With a weary sigh
This is a grim and dispiriting time to be monitoring the Scottish political media, even by its normal low standards. So little is happening that Unionist newspapers desperate for any kind of SNP BAD story are scraping the residue from the scrapings from the barrel that they scraped away to splinters months ago.
A case in point is today’s FRONT-PAGE piece in the Herald containing the shocking revelation that someone connected with the SNP registered – in their own name, not even the party’s – an internet domain called organise.scot last summer.
Even though the domain is still unused eight months later and there isn’t a shred of evidence about what it might ever be used for, a couple of opposition benchwarmers speculating that a private individual registering a web domain must somehow prove that the sneaky SNP are plotting a new independence campaign was considered by the Herald to be not just news, but front-page news.
(It’ll certainly come as a massive shock to everyone in Scotland who assumed that the SNP had given up on seeking independence after pursuing it as their primary reason for existence for a mere 85 years or so.)
And alarmingly, it wasn’t even the stupidest piece of Nat-bashing to appear in the Scottish press in the last 48 hours.
Because that honour must surely go to this:
At the weekend, two of Scotland’s right-wing Sundays had run screaming front-page banner headlines about the SNP taking out some Facebook advertising – an entirely legal and commonplace pursuit that anyone can do – and conducting “data mining”, also a perfectly normal and legal campaigning tool that all parties use.
The latter allegation, based on the use of some software called NationBuilder, made for an especially weak 2018 front-page shock-horror splash, because everyone had known the SNP (and other parties) had been using it openly since 2011 and making a point of telling people about it.
So well done to the crack investigative journalists from the Scottish Sunday Express who took a mere seven years to pick up on that story.
Meanwhile, the Scottish Mail On Sunday’s stunning exposé – spread across three breathlessly dramatic pages – that the dastardly SNP had taken out some Facebook advertising since 2014 was conspicuous for the absence of any mention of other parties’ Facebook spends on the exact same thing.
It attempted to drag the party into the ongoing Cambridge Analytica scandal involving the UK government, while burying a tiny weasel-worded paragraph admitting that the SNP hadn’t done the same thing at all but had merely been attacked by unnamed “critics” (a term which can mean anything from rentaquote Tory MSPs to the Mail’s office teaboy) for “hypocrisy”.
Hilariously, the paper was especially outraged that rather than spending the money on people who already voted SNP, the ads had targeted Tory and Labour voters to try to win them over. (Or in Mailspeak, “bombard them with Nationalist propaganda”.)
A political party trying to persuade voters from other parties to switch to them instead? Oh my God! Scoop! Literally hold the front page, Finlay!
Social media swiftly leapt to fill in the bits of the story that the Mail didn’t want to tell its readers, pointing out the Unionist parties’ UK-wide expenditures:
But just for the record we now have all the Scotland-specific figures for 2014-17, which can be extracted from the Electoral Commission website. The full files are here, here, here and here, but the summary runs like this:
Scottish Conservatives: £116,921
Scottish Labour: £102,347
SNP: £88,718
Scottish Liberal Democrats: £43,768
Scottish Greens: £8,782
It’s not possible to find data for SNP spending which reaches the £93,000 figure used in the Scotsman, let alone the £100,000 figure the Mail rounded that up to and which now appears to be quite a large exaggeration, to put it politely.
But what we can say for sure is that the SNP spent substantially LESS money on Facebook ads over the period in question than either Scottish Labour or the Scottish Tories, so it’s surprising that they’d be the lead subjects of a story about it.
It’s not surprising at all, of course. It’s an all-too-familiar and wearying indictment of the dismal, embarrassing state of Scotland’s hyper-partisan Unionist media, so boringly and utterly predictable that we’ve had to force ourselves to write this article about it.
You knew this would be the case, we knew it would be the case, everyone and their dog knew it would be the case. But the sums had to be done, the motions had to be gone through and it had to be spelled out in black and white, so there it is.
As the runaway express train of double-sided constitutional crisis careers towards the Cassandra Crossing of Brexit, buckle in for a LOT more of it, folks.
Anyone else gets the feeling that the MSM is just going through the motions to fill up empty space.
Both senses work for me
But buying DUP votes at £150,000 apiece is fine. Shovelling money in large quantities into the Brexit referendum campaign illegally and then excluding it from the investigation is absolutely fine.
How stupid do people have to be to believe the crap that the MSM publishes ?
I would despair it was worth bothering to.
Sounds like the death throws of a dying media.
I think the impact of this nonsense from newspapers is negligible. Their readership is in freefall. We should may consider ignoring them and leave them alone to die in peace.
Nicely done Rev 🙂
I take it the Mail, Scotsman and Express will now be publishing the Facebook spend of the other parties in this weeks Sundays.
Specifically that of Labour and the Tories who spent substantially more than the SNP and were no doubt targeting voters of other parties.
Lying scheming gits!
Perhaps the most telling headline was “Helps the party break free of its shackles”
This is direct acknowledgement that Westminster and the organs of State had believed that they had successfully constrained any future attempt at self determination for Scotland. Clearly ,devolution was devised to control rather than liberate. Every decision for Scotland was envisaged as coming from either Westminster directly ,or from their obedient party members in government at Holyrood.
I don’t suppose it occurred to them that the SNP could actually be in power. Now they have to mitigate for that by trying every dirty trick in the book ,and then some ,to turn people away from the only real party that offers true attempts at gaining independence.
Never mind every other man and his dog doing something dodgy. Try to find an SNP angle that stinks .
Forgot all about that film. Sophia lauren..
SHOCK HORROR PROBE
It has been exclusively revealed that the SNP has secretly put forward candidates for elections to steal unionist seats in both Westminster and Holyrood in public elections. There is even a suggestion that some local councillors may have been exposed as covert SNP sympathisers. Many are so brazen they even do this wearing supporters badges and hiding behind voting slips which declare their candidacy as being for the SNP.
You couldn’t make it up !
Nicola Sturgeon admits under threat of torture that she secretly wishes to see Scotland become an independent country. At last she has come clean to voters.
What next I wonder ?
Sadly all too familiar but internet users aren’t exactly the target audience for these pieces.
As I predicted last year it will not have escaped anyone’s notice that not only the Press but TV is almost on a nightly basis now showing old WW11 films and the struggle against these dastardly Europeans who are intent on subverting British sovereignty. At times it almost feels Churchill has arisen from the grave to relive his ‘fight them on the beaches’ speech.
Iain says:
27 March, 2018 at 11:23 am
“Sounds like the death throws of a dying media.”
Sounds like desperation, but I think ‘death throes’ is wishful thinking.
Only reporting the truth would put them out of business.
Street Andrew, you mean £150 Million, surely, per DUP vote ?
The article is another classic example of media spin, something we on here are well aware of.
However, despite it being posted through gritted teeth, due to it’s crushingly tedious nature, it serves as a reminder that while we are all awake to such media deception/dishonesty, we should remember that others still believe this type of guff.
Articles like this serve to remind us that the message about the media deceit needs re-enforced regularly, so that those we have previously helped realise what they are like, do not slip back into old habits of believing the media when they continue to pump out guff like this.
I send this type of article to everyone i know who i have previously got onside to Yes this time, and tag onto the message, “oh look, remember when i told you about the dodgy media tricks…here is a prime example”.
A reliable source at the Palace and another at No 10
Confirm the the UK Media are a shower of corrupt lying
Basterds who’s only roll in life is to ensure the gap between
Rich and poor continues to widen, as it has for the last 55 years.
If there was any element of SNP bad then Westminster is rotten to the core !
Isnt it clear lies like these that the SNP should start suing over..I know its not pretty but chip chip chip away at them and bring them down
Trundling juggernaut of MSM hacks loses wheels as barrel is scraped.
Our noble and honest Fourth Estate masters in action. Sneaky shits, doesn’t come close.
You can go a bit squirly trying to work out what are tory masters up to most of the time. Look at how PM Cameron got Pres Obama to threaten Leave votes, then he blew £9+ million taxpayers mullah on his Brexit vote Remain pamphleteering, all made no difference.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35984991
I knew you would not disappoint us Rev, as soon as I saw the front page of the Mail on a newsstand, I wondered how long it would take you to respond with data we could trust, you , yet again, did not disappoint.
Desimond says:
27 March, 2018 at 11:38 am
Isnt it clear lies like these that the SNP should start suing over..I know its not pretty but chip chip chip away at them and bring them down
The pressing matter of Scottish government Desimond? There is no actual election campaign going on or even up coming. Everybody gets that the whole of the UK press in Scotland and ofcourse the BBC are full on SNP Out but again, Scots.gov is the priority?
Thanks for the effort, Stu. Always worth it, even though it is somewhat akin to raking through someone else’s filthy rubbish bin.
Not “news” at all, of course, just another contemptible propaganda attempt to smear through (false) association.
A great graph of party spending on Facebook, BTW. Kudos to whoever produced it. Maybe the BBC will show it on RepScot today just to set the record straight. =cough=
@Albaman
Well said and that’s the thing. Those newspapers specifically chose to highlight only the SNP spend on Facebook advertising, trying sneakily to link it to the Cambridge Analytica shady dealings in politics.
They knew the money spent was on advertising and that ALL other political parties in the UK do the same, Yet though very carefully omit to tell us that in Scotland alone both Labour and the Tories spent more than the SNP.
The Daily fail even has the cheek to a headline over a two page spread FACEBOOK HYPOCRITES
The real hypocrites should be looking a lot closer to home.
So ….
Less than £1 per member for the online part of the campaign then?
What a fiscally responsible party.
Disagree with the bracketed comment. If and indyref2 does not happen the SNP are toast and most of them know that.
A new campaign in the National to encourage readers to reserve their copy at the newsagents starts today.
Oor ain Donald Anderson has the “Long Letter!” in today’s edition, 81 years & still talkin the talk n walkin the walk!
From Craig Murray’s excellent website.
SNP leadership have become far too adept at speaking with British Establishment voices and thinking with British Establishment minds.
At some stage they have to accept that achieving Scottish Independence is in itself a revolutionary act, and that it will never be achieved without real constitutional conflict with the UK, the sort of political conflict which has attended the birth of every independent state. If you are afraid to do something “unconstitutional” under the present repressive system, you have no right to pretend to be a part of the Independence movement.
On the back of revelations about the Brit establishments close links to the intelligence farming Cambridge Analytica and SCL and its historic track record in the field of dysinformation we need a more combative National party. Unless, God forbid, it too has been ‘nobbled’.
Anyone like Agatha Christie ? She had all this media palaver sorted out.
Administer poison over a long period of time so that everyone believes the recipient was getting sicker and sicker before expiring.
Media= drip, drip, drip of poison , every hour on the hour.
The recipient is if course the SNP.
I was going to write something, but RJS already covered it @ 11.50am.
The ‘Cassandra Crossing’ link is great – a wikipage including this line from a review:
“… a tired, hokey and sometimes unintentionally funny disaster film in which a trainload of disease-exposed passengers lurch to their fate.”
So that’ll be Treeza an Boris an aw their Tory pals, eh?
🙂
@ROBBO@11.32am.
Never mind movies, look at the Discovery/Documentary channels on a DAILY basis.
Today.
H2 channel.
3pm The Colour of War
4pm The Colour of War (stories of WW2 combat cameramen).
5pm. The Night of the Long Knives. (Hitler eliminating opposition to Nazi control).
11pm Warfighters (about a navy seal team in Iraq).
……..
Discovery Channel.
5pm The Somme, The first 24 hours.
……….
Nat Geo.
3pm Nazi Megastructures.
4pm Nazi Megastructures.
………
PBS America.
9pm. The secrets of tuxedo park. The role of radar in WW2.
……..
Disc.History channel.
11am. Battlefield. The story of the Battle on the Gustav line during the war.
12pm. Aircraft Stories. 100 years of planes (bomber fleets).
1pm. Weapons of War. Vehicles of D-Day landings.
2pm. Edge of War. How Hitler was able invade Poland.
4pm. Battlefield. Hitlers defensive positions, pillboxes, anti tank obstacles.
5pm. Tony Robinson’s WW1.
6pm. Battlefield mysteries. The legends of the Intruders, the airmen the Germans called “bandits of the air).
7pm. See prog at 2pm.
8pm. War Digs, with Harry Harris. Looking for Harry’s dads spitfire, shot down in kent.
9pm. Al Murry’s road to Berlin. Forest of Ardennes.
9.30pm. See 9pm but about T34 tanks.
10pm. Edge of War. Amwrica invasion of Panama in 1989.
12 midnight. Battlefield. Attack on Pearl Harbour.
There is no entry for 11pm. This is because, strangely, on a channel seemingly dedicated to War events, (the next few days schedules are ALL filled with war stories). 11pm -12am was about the gunfight at the ok corral !!
…………
Yesterday channel.
6pm. Hidden Traces. A century since the Guns fell silent…!
7pm. Deep Wreck Mysteries. Stealth sub…4 allied ships mysteriously sunk in 1944 off south coast is investigated.
………
All the above is on the tv schedules for the rest of TODAY (until midnight) and are on over only SIX Channels.
Fucking war obsessed !!!
Doesn’t this prove that this strategy works, though?
The Tories are the biggest bunch of useless cretins and downright psychopathic; their policies aimed at the poor, disabled, old, and vulnerable are so callous and draconian they are literally killing people. Yet, they’re still in power, albeit by their fingertips, and still ahead of Labour in the polls. Yes, they have the help of a friendly mainstream media but falling newspaper sales and a succession of stories on the BBC proven as propoganda have moved the battleground online.
The SNP should spend more on online adverstising, especially in the run up to a second independence referendum.
I to do not understand why the SNP have not sued the media for the obvious lies that they are and have been telling about them for years now it just does not make sense I mean Stu., has been proving they have been lying and exsposing it for years as well as I have said before,for the SNP to be doing nothing about this is in fact to condone it for goodness sake SNP do something
We should be grateful that the Rev spends time “going through the motions” – surely a classic euphemism of MSM reportage on the Scottish political scene – to expose the truly rank dishonesty therein.
To misquote our diplomatic Foreign Secretary a brief scan of the Scottish press front page headlines in any newsagents on any day can be a genuinely “emetic” experience.
At least everyone in Scotland knows what the SNP stand for
you can’t say that for the other party *Labtorlib* whose only policy is *Trussst in meee and you’ll sseee*
Labtorlib, the 3 headed snake oil party
@Blair Paterson
Because if they did Blair the front pages of every newspaper and headlines on every news channel would be *Dictatorial SNP wield power to silence free press*
*What are the SNP hiding* *SNP oppression* and so on
I too am puzzled by the lack of litigation – I’d like them to sue the arse off them!
We appear to be reliving the 1st and 2nd world war on tv and waving union flags all over the place . I sometimes wonder if other nations do the same? Germans? French? Italians? All the commonwealth countries?
I’d like Oh What a Lovely War on a nightly basis.
The West ie the Anglophone West is itching for a new war in the Near East. Russia is allied to Syria and Iran and the Anglo-West is allied to Israel and the Wahhâbi fiefdom of Saudi Arabia. Then there’s this Nato member Turkey v Kurd thing, so little reported in anglo-media.
A real collection of flammable material. Just light the touch paper, and retire behind your high principles sometime soon.
I do hope Scotland is free of this meddling ‘democratic’ anglosphere before then.
O/T but interesting: Christopher Wylie talking to Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (from about 11:35am). Very interesting testimony.
They are just that desperate and it IS wearisome.
Mind you, this is a war of attrition. They’ll keep churning it out so long as there’s a single penny left in their coffers. Mainly because they have to. They have no choice at this point.
They need a false step from Scotgov and particularly from ministerial level on up. If they can’t provoke Scotgov into a misstep then they’ll work on its support to supply such pressure. They’ll rattle cages, mislead, misrepresent, spread uncertainty, doubt. Y’know, the usual tactics and mainly because in the past it has worked wonderfully well for them.
Pretty sure they’re aware of both SNP support and the YES movement’s frustrations by this point. They’ll work on those in an attempt to make chasms out of cracks. On their own support and readerships? They’ll reinforce stereotyping of the very worst sort in terms of the YES movement and Scotgov. They’ll undermine trust in institutions, services, government in ANY way they can.
It’s about who will blink first? Who will break ranks? Who has the nerve and the focus as time and opportunities are coming together? There’ll be another hysterical headline non story tomorrow and the day after that, and the day after that until something breaks.
Seems to me they’re not too happy that some folk are pushing back. Also seems to me they’ve forgotten the lessons in using such political/meeja practises. For folk who bang on about one nation unity and union so much, they seem to have very little idea of how to achieve that. In fact they appear to be dab hands at producing quite the opposite effect.
Dr Jim says:
You are right about that, but only a matter of time until they say that, via another false story.
I suspect the £2m+ Tory Facebook spend was largely aimed at persuading SNP voters to stay at home. Cambridge Analytica and SCL specialise in black ops i.e. rigging elections through these methods.
Many comments on Craig Murray’s recent article criticsing the SNP are of the “ditch Sturgeon” variety. The most popular, influential and politically astute politician in the UK should be replaced?
Aye right.
Perhaps the SNP should develop another app that instantly rebuts all the bilge flowing from the MSM.
Very grateful to Stu for swimming through it so we don’t have to.
Sigh…
It’s depressing so it is. But as someone on an earlier thread said, nobody does thrawn like us Scots.
We just keep on keeping on.
We don’t go away.
When there’s injustice and repression, misinformation and smearing, we shine a light on it.
We fight on until we get our independence and then determine our own future.
Just talk to one person today and make them think.
Never mind advertising on facebook, the SNP should have a proper studio-based political discussion show on there so people can watch something other than 24 hour anti-independence lies from the BBC, especially during the next referendum campaign.
From Stu’s twitter – Liz Castro has posted the addresses of the jailed Catalan politicians. They could benefit from some support:
https://twitter.com/lizcastro/status/978563773215715328
Meanwhile Carles Puigdemont’s appeal to the UN to protect his political rights is being considered.
@capella
Dont think its about ditching Sturgeon, more about Sturgeon and the SNP leadership being soft and emollient vis-à-vis the current régime.
Of course the Herald has photies of Carlaw and Rennie and idiotic quotes from two of the dullest men on this planet banging on about the SNP going on about another Referendum in this Gordon piece of nonsense.
He gets paid for this?
The Brit Nats have lost it all together now.
I shall dance with delight as each title closes.
They are the Fourth Estate, Fifth Column.
One of the worst aspects of these “stories” from the press is that it is totally undemocratic. All of them deliberately trying to undermine support for the most popular political party in Scotland.
Just as bad are the BBC when they “review” these stories because they don’t in fact review them they just regurgitate the headline or read the headline out on TV. Here’s what the BBC had on Sunday to say about the Mail “story”.
<i?The Scottish Mail on Sunday's claims the SNP paid Facebook £100,000 to target voters.
The paper says the SNP employed Facebook to identify supporters of rival parties, then bombard them with "Nationalist propaganda" in the final weeks before the 2014 referendum.
Note the quotations marks around Nationalist Propaganda which we all know by now means that the statement is a lie or dubious at best.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-43531698
How do you shut down debate on something really important, like Craig Murray’s latest on extradition ?
Answer, start a new topic so the old thread is abandoned.
PS, anyone who can make a joke about Anne Frank is lower than any Yoon.
I think the joke about Anne Frank was actually from a Yoon. Mundell? Just being repeated on here as an example
The BBC employ thousands in their News organisation and like to boast they are the world’s largest news organisation. The world’s largest state propaganda mouthpiece is a more apt description.
As of 31 October 2015, there were 764 people in BBC News – more than 10 per cent of the 7,355-strong workforce – with the word ‘editor’ in their job title. And on the same date there were 273 staff with ‘manager ‘or ‘managing’ in their title.
Meanwhile, there were 3,877 staff with ‘producer’ or ‘journalist’ in their job title
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/bbc-news-has-250-managers-and-750-editors-foi-response-reveals/
You’d think that with as many staff as that available they would be able to produce some real news as well as do a proper “review” of stories by the press that they want to broadcast as “news”. It’s an absolute mockery and a damned disgrace that we have to put up with this all paid for by the public.
They don’t get a bean from me and never will again.
Surely there is now enough evidence for the wise to quit FB and similar social media.
If you must have more pix of your grandkids and the new puppy get them as a bog standard email attachment, provided your email address isnt already on the gov. hackinglist.
Apologies for this early OT, but I think it fits the way the discussion is developing, and applies to both Scotland and Catalonia. In a nutshell, its all about legitimisation.
“An unjust law is a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so”. – Mahatma Gandhi
http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5623&context=fss_papers
The ‘politics’ of British Critical Legal Studies
https://socialandlegalstudies.wordpress.com/2017/07/14/the-politics-of-british-critical-legal-studies/
THE POLITICS OF REASON: CRITICAL LEGAL THEORY AND LOCAL SOCIAL THOUGHT
http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4036&context=penn_law_review
The danger of the referendum:
The media is struggling to come up with enough SNP Baad stuff but it won’t stop them doing it, this year the stories will grow to insane levels by around the Autumn when we’ll be presented with opposition politicians and more ordinary voters making *Aw Naw no again* sounds with accompanying *I used tae be SNP but no noo* and the compulsary *they’ve ruined the NHS* rubbish because they all know and so does the entire country what’s coming
Ruth Davidson will use adjectives and sound bites like *The SNP are ramming through* *Forcing* *Dividing the country*
The media will do the *FEAR* of what yet another referendum will do to the economy but what none of these aforementioned politicians or media will say is
It’s only a vote if you like it VOTE yes if you don’t like it you can vote NO nobody ever died from *A vote*
Is it the fear of council pencils somehow transfoming into finger born diseases, or ballot papers suddenly leaping onto faces to prevent us breathing, so what are the Unionist media afraid of
Well…Losing!
@Bugger (the Panda) says: 27 March, 2018 at 11:19 am:
“Anyone else gets the feeling that the MSM is just going through the motions to fill up empty space.
Both senses work for me.”
Nope! BtP.
What I get is the usual, “What are these numpties not reporting today”, and as usual, I go and search to find out what they are so desperate to hide.
And what do I find scattered among the dross?
These headlines:-
RUSSIA ACCUSES USA OF, ‘EXPULSION BLACKMAIL’.
UK FIRMS ‘FEARFUL’ FOR POST-BREXIT WORKERS
SPEAKER TELLS JOHNSON OFF FOR’SEXISM’.
ZUCKERBERG WILL NOT APPEAR BEFORE MPS.
GOVERNMENT WADES INTO GKN BID BATTLE.
SARGEANT FAMILY WORRY AT ENQUIRY DELAY.
CORBYN TOLD TO ‘ROOT OUT’ ANTI-SEMITISM.
MPs TO DEBATE BREXIT POLL SPENDING CLAIMS.
‘RESTRICT POLICE ACCESS’ TO PHONE DATA.
SCOTS ‘FEEL SAFER THAN EVER BEFORE’.
IRN BRU SALES RISE FOLLOWING NEW RECIPE.
HUGE HERRING SPAWNING GROUND DISCOVERED.
And lots of other stuff too and that’s without searching outwith the MSM, SMSM and the BBC text services. Just not featured as screaming headlines on front pages.
The DM,Scotsman etc are free but biased agents and can print all the lies fit to print.
HOWEVER the BBC does not have that liberty .It is required to show no bias yet by printing these headlines on their website and on air in their press reports they spread the lies.
My reaction is not to pay the licence fee and even taunt them to send their enforcers but they never appear.
Capella says:
27 March, 2018 at 12:47 pm
I suspect the £2m+ Tory Facebook spend was largely aimed at persuading SNP voters to stay at home.
The British media in Scotland today, online and led by the BBC, is not merely trying to get the SNP Out, they are trying to destroy Scotland’s nascent democracy.
This is a far more fundamental threat to future nation state Scotland than just BBC Scotland’s merciless war on the SNP. They know they have the full backing of most if not all tory vote in Scotland and who knows how many SLabour.
Ultimately they are going to get the SNP Out, the BBC for example is the decider in the UK, always has been, always will be. Once they decided the most popular Prime Minister ever was finished, Crash Gordon was toast.
Relentlessly degrading Scotland’s belief in our 21 year old democracy, must have an end game. Its hard to believe they will all just quit, once they do get in an FM Colonel Ruth or worse, FM Leonard Nobody.
Or, when was the last time you tuned in to the great BBC Scotland gimp network and watched a programme celebrating Holyrood or democratic Scotland and not say, a mental as anything beeb gimp hagiography on billionaire Brenda?
Brendan O’Hara.
Q: Did Cambridge Analytica work during the Scottish referendum?
Wylie says he knows that Alexander Nix pitched for work during the campaign. But he is very “hazy” about the details.
Hazy aye?
A lot of this will be to obscure just how insidious the CA allegations are. By pointing to SNP Facebook spend was the how is that CA will be dismissed as just the same.
From what I’ve read CA used psyche profiling to better manipulate it’s targets. The claims that there’s a fear that a rerun of the Brexit referendum would produce the same result has 3, perhaps more, conclusions.
1) it was always “snake oil” and CA sell a worthless product.
2) it worked and the “damage” is permanent.
3) the person saying it was pointless likes the original result.
Regardless of which in order to be effective you’re talking about more than mere advertising but verging into brainwashing/hypnosis, perhaps even https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming#Techniques_or_set_of_practices , although in this case based on recognised hypno-theraputic grounds.
If the “treatment” is along those lines then CA might be guilty of practicing medicine without a license.
Once everyone gets bored at looking at squirrels, here’s the important stuff….
Breeks, brilliant post about Craig Murray.
Craig has put his personal safety on the line to expose the lies about the Skripal case, and may have even saved Syria and Lebanon from another helping of “ethical foreign policy”.
The days of Alex sitting down with David Cameron and getting a gentleman’s agreement on a legal referendum are long gone. We are dealing with mad Brexiteers and the DUP now.
The self-selecting clique on here dont want to hear these bad words.
@Blair Paterson says: 27 March, 2018 at 12:29 pm:
“I to do not understand why the SNP have not sued the media for the obvious lies that they are and have been telling about them for years now it just does not make sense I mean Stu.”
Aye! Blair but some people are not so clever as the SNP. The SNP know that not only would taking the press to court cost a great deal of their members contributions but doing so could meet with failure as the Unionists would throw even money at the MSM, SMSM and the Westminster controlled and finance broadcasters than they already do now.
Then there is the point of why bother when there continues to be a long term trend of more voters moving to independence and there is more than one reason for that trend. Not least that people only need catch the media out once to never trust them ever again.
Not to mention the fact you never interrupt your enemy while they are destroying themselves.
I become very suspicious of people who, perhaps innocently, urge the most experienced political brains in Scotland who have brought us to the very brink of independence to act in a certain way as if they were more expert than the experts.
Who do I trust? – The best political force Scotland has produced to date or over impatient commenters on an on-line blog?
There have been far more battles lost by impatient foot-soldiers discharging their muskets while their enemy is still out of range than were ever lost by waiting until they could see the Whites of their eyes then mowing the enemy down.
Perhaps these papers never had any dignity to lose, but lost it is.
The worse their wretched output, the more I know Scottish Independence is well on its way =)
The news blackout on Hands Off Our Parliament (3000people!) was very telling. Thank you to everyone who was there! What a glorious sight 🙂
Keep buying iScot magazine and The National and watch Truly Scottish TV (now that I am really enjoying!)
Taking a few minutes to see every link to Phantom Power Films and all our Indy media is time well spent.
Blair Paterson is a goon with previous for dribbling pish like he has today.
Almost every post he wants “action” by the SNP on media lies.
Every time he gets told why unionist whack-a-mole is a pointless exercise.
Yet here he is again, saying the same stupid crap over and over again.
Who else does that on here ?
Thats right, the resident trolling donkey squad.
Make of that what you will huh ?
Courtesy Of John Robertson
I thought the Scotsman anti snhs story about one million Scots waiting too long for brain treatment was pretty well the barrel scraped.
http://archive.is/pmTrR
Even taking into account that a neurological disorder could be anything from migraine to multiple sclerosis, that’s a claim that about one in five Scots have such a disorder and are being treated late.
What are they smoking down at the Scotsman these days?
David McDowell says: 27 March, 2018 at 1:11 pm:
“Never mind advertising on facebook, the SNP should have a proper studio-based political discussion show on there so people can watch something other than 24 hour anti-independence lies from the BBC, especially during the next referendum campaign.”
First of all the SNP cannot afford to do so. They are only financed by their members and even those who make big donations are party members and when they do make a donation the MSM< SMSM and broadcasters go absolutely all out running them down for doing so while the UK media is being finance, often illegally by non-dom or ex-pat millionaires.
Furthermore, there is the Holyrood TV:-
https://www.scottishparliament.tv/
Such as FMQs are now on YouTube almost before the Presiding Officer warns the MSPs leaving the chamber to do so quietly. The Westminster Parliament, Commons and Lords id both on-line and broadcast on DTV terrestrial. The SNP have their own website and just how many people use that:-
https://www.snp.org/
Now consider this many Scottish viewers will use the same few channels on TV and will change channels if anything remotely political comes on the channel they are on. If a party political broadcast comes on all channels they scurry to their kitchen to make tea and toast.
Meanwhile, there is a long term movement towards independence. So yes it does sometimes swing back away from independence but has always swung back again and progressed a little more every time.
Sometime, probably soon, the combined effects of
BRUKEXIT, austerity measures & Westminster bungling will hit those, so far uninterested in politics voters, and even previous non-voters, hard enough in their bank accounts to jolt them out of complacency and the landslide that follows will sweep the United Kingdom into oblivion never to return.Thanks for doing this work for us. I can’t stomach British Nationalist media of any sort. I’m too old to agitate my blood pressure.
Many soft voters do watch this stuff and read this rubbish.
Hope you don’t mind me mentioning that Independence Live was at a meeting last night at YES Glenrothes. I first met Kevin at the first Wings night in Edinburgh. He does a fantastic job but is struggling. He goes to lots of YES group talks, so if anyone here can donate and help him out, I’d be very grateful.
Donate at Independence Live.net
Thank you
I note from some of the comments there is alternative non MSM options available. I mention one in particular TRULY SCOTTISH TV available free of change over the internet. It is paid for by donations and has an entirely independence theme
Keep boycotting the britnat media. Leave it to the Rev to expose these britnat liars.
Why oh why are we still awaiting IR2.
Surely this is the ideal time with the media against Brexit, Scotland against Brexit and Westminster ignoring us.
Do the SNP have a cunning plan for a snap IR2, prior to Brexit next year? Or, do they have no plans…
The so called data mining scandal proves beyond doubt that we have a corrupt and untrustworthy media.
The Tory £2.1m Facebook spend in 2017 was greater than all the other parties put together by a factor of 2. Now that is the real story.
In fact I am beginning to wonder if our democracy has not been riven from top to bottom with corruption and outside interference.
@Gerry Gribbons
I’ve watched a few programmes on Truly Scottish TV and enjoyed them. I did though have a couple of suggestions that might help attract a bigger audience but their homepage doesn’t have a contact button.
The main issue I have is that you cannot copy a link from the address bar to a specific programme and post the link elsewhere such as here on Wings. Something as simple as that would surely increase numbers watching.
Also it seems you can search for specific topics but if you don’t know what the programme is called that makes things pretty difficult. A browse facility under each topic/channel would be a great help in choosing a programme to watch.
Hopefully someone associated with the website might read this and consider what I’m suggesting. A Contact or About button might be a good start.
Osakisushi
I will be surprised if there is an announcement on Indyref2 before the final Brexit deal in Oct 18. Thereafter May 19 or Sept 19 look good candidates.
RT has posted the Culture Media and Sport video of whistleblower Christopher Wylie. Even in the first few minutes he says that CA was set up because it was not advisable to have a British military company with dodgy shareholders operating in US elections.
Indeed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=207&v=7SAPxYpoHXw
In the RT article he says that his predecessor was murdered in Kenya. Poisoned.
https://on.rt.com/91zb
@HandandShrimp
I agree that spending £2.1 million on Facebook ads alone is huge, we’ve always known that the Tories money comes from those with vested interests. This is another affront to democracy when money guarantees to buy you power especially within the media.
I see from the Excel files available on the links provided by the Rev states that at the 2017 General Election of the £2.1 million spent overall just £64,897 of that was in Scotland. Labour spent even more than the Tories in Scotland at £70,801 both spending 50%+ more than the SNP’s Facebook ads that cost £43,345.
I thought the Labour Party in Scotland were skint? Desperation to defeat the SNP no doubt comes into it.
@Famous15 says: 27 March, 2018 at 1:39 pm:
“My reaction is not to pay the licence fee and even taunt them to send their enforcers but they never appear.”
So I’m not alone in waiting for the illegal BBC enforcers to call?
I’ve been waiting over 6 years for them to send round their illegal enforcers to call but no show as yet.
First of all sending threatening letters to an OAP for such a long time is certainly stalking and that is illegal. As is demanding money with threats of legal actions, which is specifically mentioned under the Scots law of extortion.
Then there is the implication that these people are, “Officers”, of some kind of law enforcement which they are not. Quite obviously they have no idea who or what I am or would know I’m an octogenarian and entitled to claim a free TV licence but do not want one and there is no statutory right to inform the BBC of anything whatsoever.
They are thus more likely to be engaged in criminality than I am as indicated above. All I’m guilty of is not wanting state propaganda broadcast into my home and have no statutory duty to tell them or the BBC anything. I content myself that every time the threaten me by letter it cost me nothing but costs them time, effort and the cost of the letter.
Never had a visit from them but I’d bet they would begin by using an threatening authoritarian attitude meant to intimidate me into believing they were some kind of law enforcers.
I’m looking forward to seeing the look on their faces when I turn the tables and tell them that unless they have a warrant and a law officer to enforce it that they do not dictate proceedings while on my property but that I do.
That is before I accuse them of criminal behaviour and ask them to leave at once. I will, though inform them proceedings have been recorded on CCTV as evidence before calling the local police.
They never tell you that:
*There have been calls for*…Who called?
*Critics of the SNP say*… Unnamed critics
*Businesses in Scotland say*…. Which ones?
*Claims that the Scottish government*…Who claimed?
*Experts say*….I’m bored now because the folk who fall for this garbage won’t change, they can’t because they have to depend on something, they’re dependent people who have to be told the weather every 15 minutes or they don’t know how to conduct their lives
All of us have kids in our families do they watch the news on TV? NO they don’t, do they care about the weather? NO they don’t because in their world that’s like not very important like
Scotland is stuck with the left overs of Labour administrations who delivered nothing for the people, so these dependents don’t ever expect anything to be delivered for them, so when the Labtorlibs and they’re media chums contrive to invent Baad stuff about the SNP it’s very easy for the dependents to believe because why should the SNP be any different to what’s gone before so best stick to what you already don’t know
The only new twist the Labtorlibs and the media have is the claim that the SNP are sneakily always up to something that nobody else knows about in order to make Scotland into something different that the media have to protect us from
so that means that Independence must be Baad because it’s different and we can’t have that, so place your faith in the dependable fact that voting for the same shit you’ve always had will make you feel unworried and confident that no change will mean change that actually means *No change*
But you can depend that…. they never tell you that
Its getting like the Sunday Post on here.
What about Ponsati, Skripal, Tillerson, Bolton or what happens when we don’t get to have a “legal” referendum.
Even Ian McWhirter is calling the lack of debate alarming.
@HandandShrimp
It is not just the media, it is the entire self-satisfied system, from the crown down
We certainly can do much better than cling to this morally defective imperial relic which will inevitably drag us to hell in its antiquated handcart.
@Bob Mack says:27 March, 2018 at 1:19 pm:
“I think the joke about Anne Frank was actually from a Yoon. Mundell? Just being repeated on here as an example.”
Yes Bob Mack You know that, I know that, but Yalta doesn’t know that. Or is it the usual anti-SNP yoon-like practice of not letting a lie get in the way of a good old SNP BAAD! story?
Looks like they have eventually set-up a shift system of sock puppets.
It’s a constant form of hate speak from the Herald, Express and Daily Mail in my opinion, directed at the SNP and its followers.
They must be called out for lies and regularly reported to IPSO.
@Thepnr –
TSTV are good at responding to tweets – that’s how I asked them about ‘Scotland’s Story.
😉
@Yalta,
There you go again distorting the facts. Mr McWhirter is pointing out that mainstream politicians ( unionist) are avoiding Catalonia like the plague.
Do you actually read what people write or do you see the first three words and make the rest up by yourself?
The newspapers whine that we are not buying their offering…what other product producer would blame the potential customers and ignore the obvious fact that THEY are the fake news and people simply do not trust them ( apart from unionists who ignore the failure of journalistic endeavour because it is what they want to hear)
The BBC doesn’t care what you think because they are paid via a fake trust to beam propaganda directly into your home. That propaganda includes UK targeting in support of America, The Royals, The Military, etc, etc.
The media screams about fake news is an attempt to convince the public that THEIR version of the news is the “truth”
The longest running piece of FAKE NEWS has been the myth pushed by the BBC that they are a trusted source of information.
As for the front pages of the rags in the above article…another nail in the coffin…what a great job they are doing.
However we should not forget the role of bloopers like Stu who by giving cross referenced facts to expose the liars.
The best journalists now are those who do not get paid by the media houses.
…arghh predictive text
Bloggers not bloopers…I would never call you a blooper Rev
@bob mack.
I would be surprised if morons like Yalta even bother reading 3 the 1st words.
Him and his ilk already have their own narrative to promote.
3 the 1st words !!!
Wuddling ma furds there…lol
@Gee.
It’s ko I do it two.
Yalta @ 15:46,
Hi, sorry we disappoint so much in your would-be distractions. It’s our butterfly minds, always a new topic on =gasp= indy to consider.
But anyway, since you’re here, how’s the weather over there on the Black Sea today…?
@Yalta
Your not exactly subtle, three posts on this Wings article from you and none of them to do with the actual topic only about distraction.
1. “How do you shut down debate on something really important, like Craig Murray’s latest on extradition?”
“2. Once everyone gets bored at looking at squirrels, here’s the important stuff….
Breeks, brilliant post about Craig Murray.”
“3. Its getting like the Sunday Post on here.
What about Ponsati, Skripal, Tillerson, Bolton or what happens when we don’t get to have a “legal” referendum.”
It’s almost as if you don’t want posters on Wings to talk of our corrupt media and instead start rabbiting on about a subject of YOUR choice.
Doesn’t work like that but since you only started posting on Wings in the last day or two I’ll let you off as you have a bit to learn yet.
Though clearly more training would help in order to be effective.
They just have no shame. The usual diabolical lies bring them down. They are responsible for people being sanctioned and killed. There disgusting behaviour is beyond contemptible. The unionist committing electoral fraud on a massive, major gerrymandering exercise. Destroying democracy. Committing data fraud, expenses fraud on a scale of total corruption. To run the economy into the ground without a peep. No wonder they are so despised. The Westminster unionists are beyond beneath of contempt.
Lying, defrauding tax evading Non Doms without a hint of humanity. Ruining their own industry.
Desmond – Express sold off to the Mirror Trinity Group for barely more that he paid for it. £125Million. What a loser running the group into the ground. Ruining people’s lives and causing hardship. Responsible for sanctioning people and starving them to death. Illegal wars, banking fraud and tax evasion. Most of them should be in jail. Despicable behaviour.
@Yalta says: 27 March, 2018 at 2:08 pm:
“Once everyone gets bored at looking at squirrels, here’s the important stuff….”
That’ll be as usual then,
RockYalta, “in your humble opinion”? will it?“The days of Alex sitting down with David Cameron and getting a gentleman’s agreement on a legal referendum are long gone. We are dealing with mad Brexiteers and the DUP now.”
Well no,
RockYalta, “We”, are not dealing with either of them. That is the job of the current First Minister and she is not requiring anyone’s permission to hold a referendum except the legally sovereign people of Scotland and she has their legal mandate to do so already.No one needs the permission from anyone else to hold a referendum. They may, or may not, agree with someone for the result to be legally enforceable but they need no permission to hold either a referendum or a plebiscite. Just so you know the difference:-
“In very simple words, a referendum is the phrasing which describes what the vote is about. On the other hand, a plebiscite is actually the vote itself, that is, the election for the referendum.”
The self-selecting clique on here dont want to hear these bad word.”
First of all there is no self-selecting clique on here. No one is stopping, or even trying to stop, other commenters and the bad words we do not want to here are the personal abuse each of you hurls at those who oppose you.
What there is are commenters here who have realised your wee clique’s motivation and exposed you for what you are. Your lot are the ones shouting abuse and your lot are the ones trying to shut down debate – mainly because none of you know how to debate.
Thing is the majority of commenters here, and I’d venture a guess, also most of the lurkers, are only too pleased to do what your clique are not prepared to do, just scroll on past those commenters they do not wish to read.
So instead of doing so, you all attack the person instead of the logical argument because you cannot negate or answer their arguments.
It is a very well known debating fault called, “argumentum ad hominem”. It is what is called, “a fallacious argumentative strategy whereby genuine discussion of the topic at hand is avoided by attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or of persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself”.
So there you have the answer as to why few of the established commenters on Wings bother to even read your comments. It is because they are not comments or debating points, they are Argumentum ad hominem. That level of debate should not get beyond primary one playgrounds.
Express £409Million pension debt.
Desmond bought the group in 2000 for £125Million. Sold 2017 for £126Million. No profit. Has to pay £11Million to the pension deficit until 2000 (and beyond?) Total losses. Staff pay offs etc. 43years of misinformation.
Herald, DR, Mail going the same way. They are responsible for Brexit and ruining the economy. Making people’s lives harder.
The political Parties get ‘short’ money from Westminster. Plus Unionists Millions of undeclared illegal funding for favours. Then use ‘Pollsters’ to illegally manipulating the vote.
As Duncan Hothersal is fond of saying, if you have voted for any other party you are not a true supporter and we don’t want you.
@Osakisushi says: 27 March, 2018 at 3:13 pm:
“Why oh why are we still awaiting IR2.”
Maybe it is because the SNP/SG and their many expert advisors, including legal advisors, know better than, Osakisushi, and such commenters on a blog when the right time is to take the appropriate action at the appropriate time.
That Yalta’s putin on the agony wie nae style caugh out in the 1st few days pmsl .
He talks rubbish on Craig’s site too but Craig did invite it:
https://tinyurl.com/ybep567j
Interesting article on the Irish Border Conundrum:
The Brexit transition deal isn’t going down well in Northern Ireland.
In politics, as in every other walk of life, it’s never a bad thing to remain calm and measured. This rule of thumb seems particularly applicable to issues around Brexit, where debate is often distorted by hyperbole and unchecked emotion.
Last week’s transition deal, like almost every previous step of the negotiation process, was greeted by excitable Brexiteers with accusations of betrayal and surrender. Less impetuous voices suggested that it represented progress towards a realistic, unhurried departure from the EU.
That serene view is probably the more appropriate reaction, but there is at least one corner of the UK where the agreement is viewed with justifiable suspicion.
Unionists in Ulster worry that the government’s fresh commitment to enact a ‘backstop’ arrangement on the Irish border is a precursor to a ‘sell-out’ that will see Northern Ireland remain in the single market, while the rest of the UK leaves. That would mean erecting a customs border between the province and Great Britain, with potentially damaging economic consequences and disastrous political symbolism.
The more benign interpretation is that the latest document, which determines that the so-called backstop should form part of the final legal text of a withdrawal agreement, simply restates the UK’s existing position.
In December’s ‘joint report’ on phase 1 of the negotiations, British negotiators agreed to maintain “full alignment” with EU rules affecting the Belfast Agreement, “the all-island economy” and “North-South cooperation”, in the absence of a trade deal or “agreed solutions” on the border.
In its ‘Draft Withdrawal Agreement’, that purported to translate the joint report into a legally enforceable document, the Commission in Brussels turned that undertaking into a commitment to accept a “common regulatory area” on the island of Ireland. Theresa May rejected this notion swiftly, saying that “no UK prime minister could ever agree to it”.
Some commentators suggest that the transition text simply means that the two parties will keep working to resolve problems around the Irish border, for now. Yet, the agreement contains significant new content, expanding the number of areas of ‘North-South cooperation’ where alignment would be necessary, if the ‘last resort’ option were applied.
The Belfast Agreement specified just five policy topics for collaboration between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Former MEP and staunch Brexiteer, Jim Allister, points out that the transition deal adds six more: energy, telecommunications, broadcasting, justice and security, higher education and sport. A new institution, a ‘Specialised Committee’, is to be gifted with oversight powers.
While many of the provisions on Northern Ireland were coloured yellow – to signify that only broad objectives were agreed between the UK and the EU – this article was marked in green, to show that specific detail is agreed at negotiators’ level and will be revised only for technical legal reasons. It appears to undermine the government’s claim that regulatory alignment will be necessary only in a strictly limited number of areas.
Allister claims that the deal is set to “radically undermine the integrity of the UK and.. (it) will see Northern Ireland more aligned with the Republic than the UK”. Some of his concerns are shared by Lord Empey, the former Ulster Unionist leader who brokered an electoral pact with David Cameron’s Conservative Party. He believes government negotiators are demonstrating a naive approach to demands originating in Dublin, “they fail to understand the emotional and political ramifications of what we’re talking about”.
It seems there’s a vast gulf between the EU’s understanding of the “backstop” solution and the way that it’s interpreted by the UK. The key is paragraph 49 of the Joint Report, which determined that “in the absence of agreed solutions, the UK will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement”. An ongoing problem is that, while the EU has set out its aggressive interpretation, claiming that Northern Ireland must conform entirely with Single Market and Customs Union rules, Britain hasn’t properly explained how it believes the provision could be given legal effect.
In December, Northern Irish unionists took comfort from the fact that the wording of paragraph 49 suggested regulatory alignment would include the whole UK and not just Northern Ireland. However, some mainland Brexiteers are understandably unhappy at this commitment, the significance of which was immediately underplayed by the government and Brussels says that it has no business legislating for internal British arrangements, so that nuance wasn’t reflected in its legal text. It’s not unreasonable that unionist nerves are starting to jangle again.
Meanwhile, Leo Varadkar’s Dublin government tries to create fresh uncertainty around the province’s constitutional status almost daily, claiming repeatedly that it is inevitable that Britain must administer a border in the Irish Sea, if it can’t strike a trade deal with the EU and it won’t remain a Single Market and Customs Union member. The Irish prime minister now insists that an agreement on the border must be reached by October at the latest, if the backstop solution is to be avoided.
This is all taking place against a backdrop of political instability in Northern Ireland, where the devolved institutions have failed to operate since January 2017 and Brexit has become a cipher for deeper issues around nationality and identity.
The best advice is always to stay calm, but a continuing lack of clarity is creating a huge amount of anxiety, across all shades of political opinion. Surely the government must at least now explain how it believes this infamous backstop should operate, so that the more sanguine voices in Northern Ireland can start to prevail?
https://reaction.life/brexit-transition-deal-isnt-going-well-northern-ireland/
@ Robert Peffers Letters of Love from Darlington , i’ve got a letter for a visit for tomorrow from the Goon squad ( their no gettin any of ma birthday cake ) lol . Im over 150 threatening letters & no court summons iminent any time soon .
DON’T PAY THE BBC PROPAGANDA TAX .
All you folks worrying about how damaging brexit will be, have nothing to worry about. I have just watched (at around 1745pm) the BBC’s ‘ask this’ segment on the news channel, where people send in questions to be answered by BBC ‘experts’.
Lots of questions about leaving the EU, things like will food prices go up? Not really according to the BBC
paid liars‘experts’. It all ‘balances out’. What about fishing rights, will we control our fish stocks post brexit? Well according to the BBCpaid liars‘experts’, of course it will require give and take, since we export a lot of fish to the EU, so we may need to trade access to be able to sell seafood to the EU. But it will be ‘fine’.Honestly, on and on it went. Reassurance after reassurance. Brexit is just fine, according to the BBC
paid liars‘experts’.The biggest state run propaganda outlet in the modern world, the BBC.
@ Capella 5.44pm
Well spotted. What amazes me about these types, is their breath taking arrogance, on how the foremost Indy forum should be run.
Rev Stu has been found wanting by these experts, he is doing it all wrong. I’m sure he is hanging on their every word.
Even Ian McWhirter is calling the lack of debate alarming.
Oh no! Not Ian McWharter!
Also, who the fcuk is Ian McWHirter:D
Stv news reporting how horrible brexit is going to be. Fishing fucked, tourism fucked, food industry fucked…brexit bad bad bad…says Ponsonby.
Yet all those demanding help, not one says on camera, “you know what might help, control of immigration, control of fishing, etc etc…how could we get such meaningful powers”?
Emm..INDEPENDENCE. !!
No mention of such a solution in the package shown, obviously..!
A news conference live from Johannesburg on that frigging cricket ball.
It’s akin to a murder enquiry. The guy reading the statement is struggling to control his emotions.
Make it stop.
Huh! So anyway, the media and their state chaintuggers appear to be having an effect right enough.
Ramp up enough confusion, misdirection and fear. Let it loose. Then sit back and watch your opponents tear each other apart. Problem being of course, that there won’t be enough unity or communal spirit left to pour into a shot glass. Which might be fairly important in the near future. You’d think?
Kinda the drawback of manufactured narratives though. So much trust in governmental and national institutions has been undermined and so much societal discord has been sown that folk have a hard time placing any trust in anything. Gives you the impression that central government are only really interested in gathering the majority of the largest minority in order to govern.
Divide. Sub divide. Then divide that too. There’s a flaw in that strategy.
Valerie Aye but naaibuddies asking the important questions Wiz the sugar used Cane or Demerara
It’s a troll game. “Let’s you and him fight.”
(Games People Play – Eric Berne)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_People_Play_(book)
The Unionist & green NO Party spent £271.818. SNP spent £88.718. The Union North/South divide unfairness. 3 times.
Is it just my imagination, or has the Record shifted slightly away from the incessant Labour Good SNP Bad position, since Murray Foote resigned as editor?
Not saying they have became pro-SNP or anything like it, just noticing they are more willing to criticise labour (racism etc) as well as allow SNP spokespeople to have their say when a story breaks.
Reporting Scotland
Does Scotland want Independence? well let’s ask a guy who calls himself Loki who read a thesuarus once and makes sure he remembers to say all of those words in every sentence in a strangely robotic fashion and who’s life is financed by JK Rowling or we’ll ask Alex Neil the only guy in the SNP who voted FOR Brexit
Because that’s fair and balanced
Off topic. Corbyn is beginning to feel the heat; the ground floor windows in his house have been boarded up as a precaution against an attack.
Dr Jim says:
27 March, 2018 at 6:49 pm
Reporting Scotland
Does Scotland want Independence? well let’s ask a guy who calls himself Loki
Let me guess, JK Trolling’s wee pet from Castlemilk is very very totally for the people, but nation state Scotland, no?
Beeb gimp pats JK Trolling’s pet on napper.
@Northern Rock 5:49pm
Thanks for the link: another interesting viewpoint on Ireland.
As a senior civil servant resigns from London’s brexit department in order to help out wee Prince Willie, Westminster seems in no hurry to find a solution to the border problem. Is it because they know there isn’t one that can be accepted by North and South? I believe Westminster thinks it can just ignore the north of Ireland, declare that the border will stay open with no customs’ checks being instigated by the so-called united kingdom and dare the ROI and the EU to reinstate the border.
If Westminster attempts this then ROI will have every right to veto any brexit deal and a No deal will ensue. I believe the EU will support ROI in this. Again Westminster will attempt to lay the blame with ROI/EU. Hard-core British nationalists will agree with Westminster but the rest of Northern Ireland, and the whole of ROI, will not.
It can only result in trouble – and Troubles?
I apologize in advance to the people of the whole of Ireland when I say Scotland must take constitutional advantage in its dealings with England as Ireland’s problems develop.
O/T
SNP MP says there is ‘real concern’ over claims Scotland Office used tax-payer funded #Facebook ads to ‘manipulate potential voters for party political purposes.’
The Ferret obtained details of the paid marketing activities on Facebook undertaken by the Scotland Office.
http://archive.is/RXZmo
Fora nyon who missed Wylie’s evidence
Christopher Wylie the whistleblower at the heart of the Facebook data scandal appears before UK lawmakers
https://twitter.com/ReutersUK/status/978568272298692609
The Ferret obtained details of the paid marketing activities on Facebook undertaken by the Scotland Office.
http://archive.is/RXZmo
That’s how it works though with UK gov campaigns, targeting areas. Fluffie can easily bat this away. His crew of civil servants using their budgets for their non vote Fluffie campaigning on Facebook, is not that different from them using local papers.
“One campaign called “Exporting is GREAT” targeted small businesses within a thirty mile radius of Gretna, which lies within David Mundell’s constituency of Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale – the only Tory-held Westminster seat in Scotland prior to the June 2017 general election.
A UK Government spokesman said the ad spent coincided with a visit by the UK Government’s Exporting Is GREAT campaign bus to Gretna.
But although the Scotland Office published Facebook posts announcing that the bus would be visiting several other locations throughout Scotland in August and September 2016, it was apparently only the Gretna post that received a financial boost”
Who could say no to Viceroy Fluffie?
Which UK civil servants will win this years equivalent of UK civil service Oscars, for being so apolitical and impartial. Fluffie’s crew may even get a Special Award too, like this
https://www.civilserviceworld.com/articles/news/hm-treasury-team-wins-special-civil-service-award
Wylie’s evidence is very damning. But nobody on the Commons Committee asks about Indyref1. This Ferret article is the first time I’ve seen it mentioned in connection with SCL and Cambridge Analytica.
There’s also a short video with Wylie eplainibg some of their methods 12 mins:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErNPESWJv94
Thepnr says:
27 March, 2018 at 11:29 am
“I take it the Mail, Scotsman and Express will now be publishing the Facebook spend of the other parties in this weeks Sundays.”
Will the fake “independence supporting” The National be publishing them?
Come on in, all welcome…..apparently not.
Don’t go off-topic….unless your a regular.
If i woke you guys up this afternoon, that was the intention.
I mean, the Mail and Express are beastly;who knew ?
The real world is passing you by.
Aye, the penny is finally dropping amongst the independence movement and grassroots SNP members:
The SNP leadership have become part of the UK Establishment. Anything goes as long as they can keep their snouts in the trough at Holyrood.
It’s like the Vichy Scottish Government rounding up pro-democracy, pro-independence supporters for the fascists.
Shame on the SNP MSPs and the other MSPs of any party who can sit back and allow this to happen.
So, it’s not an anti-SNP comment. It’s anti-moneygrubbing, careerist, cowardly politicians of any party who will allow democracy to be crushed in the name of “the law” comment.
I expect it from the Tories. I used to think the SNP were different, better.
Shame on the SNP.
House!
o/t
Boris getting a real good slap down.
https://www.rt.com/uk/422460-johnson-bercow-thornberry-sexist/
HandandShrimp says:
27 March, 2018 at 3:23 pm,
“I will be surprised if there is an announcement on Indyref2 before the final Brexit deal in Oct 18.”
As everyone and their dog knows, there will be No deal.
No deal, no independence referendum?
OMG
Rock, Yalta and then the return of Coco in three consecutive posts!!
Time to retire.
“Northern Ireland is having difficulties in communicating concerns on Brexit due to the lack of a functioning executive” says chairman of Westminster’s Northern Ireland Committee.
Apparently he said this with a straight face.
Rock (16th March – “The greasy poll”):
“Nicola and the SNP made utter fools of themselves by supporting Saint Theresa, in my humble opinion.”
I have a revolutionary idea.
If comments on WOS were not permitted between 8pm and midnight, it would give some people time for thought, to decide whether or nor their input would be appreciated and debated.
If that didn’t work, it would, onnyhoo, give the rest of us a period of time to go over to “off-topic” and chillax.
Yalta says:
27 March, 2018 at 8:07 pm
Come on in, all welcome…..apparently not.
Assuming you’re not a Scotland in Union green ink nutcase Yalta, why do you want to put the boot in to the SNP WoS btl? Or rather get WoS btl doing it for you, when you have a whole army of high paid professional liars at the BBC doing it all for you?
On top of the SNP Out beeb gimp network pumped into our livng rooms every hour of every day Yalta, you’ve got STV tory sneaks, all 39 UK newspapers in Scotland, UK civil service, every radio station, Channel 4 and so on.
How much more SNP Out do you and your Scotland in Union pals really think you need Yalta?
@Dan Huil and @Northern Rock
here is The Mirror’s interpretation of what’s going on – https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2018/02/26/operationalise/
https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2018/03/11/ireland-first/
Both posts were admittedly written before the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke.
Am currently thinking over a post on its implications.
Anyway – with regards to Dan’s final statement
“I apologize in advance to the people of the whole of Ireland when I say Scotland must take constitutional advantage in its dealings with England as Ireland’s problems develop”
I want to say 1) No need to apologise Dan. Work away!
2) It was another Dan, Daniel O’Connell the Liberator who, as long ago as the early 19th century stated “England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity” Our Scottish Dan can maybe update that slogan for today’s Scotland!
3) The double-fronted attack is always more effective than the single front
@Nana
Very interesting link vis the Ferret story on the Scotland Office. How is it that they can spend our money like that on clearly party political content?
I have had a Facebook account for years just to keep in touch with actual family and have less that a couple of dozen friends. I hardly used it and anyway they thought I was born on 1st Jan 1990 and have no other details other than I’m Male.
Scrubbed it tonight, Google is next for the door and Twitter as well. Sometimes they can be useful but I hate being stalked and everyone using these sites is effectively allowing that.
Use them if you must but definitely never give them any private data. Just make shit up if you have too.
Does anyone remember “Vote No Borders”, trumpeting how their use of NationBuilder would make all the difference in coordinating their Astor-Turfing?
@Thepnr
It seems to me they can do what they like. Spend taxpayers money however they please and those who are meant to hold them to account do nothing. Electoral commission who let them off with blatant fraud every time, toothless and useless.
It would be good if the Scotgov are could set up their own electoral commission, not sure if that would be allowed.
Sumdy’ll need tae tell me hoo tae vote fur noo that the SNP are Baad
Whit wull a dae whit wull a dae??
The Scotland very good the night!
@Rock,
Your opinion is indeed humble, and usually wrong as well.
Why are the £Millions the Scottish office is using on political campaigns not being included in electoral expenses. Vast sums of money was used illegally and not included in electoral expenses. DUP money etc. Not declared funds illegally from outside sources.
Non Doms tax evaders who do not pay tax in the UK. Breaking Purdah etc. Letting Pollsters manipulate the vote for money. Both public and private. Vast massive illegal donations. Buying elections. The Mercers/Brennan etc. They do not even live in the UK. How the Polls were used in the Scottish Indy/Ref during Purdah. Cameron/Clegg rushing up to make false promises. The Vow. Corrupt liars.
Media speak through their waste expulsion pipes
o/t
How the Strategic Communication Labs/Cambridge Analytica scandal leads to the heart of the British establishment with Liam O’Hare.
Yes this is a scandal about Facebook and data. But it’s also a scandal about networks of unaccountable power influencing democratic elections and it leads to the very heart of the British government. It’s time now for the British government and ministry of defence to come clean about exactly what ties it has now or has previously had with Strategic Communication Laboratories.
This story has important consequences for how elections, referenda and our democracy works.
Liam O’Hare is journalist & producer who has worked for Al Jazeera, The Independent, The Guardian, The Herald and Bella Caledonia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7gTS8rTErI&feature=youtu.be
My goodness the brit trawlers are out inn force tonight. Rock on time – sorted out his BST and his GMT and has another 1/2 hr before signing off. Colin Alexander is well Colin Alexander, Yalta the pretend red socialist and Okinawa or summit appearing on behalf of another blog. What have we learned from all these worthies.
snp baaad really bad, we love the guardian and hate the only pro independence daily newspaper (but we are pro indy!!) aye right.
rev could open a new we page for this lot== could have a competition naming the blog!! R’s & holes? lol
@Capella
Just finished watching the Committee session on Fake News/Cambridge Analytica/Strategic Communication Laboratories Group with Christopher Wylie,
nearly 4 hour but very interesting with connections to Brexit,Trump,Russia,India,Israel,UK Gov,Ukraine,Romania,France,Africa nearly 200 elections worldwide,
Brendan O`Hara asked Wylie (13.10.25) if he new of any involvement of CA or any of its connected companies in the 2014 Scottish Referendum,
he says there was some conversations with Alexander Nix but didn`t know with what side or if anything came of the conversations,
but if you look at the MO of Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group it is a perfect fit for Project Fear,
wonder where JaKies £1,000,000 went ?
The larger story on the front of the Herald is probably worth a comment on:
“Teachers set to strike over ‘best and final’ pay offer.”
http://archive.is/Fg6RD
There we have what a few of us have previously comment on as BritNat Labour and it’s BritNat Trades Union Supporters next EssEnnPeeBaaad ‘passing on Tory austerity’ campaign, ably disseminated by their MSM/BBC Propagandists.
Note that there was no “Radical, International Socialist, Workers of the World Unite” shite from BritNat Labour and it’s BritNat Trades Union Supporters when it was BritNat controlled councils making actual cuts to their members as opposed to a proposed pay offer they don’t like.
North Lanarkshire Council is accused of ’emotional blackmail’ in plan to raid Pupil Equity Fund resulting in cuts to their classroom assistant budget.
http://archive.is/EDTfP
or
When Aberdeen City Council cut 370 jobs to save £10.3m, teachers included although they had 100 unfilled posts at the time.
https://stv.tv/news/north/1408215-aberdeen-city-council-to-cut-370-jobs-to-save-10-3m/
Sorry won’t archive.
Wonder if Tricky Dicky Leontard will have this issue as his FMQs script (which he won’t deviate from) this week?
It would make a fine change seeing as it isn’t a reserved power 🙂
@ Scott Finlayson – thx for the info. I watched the shorter 1 hr section on RT. Will track down the rest tomorrow – too late at night for me to start on another 3 hrs of testimony! Well done for sitting through it in one marathon session.
OTOH it’s great background for chopping veg and ironing so a lot of housework will be done tomorrow!
Another protest totally ignored by the beeb gimp zone. Much the same wtf in Yorkshire as what we have to endure from the Pacific Quay. Get Farage and Rees Mogg on a boat chucking boxes of fish in the Thames, blanket beeb gimp coverage.
https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/leeds-news/great-northern-march-closes-leeds-14448320
ronnie anderson says: 27 March, 2018 at 5:55 pm:
“i’ve got a letter for a visit for tomorrow from the Goon squad ( their no gettin any of ma birthday cake ) lol .”
Your lucky, Ronnie, they gave you a date. I’ve been waiting for them for over 6 years now and all I get is they can call at any time morning or evening. I’ll tell you something for nothing, they will never catch me watching live TV. That’s because I don’t.
Aberdeen City Council £1.2Billion in debt. The unionists sold the City on the Stock exchanges. Built a £200Million Muse project. A grotesque monstrosity no one wanted. Shut roads and cause more traffic chaos. Paying back £7Million a year for 30years. They refused £80Million gift for UTG project which would have predestrianise the City Centre. Cost £20Million. A far better alternative. They are spending £30Million (no funding) vandalising an Art Gallery shut for years. £5Million to create a hub for storage,
£300Million on a Conference Centre with no business case. No one wanted, The present one is used once a month. £26Million of debts had to be paid off. Spent £18Million on a unneccessary road. Gave a private bus service making £Billions in profits. £17Million.
They have cut the allocated money for essential services. Education – teachers short. Illegal oversized classes. No proper social care services. All cut. Now cutting public jobs. Unionists keeping the SNP out of administration although they have the most elected representative. Tories/Labour/Lib. Useless incompetent. Not fit for public service. A two job useless Tory keeping them in power. An absolute disgrace. They are a laughing stock. Not fit for public Offuce. Breaking the Code of conduct with impunity. The public of all hue totally despise them. An appalling waste of public money.
Also, Chris Wylie worked more with Cambridge Analytica which was set up as a front, because it was not acceptable to have SCL, a British military contractor, interfering in US elections. Illegal.
SCL Elections would have been the organisation interfering in the Scottish independence referendum. So Wylie would not have been closely involved.
Isn’t it ironic that the US and UK have been accusing Russia of interfering in elections and referendums while, all the time, it is UK and US who have been rigging elections all over the globe.
How many should be declared null and void?
colin alexander at 8.08
What utter rubbish.
@Nana
Thanks for that link Nana. Much appreciated, like all the others you so kindly and generously provide
@colin alexander says:27 March, 2018 at 8:08 pm:
“Aye, the penny is finally dropping amongst the independence movement and grassroots SNP members:”
Och No! Colin, it hasn’t just dropped. We all knew you were blethering utter pish long ago. The penny with your name on it dropped with about the second post you ever made on Wings.
Quite frankly no one knows what the hell you are attempting to blether about this time anyway. It is very doubtful if you know what you are blethering about. Best get back to NCO Rock for further retraining.
Nana is an absolute star of Wings. She gives everyone the oppertunity and access to the reality of what is going on.
Thank you Nana 🙂
Good grief, I’m busy for just a day and the Wingers have rumbled another troll without me. I’m so – uneeded 🙁
Heh heh
By my calculations by the way, from all the people resigning the SNP must have had a membership of 4,138,926 and they’re all gone, all gone, boo hoo. Why, that’s more than twice the whole population of Crimea!
Reluctant Nationalist @ 8.12 pm
“House”
10/10 …. I’m of a generation that genuinely nearly JB my self.
My type o humour. LOL!
“ Graeme McCormick @0653 pm “ “ Corbyn is beginning to feel the heat” . Yes a couple of weeks ago Corbyn was being touted for Downing st. Interesting indeed that the “ anti semitic “ campaign against Labour has surfaced at this particular juncture. Obviously a pro Palestinian Labour government is not wanted in Downing st. A Tory government with arms exports to certain countries is much the preferred option. Simoultaneously, this same Tory government has been in severe trouble domestically ( with its “ devolved “ colonies ) and in severe trouble with its European “ partners” over the Brexit ongoing shambles. Now let me think , whenever a Tory government is in severe trouble what is their favoured tactic to “ unite behind the prime minister” . The answer is of course as always, the “ defence of the realm” . How extraordinary that this “ Russian chemical attack on the U.K. ( no less) has happened. The propaganda has been overwhelming. Despite original reports that some 40 people were affected the medical authorities reported that in fact only 3 people were poisoned and that there was no risk to the general public. Meanwhile we have the sight of military vehicles and personnel in” space suits” wandering around for days putting cellophane on park benches and using military low loaders and fork lifts to seize vehicles in the vicinity . Restaurants, shops & pubs are shut for days/weeks and these pictures are beamed at home and abroad virtually 24 hours a day.
Miraculously now Teresa May is “ single handedly leading the western world against the “ evil dictator Putin” and at home Corbyn is a virtual ("Tractor" - Ed) for daring to ask some ( relevant) questions in the “ mother of parliaments. ?
Someone did say “ a week is a long time in politics” ?? Strange indeed ?
Cappella
RE Cambridge analytica very interesting if you read about it on the BBC website… if you read it on the main Home page it has an article about the possibility that cheating won the EU referendum, but change over to the BBC N.Ireland website for a comparison.
You’ll see exactly the same pictures and it’s basically an article about the same thing BUT it seriously implicates the DUP as being ppro-brexit and being mentioned by the whistleblower…yet back on the main webpage, with the same article and the same photographs, there is absolutely NO mention of the DUP.
Why do you think the BBC would write two different articles about the same event and be selective with what each includes or more importantly, what each leaves out???
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43558876
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-politics-43562388
Economical with the truth?
Cassandra Crossing! Man, what was it about the ’70s and their weirdly elaborate disaster films? Poseidon Adventure, Meteor, When Time Ran Out, Red Alert, The China Syndrome…
@Taranaich
You missed “By Dawn’s Early Light” OK it wasn’t the 70’s but scary as shit all the same.
Nice to see you making a post again btw.
Scotland not to be allowed any representation in Brexit negotiations as Scotland is no more or less important than any other equal county of England
I just read that on twitter, government spokesgit apparently
I am as frustrated as everyone else on here , but lets stop for a minute and consider this
If any of the unionist parties were in power in Scotland slab , tolies or libdumbs where would we be in relation to independence / NOWHERE it wouldn’t even get a mention
Power grab / NOWHERE they wouldn’t even have mentioned any power grab it would all have been wastemonster will handle it , and any other ways to make the devolved SG weaker would have been accepted , because all slab .tolie and libdumb ar*ewipes just want the troughing and leave it to the big bosses in lundum
We have to trust that Nicola knows what she is doing because lets face it she and the SNP SG are the only ones who can get us independence , and she knows that if we are let down the SNP will possibly be damaged to extinction
C’mon guys and gals this onslaught is only the start and if we weaken the REAL fight will be lost
twathater @ 01:59,
Yes, the BritNat IR2 prep strategy seems to be two-pronged: BBC with highly-selective coverage that ignores/minimises/attacks the SG to keep the apolitical/unaware neutralised, and now evidently a campaign by “false friends” – at least some of whom are jealous little ultra-leftards with no visible means of support – to back-stab the SNP and use whatever side issues they can latch onto in order to cause the maximum amount of diversion and diversion among yessers.
Hence the litany of weel-kent and new arrivals chiming-in here today. But their cards are well marked now.
@ Meg merrilees – the plot thickens and the knitting unravels!
Reading on through the BBC articles – The PM claims there are no CURRENT contracts with CA or its parent company. That will be because there are no elections currently.
Later a spokesman said there had been 3 contracts with SCL, one was a Ministry of Defence contract in 2014. What a midden.
Scotland was depopulated by Westminster centralise policies since 1928 (and before) Until Devolution 2000. The first time the population increased. It would nut have been long before Scotland population base would have barely existed. The Westminster useless incompetents have taken £Billions out of Scotland to spend in London S/E. An absolutely appalling way to carry on.
The unionists have tried to do it in secret. Hiding it under the Official Secrets Act. They are the most shameful lying, useless, warmongering criminals ever put on the face of the earth. They illegally sanction and kill people. They have ruined and tried to illegally destroy the world economy to line their own pockets. They are still at it. Causing poverty in Scotland and total congestion in London S/E. The north/south divide. The Westminster crooks are still at it. Trying to destroy the Scottish economy with Brexit and their other appalling policies. Making nonsensical decisions. Made by politicians of whom no one in Scotland voted.
The SNP has stood up to their tyranny for ever. Since 1928 and before. The Unionists parties are absolutely appalling. No wonder no one joins them especially in Scotlanf. They lie, they cheat, they illegally kill and maim millions of people the world over.
The Tories attack on Russia are appalling beyond doubt. Johnston the imbecile. With a personality defect bordering on lunacy has been at it for years trying to detract from the appalling Tory policies and mess of Brexit to attack Russia. There can be no doubt Johnston and M15 planted the chemicals To try and blame Russia and cover up the ‘dirty dossier’.
The false flag on Russia now are to detract from the Tory unionist policies and total havoc they have caused. Even the so called internet attacks in the West are being re routed by Russia by the very unscrupulosc people who are carrying out the attack on democracy from within. Zuckerberg and his cronies are destroying the world economy to line they own pockets.
Just appalling behaviour breaking electiral rules. The wealthy buying elections The corruption in Westminster. Poisoning the world. The evil at the top of the Tory establishment. Total deceit and corruption. Most of them should be in jail. Not attempting to run the economy badly. Killing and maiming people.
Vote SNP/SNP. Vote for Independence. Or Scotland will be finished. Depopulated even further.
The migration crisis in Europe was caused by the UK/US. The totally illegal wars. Financial fraud and tax evasion. The greed at the top of the Westminster establishment is beyond appalling. . The deceit and duplicity totally illegal. Beyond any doubt. Johnston and the Tories want more war at the Russian border than they have already. Causing havoc and deprivation. Trump would not go for it. Leaving May and the Tories isolated. Then they had the cheek to go to the EU to cause more trouble in Europe. The EU they irrationally blame for the problems the Westminster criminals have caused in the world.
Today’s BBC “The SNP is rubbish and so is Nicola Sturgeon” tirade kicks off with a Fraser of Allander “report” complaining that the SNP has too many strategies for the Scottish economy.
The Tories agree. Shock.
‘Clutter’ of strategies stifling Scotland’s growth, say economists – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-43559165
Rebellion is in the air. It feels like a growing contempt for the UK, a quickening throughout the UK, and in Scotland in particular. An utter disgust of British “law”. And the corrupt law-makers have only themselves to blame. Rules and regulations carefully crafted to keep the masses under control and protect the elites. And even when things go pear-shaped, hey ho, the elites get to ignore them anyway. A system where a poor person can go to jail for filling out a benefits form wrongly, and yet corrupt politicians can get off with stealing thousands by pleading ignorance. How much longer are we going to put up with this?
The law is indeed an ass (especially the British version). 🙂
‘Unlike most of his related work for the SNP, he registered organise.scot using his personal email and home address, not his SNP email and SNP HQ address.’
I read that story in ‘The Herald’ yesterday and what I wondered was how ‘The Herald/The Scotsman’ got the information about Chris Jones registering a domain name.
Has his email account been hacked?
I’m not a rebel. A scot supporting his or her country cannot be.
People like McWhirter and Craig Murray are part of the problem. With their irrational attacks on the SNP. They can’t count and do a bit of research in the internet. Some people report from personal bias and belief. Without relevant research or knowledge.
They should apologise. Along with total misconception of Spanish economy and Spanish politics. The nonsense that they produce is hypocritical. The comparisons between the Scottish Ibdependence movement and others is entirely farcical. Support for Indepence in Catalonia is 40%? (2million – pop 7.5million). Support for Independence in Scotland is 50% 2million? In a pop of 5.2Million) Do the maths.
The politicians in Catalonia did not have the 2/3 majority in the Catalon parliament needed to call a Referendum. The Catalonia justice system said it was illegal Some manipulated and went ahead. They lost the vote on having a Referendum to have a Referendum. They went ahead despite warnings it was illegal (it did not have the majority needed). They went ahead with the Referendum. Totally ill administrated beyond belief. They lost the Referendum vote agzin Then appeared to want to declare UDI instead and then fled, to involve other countries in Europe, Their actions were appalling. In light of the affect on the economy and the people. Anyone who follows Spanish politics, even in slightest, will realise the useless incompetent outcome.
Then somehow the SNP (Gov) who have always acted within the Law, unlike most other political Parties, somehow are blamed because of the outcome. Just ridiculous. Beyond comprehension.
The Scottish (SNP) Gov will no doubt do what they can for people. Prison is counter productive but so are illegal actions no matter how misconstrued. It could have a negative affect in the Scottish Independence movement because of the irrational comparison all the time.
The International observers even declared the Catalonia Referendum should be declared null and void because of the in constituencies and irregularities. The Catalonia authorities organised it. Typical of Catalon/Spanish administration which leaves much to be desired. Antiquated Law, red tape and administration etc. Still a wonderful place and nice people. It is the Spanidh people who are suffering because of the political situation and maladministration. The economy was improving. Hopefully to continue, EU growth 3%
Twahater & RJS I think we’ve inherited some of the Bella crew Bella must be jealous of the Revs crowdfunder lol .
@twathater 1.59
I’d say so. Though more accurately, they’re the only major party willing to provide the population with the opportunity of getting independence for ourselves. The rest, as you say, would deny it even existed as a possibility.
I believe there’s a real danger of people getting mired in far too much manufactured pooh about now. Fretting and straining about things over which the Scottish Government has no direct control and they have no meaningful input because the public denied our parliament that control in 2014. That’s right. Our own electorate decided we shouldn’t worry about these things.
Foreign affairs, defence, immigration. We don’t get a say because… reasons. We get briefings to keep us… informed, but no say for you Scotland.
So by all means, people can be worried at what is happening across the globe. They can be rightly alarmed with what is happening to our relations with near neighbours. They don’t get to do much about either though. Not until they decide they want to.
Links
https://news.gov.scot/news/public-feeling-safer-after-crime-falls
10 good reasons to cancel your tv licence
http://www.trulyscottishtv.com/channel-1—welcome-to-scotland.html?vvid=c67097bbc9c4829eb3e9045bdd14af53
https://peterabell.blog/2018/03/27/lets-get-assertive/
Alex Salmond says We should ALL be speaking out against Spain’s treatment of Catalonia. The situation would be different if more already had.
https://twitter.com/ScotNational/status/978594589383843840
No role for Holyrood on Westminster’s migration committee
http://archive.is/1SO1A
HEALTH SECRETARY INTERVENES IN ARGYLL AND BUTE CRISIS
http://archive.is/H2ulj
https://randompublicjournal.com/2018/03/27/reassessing-the-terrain-for-a-2018-referendum/
Message from the president @KRLS of #Catalonia to the whole world
https://twitter.com/KarnaMikko/status/978588480652611590
A few clips from 21/03/18 @EP_Trade hearing panel, ‘Impact of #Brexit & transition’. Barbara Baarsma gives a frank assessment of what Brexit means for the UK economy
https://twitter.com/mpc_1968/status/978390887779749888
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/brussels-to-propose-50bn-raid-on-ecb-profits-1.3442168
Hell at A&E: England Pictures expose ‘disaster movie’ scenes where 30 patients were stuck on trolleys for up to 15 hours
http://archive.is/OcKYG
Britain has the legal power to withdraw Article 50—it should use it
http://archive.is/ahe1P
https://www.thecanary.co/discovery/news-discovery/2018/03/26/uk-votes-against-un-resolution-seeking-to-help-palestinian-women/
https://thenextweb.com/syndication/2018/03/26/blockchain-collision-course-eu-privacy-law/
https://theintercept.com/2018/03/26/facebook-data-ice-immigration/
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/03/cambridge-analytica-scandal-is-going-global
@Nana
Ta Nana. I was just pouring out that first cup. 🙂
Good morning, Nana,
Thank you for your links. Kettle’s on!
🙂
‘We’re all in this together’ media usage: on the streets of Britain = somewhere in England.
Expression employed with particular reference to homegrown terrorism.
One incident only recorded in Scotland at Glasgow airport. Carried out by non-Scot.
Morning Macart, pour one for me seeing you’re making some.
Brexit: tu quoque
http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86813
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/ireland-more-exposed-over-imports-than-exports-after-brexit-report-1.3442931
North Korean leader and China president meet in Beijing
http://archive.is/bv3ts
Good morning Smallaxe. Nice to see you here 🙂
@Ruby 7.44
A simple look up on ‘whois’ will tell you who registered a domain. It will also list contact details such as address and email unless you have taken steps to hide them.
Hardly investigative journalism, a 14 year old could do it.
Ahm no here Nana, I’m ower ther.
😉
Scotland’s growth is being held back by Westminster’s irrational policies and corruption beyond belief. Scotland loses £20Billion from Westminster total mismanagement and misappropriation. (UK).
The unfair and unequal Tory tax on the Oil sector since 2010 when the price had fallen. Taxed 40% since Jan 2016. Costing Scotland £Billions and 120,000 jobs. Spending on Trident, HS2 and Hinkley Point a total waste of money. £Billions. Illegal tax evasion lost £Billions. Illegal wars cost £Billions.
There is more borrowing and spending in the rest of the UK. £10Billion Pro rata. Scotland exports £10Billion more pro rata. Raises £10Billion more in taxes pro rata. (Tory high tax on Oil sector a drawback) Scotland and spends £10Billion less pro rata but ends up poorer pro rata because of Westminster misappropriation, mismanagement and colossal neglect of Scottish resources. Stifling growth in Scotland. The North/South divide engineered by Westminster policies. Useless incompetents.
Any lack of growth in Scotland is entirely because of Westminster illegal mismanagement and misappropriation caused by the Unionists parties at Westminster. The centralised economic policies of Westminster on London S/E. The Barnett Fotmula etc taking from Scotland. Policies impose on Scotland by politicans of whom Scotland did not vote. Policies not supported in Scotland. Responsible for lack of growth in Scotland. (Deliberately?)Brexit another Westminster imposed disaster. Minimum pricing took 5 years. May.
Fraser of Allander limited Report. It is not what they say but what they don’t say. Typical false accounting. Restrictive narrative, Tories? Scotland is doing better than it has ever done but could do even better without Westminster imposed interference. No mention of Brexit. or austerity. Or illegal political manipulation. Or Westminster organised cheating. Or hidden Westminster unionist reports. Or illegal wars causing the worst migration crisis since 11WW. No mention of the debt or the servicing.etc. Just a limited Report. Not of how Scotland could do things differently. To grow the economy. Years of Westminster neglect because votes in Scotland do not count and they know it.
Vote SNP/SNP vote for Independence in the EU.
The UK raises £533Billion in tax revenues. Scotland raise £54Billion (without Oil revenues). Do the maths. Scotland exports £30Billion (without Oil – £15Billion to the EU, more overseas). £10Billion to the rest of the UK? Another lie is the £40Billion internal market.
The UK exports £320Billion ? The rest of the UK imports more than that. A balance of payments. deficit. £320 minus £30Billion = £290Billion. Divide by 11 (11/12 pop) = £22.5Billion. Over £10Billion less (if Oil was included).
Scotland running it’s own affairs would make it better off more prosperous. It would make the UK indirectly better off but the incompetent unionists at Westminster are to useless to consider that. They just keep on making the same mistakes again, Over and over and over. Irrational control.
@Rock says:
27 March, 2018 at 8:07 pm
“I take it the Mail, Scotsman and Express will now be publishing the Facebook spend of the other parties in this weeks Sundays.”
Will the fake “independence supporting” The National be publishing them?
http://www.thenational.scot/news/16120125.Cambridge_Analytica_s_shock_indyref_link/
http://thenational.scot/news/16120137.Why_the_SNP_had_to_be_brilliant_at_social_media/
Just what do you hope to accomplish with that kind of trolling when it’s so easily shown up to be p!sh? If your comment was honest you could easily have answered your own question in 5 seconds, but then maybe you knew you wouldn’t get the answer you wanted?
Ref Indy2, my thoughts on it, I think things are quiet from the SNP at the moment, waiting to see how the continuity bill gets on.
It is cat and mouse with Westminster, this will come down to the wire where the UK Gov will have 2 choices, one to allow it to go unchallenged, or to challenge it where it will go to the supreme Court.
Why would they allow it?, because it will inevitably end up with Union with Scotland being minutely examined, they do not want that, as their part in the Union and how they have manipulated and broke it, pretty well from day one will be verified. So to allow the bill without challenge may be the least harmful path for them, no matter how distasteful they find it.
What if they do challenge it, and it goes to the Supreme court. Well the Supreme Court is an English install, and for them to go against Scottish wishes would cause a rise for Independence in Scotland.
Sovereignty of the people will be brought out into the open. So we would then find out how they view that, it certainly does not suit them to accept it exists.
We in Scotland accept and still go with people are sovereign, they may, crookedly judge against it. So either way, they are between a rock and a hard place, If they accept Scottish peoples sovereignty it goes against THEIR wishes, and opens a door shut for centuries.
If they deny our Sovereignty, then a political stramash will ensue which will damage the corrupt Westminster Government badly
and will open the door to Indy2, and quickly as we already have the mandate.
I believe this is the catalyst that the SNP are waiting for, either way Westminster will be more exposed than ever, and more Scots than ever will vote Yes.
Meanwhile plans will be being made to handle any outcome the Supreme court makes and both options open to them will inevitably lead to Indy. A good pincer movement having been employed.
I think the SNP spring convention is no random choice, to hold it in May will be the latest time ever held. My opinion is that Indy 2 will be announced at that convention.
Folks
here is the crowdfunder for Prof Clara Ponsati. Tricia Marwick has just put it up on her Twitter. It’s going well. Please throw in a little if you can. You always feel a bit better for helping a cause like this.
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/defendclara/
An extra one that Nana may have missed. External interference with Irish plebiscite for amending the Bunreacht na hÉireann re abortion.
More info on mind control.
Link
https://ansionnachfionn.com/2018/03/28/anti-choice-campaigners-use-same-tech-as-the-trump-brexit-and-nra-campaigns/
Worth looking at “The White Fox” blog regularly peeps.
:
@Dr Jim says: 28 March, 2018 at 1:11 am:
“Scotland not to be allowed any representation in Brexit negotiations as Scotland is no more or less important than any other equal county of England
I just read that on twitter, government spokesgit apparently.
Well, Dr Jim, that is indeed the official Westminster view of the so called, United Kingdom that we are supposedly a part of.
Look at the facts:-
(A) – Westminster is the only parliament that legislates for the country of England.
(B) – The country of England therefore has no one elected as a member of the country of England Parliament.
(C) – Either there is no country called England in the United Kingdom or the country of England is the United Kingdom but the title, “United Kingdom, describes a Kingdom and not a country in the United Kingdom.
Conclusion – Logically either, (1) – there is no country of England in the United Kingdom or (2) – The United Kingdom is the country of England.
However, the title, “United Kingdom”, clearly describes a unit composed of more than one kingdom that have united together. This united Kingdom only came into existence on 1 May 1707 by the agreement of only a Kingdom of England and a Kingdom of Scotland and these two kingdoms were equally sovereign kingdoms that, by an accident of birth, saw both kingdom’s crowns resting upon the same person’s head.
As the same person wearing both crowns had different status in each of his two kingdoms there could not be, (under the laws of England), the application of, The Rule of Law, “The Divine Right of Kings”, which has no place under the laws of Scotland.
That is, as the monarchs of Scotland are not legally sovereign under Scots law the monarchy of a United Kingdom cannot be sovereign in the Kingdom of Scotland. So a United Kingdom Parliament can only legally exist by the agreement of the legally sovereign people of Scotland and the legally sovereign monarch of the Kingdom of England.
Plainly the United Kingdom has only two partner kingdoms and the Kingdom of England already was composed of the counties of England, Wales & Ireland when that treaty was agreed.
Today the Parliament of Westminster is directly running England and has relegated Scotland, (without the express permission of the legally sovereign people of Scotland), as a vassal country of the only parliament that runs the country of England under English law and is thus the de facto parliament of the country of England devolving the powers of the country of England to what is legally two English vassal countries and treating Scotland, not as a partner kingdom, but as just another Kingdom of England vassal country.
If you doubt this is the true situation then consider the statement of the so called Secretary of State FOR Scotland, David Mundell:-
“The Treaty of Union Extinguished the Kingdom of Scotland and renamed the Kingdom of England, (as), the United Kingdom”.
You can see and hear him confirm this in this video clip:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OIRUr4R7GQ
So there you go – official confirmation that this is indeed the Westminster Government’s official view.
Not to worry, though, Rock and co. will be along soon and he and his sock puppets will not attempt to counter these facts but will attack me personally, Wingers in general, the people of Scotland, the Scottish legal system and the people of Scotland’s sovereignty while simultaneously claiming they, not us, to be the real seekers of Scotland’s sovereignty, (independence).
Rev,
I think you should remove the “joke” posted on 27 March, 2018 at 11:33 am.
Its beneath this site.
Lee Evans is funny; David Mitchell and Jimmy Carr are not.
How grateful am I that I missed the massed wan*ings of unionist press.
I feel your disdain and thanks yet again for doing this dirty job.
Wonder how those ‘democracy’ reporters are getting on…
Dear God – headline today:
T May tells Putin ‘back off’ or feel Britain’s wrath now !!!!!!!!!
This woman is delusional; another Tory warmonger –
Falklands,
WMD Iraq
etc etc
do they never learn – we all want to live in PEACE.
Clara Ponsati crowdfunder already on £39,500…. keep it coming folks.
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/defendclara/
Capella
I noticed that reference to the MOD contract in 2014 during T May’s answer in the H o C last week…. of course, the MOD could have being using the information to find out things about Trident in Scotland and the questions could just have shed some light on how people might vote in the soon-to-be upcoming referendum that everyone had known about since 2012.
No surprises here – walk on !
Meg merrilees says:
” we all want to live in PEACE.”
Smallaxe heartily agrees.
🙂
Re the MSM’s black arts.
Sometimes you react because its personal.
https://tompride.wordpress.com/
@Valerie
Thanks for the headsup, fundraiser over 55 grand now
OT,
Sorry for this link. I found it on Kirsty Hughes Twitter Account. https://
http://www.deliveringforscotland.gov.uk/ #DeliveringforScotland
Can we get our heads together with pithy counteracts to this please.
I know the reasoned ones, but for on the hoof campaigning it needs to be short and sharp.
My first response is,
If your trading with England after Brexit, get paid on delivery, Scotland’s the only bit of the UK making a profit, without us England’s bust and can’t afford our goods.
And I’m aware this response is not very good. So answers, idea’s, please. This will be their new Project Fear along with overwhelming national and international crises.
The Felbers got £2,000 out of £20,000 to defeat the Home Office. Unfortunately.
A discredited individual gets free publicity to make irresponsible denials. Some people do protest too much.
The (SNP) Scottish Gov should keep well away from legal internal systems in other countries. Make representation.
Thanku so much from @ClaraPonsati – ‘Defiant, Resolute & Determined to Fight Back’ on way 2Edinburgh -Clara will b arrested in next hour & taken 2court 4extradition hearing at 2pm
https://twitter.com/AamerAnwar/status/978919478611398656
O/T, but there’s a crowdfunder well underway to help Clara Ponsati’s extradition case.
It’s important that she succeed, not just for the obvious moral reasons, but also because of the contribution it would make to the cause of Scottish independence.
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/defendclara/
@Ken500 says: 28 March, 2018 at 8:00 am:
“The comparisons between the Scottish Ibdependence movement and others is entirely farcical. Support for Indepence in Catalonia is 40%? (2million – pop 7.5million). Support for Independence in Scotland is 50% 2million? In a pop of 5.2Million) Do the maths.
Now, Ken500, I’m only going to say this once. In this matter about doing the Maths for the Catalonian situation you are posting utter pish! It is like adding 2+2 and correctly saying it equals 4 but missing the truth that the initial calculation should have been 2+2+2=6.
You quite clearly, for all to see, are getting the calculation correct but using a very wrong equation.
The bit you omit, deliberately or not, is the figures you are calculating do not include the many, many people who were prevented from voting, who were prevented from registering to vote and the, probably greater number, deterred from either registering or voting due to fear of being beaten up, convicted on trumped up election fiddling or even absolutely terrified they would be murdered by the Spanish authorities.
A primary one child can learn to add, subtract, multiply and divide figures put on a whiteboard by a teacher. That doesn’t make them understand how to logically compose an equation to calculate and solve a problem.
The figures you insist upon quoting do not represent the true problem you claim they prove.
I sat in a college class and a professor started writing figures on a blackboard. Explaining his methods as he went. After a long and complex maths argument his conclusion seemed to prove that 1=0.
He then asked us to prove that it didn’t and went off to the college staff meeting.
A bit like the tutor in the medical college who was lecturing on diabetes diagnostics.
He had a rack of test tubes before him as did each student doctor. He made several other points then dipped a finger into a test tube and then placed a finger into his mouth saying, “this sample does not taste sweet”, and so on along the tubes of samples. Finally he said, “This sample tastes sweet”, and is from a person suffering from diabetes”.
Each student had followed his tests and the tutor then said, “One other thing, you should know that while I dipped this finger into the sample it was this other finger I put in my mouth”.
His point being that you need to be very careful and not jump to wrong conclusions.
Fine sentiment from Clara Ponsati on the crowdfund page.
Sinn Fein chief slams Government over ‘procrastination’
As talks in Brussels turned again to the thorny issue of the Irish border, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald insisted it needed to be resolved by June at the latest.
She accused the UK Government of “bluster and procrastination” on the issue and said concrete proposals on how it intended to avoid a hard border were needed.
“The reality is we should at this stage have seen some concrete proposal from the British Government,” she said. “The idea of pushing this out to October is absolutely unacceptable.”
Speaking in Belfast, Mrs McDonald had a blunt message for the UK Government.
“They need to understand that further delay is not acceptable, they need to show us the colour of their money, they need to put forward a concrete proposition and proposal as to how Ireland is protected, how the north of Ireland is protected, how our peace agreements are protected, how our economy is protected.”
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Theresa May gave a statement to Parliament on last week’s EU Council meeting. She said “key questions” remain to be resolved on the withdrawal agreement – including how commitments to avoid a hard Irish border should be turned into legal text.
“As I have made clear, we remain committed to the agreement we reached in December in its entirety,” Mrs May said.
“This includes a commitment to agree operational legal text for the ‘backstop option’ set out in the Joint Report – although it remains my firm belief that we can and will find the best solutions for Northern Ireland as part of the overall future relationship between the UK and the EU.
“I have explained that the specific European Commission proposals for that backstop were unacceptable because they were not in line with the Belfast Agreement and threatened the break-up of the UK’s internal market. And as such they were not a fair reflection of the joint report.
“But there are many issues on which we can agree with the commission and we are committed to working intensively to resolve those which remain outstanding.
“So I welcome that we are beginning a dedicated set of talks today with the European Commission – and where appropriate the Irish government – so that we can work together to agree the best way to fulfil the commitments we have made.”
DUP MP Nigel Dodds told the PM there was “bemusement” in Northern Ireland “that there is so much concentration on the backstop when we should be getting on negotiating the overall agreement that will actually take care of the Irish border issue”.
Belfast Telegraph
@ Nana, thanks for the Salmond & Bell links & we should all stand with Clara Ponsati!
Catalon/Spanish privileged millionaires, no doubt tax evaders. On the wrong side of the Law. How convenient. Suckered in.
@Yalta says:28 March, 2018 at 9:28 am:
“Lee Evans is funny; David Mitchell and Jimmy Carr are not.”
In your, “humble”, (cough!), opinion, no doubt?
Now where have I heard that expression used on Wings recently?
@ Obviously not too good at Maths or Catalon/Spain Law but opinion based on personal beliefs.
Catalonia Parliament 90- 45 = 135. 1 short of a 2/3 majority.
2million out of 5.2 Million, 1million not on the register? Why? 1million under 18 year old. A complete shambles of organisation. The Intenational advisers decided it was such a shambles it should have been declared null and void. That was just the organisation. The vote was lost every time and so badly organised it could not even be legitimised by international advisers,
That is including missing voters of all the electorate. Not just YES No or DK. No one even knows but UDI? declared . Then run away, Not to stay and state their case which could have got support. Not helping the people or the voters. The poor Catalonia/Spanish people. Having to put up with all of it. No wonder the political class is help in such dire estimation
.
It might have been ‘better’ to appeal to the ECHR to state their case to which the Spanish Gov would have to agree. Like some other countries. Ie go through the proper channels. Or the Law.
Clara has arrived at police station 5 mins ago, now inside and the court case is to be held at 2pm
livestream here soon
https://www.pscp.tv/w/1DXxyXoDawvJM
All those fascist sympathising Brit Nats out there wittering about respecting the Spanish constitution and laws …. does that mean the also support handing Gibraltar back as per Spanish constitution?
In typical Brit Nat form, full of entitlement and exceptionalism, the rules don’t apply to them.
Woohoo
The Ponsati crowdfunder is now at £95k at 11.09. The stretch target is 100k, so it’s brilliant.
Lots of Spanish names coming up in donor list, they are so resilient.
Lots of us too.
Nana says
A good overview of where Brexit has got to. A lot of difficult things still to be agreed and much doubt about whether it’s possible. I would query whether the UK is actually serious about facing up to its obligations!
The article suggests A50 can simply be cancelled by WM. That is in doubt. The Tories won’t do it. For them ‘delivering’ Brexit is an idealogical red line.
Theresa May says we must respect the Spanish Constitution so that’s Gibraltar away? NO PASARAN!
Neil Findlay is called a fanny & a baw-bag simultaneously which must be some kind of record!
SKy lying through it’s teeth about Scotland. Again.
Bolton
Les Wilson says:
28 March, 2018 at 9:04 am
Ref Indy2, my thoughts on it, I think things are quiet from the SNP at the moment, waiting to see how the continuity bill gets on.
It is cat and mouse with Westminster, this will come down to the wire where the UK Gov will have 2 choices, one to allow it to go unchallenged, or to challenge it where it will go to the supreme Court…..
That’s a credible position Les, but it’s a binary option; Westminster must do A, or B, and we position ourselves accordingly and wait. Westminster is slippery and slimy however, and will go through all manner of abstract contortions to give itself options C, D, E, F….
Ireland knows that, Europe knows that, but Scotland? Hell no, we’re still sure Westminster will play by the rules, and the BBC will be fair and neutral. Westminster doesn’t even blush denying that the Irish Border Agreement was a binding commitment until Barnier set it into legislation.
How does Westminster avoid the face to face confrontation over Scottish Sovereignty? Well, first, it procrastinates, diverts, obfuscates and runs down the clock without committing to anything. Then, in the eleventh hour, it magnanimously concedes, but concedes chicken feed when it is too late to do anything but accept it.
In our immediate circumstances, Westminster can duck and dive all Summer and beyond, avoid confronting the Scottish Government while the sands of time run out on Brexit, and just when Nicola finally tees up IndyRef2 on the basis of Westminster’s power grab and continuity legislation, Westminster suddenly concedes the legal case it was always going to lose, so the case itself collapses, Scotland never gets its third party sovereign adjudication, and Westminster pulls the rug out from IndyRef2 because the power grab was a smokescreen from the beginning, and Westminster has bought virtue through concession of a matter it was always going to lose anyway, but our time is lost and our pristine sovereignty is no better respected than it is now.
Scotland will forever find sovereign recognition just beyond our reach and will fritter away the last few months of Brexit, just as we have frittered away the first, standing on the sidelines, impotent bystanders because Europe does not recognise Scotland’s government as a sovereign interlocutor.
Nicola’s magic trigger for IndyRef2 is undermined by Westminster, (again), and all we have to show for it is Westminster’s magnanimous release of control over a fishing industry, where Scotland suddenly has to keep out the Spanish fishing fleet, and control of food standards which UK supermarkets will circumvent with Union Jackery on all food packaging so nobody knows where it comes from, and also stand up to US led pressure for deregulation on standards as the US starts marketing it’s own Scotch Whisky.
We have 1 year to Brexit, but only 6 months before the Brexit deal is finalised and goes for ratification. Frankly Les, I think you’re right, but it is utterly inexcusable for “things to be quiet” at SNP HQ.
The time for second guessing what Westminster is going to do is long gone. What we require now is belief, commitment and progressive initiative or all is lost.
Why is it that David Mundell can be a member of the Scottish Conservatives if he believes that Scotland was extinguished in 1707.
Surely he can only believe he is a member of either the UK Conservatives or English Conservatives, not sure if he believes Scotland became an English region or England was also extinguished, he needs to clarify his beliefs.
Ot and apologies, but remember when the Tories were shouting about Scotland being highest taxed part of uk ?
English councils hiking CT by at least 5%.
Sorry but would not archive..
Biggest council tax rise in decade to hit in April
https://f7td5.app.goo.gl/uyhDz59iKOESwIGT2
Sent via @updayUK
Just donated to Clara fund. Felt good. Donations pouring in from Catalonia Scotland and all points of the compass . Not such a bad world after all.
SNP accused of having too many strategies
Well what can you say about that, first *accused?* really?
Second *Too many?* really?
See what this tells me is the SNP are an open party seeking opinions and positions from as wide a view as possible
Whereas if we compare that to the LabTorlib plans of no strategies whatsoever but just *Heid doon plow on for more dominance* strategy, i’ll take the SNP outlook every day thanks very much
The tossers who came up with this attempt at a smear want to catch themselves on it just makes them look like bigger nitwits than they already are
@ben madigan 8:33pm
Just caught up with your post, ben. Thanks for that and thanks for the links. As I’ve said before, what happens in the whole of Ireland re. brexit will be of great importance to Scotland’s future.
Not sure I’m clever enough to update Irish Dan’s quote!
Breeks @ 11:26,
I hear what you say about the “power grab” strategy. It may well not be the current UKGov intention to capitulate on the issue, since they are power-greedy, but if push-came-to-shove and it was the only way to try to unhinge the SG strategy, I reckon they would go for it.
But it’s not the justification for IR2. Scotland voted to remain, so any exit from the EU enforced upon us is still the same affront as it always was, and the need for a constitutionally-definitive decision as to which Union we belong is just as essential as ever.
(And it’s also still fairly possible that the wheels will come off the UKGov bandwagon entirely over the EU guddle. Which would really put the cat among the pigeons.)
frogesque says:
28 March, 2018 at 8:52 am
@Ruby 7.44
A simple look up on ‘whois’ will tell you who registered a domain. It will also list contact details such as address and email unless you have taken steps to hide them.
Hardly investigative journalism, a 14 year old could do it.
Ruby replies
I know about the ‘whois’ on Nominet but how would you know which domain name to enter?
As far as I can gather there is no website all that has happened is someone registered a domain name using his own personal email account. How would a investigative journalist find that information?
The Nominet ‘whois’ doesn’t cover .scot domain names do you know who does?
@Ken500 says: 28 March, 2018 at 10:51 am:
“Obviously not too good at Maths or Catalon/Spain Law but opinion based on personal beliefs.”
Utter pish, Ken500.
You know as well as everyone else, (almost), that the Catalans are being exposed to violent attacks. That they are being criminalised by a cruel regime and that no matter if their case was right or wrong s soon as their police forces and other. rather dubious, paramilitary forces attacked civilians the Spanish Government’s case is over.
And that is not personal opinion it is the evidence of many international media sauces.
Old ladies bludgeoned into submission by multiple large paramilitary bullies. Police vehicles deliberately steered into crowds of people. And you are supporting it.
Whether the Catalan plebiscite was well or badly run we will never know because people were prevented from voting and ballot boxes forcibly removed.
I’m not going to argue with you for doing so would legitimise your views and I’m also, at least for the time being, scrolling past your comments.
Breeks says:
I never doubt just how deceitful the Westminster cabal is, however I have some faith that the SNP, who have now been dealing with them and their refusals to anything worthwhile for some time. Hopefully that would make them well aware of what they are dealing with. Subsequently they should be planning for dirty tricks.
O/T A wee reminder
WINGERS NIGHT OUT AND SOCIAL GATHERING
7TH April
OTTERS HEAD, WOODSIDE, GLENROTHES
Only 10 sleeps to go.
Details now re-posted over on the “off topic” page. I hope to see lots of you there,