Wings Over Scotland

The comedy duo from Hell.

Which one’s the ‘straight man’?

Even got McDermid looking like the spouse outside the polling booth a few years back. Priceless.

Hah, brilliant ?

So this guy Colin MaAllister was Sturgeon’s chief of staff who then became Yousless’ chief of staff before stabbing him in the back the second he started speaking to ALBA and it is the same floating turd who was responsible for installing the unelected disaster that is John Swinney.

I think it is fair to say that Sturgeon is still in control via her proxies, Colin McAllister being clearly one of them.

What Colin does not realize is that Sturgeon naturally surrounded herself with inept, incompetent, arselickers (i.e. the people she felt intellectually comfortable being around) and he is very much one of them. Talk about giving shit advice… wow.

I am not complaining but why on earth did wee Rishi fudchops call this election. Another genius move…

Just brilliant Chris.
Captured Val Murrells glassy eyes and thems opened mouth !

Wings post of yesterday:
The Literature Alliance for Scotland is a great menace, dead worrying. But there’s hope – its constitution says that any member of the public can see a copy of any minutes. This would answer a raft of questions:
– who are the members?
– are they as influential as Magi Gibson says? – do they hold public office?
– did they take GRA decisions that were not only not approved, but not even minuted?
Worth chasing up if we want to nail the buggers. Rev, please note.

That Kathleen Stock article from pacman on the delusional world of Nicola Sturgeon and her acolytes really could be describing spending any amount of time on the weegingerdug website.

They live in a fantasy land, nothing is ever their fault, inconvenient facts are just ignored, and they stand there, eyes shut, with their hands over their ears shouting ‘lah!lah!lah!lah!’ in an endless loop. Just to prevent any conflicting reality from entering and recking their delusions.

They don’t even need a VR set. They are generating their own virtual reality using their own bottomless well of stupidity and intellectual mediocrity. “I know, I’ll just munch down on this rancid shit sandwich and call it a caviar wrap”.

Sturgeonites… thick as pig shit.

@pacman
EVERYBODY CLICK ON PACMAN’S LINK
Article is BRILLIANT
The rev could have written it

Brilliant.

Just to add to Ms Stock’s excellent insights to Sturgeon and her audience linked by Pacman, here is part of a tribunal decision put up on the Tribunal Tweets substack account.

Tribunal Tweets is collecting open letters to archive. The Tribunal finding in favour of Jo Phoenix made this comment about her 368 colleagues.

“617. We conclude that everyone who signed the Open Letter with the exception of Professor Domingue & Mr Daly was signing the Open Letter to put pressure on the OU to impede the Claimant carrying out research from a gender critical perspective. They did not want the OU to support a network with members who had gender critical beliefs including the Claimant. Additionally all were signing to add weight to the numbers against the GCRN. That is the point of a petition and all the academics and staff who signed the Open Letter knew it. We conclude that the signing of the Open Letter was unwanted conduct related to the Claimant’s gender critical beliefs. The purpose of signing the Open Letter was to create an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for the Claimant.Notwithstanding, we do consider that the effect of the signing of the Open Letter was to create an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for the Claimant. The Claimant said that finding out the Open Letter was signed by her colleagues was devastating. The Claimant was humiliated both professionally and personally by the publication and signing of the letter. We conclude that having 368 of your colleagues sign a public letter saying that you are part of a group that is fundamentally transphobic, is stigmatising and damaging and objectively was conduct that had the effect of creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for the Claimant.

Ms Phoenix settled her case after the Tribunal found in her favour against the OU – having spent £230k in making her claim.

PacMan @ 8:40 am

link to archive.is

“It’s an interesting insight into the affluent middle-class mindset which has enough dough to be able to hear what they want to hear.”

And on that mindset, postcolonial theory holds a particular dislike for the often arrogant and complicit native bourgeoisie in a colonial society:

“who has read everything, devoured everything. Only, his brain functions after the fashion of certain elementary types of digestive systems. It filters. And the filter lets through only what can nourish the thick skin of the bourgeois’s clear conscience” (Cesaire).

We can see this bourgeois ‘brain filter’ in evidence in the trans debate, in the SNP’s alliance with colonialism, in what passes for a ‘justice’ system, in Matheson and Murrel etc, in aw the radge policies, and in literally everything else that goes on in a colonial society/racket.

Over in Yours for Scotland Alf Baird has done an absolutely superb analysis of where Scotland is at the moment.

His article should be reading for all.

link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com

THREE PHASES OF DECOLONISATION – lessons for Scotland – Alf Baird

I have therefore taken the liberty of copying his article and attach it underneath. This is the message we need to get out to the masses. So herewith –

Self-determination is the process by which colonized and hence oppressed peoples become independent. In this regard we have a great deal to learn from postcolonial theory which explains this process in some detail, and from which much of the UN approach to self-determination and decolonization is based.

Postcolonial theory is drawn from the common experiences of many peoples and nations that have become independent from imperial rule, mostly since the end of WWII and the founding of the United Nations. It is therefore very much an applied body of literature. In this it is important for an oppressed people to understand the different ‘phases of decolonization’ which colonized peoples’ have to go through in order to secure independence and liberation from oppression, which is never an easy or straightforward process.

PHASE 1: THE RISE OF THE DOMINANT NATIONAL PARTY

Within the first phase of decolonization, the naivety and inexperience of the newly elected national party is exploited to the full by the colonial power. New to assuming any kind of power, the national party elite ‘attach a fundamental importance to the fetish of organisation’, which takes precedence over any reasoned study of colonialism.

Because the national party elite has never undertaken a detailed analysis of colonial society, the leaders do not yet understand what independence really means (i.e. decolonization) or why it is necessary. This also leaves the understanding of the mass of the people at a rudimentary level as they likewise also remain ignorant of what independence means.

The colonial power plays on the relative inexperience of the national party elite using its long experience of imperial administration and the very solid government and justice system it has created. The colonial power also uses traditional means such as divide and rule of the oppressed, manipulation, and the deployment of confidential agents pensioned off at ransom prices.

It soon becomes clear to the people that, inside the nationalist parties, the will to break colonialism is linked with another quite different will: that of coming to a friendly agreement with it. At the decisive moment, such as the election of a majority of nationalist members of parliament, the party elite lacks the courage to declare independence.

Instead, the national party chooses ‘neutrality’, it depends on slogans and for the most part leaves the question of independence to future events. It therefore takes the movement up a blind alley, delaying independence. The dominant national party elite then becomes part of the colonial racket, it behaves like a gang, feathers its nest and builds up its pensions. Colonialism, which is always a co-operative venture with native elites, effectively draws the national party leaders under its wing.

PHASE II: THE RUPTURE IN THE MOVEMENT

As time goes by, the people begin to realise that all is not well with the dominant national party in whom the movement has placed its trust. The dominant national party opted for neutrality instead of liberating the people, which is the clearest sign that its intentions are no longer aligned with the masses. The party elite then suffers from a kind of petrifaction, it becomes calcified and immobile. Unable to serve two masters, that is both the colonized and the colonizer, the party elite chooses to protect the interest of the latter and hence sacrifices the former, that is the people.

The colonised people discover they cannot gain their liberty from oppression by following the imposed laws and justice courts of their colonizers, i.e. what is known as the Section 30 Scotland Act approach. In an attempt to make party officials looks busy, the administration passes laws with mystify and further oppress the people. The inevitable split in the party results in conflict between ‘legal and illegal’tendencies.

The dominant national party refuses to promote any innovation or make progress on the most urgent cause of liberating the people. It attacks the so-called ‘radicals’ and ‘undesirables’ in the national independence movement, joining with colonial forces(such as state police and prosecutors) to persecute key leaders. Such developments and lack of progress on independence sicken the movement and leads to its rupture.

New national parties are then rapidly created, albeit they unfortunately also have a tendency to model themselves on political parties in the mother country. However, even the more assimilated native who automatically favours the status quo starts to become disturbed by events. The native starts to remember what he is and, no matter whether he thought of himself as British of French, he realises that this was a manufactured being, and little more than a cultural illusion.

The people start to “spew ourselves up; but already underneath laughter can be heard” as they finally begin to realise the colonial hoax that has been played out at their expense and thus to understand their wretched (colonial) condition. And so,they begin to better understand that this colonial condition is at root racist, itsubordinates them as ‘a people’ and a culture, which enables the economic plunder of their lands, which in turn widens inequalities and results in under-development of the people and nation.

PHASE III: THE PEOPLE START TO UNDERSTAND THE TRUE PATH TO LIBERATION

Here the people begin to understand that they must take a different approach if they are to become liberated, free to go their own way, and that their political leaders and political solutions have proven to be inadequate. The third and final phase must see the people finally awaken and shake themselves from their lethargy in the face of the forces of colonial occupation, economic exploitation, and political and cultural domination.

It is in this final phase that the people must become liberated from their oppressive reality. The people have to realise that they cannot live with colonialism and neither can they compromise with it through such mechanisms as limiting forms of‘devolution’. The complicit national party that has now become the main obstacle to liberation must be cast aside and a new liberation vehicle brought into play which is wholly focused on securing the freedom of the people.

The colonial relationship and chains must be broken, oppression must be ended. If the colonial relationship is allowed to continue, the people, their culture and nation will eventually perish. The people need to understand that true independence meansthe concrete situation which begets oppression must be transformed. This requires a two-stage process, as follows:

1) the oppressed group and their leaders unveil the world of oppression (i.e. colonialism is revealed to them) and commit to its transformation, and:

2) the culture of domination is confronted, its myths expelled, and its presence removed.

Liberation is thus like a childbirth, and a painful one. The correct method of liberation requires dialogue with the people, and political action must be undertaken together with the oppressed group. This is achieved through a liberation movement in which revolutionary leadership establishes a permanent relationship of dialogue with the oppressed people.

The liberation group cannot exist without the people, and the leadership group grows out of communion and dialogue with the people. The leaders must dedicate themselves toward an untiring effort for unity among the oppressed people in order to achieve liberation, which is the opposite of domination. Such organization is a highly educational process in which leaders and people together experience true authority and freedom, which they then seek to establish in society by transforming the reality which mediates them, including necessarily self-recovery of culture.

References

“…his brain functions after the fashion of certain elementary types of digestive systems. It filters. And the filter lets through only what can nourish the thick skin of the bourgeois’s clear conscience” (Cesaire).”

I’ve said it before, Alf. But those lines from Cesaire perfectly capture the attitude of the bourgeoisie and are always worth repeating.

What’s does Sturgeon & Pal Val have in common. What do they both specialise in?

7 letters

– – – T – – –

Alf Baird

Extract from Alf’s article on the Yours for Scotland website:

“The colonised people discover they cannot gain their liberty from oppression by following the imposed laws and justice courts of their colonizers”

@Willie has kindly posted Alf’s complete article up above and it is essential reading for all Scots.

Excellent article, Alf. Just excellent:

“Liberation is thus like a childbirth, and a painful one.”

For a people as a whole, and at an individual level, too, I would add.

But the rewards gained in recovering one’s cultural identity and freeing one’s mind from the tricks and traps of the coloniser are incalculable.

FFS ‘Narroweyed Observer’ is as angry as ‘Franchise Fanny’!

Should be fun winding him up!

NB You are on the wrong thread pal and way off topic!

Personal abuse can get you banned.

Chris,

I love this cartoon of yours in particular, because it makes the obvious statement virtual that reality of British politics and politicians across the board both sides of the boarder.
We all know the politicians perception of virtual reality is as far away in the opposite direction of ours, three quarters of the rest of population of Britain,

There is nothing wrong with the parliament buildings, it is the small totally inadequate capitalisation of politics bubble of trouble that we wrongly call politicians that need to be ousted from those very building. To be replaced with real people.in the real world,

You said and explained it so well with excellent strokes of the pen,
What a brilliant cover for any book or media to explain todays politics in a nutshell.

North Code.

Westminster parliament has Colonised the actual treaty of union itself,
Thinking that London and England are the only Country in the treaty of union,

@Northcode 12.06pm

“The colonised people discover they cannot gain their liberty from oppression by following the imposed laws and justice courts of their colonizers”

What sort of colonising power negotiates something like the Edinburgh Agreement though? Unless you don’t believe the yoons would have accepted a Yes result in 2014, which seems a stretch unless you’re a fully paid up member of the Bacofoil hat wearing club, all the Scottish people have to do is muster a majority of votes in a referendum or plebiscitary elections.

You can’t seriously claim to be colonised or subject to colonial oppression if the most you have to do to end colonial rule is put an X on a piece of paper.

None of this is rocket science of course, but the usual suspects like to use the “Scotland as colony” schtick as fig leaf to hide to hide the nakedness of intellectual and political ideology, which is about as developed as the manhood of a TRA after an extensive course of hormones.

We don’t a’ huv tae tak aun the Scots leid tae hink yer patter’s bowfin.

Maybe Val could nominate Sturgeon for the silver dagger award after she killed off the SNP.

Right enough Garavelli 🙂 but there are too many letters in
cunning linguists!

Sorry no lolly for you!

Video on WhatsApp of hundreds of Rangers Fans dressed in the same T Shirts, some with masks marching through the centre of Glasgow with threatening gestures blocking traffic.

The police are three of course. Not appearing to do anything but watching.

To quote the famous band- I predict a riot.

“What sort of colonising power negotiates something like the Edinburgh Agreement though?”

The sort that think they are going to cantor to a win without even trying and can thus look good, ie democratic, without risk. The sort that lose their shit when a week or two out polling shows Yes in the lead and the sort that breaks purdah to announce new powers if you vote no. Then when you vote no, deliver control over road signs or the equivalent ie no real power only responsibilities.

“Unless you don’t believe the yoons would have accepted a Yes result in 2014”

We believe they didn’t think there was a hope in hell of a Yes vote so it was a risk free gamble. Funny how now it’s roughly 50:50 or so (yes ranges from 45% to 53% over time depending on pollster), they say there’s NO CHANCE of another vote. Too much chance of the vote going the wrong way now!!!

Brilliant article by Alf Baird.

The SNP must be removed from power, for the indy cause to advance, vote Alba or ISP, not BLIS or the Tory or Lib/Dem branch offices of London’s in Scotland, nor the Greens who use the cover of promoting Green activities to push their gender policies.

link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com

Rangers fans are getting ever more paramilitary looking!!

Police Scotland don’t seem to mind escorting them around the town while they create carnage and shoppers flee.

In whose interest would it be to have a unionist paramilitary force ready?????

Let me think.

There us no real need right enough with Swinney sinking his own campaign in day 2

Panda Paws 3:13pm

Well said.

Ellis

“Unless you don’t believe the yoons would have accepted a Yes result in 2014, which seems a stretch unless you’re a fully paid up member of the Bacofoil hat wearing club, all the Scottish people have to do is muster a majority of votes in a referendum or plebiscitary elections.”

No bacofoil needed. The Edinburgh Agreement said it would recognise the result. NOT that they’d implement it. A fact that the slippery feckers brought up in Parliament when they were discussing Brexshit being “only advisory, just like Scottish indy ref was”

So if there had been a YES vote they’d have weaseled out of it because there was nothing in writing to say they’d actually implement it.

We’re also forbidden to have another one. Yer x is a waste of time but knock yerself out believing a Plebiscite will make them suddenly watch their cash cow & international status walk out the door with a hearty cheerio..
It’s you that needs the bacofoil.

Starmer seeks to exclude the only Scottish party, however inadequate, from GE debates.
The gentleman, when visiting the «region», should be given a rousing welcome for his stunning efforts in the cause of smug anglocentrism.
Maybe he should visit in an armoured car?

Another GREAT political message wrapped up as a cartoon to engage thought Chris

I very seldom agree with Peter A Bell but on this occasion his #EndTheUnion proposal is right on the mark for any independence supporter

Unfortunately as normal, Scots cannot agree on the best way forward, we have had for a little while a man from Dundee promoting his saying “notmyparliament”to write on your voting slip which Roddy and others on Prism have shown support for, we are famous for fighting within ourselves FFS can we not even get a slogan right
The object of the idea to “Repurpose your vote” was to COLLECTIVELY, that means the MAJORITY, to deliberately send a message to ALL supposed independence parties to get their fingers out and FIGHT for independence #EndTheUnion or they WILL NOT get our vote
Everyone no doubt can think of something to write on their ballot slip, BUT that is meaningless and WILL be ignored,BUT if everyone wrote the same thing #EndTheUnion that would have impact and maybe even reach the media, illustrating to WM that INDEPENDENCE is very much alive and kicking and we intend to #EndTheUnion , and also sending a message to indy parties to get on with independence or they are history

So I appeal to the “not my parliament”supporters, please get on board with the #EndTheUnion message proposal and make it more prominent

I do believe that my TV has spontaneously changed to virtual reality.
Why otherwise would it just have shown me an advert for E45 cream recommending its’ properties for “transitioning skin”. And suggesting I go online to the E45 site dedicated to its support for those embarking on this “journey”.
Back to Classic FM or Radio 3 for a touch of sanity I feel.

@Geri 4.21 pm

Implementing the deal, and the terms of the deal post independence, are a matter for both sides to negotiate. If we have crap negotiators and get a bad deal, then the only people to blame are ourselves.

Given the state of our recent governments in Holyrood, the leadership of the SNP and Greens, and the inability of the movement as a whole to make much political impact, it doesn’t exactly fill me with hope that the “A Team” will be running rings around the mandarins of the British nationalist establishment.

That being said, it is at least arguable that the Irish had a pretty shit hand in 1918-21 and just had to make the best of the cards they had. In the circumstances (of being threatened with imminent invasion, and the partition of the island of Ireland) I suppose we can cut them some slack.

Anyone paying attention (difficult for someone with the attention span and insight of a goldfish like yourself, but bear with me…) will know that the yoons have been quite clever in saying they’re not saying we can NEVER have another referendum, just that we can’t impose terms. There have to be two sides agreeing for it to happen.

The alternative is an “un-agreed” referendum which we already know some states like Spain won’t recognise because they’ve explicitly said so and a much harder struggle to obtain independence after UDI. That’s no easy task: ask the Kossovans.

In the end, it depends if you think the Scottish people – or at least the future majority we hope are going to lead us to independence – have the balls not to take “No” for an answer if they feel that response is unjust, illegal or infringes their absolute right under international law to self determination.

Absent an actual armed uprising and killing of officers of the state à la Ireland in the early 20th century, if we’re faced with an intransigent British nationalist state that is denying us our right to exercise our self determination, we have to be prepared to take matters in to our own hands, whether that’s via civil disobedience, not recognising the organs of the British nationalist state, ostracising those who do, forming and using our own alternative “nationalist” institutions as Sinn Féinn did in the early 1900’s.

If you think all of that is at all likely, or is somehow preferable to just winning plebiscitary elections, then go ahead: make it so. It’s about as likely to happen as any of the “cunning plans for indy” that cranks and snake oil salesman in here seem obsessed with.

Screeds of text but he didn’t answer the question…

#BrokenAskAndy 🙁

@Dan 6.44pm

It’s a stupid question, redolent of the kind of yoon Project Fear talking points. Why would yoon councils be refusing to hold general elections, whether Westminster or Holyrood?

You *might* have some point WRT to referendums, but not general elections. Try harder ya unreasoning dullard.

. . . you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat’s tongue, you bull’s pizzle, you stock-fish! O for breath to utter what is like thee! You tailor’s-yard, you sheath, you bowcase; you vile standing-tuck . .

That’s the correct way to call someone a dickhead – well, if you’re Falstaff insulting a prince it is; according to Shakespeare anyway.

Harry had a go at Falstaff first so Falstaff’s retort seems only fair after being the target of this princely insult:

“Thou art violently carried away from grace. There is a devil that haunts thee in the likeness of an old fat man; a tun of a man in thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend Vice, that grey Iniquity, that father Ruffian, that Vanity in Years?

If Falstaff’s and Prince Harry’s lists of names were not insults they’d be called Congeries, but they weren’t – they were lists of insults, and that being so are called Bdelygmia. Bdelygmia derives from a Greek word meaning ‘nasty’ or something like that.

No-one knows how to pronounce Bdelygmia properly as none of the letters are silent and the ancients never told us. And it’s actually against a minor British bye-law to attempt to say it out loud in a public place.

Congeries is Latin for a pile of stuff, and in rhetoric it applies to any heaping of adjectives or nouns in a list. So when St. Paul said:

“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like…But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance…”

He was making a Congeries. If he’d made a list of insults it would have been a Bdelygmia.

Here’s a Congeries, sorry, I mean a Bdelygmia approved in 1953 by the East German government for describing the British:

Paralytic sycophants, effete betrayers of humanity, carrion-eating servile imitators, arch-cowards and collaborators, gang of woman-murderers, degenerate rabble, parasitic traditionalists, playboy soldiers, conceited dandies.

Those East Germans really didn’t think much of the British, did they? Although I got on very well with German folk when I spent some time in Bavaria – after I told them I was a Scot.

That be Congeries…or Bdelygmia if yer list is fou o nasty insults.

Now you know the rhetorical name for the next list of insults you call someone.

And who knows? It might even be someone on here who gets your Bdelygmia in their face – that sounds ruder than I intended, but I’m leaving it anyway.

@ Andy Ellis

Give it a fucking rest ya relentlessly antagonistic prick.
I specifically asked about potential issue of using a Scottish Parliament election as a plebiscite election on UK constitutional matters.
I made no mention of using a Westminster election. (Which in my view would be a more straightforward and legitimate way to proceed as a plebiscite election on Scotland returning to self governance for various reasons.)
It was a legitimate question asking for some clarification.

If you try to turn an election for the Scottish Administration of Devolved Powers Parliament (which has no remit over UK constitution which is reserved to Westminster) into a plebiscitary election on constitutional matters, then why would unionist run councils treat that incursion into reserved matters any different from a wildcat or de facto referendum.
I ask because I recall Stu has previously mentioned the issue of trying to bypass unionist-controlled councils.

“We know that she’ll never hold a “wildcat” referendum (partly because she’d never try and partly because it’d fail if she did, since there’s no way to bypass Unionist-controlled councils).”

link to wingsoverscotland.com

Kate Forbes is just as delusional as the rest of them. She needs her job and salary, so won’t rock the boat.

The GE election couldn’t have come at a worse time for the SNP. Their poll ratings are at a record low. People see what Swinney is already. A person who will protect lying MSPs. The whole party is rotten.

Celtic is family. Forever in my heart. We’ve beaten the orange bastards once again! Hahahaha! It never gets old. God bless the Pope’s 11! ahahaha! They’re they’re and they’re always there. And god bless them. God bless Glasgow Celtic Football Club!

Was a terrible performance, but so glad the Brits got beaten yet again. Rangers just parked the bus and Cantwell is their comedy villain. Brendan has never lost to Sevco. Quite an achievement.

Oneliner says:
26 May, 2024 at 4:01 am

Football – nah. There are machines in pubs that do the same and you get control over the dummies.

Ooh, controversial – you might want to slip into your asbestos onesie to protect yourself from any incoming flames 🙂

P.S. Can anyone explain something to me? Namely, what’s with all of that spitting on the pitch? Anybody?

The Flying Iron of Doom @ 05.57.
The Celtic Players spit on the grass to nourish it and keep it green.
The Rangers Players spit on the grass to demonstrate their contempt for their opponents Team colours.
Well, either that or they all share a dirty habit.

@Dan 9.52 pm

Awa’ and work ya roaster. You’re STILL deflecting, because as you yourself note Stu was referring to the potential danger of local councils refusing to co-operate with a wildcat REFERENDUM not GENERAL ELECTION. If it helps I can write it in big colourful letters with Chubby Chump crayons and send you a picture?

It may be true that Westminster elections are an easier sell, but there’s no real argument that a Holyrood General election held on a specifically plebiscitary election is less of a mandate than a Westminster election. The independence movement’s line can and must be that following the britnats refusal to honour the 2014 precedent, every singly General election is plebiscitary by default.

Your point about Westminster asserting its constitutional supremacy is a red herring: the whole point of a plebiscitary election is that the movement is calling for a majority of the Scottish people to express their inalienable right to self determination.

Local councils in Scotland aren’t going to try and not hold or disrupt a General Election in either Westminster or Holyrood because the independence movement declares the result plebiscitary.

If they WERE to do so, it’s simply another nail in the coffin of Scottish unionism and the British nationalist estate, because by closing pff every available route for the Scottish people to exercise their self determination by the available and usual “conventional” routes, it would make UDI inevitable.

It would also make it much more likely that at least some of the international community would recognise such a declaration due to the bad faith exhibited by Westminster and unionists generally.

I don’t find the tricolour offensive. I would rather it was green saltire mind you. Some Celtic fans do have green saltire. They can’t waive blue ones as that would confuse them with Rangers colours. Aberdeen etc all waive their club colour saltire.

As for Rangers. They are just an offensive anti Scottish club. Who actually hate our national team, the SFA and every other Scottish club. Their fans are rotten and their bigotry is at the heart of unionism in Scotland.

I really loved Sunderland, Val….sob, sob…
There is no getting over that first love, Niccy….boo, hoo….it’s all in the literature.

Big Jock @ 10:27 pm

“Kate Forbes is just as delusional as the rest of them.”

Aye, a Meenister (an a budget) for Gaelic, an nae Meenister an nae budget an nae policy for Scots langage, i.e. maist Scots mither tung.

Keeping the people divided – the colonizers main tool.

Everybody and their apolitical dog has known since January there was a WM GE this year, and that the route to Indy was to turn it into a plebiscitary one.

But instead, everybody sat on their hands, did SFA, and now are bleating about not having been given enough time to prepare.

What the professional politicos are really greetin about is that their plans for a carefree month abroad over July and August have been scuppered.

Not sure just what the rank and file are greetin about. Says a lot though, that when the chance to produce a seismic result is presented on a silver plate, nobody can capitalise on it.

I don’t think we would win a defacto plebiscite referendum right now. Due to the anti SNP vote. I can’t vote SNP right now , or probably ever. I wouldn’t trust them with another mandate either.

Alf Baird

If it’s “maist Scots mither tung” as you insist on forever claiming, how about some evidence?

How about some of the regulars using their “mither tung” to put their points over?

I’m thinking there’s little evidence of any ability to speak or write Scots on here. There’s little evidence that Scots who do employ Scots as their mither tung are interested in wasting their time on here.

I’m thinking too that history is hoaching with examples of intellectuals who believe that the proletariat just needs some guidance and leadership and that they are the perfect fit for that role.

It seldom ends well for them!

Hmm, considering Andy’s input over the past few weeks me thinks he is simply running distraction interference by trying to push towards going with the more complex, contentious, compromised, and therefore difficult method of using the Scottish Parliament elections as a plebiscite election, rather than Westminster.
Supporting reasons:
1: Clear potential conflict issues arising from using an election for the Scottish Parliament which has control over devolved powers, but no remit over UK constitutional matters.
2: Compromised proportional voting system and franchise producing results that obscure genuine intent of what voters actually voted for. As Parties & Candidates would have to declare their intentions in dual manifestos prior to the vote, not knowing which one they would run with once vote results were in and if thresholds to enact either manifesto were met.
3: Limited time, the way things are playing out 2 years is too short a time to develop, organise, and roll out a nationwide strategy that the less politically aware electorate would understand. FFS, Yes “Leaders” can’t even reach agreement on a strategy to spoil a ballot paper… lolz

Unfortunately it’s water under the bridge now but in my view this year’s Westminster GE was a missed opportunity because the supposed “Indy movement” has been so fucked up with headless chicken “leaders” distracting and dividing the unity of the cause because they have been far too focused on pushing all their own wee ideas which so far have generally come to nothing. Which is pretty unproductive use of time and energy when they could have been working together and with the wider movement to develop and run with a simple and coherent Plan B strategy since it became obvious about 5 years ago that most of the current crop of supposedly nationalist politicians and Parties could not be relied upon to develop and deliver a Plan A.

Massive respect to the few independent Indy candidates who recognise what was going on and have the heart to stand in this year’s GE though. It’s just a pity time is so short, and all oor supposed brightest and best Indy leaders, strategists, and commenters didn’t have what it takes to see where things were going 5 years ago and get with the program and behind the idea of running a cross country range of local independent Indy candidates in their respective constituencies, focused on one sole objective and free from all the baggage, stench and smear that goes with being associated with the skipfire that all political Parties have become.

So the English PM’s compulsory military service plan is in tatters after the Tories backed out of arresting anyone who failed to comply with military service.

My advice to Scots would to never fight for a foreign lands (England) military ever again let the English government of the day compel their ain folk to fight for their hegemony around the globe.

End the Union Now.

Dorothy Devine

Aye, Dorothy. Glad you enjoyed my wee excursion into the wonders of rhetoric.

Grammar and rhetoric can be a bit of a hoot. Those ancients just loved giving any combination of words they could find a name tho, didn’t they?

@sam 10.24am

The problem with that concept is the presumption that there will be a “clear majority of people representing Scotland indicating their approval”. How is that clear majority demonstrated if not at elections?

A Convention elected which is “sufficiently broad and diverse” all sounds like a very motherhood and apple pie statement that no reasonable person could disagree with….but who is included in these civic bodies? Who appoints them or elects them?

Given our recent experiences with GRA and women’s rights in particular do you REALLY trust some of the roasters representing civic Scotland across a whole range of policy areas? I know I sure as hell don’t!

Non-parliamentary routes to indy and all the “cunning plans” are inherently prone to boycott by aggrieved unionists. That won’t matter if there is a convincing and clearly demonstrable majority in favour of such plans….but at present there just isn’t.

Recognition of a declaration of independence by the international community following UDI is difficult: not impossible as Kosovo demonstrates, but difficult nonetheless. That’s why I’ve always cautioned against such plans: they only have utility in extremis after the independence movement has clearly demonstrated that it has exhausted the alternative routes the international community expects us to try.

In some ways the British nationalists and their Scottish unionist accomplices are playing in to our hands by acting in bad faith to refuse a referendum on the same terms as 2014.

That doesn’t automatically mean however the international community, international organisations and particularly the UN and ICJ will gladly accept that Scots chan just move straight to UDI without any intervening steps. A declaration at that stage simply won’t gain traction.

The plausible intervening step is for the movement to unite around the principle of making every future General Election, whether for Westminster or Holyrood plebiscitary. The fact that Holyrood is a devolutionary creation doesn’t matter. Prof McCorquodale’s opinion that it’s better for it to be in a Westminster elections isn’t universally shared or definitive, it’s just his take.

In the end it’s quite difficult to make an argument that a clear majority won by parties standing on an explicitly plebiscitary platform in Westminster elections is an acceptable basis for declaring independence, but the same is not true for a majority in a Holyrood election because the latter is within UK domestic law.

If the Scots are too “frit” to take rather than ask after gaining such a majority, then independence is a chimera and their lack of political balls would signify they don’t deserve it in any case.

@Sam 10:24

There’s an election in about 6 weeks.

Please don’t say your “cunning plan” is to wait another 2 years!

When they play the “Things can only get better” song, they’re not talking about the climate for Scottish Indy.

@RepublicOfScotland 10:41

Once again, your are so, so right 🙂

My first thought, on hearing the news, is that conscription will be for the immigrants.

They’ll be taught how to organise themselves, accept discipline, and how to handle weapons and themselves. Maybe they will put their capabilities under the control of the WM elite, maybe they’ll ultimately act in their own interests (history massively suggests the latter course).

Best if us Scots keyboard warriors stay out of it. We won’t last 5 minutes.

Maybe one day the new force in the land will gift Scotland our Indy. We’ll just have to keep pounding away at our keyboards and hope they take pity on us 🙂

Going back to the issue of all of us, or at least a majority, repurposing our votes with our message of choice. On further reflection i don’t think it will create any harm if the majority end up spreading their votes over 2 or 3 choices.

Anyone failing to see the combined total majority, or at the very least a combined significant number, really isn’t worth our support and probably had no intention of fighting for us anyway.

If there’s 3 choices then let’s all promote the 3 of them as much as we can if nobody is prepared to pull their suggestion. The one thing we really need to do though is *not* fight over it and give folk the choice rather than any form of dictating. To try and keep the whole thing positive.

One good suggestion would be ideal but knowing us Scots maybe that was just a bit too simple and straightforward? LOL!

@Andy Ellis

Since Prof McCorquodale says nothing about Westminster’s role in this I don’t see why you mention it.

The non-Holyrood civic part of Scotland that I can think of includes local government, trade unions, the churches and other public bodies.

Of course elections play a part in this, including Holyrood. It is the people of Scotland that are the most important and it is their expression of the will through those elected public bodies that would count.

#ScrollPastAndy

@sam 12.09 pm

I mentioned Westminster because the logical concomitant to saying that a plebiscitary vote in Holyrood is somehow not sufficient is to posit that such a vote in Westminster would be sufficient.

The involvement and support of “civic Scotland” both elected and unelected is of course welcome, but in the end the appetite for independence has to be demonstrated by either a majority in an election (and OK, there’s a debate about which elections would be better…) or via an already in place Scottish government which clearly has majority support asserting its own pre-eminence over Westminster or forming a Constituent Assembly.

The issue with “civic Scotland” being accepted as representing a majority is demonstrating its legitimacy and that it clearly represented a majority. That wouldn’t be an issue if it was a case of an overwhelming pro independence majority that was somehow being frustrated by bad faith actions from Westminster, or by threats of or actual legal repression or violence, but that’s not where we’re at.

A slim majority gained in a contested process is less likely to be accepted internationally than a slim majority gained in an accepted referendum or vote in plebiscitary general election.

@Hatey 12.13pm

The problem we have at present is that “the movement” has let the SNP dominate it for so long, that little is likely to change until the SNP is either destroyed as an electoral force, or has been changed from within to accept that it must co-operate with other pro-independence parties as a result of it losing the support of so many pro independence Scots.

Plebiscitary elections aren’t an idea that will only be tried once. Every subsequent election must be plebiscitary. We only have to win once, unionists have to win every single one.

As for whether we’ll have to wait a long time for the guarantee….time will tell.

In the eyes of God to sin is to ‘miss the mark’, either through ignorance or through error.

I see no evidence of James Che missing the mark or being prideful when listing those characteristics peculiar to the colonisation of Scotland – contrary to the tedious display of ignorance and error shown in the comments of unionists.

Andy ellis,

You would know I suppose better than anyone,
Live the experience,

Willie

Your adamantine refusal to be taught how to fight does you great credit.

I fully expect the thinkers in the UK establishment will be in complete agreement that the last thing they need is separatists who can handle themselves.

I am a little surprised though, that the separatists should also think that way!

A few years down the line from now, when the only people who know how to fight are the Yoons, I wonder if you will be posting on here about the moment when you finally twigged?

@James Che 2:00

We’re about 6 weeks away from a golden opportunity for the Sovereign Scots of Scotland to sunder the Union, simply by returning a majority of Scottish MPs pledged to immediately commence the process of declaring Scotland Independent..

A plebiscitary election, in other words.

300+ years can be unwound overnight.

I appreciate you like to over-complicate things, but it really is no more complex than that.

Your time and efforts on here over the next 6 weeks can be put to much better use if you start posting about that.

Willie,

Did that response to your comment sound like a veiled or unveiled threat of how people wanting to leave the union might be treated?
Wether Scotland, Ireland or Wales,

Better together, you will like us, we will force you to love us Colonial mantra,

Politicians are like beavers, they get into the mainstream and begin building dams.
Anything refreshing and worthwhile generally comes from fast flowing peripheral channels.

Conscription did not apply to Northern Ireland even during WW2.

It has never existed in the Republic of Ireland.

No more foreign wars for Scotland.

No golf today therefore thought I would log on to Wings to see what was an offer. As usual, Stu has his fingers on the pulse. I wish I could say the same about the ‘comments’ but sadly no. The same shite from the same posters. It never ends.

I count myself as one of the supposed 50% of Scots who want Independence. Would I vote for it tomorrow?-not a chance. I know I am not alone. Until I see some sign of competence from our Politicians of whatever hue, it will remain a pipe dream.

For those suggesting that ballot papers are simply ‘spoilt’ at the forthcoming GE. Do they really think that the successful MP’s will reflect on why, or will they be too busy getting their snouts in the trough?

It is sad to see the effort put in by Stu, in writing his articles, wasted on ‘the regulars’ who pollute his site. I am reminded of the saying ’empty vessels make the most noise’. Baird, RoS, Geri, Northcode and a few others please take note.

@Chas 4.15pm

Ach Chas….gowf is a good walk spoiled anyway!

I suspect many pro independence folk share your view and who can blame them with the example of the current shower? I can only hold on to the hope that the post independence Scottish political environment is likely to look very different and that SNP will suffer the fate it so richly deserves.

There is little to be done in the short term. The upcoming Westminster election is a waste of time: it matters little whether we spoil our ballots, don’t vote at all, or just vote for the candidate we think is best placed to beat a unionist.

The usual suspects will do as they always do: “It is a tale
told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”

@James Che 2:26

You’re right! I threatened Willie with reality.

I always knew it’s beyond the ability of some to handle. Mea culpa.

Grace Green at 4:45 is doing it too. Hopefully she’ll realise her mistake and apologise.

As for Effijy, I guess he believes WM and/or BoJo is still calling the shots in Brussels. And why not? Bet he’s being blackmailed by the same Zonalists that got Sturgeon, Yousaf and Swinney (BoJo, not Effijy).

I’m just loving any thread where posters claim an iScotland would be rich from supplying England with the energy it needs and iScotland would be exempt from all wars England gets involved in.

Here’s me thinking the former makes us Target #1 in the event of the latter, but no doubt somebody will pop up to explain how our super-cuddly exceptionalism will grant us special treatment. Maybe unilaterally disarming has always been the key to national security and I’m the only one who never got the memo.

Andy Ellis

I am firmly of the opinion that 20/25% of the electorate would vote for Independence tomorrow irrespective of what that entails or who forms the Government. A fair number who post on here would. I am equally certain that 20/25% would never vote for it, no matter what.

That leaves 50/60% who want to be convinced. Who is even trying to do they convincing? The daily repetitive bilge in the comments section on here, whilst appealing to the romantics and dreamers, actually has the effect of turning people off. Who wants to constantly read the historical mince, the colonialism shite and the seemingly magical routes to Independence agreed on by a minuscule percentage of the electorate.

The majority in Scotland are sick to the back teeth of Politicians. The continual pandering to minority groups and the waste of money. Until somebody, anybody honestly tells them how it could be, with figures to back their assertions, we are stuck in a merrygoround of incompetence and dishonesty. Nobody even attempts to do this and I have to ask WHY?

To some the above is heresy and confirmation, in their minds only, that people like me and possibly you are simply closet Yoons and must be shouted down at every opportunity. They can then happily resort to their boring, repetitive drivel amongst the clique which sadly prevails on Wings. Only they can solve the many problems that exist in Scotland, the UK and the world. The reality is that they add nothing to any debate. ‘It’s jist no fair’ is their mantra.

@Chas

Thanks for that illuminating contribution. I haven’t noticed you posting the least thing in support of independence.

There is perhaps across Scotland a widespread belief 45% to 50% that we would be better going it alone rather than the present awful UK government which stil dominates so much of what Scotland can and can’t do.

On here the “usual suspects” show a contempt for neoliberalism that the UK has inflicted on us for 40 years. We know it to be harmful.

We can see the enormous damage done to all levels of UK and other countries and we know it will take years to mend.

The “usual suspects” have broad ideas of how an independent Scotland should be. It should have a written constitution with equality first and foremost.

Public assets, all of it, including banks should be in public hands. There should be a Land Tax. There should be an emphasis on making things and being self sufficient.The political system should be social democratic.

We lack the power to effect change.

If you took the trouble to read some of the research done in colonialism you might be less ignorant of it.

Colonialism leaves a long print behind it. Have you read Iain Mathieson on the internal colonialism in Scotland and the long effect of it? Have you read Turnbull on the Scottish “cultural cringe”? Africans now recognise the colonial methodology that has removed their self confidence. The Caribbean countries still see the effects of colonialism in economies still dominated by the white race.

You, in your ignorance, need to inform yourself better.

Grace Green.

It all BS to train up youngster to fight in an imaginary war that somehow R–ush–ia is going to invade Europe when the reality is it can’t even capture the hold of U.

Its a BS boogeyman story created by the west and Naeto, the other part of this made up threat is that C–hi–na is going to eat your babies so we need a fighting force to stop them.

Eighteen year old should tell Sunak and co where to shove his conscriptions.

No Scots should ever take up arms for English interests.

@Sam 6.48 pm

I’ve certainly seen Chas post in the past. He seems one of the more reasonable contributors BTL, not that it’s a particularly high bar these days. He appears at least to be persuadable about the case for independence, which is just as well as that’s what we need isn’t it? Chas would hardly be the first, since we know that even in around 2012 support for indy was less than 30%.

The worldview of the usual suspects, whilst perhaps interesting at least to them, is not likely to command majority support however hard they might wish it otherwise. Raging against the machine, decrying neoliberalism and/or the current world order or any of the other things on your wish list might give you and others a warm fuzzy feeling, but whether they are realistic practical politics has to be questioned, whether folk self identify as social democrats or not.

It may have escaped your notice but post indy there are still going to be just as many (if not more?) people supporting right of centre parties and ideologies than there are currently. Doubtless many of us will agree with some of the things on your wish list, and perhaps disagree with others.

An independent Scotland that did all of the things you advocate would certainly stand out. Whether the wish list is at all realistic remains to be seen. It’s not something that seems to have been attempted elsewhere.

I suspect the early days of a new Scottish republic aren’t going to see anything revolutionary, because you won’t be able to construct a majority in favour of those kind of policies. Good luck trying though!

@Republicofscotland 7:12

Imaginary war eh?

I can see your best years are still ahead of you. Or to put it another way, you have yet to hit peak lunacy.

Stick around. You brighten up my world.

“Abstract
Since the 1970s, neoliberalism has been the dominant economic and political philosophy among global institutions and some Western governments. Its three main strategies are: privatisation and competitive markets; reduced public expenditure on social services and infrastructure; and deregulation to enhance economic activity and ensure freedom of ‘choice’. Generally, these measures have negatively affected the health and wellbeing of communities.”

link to pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.

“Golf combines two favourite American pastimes:

Taking long walks and hitting things with a stick.”

P. J. O’Rourke (1947-2022) Author and Journalist

O’Rourke’s best-received book is ‘Parliament of Whores’.

I know – but O’Rourke’s book is about the American Government, not the UK’s or Scotland’s.

“So today, we are going to continue our closer look at more than four decades of neoliberal policy and how they’ve changed our economy by focusing on the triangle of debt, real estate, and financial instability.

In short, we are going to talk about how in these decades while incomes have stagnated, debt has expanded such that households, governments, and businesses have all become indebted to the gills.”

link to geopoliticaleconomy.com

“High rates of mortality from alcohol, suicides, and drugs, especially in the more deprived areas, can be better explained by theories emphasizing marginalization – lack of power (political and economic), opportunities and social support structures to overcome adverse life events. They speak of despair, of self-destructive behaviours that can have a direct effect on mortality through suicide, or an indirect impact through substance abuse.”

Aye, Sam. It’s almost as if folk are being oppressed by a colonial power bent on their annihilation.

The colonised Native American Indians suffer from the same maladies:

“While Native Americans account for only a small part of the U.S. population (1.7%), these people experience much higher rates of substance abuse compared to other racial and ethnic groups.”

extracted from the American Addiction Centers website.

Is it me or does John Swinney look like Cecil Turtle from Loony Tunes.

Sturgeon is not the only SNP member without a firm handle on reality. Fundraising levels and lack of activists is diminishing their campaigns (Along with the selfishness of Matheson). A quick comparison between 2024 and 2015. Chris Law SNP Dundee West was 1 to 33 to win in 2015. Lot’s of activists including myself supporting his campaign on the streets and financially. A comparison to now in 2024. Chris Law is 4 to 6 to win in the now Dundee Central seat in 2024 and Scottish Labour is only 11 to 10. However the electoral calculus is predicting a Scottish Labour gain. Do SNP MPs not realise by now that in 2015 activists were furthering the cause of Independence and not groupies for them?

I guess Chas is simple minded -hit on the heid by a guff ball.

Banks should not be involved in derivatives or any other of the wraps that conceal the nature of bad debt – pardon me, bad loans.

When the UK and US banks went tits up in 2007/8 it was because banks had made loans that were never going to be repaid and wrapped them in packages and sold them on to other banks who also sold them on.

The banking system was infected and at risk of collapse. So Darling and the Treasury stepped in and the Treasury became a private asset.

Light touch regulation espoused by neoliberals meant that few (The Big Short) saw the coming crash and were unprepared for it.

Light touch regulation continued after the crash so banks did not stop their corrupt behaviour as the manipulation of the LIBOR eventually showed.

Banks as public utilities would not lend for derivatives. They would not make take over loans.

The UK has long been a haven for dirty money.The National Crime Agency estimates that money laundering costs the UK more than £100 billion each year. The costs are not only reputational, it also deprives people in the nations from which the money has been stolen of funds intended for important public services.

Public banks would lend for production. Today, banks lend for assets fuelling house price rises.That’s how the banks recovered from negative equity after the 2008 crash.

Great work Chris. Is the other one Peter Murrell self-identifying as a lady? Looks a wee bit like Giles off Gogglebox as well.

Chicmac

That ain’t no lady!

What sort of subliminal message would Chris be sending by making ‘Pal Val’ look like Paul McCarney or Giles from Gogglebox.

It’s Murrell!

Although it might have something to do with a Beatles song!

Help!

The Black Report in 1980 was one of the first to link health outcomes to social class and socioeconomic status.

The Tories knowing they were to begin deindustrialisation on a huge scale to move to services based economy, released the report on a bank holiday with few copies available and then rubbished it.

The first Tory privatisation as part of its neoliberal approach was of hospital cleaning. The result was a surge in hospital acquired infections.

In 2000, a HoC report estimated there were at least 100,000 hospital acquired infections in England’s hospital each year, costing its NHS about £1 billion each year and taking the lives of 5000 patients each year.

Of course, this is all caused by immigrants.

link to capublicbanking.com.