Whose mayhem is it anyway?
Leaflets being given out by Labour today in Scotland and England respectively:
But for some reason there don’t seem to be any going around in Labour-run Wales.
We can’t think why. Because it’s certainly not that the problems identified by the cards – fare increases, overcrowding, delays and cancellations – haven’t been happening in Wales too, as you can clearly see.
Despite Labour having spent years furiously and constantly demanding that Scottish railways be taken back into the public sector – something which wasn’t legally possible at the time – and complaining that the service was run by Dutch (public-sector) firm Abellio, the Labour administration in the Welsh Assembly was last year given control of rail franchising and promptly awarded the contract to two private-sector companies from France and Spain.
So we’d understand it if readers were therefore somewhat sceptical about Labour’s promises. Having done absolutely nothing to either renationalise the railways or even allow public-sector operators to bid for them during 13 years of power at Westminster, and having done nothing about it when given the power in Wales just months ago, the party’s ability to talk a good socialist game appears rather light on supporting actions.
Still, we have to give Labour some credit for using a scratchcard as the delivery vehicle for their message – after all, people are already used to gambling on those with the promise of extravagant rewards, but then getting nothing back.
Labour have always been excellent at talking great barrow loads of Shite and delivering great barrow loads of exactly that
Wow!
What a nerve!
Surgical dissection as we have come to expect -brilliant Rev.
Well, it would appear that Richard Leonard is in full flow here degrading train services in Scotland.
link to mobile.twitter.com
Things like this are why I will never vote for that shower ever again.
Time and again they have constrained the powers of the Scottish Government with the precise objective of then blaming them for not acting when powerless, all with the cynical assumption that the Scots public won’t notice this hypocrisy. The equal pay issue in Glasgow and the Lanarkshires is another case in point.
As I said, what an effing shower of hypocrites.
Looks like a case of Wales of the rails
And the best thing about the “new” trains in Wales is that they are the cast-offs from the London Underground. Now, there’s nothing like treating your paying customers like they are special….
Labour’s hypocrisy right on time. You don’t even need to scratch beneath the surface to see their BS britnattery.
So Labour think Scotrail are shite then do they?
Hmm?
I guess they don’t believe in researching the actual … erm … FACTS then?
Well to be fair Labour do not actually DO facts do they, if they did they would not be pushing out shite like this and they would actually be supporting Scottish independence but as we all know they do NOT do facts and they definitely do not support independence cause their boss doesn’t allow it do you Feartie?
link to networkrail.co.uk
Andy-B says:
25 June, 2018 at 12:03 pm
Well, it would appear that Richard Leonard is in full flow here degrading train services in Scotland.
link to mobile.twitter.com
Well what do you know peeps … Leonard tweeting shite …AGAIN! *YAWN*
If only Labour had someone in charge of their wee branch office who was actually intelligent enough to do something called … erm … research they might just have found out why their train was stopped early. I guess there is no one intelligent enough to be capable of such thinking hence the reason we have Leonard as the temporary wee branch office manager.
link to twitter.com
Railways are in a shambles in my home country – and the Labour Government do nothing for the average train passenger, but are happy enough to spend on vanity projects or meekly accept central (UK Conservative) Goverrnment diktat.
On top of Stu’s list above consider these facts:
1 UK Conservative Government pull the plug on electrification of the main line beyond Cardiff Central to West Wales. Despite Transport being a devolved matter, Labour Government make little complaint.
link to walesonline.co.uk
2 Labour Government propose a £100m rail testing project for South Wales, allowing trains to be tested on special tracks – laid out on 4.5 mile (7.3km) and two mile (3.1km) ovals – at speeds of up to 100mph (160kph).
link to bbc.co.uk
3 A “South Wales Metro” costing (at today’s prices) £2.5bn is proposed to link the area East-West with Bristol and the English border.
link to en.wikipedia.org
4 A counterpart “North East Wales Metro” linking the region with Liverpool, Merseyside (again therefore East-West) at a cost of £10m is proposed by the Welsh Labour Government.
link to dailypost.co.uk
5 A North Wales South Wales has never been considered to be feasible. The quickest train journey from my nearest railway station (Bangor) to my capital city (Cardiff) takes nearly 4 1/2 hours (direct – not all are). In order to do this journey, you cross the England/Wales border FOUR times. This distance is 186 miles.
link to thetrainline.com
link to distancesfrom.com
6 Arriva Trains Wales do not respond to any comments made regarding the inaccuracies contained in their Welsh language signage.
ENDS
Have a good day, Scotland!
Was Labour’s opportunity to get things “back on track” not when they were actually the government? :-/
Corbyn is more worried about the trains than Brexit…
When the good Lord dished our brains,
Labour thought he said toy trains,
So they asked him for small wooden ones with whistles.
I’m still digesting the hypocrisy on stilts from Labour over Devolution and our Parliament which was posted a few days ago… It is stunning.
link to ncdiblog.wordpress.com
Maybe when we haul down the statue of Donald Dewer we can turn bronze into medals for Scottish Politicians who show exceptional courage, integrity, and loyalty to Scotland above and beyond the call of duty, a bit like the way Victoria Crosses are cast from the base metal of Russian cannons from the Crimean war. As for the brass in the neck of the statue, it’s like Sunny in the iRobot film, a very dense high quality brass, very durable and resistant to the elements, but we’ll need to wait because Scottish Labour clearly haven’t finished using it yet.
Labour and the Tories are nothing but parasites making sure for decades that Scotland was suitably anaesthetised so it didn’t feel the pain of all the plunder going on. How can any Labour Party member, past or present, read that story about Scotland’s Parliament and feel anything but toe curling shame?
Waken up Scotland. Stir yourself to action. Pull these ticks from our Nation’s flesh and be rid of them for good.
Why is the biggest crooked defrauder being employed by a Scottish university. No diversity. Breaking the Professional code of conduct and the Law. Funded by Scottish taxpayers money to ruin the world economy. To line his pockets. Committing electoral fraud with impunity. In the pockets of Hedge funds totally illegally.breaking the UK/world Laws. Responsible for starving, sanctioning and killing others.
Pollsters /company acting completely illegally and manipulating the vote totally corruptly. The Head of a crooked association. Being censored and fined but not prosecutes for breaking UK/world elrctoral Law. Getting illegal honours for criminal behaviour. The crooks in the establishment and the unionist corrupt Parliament. Killing starving and maiming people with immunity.
Brexit exit will damage the transport system and the economy.
Corbyn and the unionists parties are absolutely corrupt and useless.
The rail times in the North of England, Wales and Scotland should be improved to reach parity and improved the British economy. Journey times take much longer pro rata because of historical lack of investment. The Tories have just cut promised funding in the North of England ruining the rail service which is deplorable. Instead of building HS2. A complete and utter waste of money. It will ruin the British economy. With other affordable, necessary alternatives.
There are improvements being made in Scotland but once again lack of representation is holding matters up. The Westminster unionist intransigence and ignorant incompetence. Spiteful pique and nastiness..
So I live in Caerphilly. EU funded station at the top of our street. All trains pass through it on the way to Rhymmny but not every train stops. £5million spent building a station where only half the trains stop.
Also if you want to get to Aberyswyth on the West Coast of Wales from Cardiff, you have to get a train to Shrewsbury in England before returning to Wales. It’s a 2 hour drive by car.
Transport down here is a joke.
abslab in Scotland in glass houses throwing stones.
Notice most of the trains on the scratchcards are going to the right… Oops!
Another faux pas by the Fatuous Controller.
It just doesn’t bare thinking about exactly what Scotland’s infrastructure would be like now if Labour had control of the reins. Two faced, lying opportunists they had their shot at government in Scotland, renationalised absolutely nothing and plunged the country into huge debt with their private finance schemes.
It would definitely be a lottery with nil chance of any gain, not even a lucky dip if Labour were ever to get near power again.
I hear people have a better chance of going to space in a rocket than ever winning the lottery now. Probably more chance of winning the lottery than seeing Labour being honest about anything these days.
Sooooo same leaflets in Scotland and England….but not in Wales….and Wales has problem with the very things they identify in their leaflet as being problems in Scotland and England….and Wales has Labour devolved administration…..
Hmm……must be a mistake on their part surely…..they could not be that stupid or deliberately misleading…perhaps leaflets for Wales held up at printers…..yeh that will be it….I mean if NOT then it’s just plain old campaigning innit….funny though cause I did not think there was a huge problem with railways in Scotland…oh but dooooo know there is a SNPBAD problem with the distributors of these leaflets, I am quite surprised though at their attack on their BT/Brexit partners to be honest…nice try though…I mean they missed a trick on their leaflet…they could have stated how well trains being run in Wales by Labour devolved administration…ffs…who the hell is in charge of their PR strategies and campaigns….contrast and compare surely….in other words see how bad they do it and hey look… see how good we do it..simples…..
ps. And there’s the rub when PR rule of thumb is comparison only to be used if one can identify opponents weakness and YOUR strengths…if CANNOT….then OMIT your weakness ….and just slag others off via your biased opinions and misleading inaccurate information and hope the gullible accept it as is presented….with a degree of confidence that it will be raised as is , with no challenge, by some in the MSM….job done.
……………………………………………..
@ Welsh Sion
Excellent post.
Have a fabby day.
The Scottish government have stated that a public sector bid will be made when the current franchise with Abellio ends in 2025. That’s something I’m all in favour of.
Until the recent changes in the Scotland Act 2016 this wasn’t possible though if you were to believe Labour you might not have known that was the case.
In awarding Abellio the contract which is the largest even given by a Scottish government at £7 billion over 10 years the SNP did manage to squeeze a few things into the contract that previous administrations missed.
Franchise commitments include:
The living wage as a minimum for all staff and subcontractors.
At least 100 apprenticeships.
Guarantee of no compulsory redundancies throughout the life of the franchise contract.
Rail staff pensions and travel rights to be protected.
Introduction of guaranteed trade union representation on every franchise board meeting.
link to transport.gov.scot
In addition to the above there is also a commitment to invest £500 million by Abellio in new trains and upgrading stations. It seems Abellio have done a reasonable job and I see no reason that a public sector bid cannot do an even better one when there are no shareholders looking for dividend payouts. All profit should be reinvested in making travel on the railways more comfortable and who knows maybe even lowering fares.
Tell you this though I wouldn’t trust Labour to do it.
A couple of months ago Labour in Wales did not attempt to allow a public sector bid. When UK government took back running of London North East line no Scottish rep on management board despite running trains to Aberdeen.
Also a great article by Lesley Riddoch in Scotsman on how Brexit driving people towards indy. Worth publicising.
Love it Rev, well done.
Not only are Labour a Disaster for Welsh Commuters, their version of the NHS lurches from one disaster to to the next and even under performs when measured again the Tory England NHS.
Welsh Labour of course lay down over devolved powers to help their Blue Tory brothers.
Red is generally recognised as the colour of Danger.
Never truer than when applied to the fake tory party tribute band.
Unionists don’t want things to improve in Scotland. They’re just bitter that the SNP is making a decent job of government so they (and the media) think if they screech “SNP Bad” loudly and frequently enough then Scots will eventually be good wee boys and lassies and start voting for the unionist parties again. Well their tactic hasn’t been working since the SNP has been in power for more than a decade now.
But hey, it let’s them and the media have a good old moan everyday about that terrible SNP so silver linings eh?
Here’s what Humza Yousaf thinks about the wee branch office’s charade today.
link to twitter.com
So it appears that over 50% of the delays incurred by the rail network in Scotland is down to problems with the infrastructure and we all know who maintains that don’t wee peeps … Network Rail. Now, whilst I’m not having a go at NR there is one very important question that must be asked here I reckon.
WHO has control over NR?
answers on a postcard to:
Richard Leonard
Branch office manager (temporary)
Glasgow
North Greater England
link to twitter.com
Thepnr @1:42pm says:
Exactly what I was going to type!
Thanks, and Rev, of course.
You are a whizz at catching them out stu
Simply a whizz
Scotland has electrified several lines,whilst also expecting new rolling stock coming on line in the near future.
Scotland also has the best reliability in the UK for trains.
No lessons needed from Labour.The only thing Labour does manufacture is grievance without cause.
I remember listening to a radio phone in during the 2005 election. Tony Blair was fobbing off a woman who asked why Labour hadn’t renationalised the railways.
The franchises were due for renewal shortly before the election. Instead of bringing them in house at no cost, the Secretary of State for Transport announced a “review” which extended beyond the end of the franchise period. So the franchses were renewed and nothing came of the “review”.
At the time, the Secretary of State for Transport was also the Secretary of State for Scotland, Alistair Darling.
Labour has a poor track record on railwys.
Wikipedia article has many omissions but gives a general overview:
link to en.wikipedia.org
sinky @ 1:45 PM, Your link,
Lesley Riddoch: Brexit is pushing us to independence;
link to archive.is
Well sorted Stu
Again,again.
Every one is another chip away at the unicorns chains
“A petition in support of nine Aberdeen councillors suspended by the Labour party has been launched ahead of a decision on their future.”
Does everyone get a vote ?
link to bbc.co.uk
The Labour party have absolutely PROMISED to abolish the house of lords in London, since they were first established as a political party. Despite having been in power many, many times since then (including Tony Blair with one of the largest majorities in Westminster history), they have not done it.
However, come the next election, they really, really, really, promise to abolish the house of lords. Honestly, this time they really, really, really mean it. Aye, right.
The problem with Labour is they are all talk and no action. They could have nationalised the trains in Wales, but they chose not to. And let’s not forget, when Gordon Brown was Labour Prime Minister, the SNP Scottish Government specifically asked him, in writing, to devolve the powers necessary to allow the Scottish Government to award Scotrail franchise to a publicly run body. Gordon Brown refused. Yet now we have the absolute charlatans in the Labour party screaming the odds about railways in Scotland. What a total bunch of chancers.
Do people in the Labour party actually realise that they lie constantly? I mean, seriously, are they even aware they are doing it, or are they so accustomed to lying about everything, they don’t even notice now?
You would think they might have had the nous to change ‘Mayhem’ to ‘Sturmoil’ or something.
In 2001 Railtrack was taken into adminstration during Stephen Byers’ stint as Transport Minister. The Labour leadereship were strongly opposed. Gordon Brown, Chancellor, issued a ten point checklist of conditions which had to be met before anything other than a shareholder run company could take over. Nickname “The Ten Commanments”.
Railtrack was renationalised, the sharehlders sued for compensation and Byres resigned.
BBC article.
link to archive.li
Labour obviously believe ordinary people in Scotland and England suffer from senile dementia and aren’t able to remember that when Labour was in power it didn’t re-nationalise the railways or any of the other public services which had been privatised.
Of course it doesn’t suit Labour to mention its record in Wales, because it might pose some awkward questions as to why services aren’t better under Labour controlled Wales than here in Scotland or England
As for their socialism, they are only socialists when it suits them politically to be, any other time they are nothing more than Tories in disguise
SNP Supporting Not Posturing
@Chick McGregor
Steady on there Chick! Don’t give them ideas.
Everyday is whackamole day in Scottish politics.
I love the Labour Brexit scratch card that has appeared on twitter – every scratch an “abstain”.
These should be put through all the letterboxes in the land.
Smallaxe says:
25 June, 2018 at 2:44 pm
sinky @ 1:45 PM, Your link,
Lesley Riddoch: Brexit is pushing us to independence;
link to archive.is
Brexit is pushing us to Independence?
Disagree slightly. It’s Westminster’s cackhanded and unconstitutional attempt to subjugate Scotland which is going to deliver Independence to us all. Brexit is just the backdrop.
Brexit is the sweetener that is enticing more and more people to see Independence as the sensible destination when compared to the reckless, delusional clusterf*#k of Brexit, where the UK has quite literally leapt before it looked, and landed itself up to its neck in shite and still can’t feel the bottom.
O/T
For those who couldn’t make it up to sunny Bannockburn on Saturday (it was a glorious day), the National photographers have taken some absolutely excellent picture, which are in today’s paper, plus online. Some of the pictures are just superb – my favourite being the first one, which really sums up where we are going together with an independent Scotland. Well done to the photographer involved, a truly great image.
Gallery here link to thenational.scot
Capella @ 15:19,
Just another example – as if there weren’t enough already – of the strangely =ahem= antithetical behaviour of El Gordo, long-time MP of the Co-operative Party, that odd little adjunct of the Labour Party which claims a core belief in mutuality.
The practice of which in fact significantly regressed during the Blair-Brown years in power.
There’s nothing that the Labour Party does better than hypocrisy. Just a pity for them that we don’t forget these days.
Labour, the party of useless ideas and self serving ‘socialists’.
Abstain on everything that requires thought
I’m sure there’s an irony joke in here somewhere.
“Plans for a new £100m ‘global centre of rail excellence’ have been unveiled by the Welsh Government.”
link to walesonline.co.uk
Andy-B @ 4.22 p.m.
Irony served up on a plate for you in my earlier post @ 12.19 p.m.
Breeks says:
I agree with that. It’s been two years since EURef and not much heather had caught fire. It’s been the last few weeks with have really fanned the flames.
No sure if there ever really was much of a Union between Scotland and England. The ‘Union’ of most Unionists is really the GB and Ireland Union. Whatever. It is now crystal clear that England, its political parties, and its government don’t care much for Unions! They would dump the NI one if it smoothed things for them. And Scotland, they seem split as to whether to retain in as a colonial possession (oil, trident, exports, etc) of to just dump us too!
I think all these big changes are signs of deeper flaws in the UK, England in particular. Brexit is the catalyst bringing it all to the surface.
OT
I see Shell have announced plans to develop the Fram gas field 100 Miles off Aberdeen.
It will produce 40 million cubic feet of. gas per day.
Oh dear. Something more to worry about. How ever will we cope?
I know. The broad shoulders of the Union will find a answer. Thank god.
Great to get some inside information from our friends, such as Brian and Welsh Sion, in Labour controlled Wales. Thanks folks.
…………………………………………………………….
The following is taken from the Letter Page in the National:
”I am writing to comment on the recent pieces by Kirsty Hughes (June 20) and Lesley Riddoch (June 21) about Brexit.
European Movement in Scotland (EMiS), which I chair, is a co-organiser of the Scotland For Europe campaign, along with Kirsty, and other civil society groups including the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations.
The campaign says unashamedly that Scotland, whose voters preferred in the EU referendum and in every poll since to Remain, is better off in the European Union. 3000 fellow citizens, including Lesley, have signed up in the three weeks since we launched to say they agree.
EMiS is cross-party and works with all who want an EU future. We do not think that it is pointless to continue working to defeat Brexit. A tidy outcome within the single market and customs union is not a given. The negotiations with Monsieur Barnier and the EU27 could end in stalemate, and a cliff edge, if the Prime Minister is prevented by Brexiters from agreeing a solution on the Ireland/Northern Ireland border. Or the eventual deal, perhaps a variation on the EU/Canada Trade Agreement, could be so patently detrimental that Tory rebels re-find backbone and Westminster votes it down. Or, the European Parliament could veto the proposed arrangements for any number of reasons.
Thousands of all parties and none will march on Westminster tomorrow, and Scotland will hold its own March Against Brexit on Sunday (24th June) at 2pm in Perth. People will be demanding the right to have a People’s Vote to choose between whatever the outcome of those negotiations is and remaining in the EU on the UK’s current terms.
No detailed prospectus was set out by the Leave campaign in 2016 and the broad promises they did make will not be delivered. Once we know what Brexit does mean, it is perfectly justifiable to ask the people if they still want it. The process is sui genesis and sets no precedent for any future Scottish independence referendum.
The Scottish Government has been stalwart in defending Scotland’s constitutional position and for making the case about the damage that Brexit will do, in particular dropping out of the single market and customs union. A number of SNP politicians support Scotland for Europe, and have signed our declaration.
Your readers can take a look and sign up too, at http://www.scotlandforeurope.scot if they agree that nothing in Scotland’s future relationship with the European Union is inevitable, that this country does not have to accept passively a Trumpian future, that Scotland can have ambition and show leadership for EU values and the international co-operation that promotes equality, social and political change.”
Vanessa Glynn, Chair, European Movement in Scotland
Declaration: http://www.scotlandforeurope.scot
link to thenational.scot
Welsh Sion.
Yes apologies for posting the same link, your other links are very interesting.
Good old STV failed to challenge Labour on why they didn’t allow public bid in Wales or bother seeking Scot gov opinion
@ RJS 4.12 pm – schizoid or just two-faced? While Alistair Darling was marching with his Trotsky comrades, Gordon Brown was writing his “Red Paper on Scotland” (availbale from Amazon for 77p)
My only regret is that it took me so long to see through the spin. That 2005 radio phone-in with Tony Blair glibly portraying the private sector running the railways as some sort of third way socialism was the last straw. I’ve been SNP ever since.
Still seething about Beeching too! Destroyed Scottish rail infrastructure. The Labour government which followd could have reversed the decisions but chose not to.
Although I abhor having the Tories in Westminster; what with a Labour administration in Wales, it is a fantastic indictor of what things would be like if either of those parties were in Government in Scotland.
As there is no registered Labour or Tory party other than the London variety,they do not want our Government looking south for comparison.
British Nationalist Labour the party for the ill informed types and for older folk who dont realise what terrible damage they have done.
A party with no real ideas, no answers, nothing positive, a party in a mess.
British Labour enough to make you say Jings!
The SNP built the new borders railway.
The Tories have cancelled the Wales tidal scheme £1.3Billion. Wasting £Billions on Hinkley Point, with no business case. Underfunding Wales.
Wasting £Billions in HS2. With no business case and not enough passenger base. A total waste of public money. Scotland has to pay loan repayments on the borrowing. It will make journeys to and from Scotland take longer and damage the economy. Leaving Scotland less funds to improve the railways.
sinky says @ 6.11pm
Yeh sinky they’re not really in the Carole Cadwalladr league…more merchants of tittle tattle especially if tittle and tattle is provided by those political parties of a unionist persuasion.
Formula : Receive info…deliver as news…nothing required in between receiving and delivering really….same formula mirrored by their partners in slime BBC Rep Scotland…also known as another dubious and shite source of information.
Sources say…insiders say…representative says…but the real who- what- where- when- how….not so much….journalism nope…gossip mongers and shit stirrers hell yeah.
Frankly they are actually providing the strong case for Scotland to have it’s own televised media and NOT one owned by darn sarf and treated as a branch office with a branch office mentality.
Have a good evening
You can be sure behind the scenes Davidson is plotting with Mundell on how to shaft Scotland. 2 so called remainers promoting policies to damage Scotland. Even oor ulsterman of the fishing is keepin stoom. They are up to no good
Hatred levels on the Sturgeometer up to around nine and a half today, she must be doing really well
Andy Murray just won against Wawrinka at Eastbourne, his first win since Wimbledon last year; Radio 5 Xtra announcer just said, we won’t be able to let you hear his interview but we’ll tell you later what he said.
Match finished at 18.51; it’s now 18.59 and all they’re broadcasting is the same trailer repeated, ad nauseam –
England has just won the World Cup, we won’t be able to let you hear the interview but we’ll tell you later what they said…..
Naw, that;’ll never happen – funny that!
Capella @ 1816
Did you perhaps mean Schizophrenic? Schizoid Personality Disorder is a different thing.
First post after years lurking and learning. Probably because I am diagnosed with SPD
The majority of folk here manage to voice my own thoughts much more eloquently than I could anyway.
All through the 80s and 90s Labour were fantastic in opposition, arguing against Thatcher’s privatisation and anti-union laws. Once in power they did sweet FA about any of these things and in fact privatised the running of Faslane and Devonport, moving the staff over to BTL and DML.
Labour talk the talk but we know perfectly well that they will not walk the walk. We have circled this buoy before and still feel sea sick after the last trip. Fool me once etc.,
Regardless of whatever harm or evil the Tories brought to our country. All opposed and decried by Labour a labour vowing to right all wrongs when they came to power, It was a case of put us in and get the Tories out then we will show you the benefits of a good working class Labour party.
Labour have never reversed any Tory policies or Laws nor will they in the future. Labour have had their chance several times in my life time I’m not stupid enough to believe them now.
Woops, labour caught talking shite.
Some habits are hard to quit.
Still it might fool some deluded fools.
Better keep talking shite.
Vote labour, and get tory light for a couple of years.
What a lot of rot. I booked a return train for Edinburgh for two. Arrived and boarded on time. Clean, quiet, seating available, free wi-fi. Very easy all-round. Will be doing it again as a result. Where is this mayhem these idiots promote?
Dr Jim @ 6.58
You bet!
I’ve been on a blockfest on Twitter. The Bannockburn march was like taking a stick to a hornet’s nest.
Nasty, sneering, lying. It’s a bottomless pit of bile.
Unionists will always be Unionists, there is no degradation that can dent their lapdog spirit, no insult they will not see as just an incentive to perform better for their masters. If their performance pleases their owners they may even be rewarded will a little red coat with a furry collar.
Unionism, where you know your place.
TYRAN says:
25 June, 2018 at 7:43 pm
Q: Where is this mayhem these idiots promote?
_____
A: Within their own ranks, maybe. Labour went off the rails some time ago …
(Reaches for his coat and is escorted to the wee, dark room by Smallaxe, whispering, “I’ll come quietly, guv.”)
O/T Re this story on RT about the privatisation of the health service in England.
You might not be too worried but remember that the Barnett formula is based on a % of the money that the treasury puts into the NHS in England. Less money they put in the less we get.
If proof were needed that we are being starved of funding this is it
link to rt.com
Looking the image up using google images it says:
“Best guess for this image: missile”
Pretty much sums labour up what with supporting trident and being a bunch of rockets.
And here’s the moment Labour patronisingly gave Scotland the power to run their railway network
without giving them the only power that mattered
the right to control who got the franchise
link to archive.is
C’mon folks – what’s with this “unionist” nonsense?
You give them far too much credit (and respect). These people are gold-plated british nationalists. Nothing less.
They are not “unionists” because there is no real union. If there was, we wouldn’t be in this mess. “unionist” is far too benign a term, almost respectable. They don’t deserve to be called unionists.
Let’s get into the habit of calling them out for what they really are:
british nationalists.
Put them on the spot – it’s very difficult for them to deny what they really believe in, underneath the surface. Start calling them british nationalists and it will drive them nuts.
Guaranteed.:)
Have always hated Labour with a passion, they lorded over Scotland for years. What did they achieve? NOTHING, just self serving and a feed at the Westminster trough.
In Westminster it’s easy being in opposition, you take your fat cat fee, expenses, don’t protest too much, or maybe just enough to fool your faithful.
Scotland has moved on – the late great Jimmy Reid could see it so why are their still so many blinded by their hatred of the SNP who would sit back and watch Scotland being shafted time and time again.
BBC did not show Andy Murray’s match. Even on the red button. They managed to show Heather Watson later? No complaints about that, but no Andy. Just showed a clip of him speaking after the match. Could be because he decided to participate later than anticipated. He is playing tomorrow. Kyle Edmunds
Luigi @ 8.22
Agreed,they hate it…. When I say “you British” and I don’t even need to say Nationalist… I always get “I’m Scottish too” and it’s almost always a plea!!
Ye don’t even have to say anything just let the look of what ye really think cross yer face.
The ok I’ll believe ye tae oblige ye… But I, really, really don’t and we all know it look… Priceless….
O/T
Just saw that there are protests against the ‘Glasgow Arms Fair’, which is due to happen tomorrow. Glasgow?! I would really like to know who is setting it up, whether Glasgow can say no to this, etc. We can be sure most people do not know that defense is a reserved matter, and that Scotland does not have an MOD. apparently Glasgow council have removed their logo from this event.
Any more info here would be really good to have, re the whole thing, who is involved, why in Glasgow?
thanks.
@Ken500
It may be that Amazon Prime had the Murray match rights, as the clip on Rep Scot had to tag it as them.
“Unionist” who’s side are you on when you give colonialist enablers a reputable ter? These people don’t support a “Union of EQUAL partners”. There’s no equality in the UK for Scotland. There’s no democracy either. NEVER legitimise these suppoters of the subjugation of Scotland. If they stand up for Scotland to be EQUAL PARTNERS in a Union, they’re “unionists”. None do. They want Scotland ruled by England. That’s not NORMAL. That is supporting a FOREIGN country’s rule over your own country. The Rev won’t allow the T word. These people aren’t farm vehicles, they’re Democracy Deniers and COLONIALIST ENABLERS.
Breeks says:25 June, 2018 at 3:41 pm
The world is a totally different place from when the Brexit referendum took place. Then, the world economy was more globalist in nature and it was a fair assumption that Europe respected the decision of the referendum and was willing to negotiate an amicable outcome.
Obviously since then, the British government has totally made a mess of negotiations and has alienated everybody in Europe, even those who would have been the closest they would have as allies in the European camp.
There is also the fact that the globalist outlook is looking fragile and countries are starting to look inwards, the most obvious the US where we are only now starting to see what Trump’s American first policy looks like.
Europe is in no position to negotiate fairly now with the UK, even if the UK hadn’t made a mess of negotiations. It can’t look weak with the rise of the populist right in it’s bloc, nor can it look weak with the prospect of a trade war with the US.
Considering how Trump is making the UK sound bad for domestic purposes i.e. putting down the NHS and suggesting parts of the UK is no-go agrees due to Islamic extremism, anybody who thinks that Trump will give the UK a preferential trade deal after leaving the EU is really foolish. The US will milk us dry.
Scottish independence won’t be a better option for those currently opposed to it. It will be an option that is better than would will be if a hard Brexit occurs.
That may not sound like a good enough reason to go for independence but the reality for a lot of undecideds and soft-no is that fear of the unknown and fear of a less favourable outcome will push then towards yes. After that jump into the unknown, most will really get behind it once they realise that the lies spoken against independence is just that, lies.
Liz g says:
25 June, 2018 at 8:55 pm
Luigi @ 8.22
Agreed,they hate it…. When I say “you British” and I don’t even need to say Nationalist… I always get “I’m Scottish too” and it’s almost always a plea!!
Folks should just try it and see the reaction. Seriously, it puts them on the spot. “Proud scot and unionist” is far too respectable – let’s remove that comfort blanket from under them. The union is dead, let’s do away with the pretence once and for all. Don’t acknowledge their union any more.
People don’t realise just how difficult it is for a closet BritNat to deny their british nationalism, because it is what they believe under the surface.
Needs to be exposed time and again.
It looks like a certain Aberdeen Professor is possibly going for the full Jill, is there something in the water at these universities.
Remember high academic qualifications does not endow you with better emotional abilities. People are still wedded to their beliefs and prejudices. They are a bit like actors, full of praise of their peers, whilst inwardly seething at others success.
Whether by accident or deliberate design, the Tory government has favoured the ‘baby boomer’ generation to the detriment of all other sections of society, the hardest hit being Millennials. Labour have tapped into this and are currently enjoying huge support south of the border.
After the Corbyn bounce died away, Labour’s support here rightfully dipped because despite how sincere an individual Corbyn is, it is obvious he is leading a party that is split and at times he is barely clinging to power.
The only reason for the Corbyn bounce dying away up here is that the Scottish government is being run by the SNP, the national party of Scotland who’s goal is to represent all sections of Scottish to the best it’s ability.
Labour can come out with all the lies, propaganda and nonsense it likes, but nobody up here takes them or what they say seriously. Maybe the Labour leadership down in London should wise up and stop wasting their money up here and concentrate where they can hope to realistically gain Westminster votes.
Whether by accident or deliberate design, the Tory government has favoured the ‘baby boomer’ generation to the detriment of all other sections of society, the hardest hit being Millennials. Labour have tapped into this and are currently enjoying huge support south of the border.
After the Corbyn bounce died away, Labour’s support here rightfully dipped because despite how sincere an individual Corbyn is, it is obvious he is leading a party that is split and at times he is barely clinging to power.
The only reason for the Corbyn bounce dying away up here is that the Scottish government is being run by the SNP, the national party of Scotland who’s goal is to represent all sections of Scottish society to the best of it’s ability.
Labour can come out with all the lies, propaganda and nonsense it likes, but nobody up here takes them or what they say seriously. Maybe the Labour leadership down in London should wise up and stop wasting their money up here and concentrate where they can hope to realistically gain Westminster votes.
Let us get independent first, we can sort out the details later.
I’m not getting any younger.
@Luigi. Have you asked the Colonialists what THREE BENEFITS does Scotland GAIN from being ruled by England?
One of your respondents said that Labour is a disaster for Welsh commuters. No. Labour is a disaster for Wales. How I wish we had bloggers like the Rev interested in Wales. The few that we have are worth reading but for the most part I despair.
O/T Electric Vehicles, very few folk are aware that the Scot Gov provide interest free loan of up to £35,000 repaid over 6 years to purchase an electric vehicle link to energysavingtrust.org.uk
They also pay for a free home charging unit and you then pay £20/yr to charge your car, without any further costs at any public charger in Scotland.
This is so much better than the rest of the UK and as an electric car user you also get a UK Gov Grant of over £4000. Go electric it’s great and so cheap,we have a 150 mile range between charges, Nissan Leaf
The Labour 9 councillors the remnants who ruined the City got it into £1.2Billions of debt. Spent £Millions on grotesque projects of no value. Shops, offices and hotels. Unoccupied. When they should have been building houses and schools and supporting essential public service.
Cut essential services. Cut Education, social care etc. Wanted to put the homeless in jail. Costs more. Instead of supporting proper drug/drink rehab facilities etc. Wasted £30Millions on renovating an Art Gallery. Refused a gift of £80Million to predestrianise the City Centre. Spent over £200Million on the mess in the City Centre. £7Million a year for thirty years.
Their unionist mate Pennington is trying to get them resurrrected. After they went in with the Tories. A two job Tory keeping them in power. Mason. Council/Holyrood. When the SNP has most elected members. STV. Contradictions. Lewis MacDonald’s (list) wife is one of them. Two jobs. There are trying to get them resurrected so they can continue troughing on public money. A £300Million non mandated waste Conference Centre going up in Crookett constituency. The thieving Mafia.
There is a Tory Councillor in the BoD after Young got voted out for complicity.
McDonald told a pack of lies Claiming the the accounts commission had to come in because the SNP had bankrupted the City. Total and utter lies. 2007. The totally fraudulent narrative. Loud mouth. This is a representative sworn to tell the truth. Not fit for public office. Breaking the code of conduct.
The SNP increased representation in the 2007 election. In coalition. They replace Labour who had bankrupted the City £1/2Billion in debt. The Accounts commission had to come in to sort it out. John Swinney had to help sort it out. They had to be reprimanded. Now they have illegally sold the City on the stock exchange. Just a disgrace. Most of them should be put in jail. Not get impunity. £1.2Million in debt.
The SNP could have comtinurd successfully running the City in coalition. 4 LibDem elected. Even voting on induvidual issues. Not in coalition. A LibDem on elected declared as Independent to go in with the Tories. To keep the unionists in power and ruin the City. People were protesting in the street at the expense and duplicity of the grotesque monstrosity. To be ignored as usual. The only time the City has been run properly was when the SNP were in coalition.
Electric cars are cheaper to run. 4 times cheaper?
Petrol cars are being banned from 2030. Worldwide,
Some electric cars have been going up in smoke. Petrol cars do too.
@ Ken500 – Amazon Prime have the rights to show the mens matches and BBC can show the womens. I just watched Andy Murray on Prime.
Ken500 says:
…. only because their fuel, electricity, has 5% VAT as it’s only tax. Traditional fuels have duty of 57.95p per litre for both petrol and diesel, plus VAT at 20% is then charged on both the product price and the duty. That’s like ~150% tax.
Take the tax off, and there is little benefit.
Where does the electricity come from? Some renewable, yes, but much of it is still generated from fossil fuels or nuclear. And there are transmission losses.
Electric cars do keep cities’ air cleaner. But until most electricity is renewably sourced, electric cars are not as ecologically sound as they try to say.
Pennington is retired. Otherwise doubt if he could get involved. The university would not be best pleased at the bias, Supposed to be objective not prejudiced. An advisory to food standards in Scotland. The Westminster unionists are trying to take the food standard powers away from Scotland. EU protection of specialist status for premium Scottish food products. Erasmus EU student exchange. Threatened.
Division called and vote now underway for a third runway at Heathrow,
another white elephant being built like HS2,2 Aircraft carriers,Hinkley point nuclear station,new set of nuclear subs,
lots of dosh ,£140,000,000,000> for big business that contribute to the Tory party,
yet still the Torys say we need austerity policy to save money.
Capella @6.18: Beeching and Marples were a wonderful convergence of the twain for the road transport lobby, that’s for sure.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Loved Ernest’s runner to Monaco…..
Whit is that Speaker Guy oan??
This is unacceptable he is clearly no clear headed??
He is struggling wi words
and his eyes are weird…
@ Tinto Chiel – you mean Ernest Marples of Marples Ridgeway motorway construction company? No conflict of interest though. Honest.
HS2/Hinkley Point the Tory slush fund. With no business case. A waste., Fees, consultancies and bank interest, and charges. Borrowed Chinese money. Has to be reimbursed. Scotland has to pay the over charged loan repayments. Chinese – British consortium. Cameron, Carrrington et al. Cameron bought another £1Million house in Cornwall/Devon? Holiday home. Osbourne father in law HS2 Consultant. Remuneration, The last nuclear station built Finland (France) took seven years to build. Twice as long and cost twice as much. £Billions over cost. There had to reconcilliation with the government and the company.
What is Tory William doing in Israel. A Tory Westminster puppet. Supposed to be totally unbiased and neutral in political matters. Keep out of illegal wars. Not go killing other people’s mothers. The Arabs think he is coming to apologise for the illegal Balfour Agreement. Naive.
Fireproof jim.5.28pm. Jings a new gas field 100 miles off Aberdeen.let me see, that’ll be in English waters then.
Just get the message out there, “There is no such thing as Scottish Labour, Conservative or LibDem”!
When you vote for any of these parties whilst we are still part of the UK, all you are getting are British Nationalist policy and values.
Independence first then you can vote for whomever you like in the knowledge that they will be registered Scottish political parties, it’s that simple.
Scot Finlayson says @ 10:15 pm
lots of dosh ,£140,000,000,000> for big business that contribute to the Tory party,
yet still the Torys say we need austerity policy to save money.
_______
Aye, we need austerity so gotta save money – that’s what the Tories say.
That would be why they pulled the plug on the Swansea Lagoon project, then. Nothing to do with the fact that the Magic Money Tree can fund Londoncentric projects (and some Orange proppers-up of HMG, but won’t fund any useful project for the Taffs (or Jocks), eh?
Love them or loathe them, (personally I think they are doing a great job although I do have some minor issues with their policies); the SNP are the only party that are capable and willing to achieve the ultimate goal of Independence.
What we do when that is achieved is in our own hands, not those of a country with a vastly superior, (in number), voting base where we will be out-voted at every turn unless it is an issue we all agree on.
Fully agree on calling them BritNats it either makes them go nuts or makes them have a long introspective look at themselves (so win-win in my book).
Also:
“It looks like a certain Aberdeen Professor is possibly going for the full Jill”
Hugh Pennington does indeed look like he is heading down to Batshit town @jfngw says at 9:19 pm
But he is also an SiU Green Ink Gang British Nationalist:
link to wingsoverscotland.com
link to wingsoverscotland.com
As a result it is ‘Protect the Union at any cost, No Surrender to the EssEnnPee’
That’s why he is supporting the Blairite BritNats who are propping up Aberdeen’s Tory Councillors to prevent the SNP actually doing some good.
At the same time as they run up massive debts on white elephant projects no one wants while blaming budget cuts and Holyrood centralisation on the shit state they are leaving Aberdeen in.
@Welsh Sion
“won’t fund any useful project for the Taffs (or Jocks), eh?”
____
Then the Welsh need to get up of their knees and realise what the Scots have for the last Decade, “There is no such thing as registered Welsh Labour”, there is only a London Labour party with England’s concerns the very fibre of it’s being!
@Jockanese Wind Talker
I think UK nationalists would be more apt as the think the UK is a country rather than a Union of three countries and a pretend one using land stolen from the Irish.
Even after Independence is called we will all remain British, maybe this will piss them off even more!
I am a Britnat, my country is Scotland.
@Capella 10.26: as Smallaxe would say, “Seen!”
Utter criminals, these Tories, and still getting away with it.
Of course, as the UK was destroying its rail network for the enrichment of some shareholders in road transport, countries like Germany were spending billions on rail infrastructure in the 50s and 60s.
BTW: the UK was the greatest recipient of Marshall Plan investment, even more than Germany. Where did all that money go?
@Tinto Chiel
___
It went the same way as the €230 million of Scottish Farm subsidies and the £167M of crown estate money.
Wales. Tidal Lagoon project thrown out..
Scotland. Carbon Capture project thrown out.
Can’t folk see how the Unionist parties operate?
How can anyone trust a Tory? I don’t understand it.
Oops, my sister’s a Tory, – criticise and she comes out fighting.
@ Tinto Chiel – Lies and mendacity. Toujours la meme chose.
On another topic, the BBC has just posted an article saying the UKs NHS is no longer the envy of the world. Gives stats to prove it too.
Of course, there is no such thing as a UK NHS.
I think they’ve given up even trying to pretend to be journalists.
NHS no longer the envy of the world, says independent report – link to bbc.co.uk
@John Young
Also SG loans now for electric bikes.
Seriously, folks.
After all the grotesque WM shenanigans, after all the offense with EVEL, after the BREXIT democratic outrage. After all that.
After all that, anyone who still intends to vote NO at the next indyref is no true unionist. I can assure you. British Nationalism laid bare. That’s what will be forced out of the closet during the next campaign. It won’t be pretty.
The ‘Game of Thrones’ father of the bride is a Tory councillor. Aberdeenshire. He does not pay his council tax
Hydrogen, the fuel of the future not big lumps of toxic batteries that have to be disposed of
The oil people had their share now the electric people will get their share
Then they’ll get right down to it and it’ll end up hydrogen once they can figure out how to make lots of money from nothing
While all the while the car makers will still make money telling us there will be something even better round the corner that they could be doing now but they just don’t want to
And the price will always go up because it’s good and we need it and can’t do without it, well that’s what they’ll say
War loans/debt WW11 had to be paid back. UK had to pay back the US. For a agreed 50 years. (yearly payment) Finished payment on 31 December 2006.
Massive debt after 1WW.
Disappointed about the Heathrow vote but reasonably happy the SNP abstained.
I think the last time I was in Heathrow was just after Terminal 5 opened and I was not enamoured.
Prefer to go via Gatwick which is 25 minutes from where my son lives.
There’s only one body who bear the responsibility for mayhem on our railways and it is the westminster government.
Westminster gave us an entirely insane privatisation model which hasn’t worked since day 1
The privatisation model goes like this.
A Train Operating Company (ToC) is but a franchisee with no fixed assets, it hires trains from a Rolling Stock Company (RosCo) and pays “track access fees” to Network Rail to run trains. Similar to road tolls.
ToCs and NR have legions of “Delay Attribution” staff, people paid handsomely to argue back and forth over who caused what delay and who should pay who for causing it.
This delay attribution wrangling is an industry in itsself and contributes absolutely nothing to the process of running trains.
Trains run between stations mostly leased by the ToCs from Network Rail.
Major stations are operated by Network Rail.
Railtrack was set up to own and manage the rail infrastructure.
They failed dismally at attracting investment and eventually were declared insolvent and taken over by, you guessed it, westminster government during the watch of “New Labour”
Since that time westminster government has wholly owned and operated Scotland’s rail infrastructure.
Until such time as westminster bite the bullet and fully renationalise the railways they are doomed to a future of perpetual failure because the existing privatisation model can never work.
Hence why Railtrack went bust and several ToC franchisees have also had to be released from their contracts.
New Labour could have done the right thing and renationalised the whole rail industry but no surprises, they didn’t.
@Dr Jim at 12.02
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have large arrays of batteries.
They are essentially self generating electric vehicles.
I haven’t been on a train for 30 years. Maybe it was because Jimmy Savile was doing their adverts when I was a kid and that always “triggered” me.
– here’s a good article about the bad guys and their tactics, very appropriate to this forum
link to washingtonsblog.com
Could someone check whether a signalling fault has anything to do with the “SNP” Scottish Government?
Labour in Scotland so often confuse me and abody aboot whit is reserved.
@Famous 15
Network Rail are responsible for signalling equipment and Network Rail are wholly owned by westminster government.
More soldiers to Afghanistan!!! A lost cause more young soldiers placed at risk by politicians
Boris Johnson Avoids Heathrow Runway Vote to Commit More UK Soldiers to the Killing Fields of Afghanistan – But Past Events Do Not Encourage the Deployment. of Our Young Men and Women
Sorry forgot the link
link to caltonjock.com
Weird. The Tories privatised rail, after both Tory and Labour underfunded and neglected it to the point that it caused major rail disasters including Kings Cross (blamed on a cigarette but ACTUALLY caused by cuts in cleaning staff who were no longer able to remove debris in the form of fluff from the wooden escalators – hence the fire. If it HAD been purely due to smoking there would’ve been loads of fires in the preceding 100 years, and there were precisely NONE like this)
Labour fought it, then did nothing when they got into power. They’d rather shout from the sidelines and abstain on votes than actually DO something.
Some of the disruption in England is due to well overdue electrification, which is of course now being cut back by Grayling because it’s ‘up north’ Something Labour are, rightly, criticising him for – although again, they did nothing when in power.
They talk a good game, but don’t actually DO anything for us when they get into power…
Graham Niven @ 00:29:
Point well made, Graham. It’s just another “privatisation dividend”. Another reverse-dividend, that is, one we don’t receive but have to pay for through higher fares.
Inevitable where contracted-out public services are regulated through legal contracts. And the UKGov still maintains that privatisation is “more efficient”. =guffaw=
I wonder where they got all their scratchcards made up, how many printed off and the costings for it… give us an F give us an O give us an I, oh mighty ones.
They have just trivialised our rail industry (and all of the People who work there) with a cheap mail shot, this will only work against them.
Thanks to all of the hard working staff, we’ll be free from all of that uk-nationalist greetin’ soon enough. Good luck to you Wales.
ps aye hear Labour also did a trial run of the cards with their own name as the mayhemmers… although these were Scratch n Sniff cards.. well ah well ah wouldnae.
Karen Dunbar knows.
What I wrote
link to caltonjock.com
Former No voter begged audience to save Scotland and support independence.
link to target59.wordpress.com
It must be a soul destroying job when day after day you have to think of lies to spread about Scotland’s achievements to try and fool the electorate into getting you back to power – which you will do nothing with, noses back into the trough is all they want but I think the people of Scotland are getting wise to them, many thanks Stu for a great article exposing their con.
Another day of SNP bad surveys this time on health and education. It should be remembered that internal surveys by organisations in this case unions always get more responses from those who are unhappy than those who are content.
Also I see fringe Tory front Scottish Business UK (sbuk) has become a friend of The Scotsman thus guaranteed regular articles attacking independence which is the reason it was set up.
Might be controversial but perhaps Business for Scotland becomes a Friend of Scotsman in order to put positive case for independence.
The EBCs this morning wall to wall anti SNP, the NHS is in meltdown apparently (yet again), they always find a way to spin anything into bad and make it sound dire.
Gary Robertson making a quip that our health secretary should step down. Yaawn!
However the anti SNP is being pushed higher with no limits across the board with all unionist entities. They must feel things are coming to a head, and desperation to tarnish all things Scottish is now paramount to them.
So sick to death of these lying bastards.
We need a Bastille day!
Apparently the NHS survey involved around 100 doctors according prof leitch to on BBC GMS.
Radio Scotland wants you to phone in with your bad health service experiences.
I see BritNat Broadcasting aka Radio Shortbreid going SNHS Shite, EssEnnPeeBaaad with BMA Survey and Call UKOKaye call in on NHS.
All because of a rumoured Scottish Government Cabinet reshuffle today.
They are definitely trying to frame any move of Shona Robinson as due to failure and ‘cos she has presided over an SNHS in ‘crisis’.
Propaganda pure and simple.
@ Zak – sorry I missed your post upthread. I was really thinking of King Crimson’s “Twentieth Century Schizoid Man”.
But thx for letting me know about the difference. I’ll be more careful in future.
Gary says:
26 June, 2018 at 1:44 am
(rail privatisation)
Labour fought it, then did nothing when they got into power.
Nope – Labour in power embraced it, just as they had embraced the Beeching mutilations two decades earlier.
Les
“We need a Bastille day!”
We had one
link to dropbox.com
O/T Something someone said about Professors “going the full Jill” made me muse on something.
I used to love watching the BBC Archaeology programme Two Men in a Trench.
One of those two men, Tony Pollard, lives and works in Glasgow. He is in pro-Indy. The other, Neil Oliver, lives and works in London. He is virulently anti-Indy.
Pollard is an Englishman and Oliver is a Scot, so you’d expect it to be the other way round. Almost all of my friends who live down south are anti Indy, even young left-wing Scots who would be natural SNP folk in Scotland. And we all know folk who live in Scotland who are English and pro-Indy. So how to explain this?
I put it down to what we might call the media landscape. The only Pro Indy stories we get are occasionally in the Sunday Herald and in the National and obviously sites like this one but I don’t mean that – that’s largely preaching to the converted.
I mean yer actual BBC/STV news that can’t help but show up (occasionally) the feet of clay of Labour and Tory. And that the SNP are doing so many good things that it can’t help but seep into people’s consciousness, even if not flagged up. And in general radio and TV you get some Indy-friendly voices as part of your daily media intake.
In addition there are activists everywhere, in every canteen, pub, hairdresser, bingo-hall – not deliberate activists (although they ARE everywhere and doing a great job) but just by the very nature of general conversation it becomes obvious that the more powers we have the better the outcomes are.
Down south they get none of this landscape. The Scot-Indy question for them must seem to be only about flag-waving.
Just an observation.
Oh, Pollard, unlike Oliver, actually IS a Professor ?
This is worth reading and sharing. London centric UK harms Scottish growth.
link to thenational.scot
Dr Peter Bennie chair of the BMA who for the last ten years that you can set your watch by has been claiming Scotlands NHS is pretty rubbish, and I mention ten years because that’s pretty significant when you consider there are two kinds of politics in Scotland, the Scottish Nationalist and the British Nationalist and guess which one Dr Bennie is
In a new report which is once again UK wide Dr Bennie leaps on figures that suggest that his claims on Scotland are once again correct, except they’re not, because of the thousand doctors or so surveyed only about one hundred were from Scotland
The BBC which is as we know British Nationalist central then conflates the figures between England and Scotland to make their political point even though right there in the studio they have another doctor who is sitting there telling them that very thing, but as he’s not got the same title as Dr Bennie we should all just ignore this guy as the BBCs sacrificial Doctor because he’s obviously correcting the *slight errors* the BBC are making thus he’s a Scottish Nationalist
For good measure The BBC brings on this weeks leader of the Labour party in Scotland to add weight to their British Nationalist agenda that Scotland is *lagging behind* the rest of the universe in everything but incompetence, but unfortunately for them the Labour leader has trouble with sentences and words and the putting together thereof even though today in Holyrood he will be leading a debate on our miserable NHS with his difficulties in the words and sentences area, it’s always a struggle when your facts are made up as well
Which brings me right back to British Nationalist central the BBC, almost every figure number fact that British Nationalist central the BBC ever quote only ever seems to go back around the last ten years or so, now is that just a generalisation, a coincidence maybe? well no because everything has to coincide to when the Scottish Nationalists were elected as the government of Scotland and the BBC British Nationalist central really really hate that
because their instructions have always been to make the Scottish Nationalists look bad and it’s getting harder and harder to come up with enough distorted *facts* to do it
Heathrow expansion:
The SNP support the proposition of Heathrow expansion and always have but here’s the reason for the abstention by MPs at Westminster, the cabinet secretary refused to give the written guarantees that Scotland would in fact benefit from the expansion scheme, they just made *promises* and anybody who has been paying attention to Tory promises EVER will know they’re meaningless so why would the SNP MPs vote FOR legislation which would be meaningless to Scotland, so the abstention vote was a reflection that Scotland will just wait and see what your promises mean
If the SNP had been against expansion they would have cast their votes that way
Last night ArtyHetty 8.59
Wondered about the Glasgow Arms Fair
All you need to know and more right here.
link to udt-global.com
SNP council saying they ‘inherited’ it.
link to archive.is
I wonder which high-flying Labour strategist thought of this. Neil Findlay? James Kelly? Margaret Curran?
The creme de la crème of Europe’s political thinkers.
Dr Jim @ 9:20 am.
Re: Dr Bennie, GMC.
The man has form. Just had a quick Google.
Top Docs: NHS is at Breaking Point
26 June 2018
-Daily Express
Dr Peter Bennie: doctors in Scotland ‘under pressure like never before
April 21 2018
– The Herald
“One of the main concerns is that in Scotland we are being expected to run a health service without the necessary resources,” said Bennie.
17 February 2018
-The Scotsman
Scotland’s NHS ‘at breaking point’ warns BMA chairman
15 January 2017
-The Scotsman
NHS in Scotland ‘struggling’ warns BMA chief
26 Dec 2016
-Daily Express
NHS is surviving on staff goodwill, top doctor says
22 Dec 2014
-Daily Express
This would be the same Dr. Bennie who …
The chair of the BMA in Scotland, Dr Peter Bennie, has seen his salary go up 137%, from £32,205 to £76,431,
7 June 2015
-The Guardian
Medical chief defends £20m overtime bill for consultants
27 July 2016
-The Sunday Post
And has featured on Wings …
archive.is/aGGuv
27 December 2016
– Wings Archive
Jim 10.50pm. I think its to late for the welsh to get off their knees. You’ll find they are now outnumbered and outvoted by red and blue tory incomers.
Andrew Mc Coll
RE the delightful Neil Oliver,
He’s vehemently anti-indy.
That coincides with the ‘suits’ at the Biased broadcasting organisation – can’t have a Scottish person talking about Scottish history…
…Oh no chaps, I’m from North Britain, I speak English and I can talk for a whole programme about Orkney and not mention Scotland once.
I read in the Courier this morning that Cowdenbeath is gearing up for ‘the’ OO march this weekend , being led by Arlene Foster.
Arlene Foster will give a speech before the march denouncing sectarianism and bigotry!!!!!!!!!!( sorry, Rev)
Is that an oxymoron?
Police are expecting 7,000 – just a small march then- and have said that violence or bad behaviour will not be tolerated and dealt with robustly.
Don’t remember reading about them saying that before Glasgow, Dumfries, and Bannockburn.
Avoid the East Coast of fife on Saturday
Chick McGregor says:
26 June, 2018 at 9:09 am
Les
“We need a Bastille day!”
We had one…
Hmmm… Might be an idea for AUOB organisers to have a YES march actually “do” something.
Say for example, at Bannockburn, before the massed ranks of Yessers and the ghosts of Scotland’s heroes, we could have formally read aloud the Declaration of Arbroath.
Maybe a YES march might culminate with a ceremonial lowering of a high profile Union Jack with a higher profile Saltire.
Maybe we don’t have a Bastille to storm, but Scotland’s Independence from the Union will warrant a page in the history books, so maybe we could start one or two traditions which might be commemorated for years to come.
Selkirk Common riding commemorates sending it’s fighting men to Flodden only for a single man to return.
Each year, many people burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes with little knowledge why beyond the fact he tried to blow up Parliament.
The Jarrow March delivered a petition.
Just thinking out loud…”Aye, I was there when the YES marchers took down the Union Jack over _______, and raised the Saltire which has flown there ever since.
Or maybe, “Aye, I was there when the YES marchers assembled outside Holyrood and held a ceremonial burning of the Treaty of Union as Scotland’s MSP’s and indeed the whole of Scotland, looked on….
Or maybe, “Aye, on this day way back in 2018, an army of YES marchers assembled outside the European Commission Offices in Edinburgh and handed in a formal invitation from the Sovereign people of Scotland for Europe To formally recognise the Constitutional Sovereignty of Scotland….
We should do something that brands the event into the historical chronology, and takes on seminal significance that resonates into the future… The day when Scotland said Enough!
Bobp says:
26 June, 2018 at 10:31 am
Jim 10.50pm.I think its to late for the welsh to get off their knees. You’ll find they are now outnumbered and outvoted by red and blue tory incomers.
_____
Back at ya, Bobp …
For so long as there shall be but one hundred of us remain alive and posting on Wings we will never give consent to subject ourselves to the domination of Westminster. For it is not glory, it is not riches, neither is it honour, but it is freedom alone that we fight and contend for, which no honest Welshman or Welshwoman will lose but with his or her life.
@Meg merrilees
A remarkable feat of linguistic slight of hand. His full-mouthed utterance of ‘Britain’, as default term, is particularly annoying. He makes it sound like an expletive.
The sooner Britain is put back into the history books the better. The use of the term was an act of cultural conceit and appropriation in the first place. Besides, north of the Antonine wall the country was known as Caledonia. As a historian Oliver ought to have known that.
All goes to show that Scotland was never the cultural backwater the Unionist propagandists were quite happy to imply.
Interesting to hear GMS today speculating on possible Scottish Government reshuffle. Wonder if there is any likelihood of a reshuffle at BBC Scotland ?
Ken MacColl says:
26 June, 2018 at 11:03 am
Interesting to hear GMS today speculating on possible Scottish Government reshuffle. Wonder if there is any likelihood of a reshuffle at BBC Scotland ?
The only likelihood of a ‘reshuffle’ at the British State Broadcaster (Scottish Branch), would be if any of their ‘Reporters’ or ‘Journalists’ started talking up an Indy Scotland.
They would soon find themselves ‘reshuffled’ out the door!
After all, we can’t show any kind of support for an Independent Scotland on the BBC
Bobp says:
26 June, 2018 at 10:31 am
Jim 10.50pm.I think its to late for the welsh to get off their knees. You’ll find they are now outnumbered and outvoted by red and blue tory incomers.
When the UK finally implodes, even London and Yorkshire will be shouting for independence. Wales will be long gone by then. No worries there.
@Still Positive says: 26 June, 2018 at 12:23 am:
” … I think the last time I was in Heathrow was just after Terminal 5 opened and I was not enamoured.
Prefer to go via Gatwick which is 25 minutes from where my son lives.”
Well if you haven’t figured out the Westminster Establishments fixation with routing foreign traffic, air sea and Chunnel, through the, (cough!), great Metropolis of the capital city of the Kingdom of England, I suppose I’d better explain it.
First be aware they always have, to them, a logical motive.
This one isn’t too hard to figure out when you know how they do their accounts and class everything leaving the United Kingdom as being an export from the country it leaves from and not from the country that produced it.
So the way the collective Westminster Establishment mind works is to route all exports through England, and preferably through London, so as to doctor the statistics and claim the exports of the rest of the United Kingdom for England.
This is a two pronged act of theft for not only do they artificially boost the traffic through London/England but do their best to run down the infrastructure of the rest of the United Kingdom to boost London and south Britain.
The most glaring example of this policy is perhaps that of Scotch Whisky. This can only be produced in Scotland.
By far the largest distiller in the United Kingdom is Diageo who also make 70% of the UK’s gin in Scotland. Diageo are registered with a head office in London and they export their products from English ports and airports but also pay whatever taxes they cannot avoid paying via their London Head Office and that too, although mainly earned in Scotland, gets classed as English earned Exports & revenue.
Now do you see how the most subjected to fog airport in the United Kingdom, (Heathrow), is pushed by Westminster while the most fog free, (Prestwick), was neglected but bought by the SG?
Yet goods from Scotland are routinely hauled down to Heathrow, loaded onto aircraft and much of it is then flown back, (over Prestwick), on it’s way across the Atlantic.
Sae noo ye ken.
Ken MacColl the bbc had a reshuffle in Donalda MacKinnon a Scottish sounding name from far away places , nothing changes bar the faces , message just the Bbc same Scotlands shite & SNP Baad .
DON”T PAY THE PROPOGANDA Bbc LICENCE FEE .
Yesterday’s announcement of the pay rise for Scottish NHS staff has really got our British Nationalist media going in a frenzied attack on our excellent Scottish NHS.
A expected the PQ Branch of The British Nationalist Broadcasting Corporation is well in the lead starting with the attack on The Scottish NHS as its lead news item followed by the same leading on the Call Kaye nationalist propaganda phone in with predictable tame callers.
Scottish Government Debate: Defending the Powers of the Scottish Parliament . Session starts at 2pm today .
In the absence of a Bastille perhaps AUOB and followers could pay a visit to PQ and the nearby STV HQ.
Listen/watch BBC as little as possible. Watch Parliamentary Channel. Johnston on a rant right now. Stephen Gethins running rings around him. Brilliant. Johnston is a psycho bastard. Bumbling rambling ignorant imcompetent. Appalling disgrace.
Trump coming in two weeks time. Trump can’t stand Johnston. Oxbridge Eton. Trump can’t stand him. Told him to take a hike. Johnston, Farague, total crooks thought they could get donations/money out of him.
Look up Boris Johnston wiki. A total lying criminal. Murdoch the master criminal sacked Boris Johnstone for telling lies.
They are sanction, starving and killing people. To line their pockets. They should be in jail. Master criminals. Break the Law with impunity. They make the Law and break the Law. Embezzling public money big time.
Wales benefits from it’s proximity to London. People can live in Wales and work in London S/E. Commute. Long commute but can get Friday or a day off. Work 4 days or from home. Wales is underfunded. £Billion.
Westminster Tories just cut Swansea Tidal scheme. A great scheme for cost effective energy. Less congestion.
Westminster unionists spending £14Billion on expanding Heathrow a total congested waste of money. Anywhere but Heathrow. A waste of time and space. Brexit will cause havoc. Less trade and movement.
More direct flights from Scotland (SNP) are saving time, money and energy. Less time and need for connection. More visitors and tourism. Scotland meets it’s climate change targets. Increased reduction of train times in Scotland will help the economy.
The SNP abstained on heathrow last night. They abstained, FFS. Truly pathetic.
You all know, that anything Westminster ‘offers’ or ‘promises’ to Scotland is a lie, so why not just vote against??
Westminster is at war with Scotland. People are angry as hell. Abstaining is a cowards game. grow a pair.
@Gary says: 26 June, 2018 at 1:44 am:
” … Weird. The Tories privatised rail, after both Tory and Labour underfunded and neglected it to the point that it caused major rail disasters …
Nothing weird about it Garry. Not when you realise that the whole Westminster Establishment is just one big con-job and it always has been. They are now, and always have been just the, “English/British/United Kingdom amalgamated, “Unionist Party”.
The Tories were/are officially, “The Conservative & Unionist Party”, and Labour would be as well to call themselves, “The Labour & Unionist Party. As for the LibDems they were originally the, “Whigs”, and I quote from Wiki:-
In other words just Tories who didn’t fancy absolute monarchy.
You cans see them now openly acting as one Unionist Party. At Holyrood. You can bet your life that no matter what theme the Tory Branch Manager adopts the London Labour and London LibDems will follow the leader of the London Tory Branch Manager.
At Westminster Labour has a slightly different policy that achieves the exact same result, (due to the Tory/LibDem majority). There they need not openly vote with the Tories, as the vote will be carried by the other Unionists so Labour just abstain and the result isn’t changed.
They are, as I have always described them, “The Westminster Establishment”, and that description also includes the C of E, The Civil Service, The Security Services, The Police Force, The Armed Services and English Higher Education Sector, (including the English Public Schools), and not forgetting the English Legal System.
It is just a façade to fool the common people who are the voters. How else can you explain away the totally undemocratic way Westminster has always acted?
How can you have democracy with a legislature that contains 800 unelected members? The largest unelected legislative body in the entire World and remember some of them are Law Lords, C of E leaders and hereditary peers going back to the Norman Conquest of England.
Breeks said: “We should do something that brands the event into the historical chronology, and takes on seminal significance that resonates into the future… The day when Scotland said Enough!”
How about a ceremonial mass burning of union flags outside westminster houses of parliament…?
Boris Johnston getting telt Parliamentary Channel. Bumbling rambling ignorant,incompetent. A total embarrassing, Stephen Gethin calling him out.
Trump coming in two weeks. Can’t stand Boris Johnston. Old Eton Oxbridge. A bunch of crooks.
On Stuarts twitter site he highlights just how few people have signed a petition to Support the Aberdeen 9 Councillors and re-instate them.
Our own Doug Daniel has started one to expel them, so get signing folks
link to change.org
Abstaining is ok on Heathrow. It gets recorded. That it is badly managed. When it gets mucked up. It was going to get voted through in any case. Stay out if it. Without consultation. Can’t get blamed for the muck up. Either way. Let the unionists take the blame.
@Les Wilson says: 26 June, 2018 at 8:07 am:
“We need a Bastille day.”
Nah! We just need Indyref2 when the time is right.
Heathrow is flagged as the UK’s hub airport. The airport is, according to Wiki, owned and operated by Heathrow Airport Holdings, which itself is owned by FGP TopCo Limited, an international consortium led by Ferrovial that also includes Qatar Holding LLC, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, GIC Private Limited, Alinda Capital Partners, China Investment Corporation and Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS).
Not even ‘British owned’, but then Scottish airports are not Scottish owned either.
The British disease, flogging the assets, is something needing immediate attention.
The state of Welsh public transport is the reason I wont take a shipping job based there. Tried it, crew change days are a nightmare.
@Meg merilees who said “Cowdenbeath is gearing up for ‘the’ OO march this weekend , being led by Arlene Foster.
Arlene Foster will give a speech before the march denouncing sectarianism and bigotry”
look at the latest orange order outreach approach in North belfast – a brand-new Lodge, two brand-new marches to establish a “traditional route” without consulting residents and marching straight over their opposition link to eurofree3.wordpress.com
Please. Please. Everyone sign the petition to expel the Labour 9. They have ruined the City and are sanctioning and starving people. Foodbanks. Spending £Millions on building more empty, shops, hotels and offices. Grotesque monstrosity when people want pedestrianisation. Closed roads causing traffic chaos. When the public money is supposed to be spent on building,affordable, homes, schools. To support education, social care and local services. £1.2Billion in debt.
They have wasted £Millions of public money on non mandate unnecessary PPI. Refused a Gift of £80Million to regenerate and pedestrianise the City. STV to keep the SNP the biggest party out of office. The administration keep,in offfice by a two jobs Tory. A LibDem that reneged and became an Independent to uphold the bad administration. No democracy. Just ignorance lying incompetence.
Robert Peffers @ 11.22
So you are suggesting that Prestwick should be Britain’s major hub airport, rather than heathrow, and this is not the case because of the great whiskey tax con? Bonkers. Are CDG, Schipol and Frankfurt located to deprive the residents of the Brittany, Maastricht or Hamburg of tax? Or could it be that they are at the major centres of population and where folk want to travel to?
Heathrow latest Terminal 5 is BA Hub. All BA flights. Subsidised slots. Used to be British company, Now owned by Spanish consortium? Gov can subsidise slots. Pay public money. Use Gov business control to decide policies. Travellers have to take a train to Terminal Five. International flights. Heathrow is so big people can miss their flights.
They have to arrive hours before because of congestion issues. End up expensive overnight stay for early flights etc. Spend hours extra hanging about just because of the congestion. Around the airport and the time getting there. One of the worse airport in the world? Other major international airports in the world are much better. Much easier and quicker to navigate.
Airlines pay for slots. That is how the airport authority make there money. They make their money from shopping, meals, activities etc. Gov have (business) control over Airport authorities. Business Law. International standards.
If Scotland loses devolved powers. There will be less direct flights from Scotland. The Westminster unionists will see to that. Cenralised economic policies.
Scottish democracy is at stake. A threat to the Scottish economy.
What happened to the reduction in APT?
Entirely O/T
I was thinking about our democratic deficit at Westminster and its causes (the parties placate English swing seats above everywhere else in order to win) and it got me wondering a few things.
In many ways the things I was thinking about might be unanswerable (since they ask about a perhaps unknowable future) but indulge me…..
Our system of elections at Holyrood mitigates against this a bit but where would the ‘swing seats’ in an indy Scotland be? Would Edinburgh be a more fiercely contested battleground than Glasgow and, if so, what would the consequences of that be?
Often, people in the rural areas express concern about a central belt bias (I write this as someone in central belt). But would some rural areas also be electoral battlegrounds and thus see some benefits? Or would there be too few seats? Could we enhance the power of the rural areas by making constituencies there smaller (with less voters in each obviously) or making central belt seats larger? Or will some rural areas gain voters anyway, if we have control over our immigration policy and can strategise towards repopulating the north etc?
Sorry if this is all a load of waffle but I guess I was just imagining and wondering about the electoral picture of a Scotland after independence
We should be thinking as ‘if in the early days of a better nation’, right?
Centres of power need good connexions. If you are not living in one, why would you require such accessibility? So the London-anglocentric mantra of Unionism might run.
BritState has no probs with foreign state owned companies running its transport systems. For example, RATP, the state transport provider in Paris, runs some 60 bus routes in London.
The reverse would just be unthinkable.
Signed DD’s petition
Still under 300, so get on with it.
link to change.org
On airports it seems inevitable that given the traffic there will be another runway at one of the London airports. There may be some benefit to Scotland from one site over another but overall this is a matter for those that live there. Abstaining on a primarily English matter seems reasonable.
I see that Keith Brown is out of the Cabinet. So the BBC trumpets any way. However, it says in the text as the new Deputy he is being freed up to campaign. I think Keith is about to head up an Indyref2
Prestwick will be a great commercial hub.
– Very close to a railway and a motorway;
– Long runways certified to accept even the biggest aircrafts;
– Compact enough to be navigable by foot in minutes.
Heathrow will end like dinosaurs.
Our railways will flourish, with – eventually! – proper investment in the Rail Network infrastructure.
We must not forget that our rail and road connections to Europe goes through England and the Channel Tunnel: because of the delays at the border, transport of people and fresh goods will no longer be viable.
We need ports in southern Scotland to bypass England and enter Europe via Ireland, Netherland, Denmark or Germany.
We need short haul flights from all Scottish airports – including Dundee and other minor ‘ports – to reach Europe jumping the queues at Folkestone and Dover.
There’s so much to do, so many jobs to create, so much infrastructure to build.
Independent Scotland will be a blast.
Graham says:
26 June, 2018 at 12:25 pm
How about a ceremonial mass burning of union flags outside westminster houses of parliament…?
Bit too hostile and inflammatory for my taste. Desperate Donald and Theresa might also bomb us in retaliation. Besides, the BritNats are already destroying their own flag by making it a global laughing stock.
Nah, just a wee match to the corner and Treaty of Union is gone. Says all that needs to be said… and half of the BritNuts will even agree with us…
I see that David Jamieson chap stating ‘only Theresa May can call an indyref’ on twitter.
We really need to bag this ‘we’re powerless and need permission’ chat forthwith. You’d almost think Mr Jamieson wanted people to get disheartened and give up.
Quelle Surprise.
link to thenational.scot
Aw, isn’t that nice !
Their pet lip got a shiny.
link to bbc.co.uk
The Orwell prize ffs !
Corrado Mella says:
26 June, 2018 at 1:46
There’s so much to do, so many jobs to create, so much infrastructure to build…
Aye, but let’s take our time and get the designs right, and be bold, rather than being bold with poor designs.
It’s a personal taste I suppose, but with Holyrood, we have one of the worst beside one of the best… (Dynamic Earth).
And yes, the Borders Railway was on a budget, but Lordy, it isn’t a pretty thing.
When we do get to cut loose with our Architecture, what say we give our Trades a look in? Let’s get our hammermen, our Stonemasons, Blacksmiths and Carpenters chiselling a place for themselves in Scotland’s 21st Century Building Trade… not just concrete blocks, timber frame and cladding shite, but true high caliber designs demanding exacting workmanship.
British Nationalists complain and outright lie about everything all the time, they’re loyalties are to England and everything that entails, they have no interest in improving the country they live in, they don’t even believe Scotland is a country, and yet they continue to stay in a country they don’t seem to like or respect as a country
British Nationalists could leave this horrible country they don’t like and the separatists it contains, who funnily enough are the people who DO want to stay here
So who actually ARE the separatists? Well it can’t be us Scottish Nationalists because we’re the ones who like it here and are working to make it even better sooo….
This is all a bit backwards isn’t it
Dr jim 2.26. You took the words right out of my mouth.
Just another slap on the ‘’Equal Partner’s’’ face. Time to get out folks …. High Time.
‘Fury as UK Government fails to give Scotland a voice over East Coast Main Line:
Transport Minister Chris Grayling has been lambasted for denying Scotland representation on the board of the new publicly owned London North Eastern Railway (LNER), which began running trains on the East Coast Main Line yesterday.
Unionchief Manuel Cortes said Scotland should have a seat at the table given that the line has more than 300 miles of track north of the Border and serves stations including Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness.
Cortes, who is general secretary of the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA), said: “It is typical of the pure anti-public sentiment held by privateer Tory Grayling that LNER will be running trains across Scotland without any Scottish representation on its board.
“But it’s also indicative that whatever Ruth Davidson thinks, Westminster Tories hold Scotland in contempt. Imagine taking East Coast back into public ownership and not even considering Scotland should have a right to a voice at the table. “The man’s not fit to run a bath let alone a railway.”
When LNER was announced, the TSSA and Scottish transport minister Humza Yousaf called for Scotland to have representation on the board.
Cortes said: “This is only fair. Scottish taxpayers fund the line and Scottish commuters and Scottish businesses rely on the trains to run on time. But it seems like failing Grayling is more interested in ‘jobs for the boys’ – appointing a former managing director of John Lewis and current Tory Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Stewart, to advise the board, but no-one from Scotland where the railway actually runs.”
“I am confident that Humza Yousaf is as frustrated as I am at the contemptuous way Grayling is treating the Scottish taxpayers and commuters and have no doubt that he, and passengers in Scotland, will back our repeated call for representation.”
He also called for Westminster to go further and give the Scottish Parliament a binding say over the future of services on the route.’
link to thenational.scot
……………………………………………..
The Welsh (mushrooms) like the Scots kept in the dark and fed bullsh*t.
On the power grab / SNP Commons walkout: 31 minutes in.
On the media such as the BBC: 39 minutes in.
link to youtube.com
If /when Scotland was Independent the Scottish Gov could subsidise important links flight routes for essential services. They do that now. By consulting with the airlines/airports authorities.
Westminster is subsiding Heathrow,Gatwick Stanstead big time with (Scottish) taxpayers money. Heathrow has massive subsidies from Westminster unionists. Just got £14Billion but it will destroy environment and increase congestion. More expense. Like Hinkley Point and HS2. All subsidised massively by UK taxpayers.
There is a move to modernising air travel. Seriously . Semi space travel. Shooting vehicle/vessels up into the atmosphere, then shooting down. Travellers would have to stand in restricted partitions. It would take about an hour to get to Australia. Use less fuel. Designers have already designed proposed interiors. These hubs could be based in Scotland. Better landscape and resources. Need space. Check the internet.
Experimental but could happen.Nasa experiments are behind it. Enterprenours are developing it. It would be expensive at first but could graduately be improved to become more commercial. Like many innovation and invention.. Like time travel as projected in the past. Scientists are looking to mine minerals from planets outer space soon. Within the next decade. Minerals are becoming scare only avaiable in certain countries for resources. BBC Four did a programme about it. Might be on the internet.
Corrado mella 1.46pm Irelands previous ferry link to the continent is cork to roscoff. I spoke to a guy from cork 4 weeks ago while waiting to come back on the ferry from bilbao. He told me they now had a ferry link started this summer from cork to santander.So none of their exports even need to go through engerland.
I know Trump is an arsehole but had no idea that Johnson actually lived there.
Just want to chuck in my tuppence worth on those who STILL insist on terming the enemy as “unionists” or even worse “Yoons”.
Their use of the term suggests that they believe that there is actually some form of “union” or partnership. No one but a misinformed and ignorant fool believes any such thing anymore. And the term yoon sounds almost slightly affectionate. I’d suggest those using the term examine their priorities a bit more closely.
There is no union and there are no unionists.
Those who want to continue the subjugation of Scotland are BRITISH NATIONALISTS.
No independence supporter with more than half a brain should call them anything else. As most of them are quite ignorant and stupid you find that calling them BRITISH NATIONALISTS unsettles them and puts them on the back foot, owing to the fact that they’re either too thick to know what you mean or that they sense you’re on to something about them which they don’t know how to deal with. Go ahead and try it, it’s fun.
Re 3rd runway vote at WM, sometimes I can’t help thinking that those WM SNP MP’s need a kick up the arse to remind them why they’re supposed to be there. Abstaining is the red tory way, it’s not supposed to be the SNP’s. They should have voted against. Very disappointed in them.
In essence, communications in Ukania is posited on the notion that London is the centre of the universe from which all access routes must radiate, according to their usefulness to the centre.
During the 300 years of the Union Scots helped to create this ‘monstrosity’. Had Scots been more pro-active in the power grabbing and retaining business the inconveniently placed city of London would not have had such an easy ride. The union system uses Scottish, Welsh or Irish talent provided it is a free offering to Britannia’s glory.
defo
He has joined the glitterati literati and so faded into irrelevance as far as Scotland is concerned.
A sort of Owen Jones.
Welsh sion 10.57am. I agree wholeheartedly with you.its just a shame you are outnumbered.
Abulhaq 3:08pm
“The union system uses Scottish, Welsh or Irish talent provided it is a free offering to Britannia’s glory.”
Time for that talent to bring down the so-called united kingdom – for the benefit of everyone, England included.
The reality of a united Ireland, and Scotland with its independence regained, just got closer:
link to thejournal.ie
Congratulations to the BBC on their usual accuracy of service.
link to ichef.bbci.co.uk
Health and Sport Secretary Shona Robison and Communities, Social Security and Equalities Secretary Angela Constance
Dan Huil says:
26 June, 2018 at 3:34 pm
The reality of a united Ireland, and Scotland with its independence regained, just got closer:
Are we calling this Brexit malarkey a material and irrefutable act of subjugation yet?
Dan huil 3.34. The arrogance of these b******s knows no bounds. May say’s , A historic moment for our country. What country is that? Because it aìnt Scotland. And, Delivering on the will of the “british “people? .I suppose that “british”equates engerland, because it certainly aint Scotland. Have you seen and heard enough yet PSB’s ? Are your knees not skinned and sore?
Brian Powell
You mean the old, disappearing up ones own posterior trick?
The ego is oozing out
@Breeks 3:49pm
We should be.
Bobp says:
Always did, always will!
Although for most it’s not just England, but Greater England with their deity given right to dominate all of these isles and mould them to their SE England model.
Some of us see things quite differently
British Nationalists ….BRATS for short.
The chairs are moving. Keith Brown. INDY2.
It’s so exciting
Breeks 3.49pm. Scotlands wishes have been ridden roughshod over. Time now to call this for what it is, subjugation of a nation. There’s two tribes in the camp now, Scots nats and brit nats. Time for the SG to dissolve, call an election with independence on the manifesto. That will be our referendum. The fearties will say wait and see, there’s nothing to see only misery,austerity,homelessness,foodbanks, job losses, snhs privatisation. Grab the mantle now and go for it.If some say, the people arent ready, then they’ll never be ready and deserve all the hurt thats coming their way.
Should have added that after brexit next march.we’ll never ever be allowed to leave this union.we’ll be swallowed up as a northern british region.
I know others have commented before but watching Parliament Live.
What a ludicrous, arcane way to take a simple vote on the EU Japanese Trade Bill that, now May has got her way, will have no impact other than exclusion from said feel post EExit.
It’s total bollocks when a simple press of a button could have established the result in seconds.
Jesus! Only one voted against! FFS a show of hands would have done it.
Now we have yet more divisions. Fuck knows what’s going on.
You couldn’t even run a parish council that way, never mind the UK.
Above, feel should read ‘deal’
Shona Robison is quitting the Scottish Government
Why for heavens sake?
Oh… the Orwell prize panel of judges, headed up by Lord Adonis, unlelected peer, previous advisor to Tony Blair and member of the British Nationalist Labour party.
@ smoothie: 4.46
She has quoted person problems
Her resignation letter to Ms Sturgeon said she had faced a “particularly challenging” year, including the loss of both her parents, a health scare and “some big changes in my personal life”.
Nicola found a cabinet reshuffle as we speak, so to speak.
FFS, output correct!
Found should read ‘having’!
Quote was from BBC ( ptoooo!) website.
Robison resigning, Constance resigning, Brown out of SNP Cabinet.
What’s going on?
@Proud Cybernat:4.55
Reshuffle + Brown wants to concentrate on manning the ramparts ready for any elections and a possible indyref.
@Gfaetheblock says: 26 June, 2018 at 12:53 pm:
“So you are suggesting that Prestwick should be Britain’s major hub airport”
Eh! Could you explain to me where I, “Suggested”, suc a thing, Gfaetheblock? As I claimed nothing of the sort.
” … rather than heathrow, and this is not the case because of the great whiskey tax con?”
No! I didn’t suggest or claim that either, but I will suggest you try a course of, “comprehension”, of Written English language as you comprehension of what I did say, not suggest, is rather lacking in cohesion and accuracy.
“Bonkers. Are CDG, Schipol and Frankfurt located to deprive the residents of the Brittany, Maastricht or Hamburg of tax?”
How would I know, Gfaetheblock? Seeing as I never mentioned anything like that and those countries seem to have far more creditable and, apparently, much more honest, democratic systems than Westminster has or will ever have.
” … Or could it be that they are at the major centres of population and where folk want to travel to?”
Here’s a quote for you:_
Nah! That’s putting the cart in front of the horse. London, ever since it was known as, Londinium, was artificially made into the centre for a system of customs & excise, and other forms of taxation, by the Romans. That was how the Romans ran the entire Roman Empire.
They taxed everything imported and exported from the many parts of their Roman Empire. The traded in everything including slaves. Were not Mary & Joseph on their way for a Roman census when Jesus was born? The purpose of that census was for levying taxes. Londinium was a major customs and excise centre and London still is.
Here’s another wee quote for you:-
link to en.wikipedia.org
So there’s the truth, Gfaetheblock, Londinium and its successor, The so called, “City of London”, that is the, (one Square Mile”, Financial Sector in London, originated as the Roman financial Sector as the Walled City Of London, Thus London became large centre of government, customs, excise and taxation before Christ was born and you are most certainly NOT reading what I did write correctly.
It is, quite simply a total nonsense for people out-with Greater London to have to travel to London Heathrow in order to board flights to, for example North America when the flight they connect with then sets out for its destination and flies immediately over The Scottish major airports, including Prestwick, on their way to North America. It becomes even more laughable when the most fog prone, Heathrow, then diverts incoming North American flights due to Heathrow being fogbound to Prestwick.
Now would you please stop attempting to put words into my comments that I did not use.
Scotland is the keystone in the Union architecture. Its removal would end the United Kingdom.
No more UK means relegation of the residual entity in the international league table.
The political consequences of that, given England’s potential rightward drift, might prove traumatic.
Shona Robison I think had the most difficult job in the Scottish government, constantly under attack from the British Nationalist parties and their pet media.
Constant stress of being under fire all the time despite running a department that proved to be the best in the UK during these times of Tory fuelled austerity.
It all must have been difficult coming on top of dealing with personal issues in her private life. She deserves a break and a good rest, we are all just people at the end of the day.
I for one hope to see her back when the time is right.
Folks, misleading headlines as usual.
After serving brilliantly in their respective posts, various members of the Scottish Government are moving to new posts or taking a break from the heaviest of the front line work.
It’ll be exciting to see who will be our new Cabinet =)
Many many thanks to all our SNP MPs and MSPs for their incredible hard work for steering Scotland through these years of inflicted austerity.
Shona Robinson especially, big hugs from me. Losing your parents and all the rest, hugs x
Thank you folks, I never realised that Shona was going through so much so good luck to her in the future.
WE have much to thank all the peeps that put their opinions on line fighting for the cause….we are getting there i am sure
Thepnr,
Couldn’t agree more.
It must be exhausting dealing with the media whose ethos is, quite frankly, ‘destroy, destruct!’.
They persistently claim policy areas are run defectively but any solution offered ‘will never work!’.
Deliberate Catch-22 (‘we will never admit you’re good no matter what you do’) and so it’s no surprise some of the Cabinet now need a well-earned rest from what must seem like a mental battering at times.
On a somewhat related note, the two boys doing ‘Scotia’ showed how to assess a policy area properly – no-one’s going to argue that housing has some issues – by outlining the issues and actually offering solutions that might change things for the better. This is, of course, because they were interested in offering *constructive* ideas rather than just trashing everything anyone might suggest.
That’s interesting.
STV news online seem to have two different headlines:
First: ‘SNP deputy and health secretary quit posts’
Later: ‘Nicola Sturgeon announces reshuffle of Scottish ministers’
Quite a different feeling to them both reporting the same information.
STV does itself a disservice trying to mislead its audience. Cheap trick.
I can only imagine how Shona Robison must have felt having to deal with the unrelenting and unfair criticism from that shower of braying fools that are the Opposition in Scotland. She did not court any controversy and always behaves with great dignity.
She has done her job professionally and with great skill – just compare her to Jeremy Hunt. She seems a thoroughly decent person with more class than the whole Opposition put together. Hopefully, we will see her back in the cabinet after a suitable break.
In any sane, normal country Shona would be being praised to the rafters for what she has achieved in the Scottish NHS,
but we live in a country full of the worst scum on the earth,
the BBC Scotland journalist/presenter,
i can accept the yoon for being miserable bile ridden slobs because that is the nature of the beast,
but the BBC, and especially Gary Robertson who seemed to have a particular pleasure in trying to attack Shona/SNHS,should be impartial with fact led journalism but instead lie,misinform deliberately/maliciously withhold the truth,conive with Tory/Labour and take an useamly pleasure in anything unpleasant happening in Scotland,
you would need the heart of a Bruce or a Wallace to put up with the day to day hatred and bile served up by BBC and its staff,
hopefully when we get Independence, and after removing the BBC and its employees from Scotland,Shona can return to do the fantastic job she has been doing for the sick and vulnerable of Scotland.
New Cabinet for the Scottish Government now announced on news.gov.scot/news/new-cabinet =)
Refreshed!
Looks promising and exciting!
Humza Yousaf is to be the new Justice Secretary – among his other responsibilities he will deliver on the new Hate Crime laws. A very good choice (understatement!)
And Jeane Freeman will be the new Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport. Brilliant!
Nicola Sturgeon certainly has a wealth of talent to choose from and it looks like she has made astute decisions here.
Welcome to your new posts and wishing our new Scottish Cabinet the very very best
And thank you thank you to Shona Robinson, Angela Constance and Keith Brown for serving Scotland so well =)
I had to go into the local surgery for tests this morning. The usual brilliant job, by a staff who are efficient, caring and committed.
The tests meant I had to sit in the waiting room for a couple of hours, before going back to complete them. There was a steady turnover of patients, but, one guy seemed to be having problems.
We got talking, and he went off on a: “Yon Nicola Sturgeon, total failure, nothing works – NHS, Police and Fire, blah-de-blah-de-blah.”
I suggested, maybe the best thing he could do would be to stop reading the papers, since he was talking shite. No, no, it was all the SNP’s fault, things were better in England.
“Well why don’t you go back there; pay for your prescriptions, enjoy the benefits of the English NHS, be governed by the Tories.”
Nods from one or two others sitting, then, fortunately, one of my mates came in, so I could ignore him, and he left, unseen by the doctors.
Apparently, he had not even tried to book an appointment, but had walked-in and expected to be seen, totally ignoring the appointments system which has been in use at the surgery for the past ten years.
I think he will be an unturnable No.
Scott Finlayson.
Gary Robertson!? In a real country with broadcasting for adults, I think we would quickly see mega-talented Gary rocketing to the top of his profession as Hospital Broadcaster of the month.
Very sorry to hear Shona Robison stepping down. She has had an extremely challenging brief as health secretary and to have to put up with the level of criticism she has endured most recently, it’s no surprise that she needs some space. She has been dealing with a lot of stress on top of a high profile stressful job. Something has to give.
Here’s hoping she will return again in the future. She has done an excellent job and has a good deal of experience now.
Thank you Shona. Have a well earned break.
Socrates MacSporran Could U no at least directed the guy to the receptionist after all he could hiv ah fractured ankle lol.
@Greannach 6.22 – I must take issue with your suggestion about a suitable job for Gary Robertson. If you listen to Tuesday Team Talk at 7 p.m. on Hospital Radio Perth you will hear people doing a far better job than Gary R. [It’s not only that my cousin has some input, you understand!]
@Ghillie
Humza Yousaf must have balls of steel LOL.
Straight from the frying pan that is transport and right into the burning fire of Justice Secretary.
Where once he just had to withstand mountains of flak over trains, potholes and lack of salt he will now have to deal with constant criticism and sniping over the political football that is the running of Police Scotland.
I think this new role might just suit him very well, I’m warming now to this reshuffle of the Scottish government ministers. Giving those that could do with a break an opportunity to recharge their jaded batteries.
New roles that must keep you interested in being given an opportunity to leave your mark for the ambitious. The appointment of Jeanne Freeman I think as Health & Sport Minister might be a master stroke. She’s no shrinking violet, that’s for sure. Looking forward to her first interview on GMS if they try anything on
It looks like the SNP really are preparing now for something big happening in the near future. What that might be though is anybodies guess.
The britnat bbc has helped force out a competent government minister in Shona Robison. Anyone still paying the bbc tax?
Thepnr With all the stress of her position & what she has endured in her private life Shona needs a long rest from the front line politics & hopefully she will be back refreshed .
Shona Robison’s had a dreadful time personally since she took the job not to mention the behaviour of the media throughout but has continued to fulfill her role brilliantly so time for a day off for a lovely lass at last
I very seldom watch STV News but watched it tonight because they had a full 30 minutes unlike Misreporting Scotland and I wanted to see details of the cabinet reshuffle.
I was really shocked – these bastards are worse than The BBC and that’s saying something.
Gus 1940
Like you I was disgusted with the twisted and downright lying it was presented.
Well done Shona Robertson who bravely stood her ground. In the face of the worst and lowest of the lowlife, opposition so called politicians I have ever came across.
You deserve a break.
PS
STV Scottish reporters or story tellers are in the same league as the above mentioned kid on politicians.
If only the Tory cabinet Minster’s in the Westminster government were given such a hard time everyday at how they are performing in there roles the UK would no be in the state it is.
This media of ours has a lot to answer for, a total disgrace to all of the people of the UK and not just in Scotland. There’s no doubting from me though that ours in Scotland is even worse in going in the opposite direction and we hear nothing else but criticism of Scottish Ministers whether due or not.
Who in Scotland would like Jeremy Hunt in charge of the SNHS or how about Gove looking after Education in Scotland?
Not fancy either of those then you could have May as our First Minister and Boris Johnson as her sidekick carving out a role in the world for Scotland post Brexit, dealing with all the world leaders on our behalf. How wonderful.
I think I might feel sick, will definitely have nightmares.
As one of the absolutely useless Feeble Four in the Labour Scottish branch, does Iain Grey really think he can persuade the U.K. government to listen to anything he has to says regarding Zero hours?
The electorate laugh at Iain in Scotland. If he got up on a stage anywhere it would be to scrub it.
From Stu’s twitter – the Scottish Office are promoting English gin, made in Cheshire, to an American market. That’s very “international” of them.
link to twitter.com
All the best to Shona Robinson, in my opinion as (at one time ) a regular user of the NHS, i think she did a wonderful job. However if there was one small cripe, the was too nice to the MSM , im hoping Jeanne Freeman will give them what they deserve. Its about time we stood up to their bullyboy tactics.
Shona is a woman of integrity, grit and intelligence and will be back all the stronger.
Humza and Jeanne are perfect replacements in their respective ministries.
An O/T link via Nana:
“It’s two minutes to midnight.”
link to facebook.com
Don’t have nightmares.
Socrates macsporran.6.13pm. “Well why dont you go back there” . Ah but socrates they dont want to go back. They want the benefits of everything in Scotland, but still want their beloved westminster in charge. God forbid we lose a 2nd referendum, the SG should stand back and let those people take the shock thats coming to them, that the SG have shielded them from for years.ungrateful selfish barstewards.
The Tory Government – where public money flows into Tory pockets as the first duty of the administration.
Shona Robison has done the right thing by resigning her post as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport.
So, I would like to thank her for doing the right thing.
Clearly, she has been through a lot in her personal life and I think it would have been wiser if she’d stepped down then.
I have no personal animosity towards Ms Robison as an individual; my criticisms were about her failures to take action when needed, as the political leader should, when informed of serious issues.
I wish her well for the future and hope she will be able to devote more time to the campaign for independence.
The BBC’s, tendentious Scottish politics webpage would seem to have been composed outwith Scotland.
The SNP has a depute not deputy leader. A London hack wouldn’t know that.
Colin ,COLIN,colin Shakespeare did it much better than you in Julius Ceasar. Might call it damned with faint praise.
Robison did an excellent job.
Bj 7.13pm.Iain grey on zero contract hours.would that be the same zero contract hours that many years ago tony bliar promised he would abolish at the liebor brighton conference before he got in lol.I’ll tell you as a 65 yr old who has lived through the liebor lies and deceit, anyone ( especially youngsters)who votes for these turds has a rude awakening coming.
link to snp.org
I’m with Shona
The new Scottish health minister should keep repeating the mantra ” we can only do so much with the money allocated from london”. Dont deviate from this when questioned by the ebc. Eventually the message will sink in to the stupid, and the bigots, especially when them and theirs need emergency treatment that wont be available unless they can afford to pay for it.
What does it mean to be perfect?
I doubt any human being could give an answer, the best that can be done is to be as good as you can be. Nobody, no matter the job they do are immune from criticism, it’s always going to hurt even a wee bit to be told you’re useless.
Try telling the proud painter that he’s left a few streaks on your living room wall or that he missed a bit. What about the poor referee they can never get it right but nobody other than him/her really care about that, though they do care.
I wouldn’t do a politicians job for double the money, I wouldn’t want all the travelling, meetings, paperwork or interviews that go with the job never mind the stick YOU will get because someone else fails in their duty.
Nah, wouldn’t be for me and I’m so glad that there are those that will take on such a role despite what it might cost them in feelings of self esteem or having your whole private life looked over and written about for purely political gain by cynical journalists and corrupt newspapers.
Thanks but no thanks, well done you that can and do manage on our behalf. You have my sympathy and respect, well that is, if your an honest politician and simply do the best you can. Rather you than me, the best I can do is support you.
Channel four reports Shona Robison sacked by Sturgeon after missing a series of cancer waiting times
Now I know some people might think Channel four might be different from the rest of British Nationalist “journalism” but can I suggest they’re wrong because this totally misrepresents and mischaractarises the truth and shows no respect for actual news reporting, Channel four news made up a headline to suit and agenda and that in my book places them along with the rest on the list for later
Famous15
I know things you don’t. Specific issues, not about the general running of the SNHS. Things I cannot discuss in any detail on an internet forum.
I hope the new Cabinet Secretary will be more pro-active when leadership is required and that an independent body for INVESTIGATING complaints will be introduced, so that in the future patients will have greater redress against misconduct by health care professionals and health boards and the NHS central body.
Seems lots of people liked Ms Robison. Maybe she was just too likeable, too trusting, too hands-off, too naive by trusting professionals to always behave professionally.
As Ms Robison has now done the right thing, I have nothing further to say on this subject.
Any chance of shutting your mouth on all subjects
Bobp @ 7:33
That was in 1995? Labour are still lying about banning Zero hours contracts 23 years later. Regurgitated crap and lies from intellectual challenged clowns like Grey and Leonard. Is that really all they have as argument?
Many thousands of people have realised in the last few weeks that there is no respect for Scotland from Westminster and they are now going to vote for the party that will get Scotland clear of the evil that is Westminster.
The Unionists in Scotland appear blind to the fact that their insults and abuse only make voters realise that Labour and Libdem are not the answer to a civilised progressive country like Scotland.
Even if I believed what the Unionist parties are offering I will never again vote for a unionist candidate.
With the BritNat requirement for imminent Scottish Brexit diversions, Nicola has made their targetting more difficult. Never easy to hit a moving target. Clever.
Please: no burning of Union flags, Union treaty, MSM newspapers etc.
Put them in recycling bins, where they belong.
Pretty good at reading English, are you sure when you reread this you were comfortable with the clarity of your point.
‘the most subjected to fog airport in the United Kingdom, (Heathrow), is pushed by Westminster while the most fog free, (Prestwick), was neglected’
My wife travels to the states with work regularly, mainly using HRW for Atlanta, Raleigh and NJ. Scotland could not sustain travel to these locations but London can. Scotland can sustain multiple daily flights to London though, so these trips are not hard. The alternative, EDI to New York is a nightmare if you have to get a connection, as generally Eu hubs are superior to US.
Your point about going to London to fly back over Scotland is flawed. I need to drive down a c road, over the motorway to then join an a road, then then motorway. That is how transport systems work!
The Scot gov support of the 3rd runway was correct, independence or not, having one of the worlds main airports 1 hr flight from the central belt is hugely important for Scotland. The SNP MPs just looked petulant last night. Stronger for Scotland?
BJ 8.05pm. They probably think/hope Scots people have goldfish memories, or relying on.the west of scotland bigot support.
I see the brit nat news media are impacting negatively on the Scot NHS by adding in the England and wales stats. BBC know it, ITV know it Channel 4 knows it. So do all their so called journalists.
@Gfaetheblock
“Scotland could not sustain travel to these locations but London can.”
You’ve caught the “cringe” mate and will likely suffer badly unless treated immediately. See a doctor ASAP, I hear the SNHS has some of the best and treatment for your symptoms shouldn’t hurt too much.
Removing the “cringe” though not straightforward is none too difficult if the patient want’s to be helped. Go for the treatment, you know it makes sense in the long run.
Think of all the things you could do better once rid of the “cringe”.
Nana is busy tonight on border patrol so these come via the Queen of Links (First Class):
link to twitter.com
the economy is gonna tank
link to twitter.com
link to holyrood.com
link to tarffadvertiser.blogspot.com
link to theorkneynews.scot
link to itisintruthnotforglory.wordpress.com
link to randompublicjournal.com
This may put your BP up a notch or two or three or………………..
link to indyref2.scot
You may, of course, wish to keep them for your breakfast reading tomorrow.
Gfaetheblock 8.14pm . aye its funny how dublin has no problem sustaining flights to these locations. I get it. The irish dont have “proudirishbut’s”.
There’s no denying public transport in Scotland, in general and specific areas, is crap.
I travel very frequently: both domestic and overseas using every conceivable permutation. Think about joining or leaving a ship 8000 miles away on a company budget.
Congo airport is far superior to Edinburgh, our Trams are pointless and Kyle might as well be Zanzibar.
Getting to Edinburgh from Fife by public transport to catch the first flight isn’t possible as its so crap.
In fact Scottish transport is so shite I’m embarrassed when travelling.
However, none of that is reason to down the SG on its achievements, its a reason TO BE INDPEPENDENT!
And to imply we aren’t capable of such things fits in the “Too Stupid” category.
Would liked to have seen a new ministerial department for our Government,
Ministry of Corrections/Truth :),or Ministry to Counteract Fake News,
the minister and their departments portfolio would be to protect all the citizens of Scotland (yoon and patriot) from fake news,
they would analyse the days newspapers and the BBC`s Gary Robertson and correct any mistakes that these media outlets had inadvertently tried to pass off as the truth,
they could then broadcast the results every night at 9 o`clock.
Michael Matheson no longer justice secretary.
Another piece of good news today from the FM.
Well done Nicola Sturgeon.
Glad you took my advice.
BBC/STV/C4/Sky all doing their masters bidding – save the Union.
They’ve all been at it for years. The good news is that more of us each day are waking up to their manipulation, lies and obfuscation.
Good to see Ross Thomson getting his arse skelped by the speaker today. The folks who voted for him must be hiding under their sofas by now.
Supporting a third runway at Heathrow makes no sense for Scotland. It’s a bit like arguing that there’s no demand for a product because you don’t stock it.
The important point is that, as long as London keeps control of the economy, flight schedules are dictated by their needs, not ours. Population may be sparse north of the central belt, but with a Scotland centred economy and possibly even our own airline, at least choices could be made to suit the whole of Scotland’s needs. Schedules and hubs would be dictated by our economy, not London’s.
Some routes may never be sustainable but at least we could devise schedules and timetables that allow us to link in to those routes conveniently.
Frankly I’d do anything to avoid the madness at Heathrow.
Bill 9.05pm. Exactly Bill,the infrastructure in Scotland(as opposed to Ireland)) has.been deliberately run down by those barstewards in london to undermine our economy. Its so bloody obvious. Keep the sweaties down.
Justice Secretary Humza, word of advice, my friend.
When even Audit Scotland highlights the lack of accountability for Police Scotland I politely suggest this deficit in accountability should be a top priority.
A hands-on approach needed. Don’t let them run themselves like the Health Boards – we see how that turns out. And tackle problems right away, don’t worry about ruffling feathers.
They’ll maybe no like you as much but, they’ll respect you.
Good luck in your new role.
Mundell and his department are guilty of cultural ginocide.
Shinty 9.10pm. People like that dont hide under their sofas shinty. Two faced fcukers like that say, It wisnae me.
@Colin Alexander
“Well done Nicola Sturgeon. Glad you took my advice.”
Colin are you really that conceited? It’s a rhetorical question so no answer needed.
You’re a nasty little political non entity that would stir up bile against hard working MSP’s in the Scottish government but only it seems if they are of an SNP persuasion.
You burnt your bridges here on Wings a long time ago but even I didn’t think you’d have the brass neck to come here today and crow about Shona Robisons resignation.
Did you have a personal gripe about YOUR complaint, is that the real issue for you? Try addressing your complaint to Anas Sarwar or Miles Briggs.
Wishing you luck as you will surely need it to even get a reply.
Threpnr – Scotland is smaller in population and economic importance than the Greater London area. Is that the cringe? It is also smaller than New York. Is that the cringe as well, or is the cringe an anti English thing? Scotland is bigger than wales. What is that? I never get the cringe point.
Bobp – Dublin airport is a nightmare to use in my experience, I avoid where possible (Shannon is fun though). Dublin has special arrangements with the US for pre clearance of passports which is a benefit, but the volume of intercontinental flights is limited, nothing compared to Heathrow, but at 21 is not dissimilar to edinburgh’s 15 (and I didn’t check Glasgow.). Stop talking Scotland down please.
Thanks BobP. You’re spot on, deliberately deprived in every way possible to build a better country.
I hate Edinburgh airport so much I’m pleading with my company to just book a train. I’d rather take 5 hrs to London by train and catch a connection to Southampton than endure that shithole.
GfaeTheBigG,
Dublin is absolutely fine, are you sure you travel?
BigGFaeTheBigG,
Dublin is a fine airport, are you sure you travel?
Gfaetheblock 9.22pm. Oh i dont talk Scotland down, only the brit nats who reside there.
@Thepnr
Our resident unpopular no mark doesn’t like strong women and especially SNP women, he’s going to hate Jeanne Freeman
Ronnie Anderson
I’ve left a message for you on Off Topic
Gfaetheblock says:
26 June, 2018 at 9:22 pm
Threpnr – Scotland is smaller in population and economic importance than the Greater London area.
That’s one nasty assertion, “Scotland is smaller in … economic importance than the Greater London area”
Economic importance: em, that fits in the “Too Poor” category.
In one post he’s managed Too Wee, Too Poor and Too Stupid for independence. That’s a Yoon Troll if I ever saw one.
The SNP have only been in charge in political terms for five minutes and look how much they’ve accomplished in that time with only very limited partial powers
It’s not like they’re the English dictatorship parliament brooking no dissent with total control over everything including us
Wee bit of realism at times
Heathrow operator Ferrovial to move HQ’s to Amsterdam.
Good reshuffle, Thanks guys and gals. Well done everyone.
Well!! Well!! Well!!!
link to caltonjock.com
@Gfaetheblock
The “cringe” is unfettered belief that bigger is always better, That’s why London can have Heathrow, Gatwick, City Airport and within an hour Luton and Stansted.
The “cringe” is a refusal to accept that Scotland unlike European countries of a similar size and that it is unable to run flights direct from their own country to most destinations in the world like other normal countries do.
Have you ever been to Oslo airport or Copenhagen with direct flights all over the world?
It’s the “cringe” that holds you back, it holds Scotland back. Cast of the cringe FFS, there is nothing about Scotland that prevents us as a people doing even better than these other small countries manage to do.
That’s the problem with the “cringe” the carriers do not even realise that they have it, you are the spreaders of doom. The antidote is Independence and taking ALL responsibility for the running of your own country.
Westminster has proven how incompetent they are for decades, those suffering the “cringe” don’t believe we can do any better as an Independent country but they are wrong. I really can’t see how it would be possible to do worse in Scotland AND still get away with it. Couldn’t happen.
The MSM are spreaders of the cringe and you have overdosed on it. If you haven’t realised yet that the MSM and politicians lie to you to keep feeding your “cringe” then it may be that your beyond saving.
It’s up to you. Break free and help make your country free from the parasites that feed upon it’s people.
It’s us, they feed on us and those with the “cringe” fear them and so do nothing to change the situation for ALL in our country.
In fact the cringe is the biggest obstacle to Independence as the “cringe” is purely as a result of MSM and political propaganda for centuries. You have it bad by the way.
Gfaetheblock, have you looked at IcelandL , I traveled to the States via there fairly recently and it was a lot better rhan using London or Amsterdam. Robert Peffers is correct, in a previous life
I used to travel extensively all around the World, Houston was a fairly regular trip, leave my House at Brig O Don, Aberdeen at 5am for first flight to Amsderdam,
5 hours later I would be five miles above my House and .i aint joking, on the odd occasion when there wasnt much cloud , I could look directly down on my house.
Btw Having visited Cambodia several times I know that there is a weekly direct flight from Helsinki to Siem Riep . To get there, I had to fly to Amsderdam, amsderdam to Kuala Lumpar and KL to Sirm Riep.
With Scotland being directly underneath the North Atlantic flight paths it is ideally placed to have a major International hub at Prestwick.
Bill
Yep, I travel more than I would like to, but like the transport links Edinburgh give me to the world.
I have not said too wee, poor, stupid at any point, I have never said these points and find they are generally only flung about when a benefit of closeness to England is mentioned and there is no logical response available, this gets shouted.. If Scotland is bigger than London, I will happily be corrected, what I am stating that Scotland is fortunate to have great access to Heathrow and schipol, and does not need a mega airport like them to thrive. This point is Indi-agnostic.
Scotland is the most important place in the UK. Especially for those who live there. Deprived of democracy since 1928 and before. Illegal under UN treaty and basic human rights. That is why Devolution was established. Scotland has undeniable assets and resources misused by Westminster criminals. Keeping accounts etc secret under the Official Secrets Act. Dunblane,
Iraq, Lockerbie kept secret under the Official Secrets Act for 100 years.
Ken500. 9.55pm.Ah see what you mean ken, a bit like the Mcrone report. Over the heads of the plebs though.
@ Bill: 9.05
To get to Edinburgh airport, go to either Halbeath P&R or Ferry Toll P&R and get the 747 to the front door at Edinburgh Airport. Fantastic service runs through the night as well. Came back from Spain a few weeks ago, straight on the bus and over the bridge to pick car up. At Midnight!
I would rather go direct anywhere from EDN than go via Heathrow. In fact if you have to connect it’s better ( and usually cheaper) to go via Dublin or Amsterdam Schiphol.
Not everything revolves around London
Thepnr. 9.53pm IN absolute agreement.
Colin (glad you took my advice) Alexander. You are funny ???
Nana and Smallaxe are out on border patrol tonight so these come via the Queen of Links:
link to twitter.com
the economy is gonna tank
link to twitter.com
link to holyrood.com
More to follow.
Nanalinks2:
link to tarffadvertiser.blogspot.com
link to theorkneynews.scot
link to itisintruthnotforglory.wordpress.com
Flights from Glasgow to Dubai, on to the east, Asia. Flights to Ireland then over Iceland to US take less time. People can stopover if they have time. Now direct flights to China. There are flights from Manchester essier to connect to US etc. Direct flights from Scotland to France then onwards. Much better International airports than Heathrow. Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, Dubai, Hong Kong. Bangkok Charles de Gaulle. Boston.
The smaller the airport the easier the journey. . A log of people do not like flying. Prefer the train or boats,
Thepnr
Thanks for the response, I can confirm that I do not have the cringe.
Ps, I don’t think most countries have airports have a airport that fly to most destinations, the air transport industry works on a hub and spoke model.
Nanalinks3:
link to randompublicjournal.com
This may put your BP up a notch or two or three or………………..
link to indyref2.scot
Of course, you may wish to save some for breakfast.
I’m guessing most people won’t know this about the Heathrow expansion and the third runway.
I’m sure you do know that the cost is estimated at £14 billion, this is a figure reduced from the original of £16.5 billion. Now don’t worry we’re not supposed as taxpayers to contribute to any of that.
The private owners will raise all the money through borrowing so we’re told, their debt by the way is already close to £15 billion and they are pretty skint. So only if it goes tits up halfway through construction might we have to bail them out?
The bit I’m guessing you didn’t know though is that in addition to the £14 billion that is to be spent at and around Heathrow, there will be an estimated minimum of another £10 billion to be spent by Transport for London which is state run on improvements to infrastructure.
This for the increase in traffic of 50% with the new runway, spent on roads, railways parking ect. Where is that money coming from. From the Treasury of course and out of our taxes.
My only question is will this spend by Transport for London be a “project of national importance” meaning WE all pay it for it with no benefit to Scotland or will there be Barnett consequentials that we can spend on our own infrastructure projects here in Scotland?
I think I know the answer to my own question. Scotland will get Hee Haw.
From the FT for the full story, makes for painful reading:
link to archive.li
Nanalinks4:
link to m.facebook.com
Oh dear, no! Rajoy to turn to now Mrs Mayhem:
link to bloomberg.com
That’s all, folks!
Colin Alexander-
I really wish you would spend your time seeking political office.
You are obviously too good at politics for Wings, the SNP and Scotland.
You must take your talents to the coal face ASAP.
With Scotland’s NHS, our Rail Transport, our care in the community, our council tax bills, our free prescriptions,
our free university place all make us head and shoulders better than any other part of the UK, but you are not happy with that?
PS The rain is coming on. Better get your Union Jack in quick.
ALERT READERS!
Colin Alexander said –
‘As Ms Robison has now done the right thing, I have nothing further to say on this subject’.
But just an hour or so later said –
‘Don’t let them run themselves like the Health Boards – we see how that turns out. And tackle problems right away, don’t worry about ruffling feathers’.
Get yer lying self tae fuck, Colin.
Risky commenting on here, lest I become associated with trollin’ Colin.
@Ken500
Shortest postings you ever made, and bang on the mark, both of them. It even makes me wonder if the rest of the reshuffle was a mask for that, a little sleight of hand.
I’d add Angela Constance, I voted for her as depute becaue of her wider YES involvement, She’s a little unconventional and maybe there’s a purpose there too.
So far, I’ve been very impressed by Jeane Freeman.
I think she’s the right person for the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport position.
And I think Humza Yousaf is a far better choice than Mr Matheson for Justice.
I’ll see if Mr Yousaf replies when serious issues are raised, instead of the Civil Servant fob-offs when Mr Matheson’s was “in charge”.
Nice work, Nicola.
Now, drop the plans for a smacking ban. Make it clear no hitting on head or face or torso. No use of implements. Nothing that can cause injury.
But loving, caring, parents should not be criminalised for smacking their children when used as a chastisement by parents if needed in limited circumstances.
And the criminal age of responsibility should not be raised when drug dealers then exploit 10 and 11 year old children as drug couriers or as cat burglars, because the Police can’t touch them.
(that’s your 4.14 and 4.15 postings Ken500)
My youngest son, his wife, 3 children and his parents-in-law this morning flew from GLASGOW to PHILADELPHIA. Final destination is Orlando.
Same son also flies regularly all over the world with his job. Usually flies via Schipol but I don’t whether he or the company books the flight.
Scotland is doing many international flights.
Thepnr10.21pm. Ah well no doubt the britnats in Scotland are happy with this pulling and taking arrangement from the Scottish taxpayer. Sorry that should read ‘pooling and sharing’ . My a**e.
Thatcher centralised travel through London. Built Tilbury Docks 26 miles. Closed ports all around. supported roads not rail travel. Invested in roads in the south. Motorways. Scotland still does not have proper motorways. Ireland has better roads. Got a lot of EU grants for roads and lengthy tunnels.
Dublin is so congested. The traffic jams are horrendous especially at peak times. Airport is good. International US flights. Direct flights to Dublin and Belfast.
Mmm, I like the expression “Clearing the decks for action”.
To be followed by a full broadside, cutlasses at the ready.
Steady boys, steady, and girls! Wait till you see the whites of their eyes. Or something.
louis.b.argyll
Follow your own eloquent advice.
I did not repeat criticisms against a certain person, that’s what I meant. And I haven’t.
I’m speaking positively about the SNP cabinet re-shuffle and expecting better performances.
I’m upbeat about the SNP Scot Govt tonight. So there. Don’t spoil it.
And if someone wants to insult me instead of debating the points I raise, the latest fashion in Wings insults is: “concern troll”.
Plain old Troll, 77th Brigade and Labour-loving Britnat Unionist are old hat insults by now.
Do keep up.
Now if the UK cannot last,
in your heart you may discover
That the flame needs air to burn,
and soon it’ll be all over.
If the UK cannot last,
in your heart you may discover
That the flame needs air to burn,
and soon it’ll be all over.
Give this a wee boost if you haven’t already folks:
link to change.org
Remember they are Blarite Red Tory British Nationalists
Supported by Hugh ‘SiU Green Ink Gang member’ Pennington
and
Anne ‘Campaigns against Indy2014 side by side with the National Front’ Begg
Keep them and their hypocrisy in the public eye.
Keep the pressure on them.
Neil Findlay has tweeted a disgracefully ignorant comment about Shona Robison.
If you don’t usually ‘do’ Twitter (or perhaps know someone who does) and would like to give him more pelters to add to his growing collection, his Twitter-hingmy is @NeilFindlay_MSP
PS Colin Alexander – now that the SG has acted upon your advice, could you please just STFU, at least for a wee while?
True story. I had to visit my local health clinic tonight for a septic wound. I was seen within 30 mins and came home with antibiotics. No charge. Staff very kind and helpful even though I hadn’t made an appointment.
It’s personal experience that confounds all the scare stories the media broadcast. Well done the SNHS. Thanks to Shona Robison and their dedicated staff they provide an excellent service. I hope she enjoys the break from frontline politics and comes back to take up another role soon.
So has Sarwar, Ian B:
link to indyref2.scot
Way past time the electorate of Scotland put an end to the Red Tory story via the ballot box.
liz g reply in OT for you .
No place for fascists, or for that matter scaremongering bloggers.
@Ian Brotherhood
Neil Findlay could be Colin Alexander
Yeah yeah Colin, keep up. You insult our intelligence daily.
I’m not expecting better performances from reshuffled cabinet positions, only fresh determination. Now off you pop, chap.
#Colin Alexander @ 10:27 pm
“But loving, caring, parents should not be criminalised for smacking their children when used as a chastisement by parents if needed in limited circumstances.”
Most countries disagree with you. They have banned, or an in the process of banning the smacking of children.
Regarding ‘chastisement’
link to fullfact.org
“There’s not one UK rule on parents smacking children. The starting point is that it has been legal as “reasonable chastisement” or in Scotland as “justifiable assault”.”
@Jockanese Wind Talker –
Cheers for heads-up, hadn’t seen that one.
It really is quite incredible, the utter lack of self-awareness in these characters. That’s Findlay, Iain Gray and Sarwar now, all attacking Shona Robison *after* her statement was released…
What do they think they’re doing? Mounting a concerted attack? Do they envisage some great PR coup from this behaviour?
An hour or so ago I asked Findlay directly, on Twitter, to name one of his ‘comrades’ who could’ve done a better job. He hasn’t replied.
What a disgrace the Labour Party in Scotland has become. Utterly shameful stuff.
The Labour party fail badly once again when trying to score points at Shona Robisons decision to resign. She decided to call it a day and who could blame her yet Labour claim this as some kind of “victory” over the SNP.
There is no lower to go once you are lower than the low, yet that is where Labour in Scotland find themselves now. Sarwar and Findlay must be so stupid to believe that they could make political capital over this.
Couple of failures and looking at my crystal ball it only looks like getting worse for them in future. The people of Scotland have had enough of bullshit and just eneough are getting wise enough that our voices will drown their’s out when it comes to it.
If labour want to survive they must come over to supporting Independence before the next referendum or every one of them will be in the wilderness probably for good. This is their last chance to do the right thing.
Media attacks on the Scottish government entirely unwarranted
link to caltonjock.com
OT. Daisy Walker
I’m looking for the Details of the Tape you had made
My local Yes group are very interested…
Can you post them on Off Topic for me Please?
Ian Brotherhood
I was in hospital today for a check-up.
Got a hospital appointment for examination within A FEW DAYS after GP referral.
Excellent service. Nothing but praise for the service I received.
Happy to give praise for the SNHS. Despite some serious issues, it is the envy of the world (and UK too).
And now, on that word of praise for the Scottish NHS, I’ll shut up, just to please you.
Colin Alexander 10:34 pm
louis.b.argyll
‘Follow your own eloquent advice.
I did not repeat criticisms against a certain person, that’s what I meant. And I haven’t.’
Lol, ‘on the subject’ it’s pretty clear Colin. See we can all be pedantic twits if warhorse.
Really sad/disappointed that Shona Robison has stepped down.
I can only imagine the glee the most useless opposition in the history of any parliament will have,(Radio Shortbread, Gurning Burd included) as they will claim a scalp in the SNP, ( just like Alex Salmond stepping down)knowing full well the unionist opposition are totally inept and useless at governing.
Sarwar is just another moron who has zero credibility in real politics.
As said countless times before, the SNP could find a cure for cancer and
Slab, Tory, Lib Dum = No vision, No idea, No clue. would still vote against them.
A sad day for Scottish politics.
We choose x robot = warhorse?
Someone on twitter doing a poll about `Siol nan Gaidheal`
never heard of them,
but seems they are getting blame for the Tory Scum Out banner,
anyone on Wings know about them or could put up a link to some info,
seems they are either blood and soil or they love their country and its people.
@Colin Alexander –
We’ve been onto you for ages.
Only newcomers to this place could possibly fall for your shite – they’re quite clearly your target audience.
I doubt many of them are buying it, but who knows?
You do what you have to do brother! God loves a trier, eh?
Labour Party in Scotland Failed Scotland when It had charge of the NHS
link to caltonjock.com
frogesque says:
26 June, 2018 at 10:02 pm
@ Bill: 9.05
“To get to Edinburgh airport, go to either Halbeath P&R or Ferry Toll P&R and get the 747 to the front door at Edinburgh Airport. Fantastic service runs through the night as well. Came back from Spain a few weeks ago, straight on the bus and over the bridge to pick car up. At Midnight!”
Can I leave my car for 2 months?
Its a joke service, standing at inverkeithing in the pissing rain for a train that doesn’t connect up from the bus that just dropped me off from the airport.
I’ll say again, I cannot get to Edinburgh airport from Kirkcaldy by public transport to catch the first flight to London. Its a joke!
As said countless times before, the SNP could find a cure for cancer
…and they would be condemned for ‘fatally’ damaging one of the foundations of the NHS.
Hard working pharma sales reps thrown on the scrap heap etc
As for Cringe, after 30 years of globe trotting I’ve never come across BritScot Yoon Cringe in any other nationality.
Nobody from Norway sneers at their country and asserts “look were too wee too poor and too stupid” in a Golum accent.
ONLY in Scotland do we have individuals that cringe at anything remotely linked to their nation, heritage or its future possibilities.
ONY in Scotland do we have “Scots” that hate themselves.
Gary45%,
..sigh, indeed.
Politically motivated resistance from corrupt Trade Unions is actually blunting progress, risking inequality.
Sigh..
@ Scot Finlayson
Massive can of worms to be opening right now.
Personally, I am saddened by the division that is being created regarding this. Our Westmonster overlords would love nothing better than to see us tearing each other to shreds and ultimately imploding. We should not air our dirty linen (if indeed it is such a thing) in public when a quiet word would have sufficed.
There are good people in the indy movement falling out over this BS and as far as I am concerned our unity is our strength. Who really gains from this? I think we all know the answer to that one.
I wish everyone would just get back on side and keep their eyes on the prize.
Scot Finlayson says:
26 June, 2018 at 11:22 pm
Someone on twitter doing a poll about `Siol nan Gaidheal`
never heard of them……see link to weegingerdug.wordpress.com
Scot Finlayson
link to en.wikipedia.org
link to siol-nan-gaidheal.org
Posts on their facebook page have complained about the banner.
link to facebook.com
Northern Rock put on the moderation list. How many times do I have to say I’m fucking sick of this shite?
@Thepnr, Ian B: surely relevant for our sub-standard visitors…
link to youtube.com
Liz g,
Hi Liz, I don’t know how you managed to miss me at Bannockburn, I was within 10ft of the Wings stall the whole day.#Specsavers.
Hi Ronnie,
Labour supporters in Scotland tonight being unpleasant at their own party being unpleasant and showing the party up as being unpleasant, many unpleasant comments on Twitter followed about Labour being unpleasant
Do we think it’ll be much longer before they see a pattern emerging
I have a picture of James Kelly’s face in my mind I can’t get rid of
Could have sworn I heard toodle-loo mention that Nicola Sturgeon and Shona Robison were at Uni together. Now I have seen a tweet which says this is untrue. I wonder where this fact came from, I hope toodle-loo is now not just moving on from Labour handout stories to Labour tweet inaccuracies.
BBC research, check Labour and Tory tweets for derogatory SNP ‘facts’.
Surely even more relevant…
link to youtube.com
Smallaxe @ 12.23
Hi Smallaxe,I don’t know either….. I’m not doing it deliberately LOL…
I was there twice too…next time for sure,I’ll make it my mission for the march!
Stay well my dear friend and tell mrs Smallaxe I’m asking for her ,XX.
Back on topic:
Have any of you used trains in Wales?
Its shocking, they would be better with steam engines and traditional Pullman carriages.
Notice the trend on social media of Wales for Yes? Back in 2014 I ran a spoof Wales For Yes Twitter account that attracted thousands of Welsh.
Light touch paper and stand back.
Thanks Boris, for the link. Ah, the bad old days.
Last post, its late.
That 747 bus link is pointless unless you’re a holiday maker. Cant get to Edinburgh for first flight, as for it running all night, again fine if its a car youre picking up from P&R either Halbeath or Ferrytoll. Cant leave my car for months while I’m at sea.
Pointless and crap, but I hold onto hope that an independent Scotland would invest in better services for those working.
Hopefully not extend the stupid Trams first then more Borders railways,
Shona Robison is four years older than Nicola Sturgeon.
Scott Finlayson,
I dont think they’re a Scottish equivalent of, eg BNP. More of a national restoration group as opposed to annihilation and supremacy.
Rev,
Four years? that’s a long time in politics.
The thing is that after months, years of anti-SNP hysteria about the NHS, Scotrail, Police Scotland and whatever, this shuffle has totally castrated the MSM (and CA) for the next 6 months because clearly new secretaries or ministers can’t be held responsible for previous “shambles” and have to be given time to get into the job.
So something is likely to happen in the next 6 months, whether it’s another snap GE (unikely) or …
Colin Alexander @ 19:27 (among far too many)
Do you really have to prove to the whole wide world time and time again every day what a busy-bee self-important conceited little prick you truly are?
Do you really think that anyone in the SG gives a flying fig what you think?
All I want to know is this – it’s a very simple question that’s easily answered – is “Colin Alexander” your real name…?
@yesindyref2 @ 1:12
I agree. The SNP are shaping up for the ballot boxes being used. IMO opinion a good tactic and one we’d all do well to mimic in terms of our campaigning.
Others asking about Siol nan Gaidheal (seed of the Gaels)- were formed in 1978 banned from the SNP in 1982. They’ve got a fairly inactive public forum onlne. I spoke to a couple of them some time ago at freedom square. They seemed well meaning but harmless if somewhat anti english, so expect the MSM to frame them as the Scottish al queda…
“Scotland is smaller in … economic importance than the Greater London area”
Big {bleep}ing deal.
Overall it may also be smaller than Tokyo, New York and any number of other places.
But size doesn’t really matter, its how it gets put to use that counts.
Bailing out England is sub optimal utilisation of Scotland’s not inconsiderable resources.
`Siol nan Gaidheal` and the Tory Scum Out banner”
let SnG take part in the AUOB marches – They are a voice from Scotland
it’s up to the organisers to let SnG and other people/groups know what are the acceptable types of messages on banners.
if SnG agree to conform -fine,
let’s hope they bear in mind the end is greater than the means – or something like that!
@Gerry
If that was in 2014 at the Hope Over Fear, likely the same guy who unfortunately sat next to me away from the stage. I’m born in Scotland but brought up in England and mostly have an English accent (Welsh parents). He was really objectionable, to put it politely. Some badly put together anti-English leaflet I think “Why should the English get to vote in Scotland?” or something like that. There were a couple of younger people with him going around giving out these leaflets. Everyone avoided him, I can understand why.
Luckily it was time to go get some food, as I stepped around a couple of photographers lying on the ground for some odd reason
Gerry @ 01:43 @
Hmmm. Well-meaning in the sense that they wouldn’t cut your throat as soon as look at you, or merely toxic enough to convince quite a number of potentially winnable converts (including every single resident English-born voter) that this kind of blood-and-soil nationalism is not to be touched with a bargepole?
So in my book not exactly “harmless” at all.
And there’s no such thing as being “somewhat” racist. As impossible as being “somewhat” pregnant.
But you’re right – they make a great target for opponents of indy to latch onto. Something of an own goal there, for sure.
Carefully contrived or just stupidly self-obsessed? You decide.
@RJS
At the time before I’d heard of SnG, and before so much of the flag trolls we see (though well after abiesalba – Heed’s Slovenian girlfriend (she’s a great kisser apparently) was identified by some as a potential one on the Grun), I wondered if they were a false flag operation. Now I know better, errr, or maybe not. A bit the same in a way as the Tartan Terrorists, SLA (?) and SNLA back in the 70s / early 80s.
@Robert j “well meaning” in the sense that they thought that what they were doing was for the right reasons ie the good of their country. “Harmless” in the sense that they weren’t actually going to do anyone any harm. They were more likely to get hassle than to dish it out.
There’s always going to be that braveheart element within the yes movement, and they will always be magnified out of all proportion by those who wish to tar us all with the extremist anti english brush.
@indyref2 That sounds like them to a “T”. They’re such a small minority that it has to be the same people. At one point I watched a huge english guy go over and asked them for a leaflet. Meek as lambs they were, and not so loud.
yesindyref2 @ 02:24,
At one point on last Saturday’s march I found myself alongside their giant banner. Took one look and decided very quickly that I wasn’t going to associate myself with anything as hateful as that, so skipped ahead and ended up beside some “English for indy” folk.
Much more agreeable company all round!
gerry @ 02:41,
I have the feeling that you may be missing my point, Gerry. They might be as nice as pie in person, but with that message they’re as toxic to the chances of winning IR2 as the Nirvana leftards.
So it’s not physical, fine, but selfishly endangering our future by needlessly aggravating many people who will most certainly have a vote to exercise, is harm just the same.
This indy thing isn’t some kind of silly posturing competition, it’s for keeps.
@Robert – Nobody’s missing your point, certainly not me. And nobody said that they were “nice as pie” so don’t attribute that to me please.
As for their influence on IR2, if it were that simple to put the campaign off the rails the state will have that covered no doubt. The fact is that it is just not that easy to derail us, although I suppose I can understand your concern on a certain level.
I just choose not to give these people the level of attention that they crave, and unlike you, I don’t over estimate their ability to impact a movement as inclusive as this. Good choice on your walking buddies though.
@Graham
Right. As someone pointed out during IR1, its not about size of the economy, its about quality of the economy.
If we have lost a good SNP Minister due to the alleged “state” of our NHS, then don’t you think Scotland needs a “Minister” to address the outrageous media propaganda manipulating our news and public affairs broadcasting?
I know Broadcasting is a reserved matter, but why don’t we set up a Scottish Watchdog to oversee Westminster’s performance with these powers it professes to hold. We are the sovereign people of Scotland, so all powers, whether Westminster’s or Holyrood’s, begin with us and are delegated to government.
If Westminster is failing in its capacity to deliver effective broadcasting, then they are failing in their remit, and we have due cause to withdraw our consent for them to administer Broadcasting.
What do you call a country that is neither a democracy, republic, dictatorship or monarchy, but which is occupied and ruled by its TV channels? Oh that’s right, … Scotland.
Dr Jim @ 8.01 pm
Brilliant! Just brilliant
Breeks, I agree with you completely.
We live under the UK’s chosen system-
A neo-con-media-monarchy?
(with a hint of a public conscience but less than Trump’s Republicans)
It’s got so faux, that if I say TORY SCUM without context, I’m the fascist, lol.
That photo of the royal highland show with the union flag all over the place may suffer some damage from an errant bull or coo !
I would be taking a big bull for a walk round there!
I watched Landward on the RHS and , even though it was the BBBC , saw no sign of the ‘fleg’ – granted I was not glued to the telly and may have missed much of the coverage .
As presenters I’m quite fond of Nick , Dougie and Ewan – the same cannot be said for other BBBC presenters.
Sainsbury’s , Marks and Spencers , Tesco’s , Morrisons have been sticking union flegs on their produce or the last couple of years , makes shopping really difficult in those stores.
I wish the English , Welsh and Northern Irish would wake up to the branding of their goods . I would much prefer a cross of St George or a Welsh dragon and would be able to identify how far the goods had travelled in an instant- something in which I thought we were all supposed to be interested.
Anas ( Top Secret ) Anwar and Ian ( Subway /Killing Fields)Gray have shown themselves to be exceptionally ignorant in their comments – like stupid wee school bullies.
Credit to Jackson Carlaw for a fair minded and polite response to the news – I never thought I would write that as I have yet to forgive him for his eagle comments .
Links!
Public trust in Scottish Government;
link to news.gov.scot
Digging your own grave;
link to grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com
For the evisceration of the devolution settlement (power grab) click section 12. You will see the infamous “refusing to consent means consent” provision;
link to twitter.com
Links!
SCOTLAND, WHERE THE GOVERNMENT ACTUALLY SEEMS TO LIKE PEOPLE;
link to target59.wordpress.com
Electoral Commission probes £319,000 Tory ‘dark money’ trust;
link to archive.is
Troubles ahead and so little time…;
link to joansjigsaw.wordpress.com
Links!
Riding the waves of Scottish energy innovation;
link to archive.is
Opec could create North Sea ‘cash boost’;
link to archive.is
A tale about a 3rd Runway, a dodgy company; Tory pipe dream; why the SNP were right to abstain and a reminder of Mr Micawber’s wisdom;
link to imgonnasayitanyway.wordpress.com
Links!
Tory tax break for Britain’s wealthiest cost us £11billion;
link to newshoundsnewsround.wordpress.com
Bank of America moves senior London bankers to Paris ahead of Brexit;
link to reuters.com
Brexit: Heathrow’s European nemesis;
link to eureferendum.com
Links!
Will not archive!
Brexit divorce bill could be £10bn more than estimated, MPs warn;
link to standard.co.uk
I work in Brussels alongside the EU Brexit negotiators and I find it incredible how little the UK government understands;
link to archive.is
Two years into the Brexit disaster;
link to vip.politicsmeanspolitics.com
Links!
BBC Scotland and BMA collude to produce a classic NHS scare story based on shoddy, unreliable, research;
link to thoughtcontrolscotland.com
Giant Trump baby filled with hot air to float over London – unless Sadiq Khan puts a stop to it;
link to rt.com
Tory tax break for Britain’s wealthiest cost us £11billion;
link to newshoundsnewsround.wordpress.com
Links!
Fishing in Transition;
link to bluemarinefoundation.com
Inter-parliamentary relations in the United Kingdom: devolution’s undiscovered country?;
link to tandfonline.com;
That’s all for now, folks. Have a great day!
My most humble apologies to mr Anwar – it should , of course , read Sarwar!
Note to self , never post when not wide awake.
“Scotland is smaller in … economic importance than the Greater London area”
But Greater London imports all its energy. Scotland doesn’t. This makes scotland more economically important (and viable)
Morning Smallaxe !
Another beautiful morning and thanks for the links – I quite fancy a giant Trump balloon! We could copy the idea for many and various BBBC Scotland political presenters though I think one of them may float off all by himself!
Freedom of speech. Many would agree with the banner. The Tories/unionists are destroying the world economy, starving and killing people. These sentiments are used in protests all over the UK and the world. No big deal. The Tory/unionists have always tried to destroy the Scottish economy illegally. No one says the banners should be banned in London or elsewhere. So why in Scotland? The Tories/unionists say what they like about others. Even if it is a pack of lies and called out so many times.
They are trying to destroy the economy to make themselves wealthy. Illegally manipulating markets. To line their own pockets. They are dispicable, The way thry are carrying on is just deplorable. Getting away with murder. Their criminal activities go unpunished. People are dying because of them. It is cruelty shocking the way they are carrying on uncensored.
Brexit was just manipulated and manoeuvred to make the Tories and their cronies £Billions of money illegally. It is an absolute disgrace. The only reason the Tories are in power is to line their pockets on other people’s misery. They will not last much longer. It is just a question of time. Another GE. They will stagger on lining their pockets. Then getting away with their loot. Leaving chaos behind them. Typical. It has happened time and time again. Some people never learn.
All the other unionists Parties in the UK just as bad. Killing, maiming people causing the worst migration crisis in Europe since the 11WW. Tory William in the Middle East just appalling. The Royals are supposed to be totally impartial and non biased. Not interfering in matters of State. A Tory puppet. It will lead to a change in government soon,
The Tories giving credibility to an illegal regime breaking International Law. An apartheid State. Financed by the US. Set up by an illegal secret British regime who then betrayed the Arabs, Promising democracy then reneging at every turn. A dangerous betrayal.
The betrayal caused havoc in the world breaking International Law with impunity. There should be sanctions against Israel. It will lead to a change in Gov very soon. Or they will destroy their economy. The present regime is not credible or untenable. The West bombing the Middle Esdtbto bits for years causing death and untold misery. Ruining the world economy,
The reshuffle went well. Very talented and able people. Gov always have reshuffles. It brings in good people. Let’s others take a back seat for a while from the stress and pressure. A good thing. it is just normal leading to stability. If done only occasionally. They have all done extremely well in every capacity. Stops complacency and leads to regeneration, New ideas etc. Not stagnation.
The civil servants make a contribution as well in the day to day admin. Arranging the schedules of Gov. Implement the guidance of the Gov. It is the civil servants who administrate the day to say cross borders matters with Gov control and guidance. They talk to one another to follow through. They do not approve of the Tory gov policies or Brexit. They know the damage it can do. The civil servants and public workers have to sign the Official Secrets Act. Give an oath to UK Gov be restricted in what they have to say, including the Police.
One of the reasons why many people in Scotland want the Independent of Scotland is precisely that. They want Scotland to be governed properly and the resources put to good and better use. To improve services including travel services and connections. Connectivity. The Tories are trying to take away the limited powers Scotland has now to try and improves services. It is nothing to do with nationalism but a question of right and wrong.
There is a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things. Using proper powers and democracy. The ideals of self determination.. Recognised by major bodies all around the world. Influenced by the Declaration of Arbroath and the Enlightenment. Freedom, liberty and equality. Denied to Scotland for too long. Recognised Internationally. Scotland has many friends in the world. A 40million disporia in many influencial countries.
People had to migrate and leave Scotland because of Westminster’s centrist, unfair and injust policies. Causing unemployment. The revenues and resources went south. Depopulating Scotland. Policies often kept illegally kept under the Official Secrets Act by criminal,politicians. Iraq, Dunblane and Lockerbie kept secret for 100 years.
Westminster want to take away the limited devolved powers so they can ruin the economy. With further policies that do not suit. Suits them but not others. All the good work the SNP has done now will be destroyed, The rail services in the north of England are an absolute disgrace. The Tories have just cut the funds promised for electrification and cut the services. Cut the Swansea tribal project. The are going ahead with HS2/ Hinkley Point. A total overpriced waste of money.
The North of England and Scotland have been badly served with lack of historical proper investment for years. The SNP are doing their best to out it right. Getting more investment in. Against all unionist Parties opposition. These Parties are ignorant and incompetent. Lying through their teeth for years. In order to line their own pockets.
The north of England get for whom they vote. In Scotland they do not. Deprived of democracy for years. Only limited powers. If Scotland gets better off, so does the north of England. The Oil & Gas sector, fishing industry and farming are all misgoverned and mismanaged by Westminster for years. Losing Scotland £Billions and thousands of jobs.
The politicians should be retired at 66 (70). The same as the UK retirement level for public servants and others. Same BBC all public services etc. The make the Law and break the Law with impunity. Use the polls to manipulated the result. Total gerrymandering punishable by prison, That is what Brexit was about. The manipulation of the world (stock) markets. A hideous crime.
One Hedge fund manager gave the Leave campaign £900K and made £300Million out of it. They are calling the EU Ref day. ‘The sweetest day ever’. Short selling criminals. Not for the people who will have to pay for it with their strife. A disaster for them. Paying with their lives. Millions of people around the world. Most of the people who gave massive illegal donations to Leave were manipulating the world markets for massive illegal gains.
The gains which the rest of the world will have to pay for indirectly with misery and pain. Including in the UK. Robbing money for public services etc. Everyone in the UK is already £1000 worse off because of Brexit. Higher prices of goods and the fall in the pound. Businesses are already going under because of the fall of the spending power. A downturn cycle which could cause a recession. While the criminals get richer on the deployed transfer of illegal gains, without any censor.
The Bookies and others would have made a fortune on IndyRef 1. Short selling. The manipulation and lies by the unionist Parties. Them and their cronies manipulating the (stock) markets worldwide on other people’s misery. When the Poll was declared for just before the vote for – Yes. A lie. The Bookies opened up the betting. So any amount could be put on Yes result. Before it had been restricted. They alresdy knew the result was No from their internal private Polls.
They alresdy knew the likely result. Creating disappointment for so many people and dishonestly fleecing them. In fact declaring for YES just before the Vote could have increased the NO vote or brought more people out to vote NO. Or changed people’s mind about how to vote. Or made less people vote.
Total gerrymandering and breaking the Purdah period, They do/use proper internal analysis and methodology to get the answers right. Paying Pollsters £Millions of public and private money to basically rig the result. Censored and fined so many times. Does not act as a deterrent, Breaking the Code of conduct of their own association, The vast sums to be made encourage the fraudulent behaviour.
The vast Illegal contributions not declared. The lies of the candidates breaking the code of conduct. Reneging on promised of oaths of honesty. Changing the electoral system without mandate. To give unfair advantage. Breaking electoral Law. A democracy does not even exist at all. A mockery. Just lies and corruption.
May’s husband is a hedge fund manager, The Tories and the other political parties are insider dealing on a massive scale embezzling from the public. Cheating and lying on every occasion and coveting it up under the Official Secrets Act. Psycho bastards most of them should be in jail.
yesindyref2 says:
27 June, 2018 at 1:12 am
“”The thing is that after months, years of anti-SNP hysteria about the NHS, Scotrail, Police Scotland and whatever, this shuffle has totally castrated the MSM (and CA) for the next 6 months because clearly new secretaries or ministers can’t be held responsible for previous “shambles” and have to be given time to get into the job.””
Guess you have not seen today’s Herald then. Article attacking Ms Freeman for remarks she is supposed to have made some time ago about a nurse.
No honeymoon period for the new ministers.
It would also be very stupid of them to blame their predecessors for any ‘mess. To do so means they accept the premise endlessly promoted by the Unionists and MSM that there is a mess which is far from being the case.
Good morning, divine Dorothy Devine,
I wish the whole lot of them at the BBC would fu../float off.
Have a great day, my friend. My wife really enjoyed the little chat that you and she had, it’s a pity that you had to leave early.
Why is this under N/Ireland tab on the BBC site but not on Scotland site.
BBC selective coverage again?
link to bbc.co.uk
@Joe of the Coutts says: 25 June, 2018 at 11:07 pm:
” … How can anyone trust a Tory? I don’t understand it.
Oops, my sister’s a Tory, – criticise and she comes out fighting.”
Yes, Joe of the Coutts, but that is exactly where we want the Tories – out there spouting their mantras that do not, and never have, made good sense.
It is when Westminster just goes ahead and imposes their mantras upon the people who do not thus have a chance to question them that they, (literally), get away with murder.
When they are exposed to the public eye and attempting to defend their mantras then the public sees and hears how they think. I would venture a guess that, for example, the spouting’s of The Boris do more harm than good to the Tory Party.
Legerwood, your Herald article, my friend.
Opposition demand policy changes as well as new faces;
link to archive.is
Must be someone from Sìol nan Gàidheal that reads Wings,
you are being accused of wanting to turn Scotland into the 4rth Reich and not in a good way,
everyone deserves a reply to accusations or we become like Hitler or Pol Pot or Temüjin Borjigin or Maggie Thatcher or Stalin and shut down all criticism.
@Capella says: 25 June, 2018 at 11:22 pm:
” … NHS no longer the envy of the world, says independent.
link to bbc.co.uk
Not many people are aware that the forerunner to the current United Kingdom’s independent of each other NHS services was the free at point of use scheme in the Scottish Highlands.
I’ve known that all my adult life. I was born before there was any NHS and even in my early teens was a political animal and I have a very long memory. Anyway, I was very surprised when BBC Jockland recently had this to say:-
link to bbc.co.uk
Reclaiming the future;
link to weegingerdug.wordpress.com
Do we know this ‘indy’?
link to twitter.com
The SNP reshuffle was very well -timed, esp since the british nationalist media seemed to be gearing up for an all out attack on certain ministers. A long hot summer of madness to endure? I think not.
The british nationalists have, once again been completely wrong-footed – back to the drawing board, up all night, what to do now? – my heart bleeds!
Sorry to see some top rate SNP politicians step down (hopefully for a while) for a well-earned rest. Another blinder, Nicola!.
More links, you lucky people.
Shona Robison’s tricky time as Health Secretary has dignified end;
link to archive.is
First main part of £745m Aberdeen bypass opening;
link to archive.is
NHS at 70: Facing the future with ‘never enough beds, doctors or nurses’;
link to archive.is
Today Jeane Freeman is rubbish and bad and all things not good says the Labour Scottish branch, and that’s before she even gets her feet under her new desk, and it’s funny in a way because Ms Freeman used to be one of theirs, in fact not just one of theirs but a special one of theirs as adviser to a previous labour First Minister
Does this mean that because Ms Freeman has come over to the side of light and is now using the force for the good of Scotland as opposed to the British Nationalist death star methods her personality will be attacked without mercy on a daily basis
I think so, but then again most of us have seen Jeane Freeman wield a light sabre and the opposition would do well to take note, Jeane’s the full on Jedi
The terrorism policies at Heathrow terrorises others. Westminster unionists policies. Delays, frustrations, never ending queues, extra costs and time wasting. Totally over the top.
The AWPR is brilliant. Absolutely stunning feat. It will change the NE and Scottish economy for the better. Bring enormous benefits. Thanks Alex Salmond, (missed) & Co the SNP Gov and the incredible workforce for all you have done. It is amazing. Absolutely amazing, wonderful. It will change people’s lives for the better. Thsnks for the investment. Thanks everyone.
Along with the new Forth Road bridge and the Borders railway and all the other successgul projects. Keeping essential services running in spite of the unionists parties totally incompetence and ignorant disruption. The unionists parties bringing misery and hardship to people’s lives. Nasty, evel and spiteful. They are a humiliating disgrace. Illegal wars, financial fraud and tax evading.
Oh NO….
link to i.imgur.com
Smallaxe says:
27 June, 2018 at 9:13 am
“”Legerwood, your Herald article, my friend.
Opposition demand policy changes as well as new faces;
link to archive.is “”
Thank you. Could not believe It when I saw It in the Herald this morning. Infantile to the nth degree
Legerwood,
You’re more than welcome, that article deserved to be seen for what it is, infantile, as you say.
Have a great day, my friend.
Scottish media modus operandi.
1) SNP does something
2) Give it a negative headline
3) Outline the something briefly
4) Give every man and his dug a paragraph to criticise the something.
5) Give no voice to the SNP to counter criticism
@Legerwood
Yes, it’s a great article, more of the same please.
It reminds me of that old saying:
“Is that all you got?”
Legerwood @ 08:56,
Smallaxe @ 09:13,
Oh, the old “Nursey” smear resurrected by NorthBritLab and faithfully echoed by Tom Gordon. It was fake-fake-fake back then, and it’s just as fake now.
“Mr. Freeman” (repeated twice) and “Mr Cherry”? What planet is The Herald on these days…?
Don’t watch a lot of football but took in the Germany game. My goodness me they were shocking. So lacking in fluency and some woeful shooting and passing. Ozil was either 10 seconds ahead or behind the rest of his team. It was hard to determine which because even when they did get the ball they seemed confused.
They can have no complaints they had more than enough possession, territory and shots.
Argentina and Brazil have been lacklustre too. Spain…Meh! Could Portugal do it again? England could win this yet if all the major teams keep mis-firing.