thank you!

  440. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @“Scott”

    Also worth pointing out this is the method recommended by Angus MacNeil – see his retweet of @bute_house on 3rd August 2022, as reported in the Scottish Daily Express on 4th August.

    Again, who to believe: long standing SNP Westminster MP and critic of Sturgeon Alex MacNeil or “Scott” off the internet….?

    I’m sure alert readers will know who to believe.

  441. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Scott,

    Of course if the treaty of union had not been completed properly in the first instane the devolved government, NS and the Nusnp mean nothing in Scotland.

  442. Scott
    Ignored
    says:

    Ellis must be really pished, given his latest nonsense.

    I haven’t insisted that a supermajority is required in all instances, you thick cunt. What I did do is quote the legislation around Extraordinary General Elections and the appointment of FM.

    I preceded that with this comment, “Extraordinary General Election would require a supermajority in favour, or if FM resigns and no candidates are put forward…”

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708509

  443. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    The Arabian Sea (North of) is under the golden 3,000 miles strike distance for decapitation or more likely counter-force strikes by the US. The US has been practicing its flat trajectory missile launches that cut travel time down to reach targets.

    Pinpointing and neutralisng the few nuclear subs that belong to the intended target in a similar time scale is required to negate a counter-counter attack.

    Are preparations for this underway, that is the question.

  444. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @“Scott”

    Aw mate, don’t try and back track from your errors by hiding behind your inability to express yourself clearly. It’s hardly surprising for someone as damaged as you.

    You’re the kind who could have an argument in an empty room.

  445. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Hatuey says:
    25 October, 2022 at 12:12 pm

    For the record, this is the second dirty bomb story we have heard since February…

    I don’t know what evidence they have, or if it’s credible. A dirty bomb isn’t hi-tech. That’s the point, it’s cheap and nasty. Strap a stick of gelignite to a dustbin full of radioactive waste and you’ve got a dirty bomb.

    The first time I recall discussion of a dirty bomb was when the narrative in the West was so very, very, different from the truth, whereby Russ was allegedly close to defeat, humiliated, and prepared to do something desperate. This was total bolux. The truth is, things have gone very well for Mr Put, his troops are firmly ensconced and morale is high, his support at home is rock solid, and he pretty much has NATO on a leash, and Europe by the short and curlies.

    You can maybe quibble about the details here and there, and the Russ certainly haven’t had it all their own way, but the point is, in victory, which Pootim pretty much has on the ground, there would be absolutely no reason, none whatsoever for Mr P to jeopardise a fairly emphatic victory by authorising a dirty bomb / nuclear / biological weapon. It would just be madness.

    Even the recent escalation in attacks is direct retribution for the Crimxx bridge.

    But with the media narrative being so false, Mr P being framed as desperate and humiliated when the polar opposite was true, it “seemed” very much like the stage was being set for a false flag atrocity designed to make Russ an international pariah.

    Whether this latest flap is the same, remains to be seen.

    Since Lavrov is talking about international support and technology transfer to build a dirty bomb, I’m a bit confused. (Why Lavrov for one thing…) But I think / hope the real story requires a bit of reading between the lines… “Let us agree that nobody is about to do anything stupid with a dirty bomb.”

    I find that very encouraging, because even veiled communication channels opened to discuss and deplore dirty bombs can easily facilitate rudimentary peace talks. Not before time. Things “might” be calming down.

    As another “coded” signal to the West, have you seen the miles of the Dragon’s Teeth being installed resembling the Siegfried Line? I have my doubts of their tactical effectiveness, but I think the message sent is “Here we stand, here we stop”. This is where Ukr now borders Rus. There won’t be more invasion unless an escalation is provoked.

    I suppose it could be a trick, but my instincts suggest a peace deal is there if we want it.

  446. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Republicofscotland at 3:38 pm

    An Osprey helicopter / plane aircraft flew over my village in centralish Scotland a month or so back. It caught my eye as had a weird sound and it’s an odd looking thing.
    On the subject of military aircraft, I can’t recall very much fighter jet activity in my area of late. There’s usually quite a lot of noise from all the training.

  447. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @RoS

    It’s pretty obvious the yanks are sending a nine too subtle message to your BFF Vlad. As well as Ohio class SSBNs they have several converted Ohio class subs that carry cruise and other missiles. They’d probably use those to decapitate Vlad’s “special military operation” if he follows through with the sabre rattling about using tactical nukes in country 404, or stages a false flag dirty bombing there.

    It also gives the Iranians and Chinese something to think about that they’re doing it so publicly in the Arabian Sea.

  448. Scott
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis says:
    25 October, 2022 at 4:05 pm

    @“Scott”

    Aw mate, don’t try and back track

    I didn’t.

    Get your ugly wife to explain the meaning of stuff you don’t understand, rather than make a complete cunt of yourself over and over…

  449. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks

    . The truth is, things have gone very well for Mr Put, his troops are firmly ensconced and morale is high, his support at home is rock solid, and he pretty much has NATO on a leash, and Europe by the short and curlies.

    That’s so hilariously false I had to check you weren’t someone else doing it for the LOLZ. Vlad is on a shoogly peg: he knows it, his people know it and the army and sundry Russian nationalists are already circling wondering how and when to arrange for him to have an accident on a balcony or flight of stairs.

    I suppose it could be a trick, but my instincts suggest a peace deal is there if we want it.

    There is no deal Vlad could offer that country 404 or the west would accept. Similarly no settlement that country 404 and the west would demand would be acceptable to the current regime in the Kremlin. Only a Russian defeat and regime change will bring real peace.

    “Here we stand, here we stop”. This is where Ukr now borders Rus.

    Sounds a lot like “This is the last territorial demand I have to make in Europe”. That worked out really well for the Czechs, Poles and everyone else, so I’m sure we’ll be fine….?

    When did delusion become so popular BTL here?

  450. Dickie
    Ignored
    says:

    Hatuey says:
    25 October, 2022 at 1:24 pm
    Dickie and others who make similar suggestions… when will you realise and really understand that she isn’t interested in independence?

    Hatuey. that is what I am saying. Sturgeon has zero intention of calling a referendum. even my cat knows that.

    If she was serious she would resign which with greens support would force the Presiding officer to call an election.

    She is too much of a coward to do that.

  451. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    Thought i’d give myself a break from the sudoku’s and have a read btl on WOS. Fuck that! Sudoku’s it is!

  452. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    A Twitter thread about the ‘dirty bomb’ stushie from someone who sounds like he knows what he’s on about.

    It’s interesting to note that Ellis is doubling down on his ‘P**in is losing’ schtick – he is the *only* commentator I’ve seen try to punt the line that R***ia blew up its own pipeline. No one else – not even the Yanks – dared expose themselves to such ridicule.

    That’s why Ellis really should be ignored – he doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously on such a grave topic.

    https://twitter.com/Retiremyass/status/1584741805870178304

  453. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s interesting to note that Ellis is doubling down on his ‘P**in is losing’ schtick – he is the *only* commentator I’ve seen try to punt the line that R***ia blew up its own pipeline.

    If you only listen to or believe the output of pro-Russian and “alternative” media then unsurprisingly you will agree with them that everything is really the fault of the Great Satan, that Vlad and his great bunch of lads are just misunderstood and everything with the “special military operation” is going swimmingly, and you’ll look at some random like Retiremyass on twitter and conclude he sounds like someone who knows what they are talking about.

    You can figure out the kind of people who agree with Ian by perusing the replies and retweets bemoaning the AngloZionist empire. Doubtless the ones insisting that the folk of country 404 had it coming will follow….

    The sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines will end up being the same kind of issue as the downing of the Malaysian Airlines flight by the Donbas separatists. The true believers in the New World Order will never change their faith based belief that it was a false flag operation staged by country 404 and/or the CIA or whatever fervid conspiracy theory they favour.

    It wouldn’t matter if an unimpeachable and neutral third party produced irrefutable proof of Russian involvement it would still be dismissed by folk like Ian, RoS, Breeks and others.

    Normal people meanwhile will see the detailed analysis of what is going on in country 404 from many and various sources and get something closer to the truth, because they’re not as credulous as those with ideological chips on their shoulder.

  454. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “It’s interesting to note that Ellis is doubling down on his ‘P**in is losing’ schtick – he is the *only* commentator I’ve seen try to punt the line that R***ia blew up its own pipeline.”

    Ian.

    It’s almost been proven that the Great Satan did it in collabaration, Sweden and a few other nations that border the Baltic Sea which is Nato controlled have carried out an investigation on what happened bizarrely the country that owns the pipelines is not allowed to be involved in the investigations.

    Biden is on record vehemently stating that NordStream II would never be activated, that the US would stop it one way or another, they did.

    Norway has run a gas pipe to Denmark it will supply gas to Northern Europe, but its cubic capacity is much smaller than the NordStream pipelines, and it won’t supply enough gas.

  455. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Hats says:25 October, 2022 at 1:56 pm

    “Press Release.

    I hear that Macron has also asked The Pope to intervene

    That’s an interesting choice”

    Sure is, Hats, when you already have the peace plan at your fingertips, and have gone public on here to tell the world.

    When did you last check your phone? Maybes it has been left off the hook?

  456. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood says:
    25 October, 2022 at 4:42 pm

    A Twitter thread about the ‘dirty bomb’ stushie from someone who sounds like he knows what he’s on about…

    Still stand by what I said.

    A dirty bomb is a nuclear weapon that lacks the technology and yield of an actual nuke, but still contaminates an area with nuclear radiation, but only the local blast area.

    The difficulty of making a dirty bomb isn’t technology, it’s getting access to the right level of radioactive nuclear waste in worthwhile quantity, not as far as I know, knowing the “recipe”.

    The other possibility is a Dirty Bomb which actually is full blown functioning nuclear weapon… but that’s a whole different order of accusation, and I don’t think you’d categorise it as a dirty bomb.

  457. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Republicofscotland says:25 October, 2022 at 6:05 pm

    “It’s almost been proven … ”

    Well why didn’t you say earlier, Repo.

    I’m almost convinced.

    Tell you what though. Do some advance research, so that if the Noggie pipeline suffers an “unfortunate accident”, you will have all your Satans in a row.

    Got to get those lies out there early!

    As if you don’t know that already – Jeez – what am I thinking.

  458. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “They’d probably use those to decapitate Vlad’s “special military operation””

    Ellis.

    No, 404 is just a side show to this, you of all people know the Great Satan’s goal here, a decapitation is taking out the heads that could launch quickly enough to strike back, even if they are quick enough subs can still counter-counter as they call it.

    No a counter-strike taking out the weapons (nuclear) both countries know exactly where they are situated is the most likely approach, the need to deal with the subs mainly in the Barent Sea would need to be handled in conjunction with the counter-strike, if this is indeed on the table it will take time to prepare it, and top US men such as Michael Kurilla jumping into nuclear subs in broad daylight tends to set alarm bells ringing.

  459. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Scott says:25 October, 2022 at 4:13 pm

    “Get your ugly wife to explain the meaning of stuff you don’t understand, rather than make a complete cunt of yourself over and over…”

    That’s a cracker, Scott, and a sure-fire vote winner.

    I have forwarded it to a few soft No’s of my acquaintance. They’re being a wee bittie reticent for now, but I am confident they will soon switch to Yes.

    Take a bow.

  460. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Republicofscotland says:25 October, 2022 at 6:15 pm

    “top US men such as Michael Kurilla jumping into nuclear subs in broad daylight tends to set alarm bells ringing”

    Naw, Repo.

    Not for most decent people.

    If you are rooting for mad Vlad however …

  461. Stuart MacKay
    Ignored
    says:

    Well, Grima Wormtongue aka Michael Gove makes a return visit as Leveling Down Secretary in Man of the People, Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet. I guess the race is on to assimilate Scotland into the bosom of England and smother us with love. Will Sturgeon wait to be made irrelevant or will she jump soon?

  462. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @RoS 6.15 pm

    You’re letting your imagination run away with you again bud. Our American cousins have already made it clear to Vlad and his military that any use of tactical nukes or dirt bombs by them in Country 404 would lead to direct US involvement. In the first instance that’d be via cruise missiles and subs would be the best way of doing it, though doubtless they’d use ships and aircraft launched ones too.

    They’ll decimate Vlad’s failing special military op, destroy what’s left of the Black Sea fleet and ensure Vlad’s nice bunch of lads are expelled from the whole of country 404 including the Crimea. At that point the Russian Army will probably realise the game is up and arrange for Vlad to “retire to his dacha”.

    Other than mad Vlad, wiser heads in the Kremlin will know that the US and any other allies would make short work of what’s left of their ramshackle armed forces which have been fought to a standstill and then rolled back by country 404’s armed forces.

    None of this is surprising, and it’ll be well planned out. The fact the US have advertised it in advance makes it vanishingly unlikely that Vlad’s sabre rattling is any more than that.

  463. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Dan.

    Thanks for the link to Kenny. And back to Scotland.

  464. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @John Main 6.14 pm

    @ Republicofscotland says:25 October, 2022 at 6:05 pm

    “It’s almost been proven … ”

    Well why didn’t you say earlier, Repo.

    I’m almost convinced.

    That one’s a belter isn’t it, even by RoS’ standards.

    Didn’t he assure us that it had almost been proven US Major General Roger L. Cloutier Jr. was captured in the Azovstahl works, along with a retired Canadian General Trevor Cadieu?

    He went a bit quiet about it afterwards. Imagine our surprise. I’m almost convinced RoS is a paid asset of Vlad the mad. It’s as likely as the Kremlin agitprop he spouts and expects us to swallow whole…..

  465. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “You’re letting your imagination run away with you again bud.”

    Ellis.

    The only ones letting their imagination run riot is the Western media, moreso the US media with their outrageous claims that 404 is winning. In reality 404’s forces are on the verge of collapse, and even with Nato boots on the ground dressed up as international mercenaries things aren’t looking too good. The head of the Nato alliance the US is looking for other options.

    So, all possibilities are on the table including the ones I mentioned.

  466. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    Why was Disraeli deemed the first ethnic minority to be PM.

  467. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Cloutier’s mistress code-named Klute by the GRU and the SVR was first tracked to Turkey and then 404 (Mariupol), she’s a 404 citizen, Cloutier has a weakness he never ever went anywhere without her that how they knew he was in Mariupol and trapped in the Azovstal.

    Several rescue attempts to free him cost the lives of two groups of 404 troops shotdown in MI-8 helicopters.

    Cadieu’s capture isn’t as interesting, Cloutier was captured by DPR forces.

    Both have probably been exchanged in a prisoner swap by now, certainly Cadieu, Cloutier might have died in the convoy escape plan where 404 military vehicles were daubed with Z’s to try and fool opposing forces but it ended badly with many deaths of 404’s troops.

  468. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    Kenny MacAskill doing a great speech in HoC,
    the toom tabard SNP walked out when he got up to speak.

  469. James Che
    Ignored
    says:

    Back to Scotland,

    Lets us concentrate on getting Scotland out of these constant war games, out of energy poverty.
    Creating and entrepreneur employment, and to stem the tide of drugs and alcohol abuse.

  470. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @RoS

    Honestly, bud…..give it up. Nobody buys Vlad’s snake oil, it just makes you look (even more) ridiculous.

    Cloutier handed over his command in Izmir in August, 3 months after the Orcs took control of Azovstahl. I think all the folks and the media there would have noticed if he was dead. Unless of course you’re so captured by conspiracy theorising that you think he’s a doppleganger, or it’s all part of the Great Satan’s disinformation.

    Of course, Cloutier could come round you place and kick your arse and you’d still insist he was deid.

    https://lc.nato.int/media-center/news/2022/nato-allied-land-command-welcomes-new-commander

  471. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    “Gareth the sanctimonious snowflake dismissing a valid observation. Must be an Edinburgh thing.” Scott 24 Oct

    I have no idea who you are, but am obliged for your example in support, although it was entirely unnecessary.

  472. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Republicofscotland says:25 October, 2022 at 7:33 pm

    “dressed up as international mercenaries”

    It’s a war zone, Repo.

    People in it dress down.

    TBH, the phrase I have re-quoted was the only bit of interest in your post.

    Maybes neck a vindaloo and 6 Skol before parking your breakfast on here tomorrow.

    At least then we will be able to marvel at the pretty colours.

  473. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Andy Ellis says:25 October, 2022 at 8:19 pm

    “you think he’s a doppleganger”

    That’s catching on here, Andy.

    To the usual suspects, Wings BTL is a hall of mirrors.

  474. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708498

    Hatuey says:
    25 October, 2022 at 1:04 pm

    Anyone for an EFTA?

    That sounds pretty good! At least during the independence campaign then we don’t have to go through all the excruciating stuff about the EU. Borders, Euro, blocked by Spain deficit the Brexiteer racists screaming about some guy who doesn’t speak English delivering their pizza.

    Imagine if an Italian delivered your pizza and spoke only in Italian.

    That would be ‘fantastico’ per me.
    I want to learn italian

    “Save your love my darling save your love!”

    ‘La vita è fatta a scale: c’è chi scende e c’è chi sale.’

    Even if I didn’t speak any Italian and he spoke no English there really wouldn’t be a huge problem.
    Earlier I ordered a pizza young man from deliveroo appears at the door holding a pizza.

    I look out my peephole see a young man holding a pizza do I really have to interrogate him and ask him if he speaks English and what he is doing at my door?

    If you don’t read John Mains posts then your probably won’t have a clue what I’m talking about.

    Basically it’s about racists aka Brexiteers who object to free movement of travel/immigration.

  475. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    I see Rishi is supposed to be phoning Nicola, maybe even tonight.

    Wouldn’t it be great if she had the balls to refuse his call and call him an attention seeker who wasn’t worth speaking to. I mean, who knows how long he’ll last…?

    Is there an iceberg lettuce for Sunak yet?

  476. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    Actually I think the initial complaint about these pizza delivering guys was that they only had a new words of English.

    It’s enough!

    Bella ragazza! Here is you ra pizza. Buon appetito Signorina!

    Save your love my darling save your love
    Salva l’amore per Roma e per me

  477. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “Of course, Cloutier could come round you place and kick your arse and you’d still insist he was deid.”

    If Coultier/Cadieu were alive, or liberated he would’ve been paraded all over the media and he would’ve appeared on tv programmes etc, two dodgy small and vague photos of Coultier on social media isn’t enough evidence to prove that he isn’t a DPR prisoner or dead.

    The same applies to Cadieu, of course Nato MUST deny any capture or KIA of these two, for not only would it be extremely embarrassing for Nato, after saying no Nato personnel were in 404, but it would also give the appearance that they were losing.

  478. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    Someone earlier described Andy Ellis as being someone with a parrot on each shoulder.
    I though that was absolutely brilliant!

    Andy Parrot squawks: ‘How’s a pretty boy!

    Chas Parrot squawks: ‘Andy Parrot is a very pretty boy,pretty boy, pretty boy Andy Parrot.

    John Main Parrot joins in: I love Andy Parrot, he’s a very pretty boy, pretty boy! pretty boy! Andy Parrot big beak peck peck peck, anonymous snivelling cowards, anonymous snivelling cowards, anonymous snivelling cowards,
    John Main Parrot love Andy Parrot, Andy Parrot, Andy Parrot, Andy Parrot! Pretty Boy!

  479. Merganser
    Ignored
    says:

    Stuart MacKay @ 6.40

    A just question my Liege.

    Saruman’s Nicola Protege is capable of any perfidy, including joining with the dead stoat wearers on the pretence she is going to argue from within. Lady Sturgeon of Isengard, LG.

  480. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    correction

    Andy Parrot squawks: ‘Who’s a pretty boy?

    Chas Parrot squawks: Andy Parrot very pretty boy! Pretty boy! Pretty boy! Ugly Wife! Ugly wife! Ugly wife face like corned beef! Corned Beef! Corned Beef! Corned Beef!

  481. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    The same shit just a new face at number ten. Sturgeon the betrayer and her SNP puppet MSPs and MPs will bitch about it, and throw the indy word around, and Blackford will lift his snout out the trough just long enough to mumble at PMQs that Scotland won’t stand for it, meanwhile Scotland will continue to circle the plughole whilst Sturgeon is at the helm.

    2026 seems light years away, what state will Scotland be in by then, and will the indy masses see through the betrayer by then.

    “RISHI Sunak will be running a “UK-wide” government that works in devolved areas – and Nicola Sturgeon should not play “student politics” about it, a Scottish Tory MSP has suggested.

    Craig Hoy, who sits on the UK Tory Party’s board as the chair of the Scots Conservatives, told the BBC that the circumventing Holyrood and providing councils directly with UK Government funding was “a very important sign that the Union is working”.

    Before Brexit, EU funding was passed to and allocated by the Scottish Government. However, the UK Government has taken complete control over post-Brexit replacements – such as the Shared Prosperity Fund and Levelling Up Fund.”

    https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenational.scot%2Fnews%2F23077082.rishi-sunaks-uk-wide-government-plan-turn-constitutional-clock-back%2F

  482. DaveL
    Ignored
    says:

    Desperate desperate desperate. BBC Ellis just won’t stop, can’t see that the west has had its day and going down just as history shows, the strong become weak and the weak become strong. The West has had its day.

    Russia’s saying ‘fuck off West’ in no uncertain terms, Africa says ‘fuck off’, South America, Asia and the Middle East all shouting ‘FUCK OFF’.

    As for Ellis in some ways I hope the shutters never fall from his eyes given that his head’s stuck so far up his arse there’d be one hell of an explosion, that’s what you’d call a dirty bomb.

  483. PacMan
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian Brotherhood says: 25 October, 2022 at 4:42 pm

    That’s why Ellis really should be ignored – he doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously on such a grave topic.

    I am genuinely mystified why anybody engages him on any subject, never mind something as serious on the current one.

  484. PacMan
    Ignored
    says:

    While there has been a focus on Western countries needs, there has been little coverage of the effects it is having on the poorer countries of the world:

    https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/30/energy/lng-global-winter-shortage-europe/index.html

    Asia has been the biggest importer of LNG since at least 2010, Ruth Liao, editor for LNG Americas, told CNN Business. But some buyers in the region will find it hard to compete with richer economies in Europe and could be priced out of the market, whether or not R* abruptly turns off the taps.

    “Next winter remains a major risk in terms of how LNG supply can balance competing demand between Europe and Asia,” she said.

    Rystad’s Ramesh said countries such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are most likely to take the hit as LNG is diverted to Europe. Buyers should start signing long-term supply agreements, Eric Heymann, a senior economist at Deutsche Bank, told CNN Business.

    “A larger share of LNG demand and supply… is based on short term or flexible contracts or on the spot market,” he said. “The price will decide where the LNG goes,” he said.

    Since November, India and Pakistan have already scaled back LNG imports by 15%, according to data from analysis firm Vortexa, a trend driven mostly by rising prices. As a result, demand in Asia could be “permanently dented,” with some countries having to increase their use of coal and oil, Rystad Energy predicts.

  485. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    The propaganda tells you Vlad’s military is struggling. Even if that was true, which I doubt, it would be astonishing.

    Look at the weapons and equipment they’ve pumped in there. We are talking trillions not billions. On top of that there’s mercenaries and all sorts of other help.

    I can’t believe how pish NATO weapons and know-how turned out to be. And as I said, this is against an army that’s obviously holding back, with zero in the way of air power on display.

    This is a major humiliation for NATO and the US. The world sees that and is realising how useless they are at fighting when the other side can fight back.

    The politics and economics are even more embarrassing. The sanctions are hurting us more than they are hurting them, there’s no UN support, and now there’s a growing list of countries united in open revolt, including India, Saudi Arabia, China, and even Turkey (a NATO member state).

    It’s hopeless. All our economies fucked, all those people dead, for what? If this was supposed to be about bolstering western hegemony, it’s backfired big time. I see now why they want to distract us with talk of dirty bombs and nukes. It’s a shambles wrapped in a pile of lies.

  486. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Scot Finlayson says:
    25 October, 2022 at 7:58 pm
    Kenny MacAskill doing a great speech in HoC,
    the toom tabard SNP walked out when he got up to speak.

    Did they really? What an absolute shower of tossers.

  487. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks
    I’ve just been watching that.

    Here they are;
    https://twitter.com/i/status/1584987495921750016

  488. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    For Breeks; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci63_ByxJTU

    According to that guy, they found a dirty bomb in February, on a plane and ready to go…

    ‘Redacted’ also covered this recently.

  489. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Ruby says:
    26 October, 2022 at 12:13 am
    Breeks
    I’ve just been watching that.

    Here they are;
    https://twitter.com/i/status/1584987495921750016

    So that’s Blackford, Oswald, is that Thewliss too? I can’t make out the others. Faceless nobodies is probably an adequate description anyway.

    How I detest the SNP now. They are petty spoiled brats with absolutely zero integrity. What an embarrassment they are to Scotland. To think we trusted these crapheads to actually deliver Scottish Independence.

    I wouldn’t trust their integrity or diligence to run a Local Authority Planning Committee, nevermind Scotland’s Front Bench.

    If this is the product we can expect from Democracy, then self evidently, Democracy is a worthless commodity.

  490. Scott
    Ignored
    says:

    If the war ended today, when would UK Treasury start seeing some return on the ‘hire-purchase goods’ Boris Johnson authorised for supply or will that be subject to commercial confidentiality, which luckily isn’t absolute in Scots law?

    And that question goes to John Main in the first instance.

    And, should Scotland see a portion of that applied to the GERS figures, thus reducing the bogus deficit?

    Whoever holds the debt notice gets paid. So as BoE hold billions of promissory notes from Govt and a parent company cannot be in hock to a subsidiary….there’s yer fucking money, ya crackpot. It’s resting in their account already waiting to be converted to cash for the government to fucking spend on you right now.

    When Scotland becomes independent, if people want to eat and pay tax and businesses want to open their doors and everyone pay bills etc…they’ll need a currency compliant with Scots law, and because a new Central Bank can guarantee £Scot to residents on parity with £GBP, or better still underprice it to make it feel like the early days of a new country is like going on a permanent holiday.

    Cross border trade would let the markets sort things out, and after all, that’s what you self-appraised know-alls with the white noise ‘mnmnmnmnmnmnmn’ attitude and right-wing thunk twank hoonmowlers would want, eh?

  491. Willie
    Ignored
    says:

    Hatuey @10.27. Interesting comments that you make. It certainly does not seem that country 404 despite the trillions of support from 101 and 201 is making headway and winning against 999.

    Indeed with 999 aligning with 1099 and indeed other middle countries, it looks very much like 101 and its side kick 201 have bitten off more than
    they can chew militarily and economically.

    And here’s a threat, an all out nuclear threat that confirms it –

    ” Speaking ahead of multiple rounds of talks in Japan’s capital with her South Korean and Japanese counterparts on Tuesday, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said Washington would deploy its “nuclear, conventional and missile defense” forces should the two allies ever come under attack, emphasizing the US’ ‘nuclear umbrella’ policy.”

    So now you have it country 101 threatening a full out nuclear strike. Well in 1945 they did bomb two defenceless Japanese cities to show how tough they were.

    But the world has changed since 101 was the only nuclear power with the biggest military and the biggest economy.

    And the Clint Eastwood question is ” do you feel lucky punk, well do you”

  492. gregor
    Ignored
    says:

    @Stuart MacKay

    I’m confident that the public is becoming ever more aware, in terms of the rotten overarching universal agenda, its intended target (re. our everything/our future), and the potential implications.

    We see and feel the catastrophic impact of this scheming global order and its invasion of plastic super-charged woke-bots – hell-bent on mutilating rationality, here and now (pick your chaos/crisis/conflict/disaster/absurdity).

    What’s worth waiting for (not mentioning the dire socio-economic outlook) – who can we rely on.

    Who can we depend on.

    I’m resolute that this NWO monster has presented the public with a golden opportunity (while it faces the public wrath and self-annihilation)…

    BBC (26/10/2022): Democrats retract call for Biden change of course on (redacted):

    “A group of left-wing Democrats in the US Congress has withdrawn a letter that called for a negotiated settlement to the war in (redacted)….

    Its call for the US to negotiate directly with (redacted) was seen as undermining the Biden administration…

    White House officials said in response that diplomacy is only possible when all sides are prepared to negotiate…”:

    https://archive.ph/oUfMm

  493. Ruby
    Ignored
    says:

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/truth-in-numbers/comment-page-1/#comment-2708578

    Breeks

    Did you spot the one scurrying along the 2nd row trying to keep out of sight?

  494. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    SNP MPs – not mine after yet another disgraceful display of dummy spitting.

    How old are these folk?

    They no longer represent Scotland and should all lose their seats – problem is who does one vote for at a GE? Are there enough ALBA candidates to cover? Otherwise we are back to a unionist party in power at both Westminster and Holyrood.



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