Writers of fiction
We were hugely excited earlier on today to receive news of a long-hoped-for team-up between two of our very favourite people on the internet: catastrophically thick Daily Express hack Siobhan McFadyen and popular lawsuit enthusiast JK Rowling.
What we hadn’t expected was a starring role.
The alliance in question took the form of an article in today’s Sunday Express.
The unmeasurably wealthy author has apparently recently found herself with nothing better to do with her life than create misleading collages of allegedly abusive social media comments (almost none of them directed at her), often presented wildly out of context, in her ongoing crusade to prove the vileness of anyone who wants Scotland to elect its own governments.
In McFadyen’s article, a selection are presented, again bereft of any context, as proof that Yes supporters are anti-English racists.
Bizarrely, the article claims that the tweets have been posted “since the SNP’s decision to hold another vote”, a decision which exists only in the mind of Siobhan McFadyen, but which we assume must notionally refer to events of two weeks ago, when the First Minister announced a new draft bill to go with a public consultation on the subject.
No screenshots or links to the offending tweets are included in the article for anyone to verify them. Two of the first three that are quoted do not appear if you search Twitter for them, although it’s of course possible that they were subsequently deleted.
(The one that does is a reply to a tweet we can’t see, but does call one individual a “bullying little Englander”, which is clearly not an attack on an entire nation.)
The next one in the Express piece is dated not from two weeks ago, but from almost 15 months ago, in mid-August 2015:
It’s certainly not very friendly and could arguably be considered to be very vaguely threatening, but it was a reaction to an extremely inflammatory original comment from Robinson and certainly doesn’t contain a single syllable that even the most sensitive person could construe as “anti-English racism”.
The next one is also from last August, and we can’t make head nor tail of it.
We can’t tell what “ComediansForYes” is objecting to in the tweets they’ve quoted, but in any event their harsh words are directed at “Unionists” with no mention of anyone’s nationality. But then things get interesting.
As it happened, we recognised that one.
From more than a year ago, we’d be the first to admit that’s not a particularly nice tweet. We were evidently in a bad mood that afternoon. But alert readers may recall that as well as being supposedly featuring RECENT tweets, the article claims to be about exposing “anti-English racism”, and plainly that tweet contains nothing of the sort. It’s obviously grumping at old Scottish voters.
McFadyen and Rowling’s grand dossier of vile anti-English racist abuse following the (wholly non-existent) announcement of a second indyref, then, hasn’t come up with a solitary verifiable example so far. Most of the comments don’t seem to actually exist, and the few that do have had nothing whatsoever to do with “the English”.
In the desperate attempt to prove the point, though, much worse is to come.
Hello! That’s us again, in part of a tweet not from two weeks ago but from July 2012, which chronologically-alert readers will note is more than FOUR YEARS ago. And the words “part of” are somewhat key, as you’re about to see.
Rowling and McFadyen have cut the last six words (including the vital “cont’d”) out of the first half of the tweet, and omitted the second half entirely. And they’ve done that because including them would have revealed that the tweets had absolutely nothing to do with either English people OR Scottish politics.
They were in fact a sarcastic, ironic comment about John Terry’s successful defence tactics in a case accusing him of racism, of which he’d been cleared that same day.
So far, however, McFadyen and Rowling are merely being spectacularly dishonest. Of “more than 20” allegedly abusive anti-English and racist users, cherry-picked from tweets spanning close to half a decade, only FOUR people have actually been verified in the article as existing at all, and NONE of them has posted so much as a single comment even remotely interpretable as “anti-English racism”.
But what follows is on a whole other level.
From the preceding text, that can only possibly refer to us – or to be more precise, me. (“TrueYesser” gives their location as Livingston, “OorAliciaMurray” as Glasgow and “ComediansForYes” only as Scotland. I’m the only person “domiciled in England”.) Anyone reading it with any passing knowledge of Scottish politics will know who it is.
(Hilariously, Siobhan McFadyen is so epically, weapons-grade stupid that she thinks you can defame people freely as long as you don’t print their actual name. In fact the law merely requires that they be identifiable from the information published – otherwise you could say something awful and illegal about “Bavid Deckham” and get away with it because that’s not his name.)
And that statement isn’t just misleading or distorted, it’s a flat-out defamatory lie.
Now, “hateful abuse” itself is an eye-of-the-beholder term – one man’s hateful abuse is another man’s lawful expression of legitimate anger. But the claim that I “encourage others” to post abusive comments is utterly without foundation. The last time anyone made a similar claim they withdrew it sharpish and handed over several thousand pounds by way of apology.
We utterly refute the allegation that this site or myself has EVER encouraged anyone to abuse or harass anyone. We consider such behaviour entirely counter-productive and discourage it at all times. Rowling and McFadyen are liars. If they have a scrap of evidence to the contrary, we invite them to produce it.
Otherwise, the Daily Express will be hearing from us.
Now we get a sense of what the ‘Hacked Off’ victims went through!
I think it would now be fair to call her JK Trolling.
Well done Rev!!
But people who live in a fantasy world can’t tell the truth or put it into words. Maybe the Dandy & the Beano have an opening for children writers of shit stories
@ Ms. McFadyen
The fact of Britain’s existence is an act criminality. Wind your neck in.
link to un.org
@ Ms. McFadyen
The fact of Britain’s existence is an act of criminality. Wind your neck in.
link to un.org
The pair of them ain’t worth my time, I’d rather watch amoeba develop self awareness; than read anything that pair have written.
Git oan it.
The two August ones (TrueYesser and #Indyref2) near the start are also from 2015. It appears all of it is old hat.
I don’t read the express, so I’m not clever enough to understand the phrase “a torrid of abuse”.
This lady doesn’t need protection from vile cybernats, she needs english lessons!
Go get them
They’re giving Blondes a bad rep.
Oh dear! There may be trouble ahead.
Quite right Stu to call them out. These folk seem to think that they can say and do what they want and get away with it. Wrong.
Go get em tiger.
Oops ! Sweety money on the horizon.
August 2015!!!
So she’s gone back over a year. Sad act that she is.
That woman who writes books should ditch her lawyers and put you on her payroll, you would be better (and cheaper).
Goodness, what a lot of hatred and bile is within these ladies. I don’t think a democracy is the right place for them.
If you need funds for a lawsuit, you need only ask.
How did it go… “The poor had no lawyers”, which encapsulates the mindset that very wealthy people feel they’re a bit above the law because they have “islands of lawyers” – and many of these things could be argued to be a matter of interpretation by those isle-lawyers.
I’m willing to contribute to the legal warchest, though my contribution must needs be a modest one as I’m facing… er, some frighteningly high dentist’s bills! (And I don’t even eat sweets!)
Yeah, and SMcF comes across as pretty stupid (or should that be PRETTY STUPID?), and very smug now that she’s got J.K. Rowling onside.
Oh, and beware of the wrath of the millions of Potterheads, lol!
The Nick Robinson tweet is from 18 months ago.
Go get em Stu…..
Stu, two of the posts are from 2015 , not 2016 . ‘Comedians for yes’ and ‘true yesser’
OK, I’m a wean, but I love seeing SMcF getting all carnaptious. She’s a really is thin-skinned sweetie-wife.
Keep revving her, Rev
Can’t lay it out any clearer than that. The hack’s pretty doing her job but why filthy rich Rowling does actually, “create misleading collages of allegedly abusive social media comments” and worse, is really weird.
Is there such a thing as an honest yoon, in our public eye balls?
Safe to say there’s a fair bit of fiction in their story then… You don’t hire a writer of fiction to write the truth now,do ya? Lol
‘has been capturing a torrid of abusive messages’
Thank feck the fragrant Siobhan doesn’t depend on knowledge of and facilty in the English language to ply her trade.
McFadyen, as has been shown several times on Wings, doesn’t deserve the title of ‘journalist’.
The rag that she works for in the Main Stream Media will do anything to rubbish the name of Scotland and Scottish independence supporters, and they no longer care if there is any truth to their stories, as long as some of the muck sticks. That’s all McFadyen is, a muck raker.
As for JKR, she obviously has too much time on her hands!
What do you get when you cross a Soggy Fagend and the poor mans Tolkien?
Answer, Who cares.
I think the gutter Express should take a very close look to the real racist problems that are taking place down south before linking Scotland with their problems.
MSN headline today racist attacks in Engerland, but surprise, surprise says its a UK problem.
Another bitter together all in it together load of bollocks.
Indy Ref 2 Aye
Call me a wean, but I love seeing SMcF getting all carnaptious.
Keep revving, rev
You may not have done those specific allegations Rev, but you have called Siobhann McFadyen ‘catastrophically stupid’.
A grave error. Because if I were a hard-working writer for the Daily Express I’d sue you for that, and to avoid a hefty fine you would be made to provide irrefutable evidence, in court, of my catastrophic stupidity 🙂
She’s a daft lassie oor Siobhan.. *is it ok to say I widnae see her stuck..* 🙂
glé mhath thu fhéin !
I am an English Labour supporting moderately left “nobody” who has had experiences with Tory supporting tweeters @screwlabour and @DrGABaines that made me realise what a sad, timewasting medium it is and a vehicle so ideal for abuse. Deactivated and got a life. How do the likes of JK et al ever find the time to wtite if consatantly scrutinising twitter TL’s?
This lady needs a lesson her view if Scots is distorted in the extreme
Hi Stuart – Are you considering action against the poor soul who called you a ‘vile pustule’ a couple of days ago.
Hilariously, there is/are still individual/s amongst the cretins who post comments on The Scotsman who allege that you have nothing better to do with your time than to waste it making multiple posts under assorted pseudonyms on that doomed propaganda rag. Surely to suggest such pathetic behaviour on your part must be defamatory and possibly actionable.
You’d think Ms Rowling could find better things to do with her time and enormous wealth.The chap Gates seems to be able to use his to better purpose.
The deeply immoral aspect of it is to try to further push the anti-English line. That is deeply hurtful to a great many people. Shame on them.
This is dragging politics into the sewer and needs to be challenged.
Anyone who attends an SNP members event will hear English accents.
Many Scots-English, or perhaps it’s English-Scots, are part and parcel of Scotland’s quest for self determination.
People routinely point out that the electorates of Scotland and England seem to be on different roads these days. That is a fact which highlights differences and the need for the two nations to agree to part amicably. That is not in any way anti-English or racist.
There’s a movie plot somewhere in all this…
She was a rookie in the city Chronicle; and she was a world renown author. They had never met but one man, the internet, and a mutual yearning for respect brought their destinies together, united forever.
Starring Lindsay Lohan as Siobhan, and Gwyneth Paltrow as Jakay.
Directed by Ridley Scott.
Music by RunRig.
A Scott Free Production.
(That’s Ridley’s real company name.)
I’m a little sceptical that there’s an actual case for legal action. I prefer just to point and laugh at the Daily Express.
Oh Jings! 😮
I can see a mad rush on popcorn stocks coming.
On transport the other day a woman was reading a book by JK Trolling.
I had never read her stuff before. Had a look at what was on the pages.
I was astonished. It read like a lobotomised 12-year-old Enid Blyton.
I don’t think you should be settling for anything like just £6000 in this case Stu. So far as I can see this article has run nationwide and has been published in the country you reside, as well as distributed in the city in which you live. I haven’t checked but I reckon the Express has a higher printed circulation and online readership too. That’s a very different set of circumstances to the Herald article.
If anything all I can ever recall you doing is asking people NOT to be abusive.
For what its’s worth I read the offencing paragraph and instantly thought of Stu Campbell of Bristol. It was a clear reference.
I take this article as a personal slight against everyone supporting the normal right for a country to run its own affairs.
If you wish to take legal action I will be happy to contribute to your legal fees.
Oh dear, here we go again.
They are ramping it up big style in the lead up to a perceived Referendum and getting the first shots in.
No matter how dishonest or stupid, it is now in the public domain…keep taking your course of action Rev as you have (successfully) done before and earn a well deserved holiday before the real fight starts.
These idiots target audience are plain to see and it boils my p***!
Sorry for the rant but I am an SNP member who lives in Kent and have done so since 1976 the stupid comments I get from friends who sheepishly believe everything the MSN and other outlets infuriate me and I try to point them in your direction…it does work 90% of the time surprisingly.
Please keep doing what you are doing.
So according to the logic of S McFadyen, I can put anything I like in print about a world-famous, multi-millionaire, female children’s author, who lives in the Barnton area of Edinburgh, and so long as I don’t actually use her name, I’ve no worries where litigation is concerned?
Fantastic!
Oh no, wait, I’ve just realised I’m back on planet Earth. Sorry folks…
Surprised that Rowling is in cahoots with Siobhan. I seriously doubt they share anything in common politically other than a dislike of this site….OK a rabid dislike of this site but it doesn’t seem like the basis of a lasting friendship.
Siobhan is entertaining though. She is to political journalism what Nathan Rao is to long term weather forecasting. The Express is a sort of National Enquirer wannabe with lots of prurient curtain twitching thrown in for good measure.
What do you get when you cross a Soggy Fagend and the poor mans Tolkien?
We’re lucky really that she is such a light weight, more money than Davy Crockett but quite dim. Imagine a yoon tory world with writers like Arthur Miller, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Gore Vidal all busily collecting and altering horrid tweets, for the crushing of a fledgling democracy anywhere really, UKOK Rowling style.
Vile sep exaggeration for effect:D
Anyway JK’s made more money than every writer that ever lived. That’s all that counts in the UK zone these days.
Jakey is just making herself look completely foolish with this alleged obsession to make us all out to be vile cybernats.
As for the ‘journalist’, there are no words.??
By the way, I believe the reason the anti-English line is being pushed so hard in the MSM these days is an attempt to mobilise the English vote in Scotland against the SNP/Independence.
It is therefore imperative that crap like this is challenged.
As part of the(hopeful) settlement Stu, I’d demand a front page apology or at least the same prominence the original article had.
Kenny: “It read like a lobotomised 12-year-old Enid Blyton.”
Good description.
Rowling is a phenomenon, marketing of her and her work an example of top down globalisation, selling doorstop books at £25 and more to kids whose parents are hard pressed to resist the purchase.
You expect crap from the UKIP-supporting Express, but I would have thought Jay Kay Rowling would have been too busy scrolling through decent literature to find her next plot line to bother with this rubbish? Still, I suppose it’s encouraging in that it’s the first piece of original fiction she’s ever written…
As both ladies have deliberately misrepresented you in such a spectacularly demonstrable manner, I’d say you have good grounds to sue.
While we people here on WoS can see through the pish, I bet there are lots and lots of nice, ordinary people vaguely positive towards indy after all that’s happened since 2014 (especially the Brexit vote and the aftermath) but, being nice, ordinary, decent people, they’re perhaps wary of rocking the boat too much, they’re scared of serious rifts and “Ulsterisation” – there’s a reason the Yoons have been repeating that word, and, frankly, stoking such sentiments. (Seems weird using the word “frankly” without the word “vile” accompanying it. :-O )
This piece by the fragrant SMcF is just another tiny drip drip in this next, ongoing project fear.
The challenge for every indy supporter is to allay these fears. The YES-movement has to find ways to do this gently and reasonably and credibly.
It’s a tough task, what with near blanket MSM (especially the BBC) coverage against us.
I don’t know what the answer is, but it is not berating, belittling, blaming, name-calling all those who voted NO in 2014.
Let the “frothing-at-the-mouth-dyed-in-the-wool-Britnats” (“Yoons”) burn bridges (figuratively, of course), let indy supporters build bridges among the unsure and undecided.
(heh, a bit like the amazing Queensferry Crossing, delivered by a Scottish government that puts Scotland first, come to think of it.)
Go get ’em Stu, time to bring a semblance of decency back. These two women are defaming not only you but half of a Nation.
I doubt that this sad little hack even consulted Rowling before she stirred up this little anti Scottish crock o’ shit.
You have no recourse but to sue the pants off her , Stu.
Rowling is another matter.
I syggested at the time of her ‘Anti English’ harrumph that some may say that the famous scribe may need help; some would say, but not me.
May I suggest two weeks on the impossibly sandy beaches of Labenne, light meals of Moules Mariniere, lumps of fluffy white bread to dip in the garlic butter sauce, washed down with Demi of the local red?
It’s the old Dead Tree Scrolls trick. Rel in somebody famous in an opinion piece, plaster their photograph across the headline, and sit back and watch the storm gathering in the tea cup.
The Express hates Scotland. Go on sue me, I’ve just checked. I’m penniless compared to the filthy rich Unionists peddling anti Scottish propaganda, distortions and downright lies.
They are lie nocturnal slugs, leaving a sickly nasty slime in their wake.
Scotland will never become independent as long as the likes of Rowling can vote in an independence referendum.
Unless the next referendum restricts the vote to, for example, residents who have at least one grandparent born in Scotland, we are not going to be independent any time soon.
Why do we never read of the vile anti-Scottish comments targeted at Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP, Remainers, Yes supporters?
We could have a field day if we decided to out every ‘troll’ and abusive comment we have to endure.
What about death threats to Nicola – anything been done about that? I hear some one was arrested down south recently for a death threat against Theresa May – probably one of those vile anti-english cybernats!
It really is a slow news day!
Don’t forget Gandhi’s words:
‘First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.’
Nicely done Rev! This is less about ‘exposing’ alleged anti-Englishness than a poorly veiled attempt by Shoveone McMadyen, using Jakey Trolling’s bizarre tweet collection, to frame you and WOS again – since the attempt to shut you down on Twitter failed.
As a Yorkshireman (Scotsman with every ounce of generosity squeezed out of me) who has been reading this site for over two years I cannot recall a single credible example which any reasonable, sane and sentient being could ever consider fitted the scurrilous accusation which has been flung at you in this sorry excuse for ‘journalism’.
Let us know when the crowd funding opens to take these two arrogant individuals and their backers down a peg or three.
The list on Stu’s action could be even longer.
—————
Historywoman
?@2351onthelist
@SugarspotAnnie @Maxie_UK @siobhanyc Yes, how like Stu Campbell and the bots he sets on No voters.
—————
twitter.com/2351onthelist/status/792728680795635712
Grouse Beater @ 5.05pm
I hope you get credit and suitable monetary compensaton when the movie gets made! 😀 I’m already seeing it, and, of course, the good Rev and the people of Scotland win in the end! 😀
Wonder what the Express will be rushing through on this for tomorrow?
The one thing these people never learn is don’t make it up, don’t change the story, don’t miss out bits that are relevant. It is done continually in papers like the Express Mail etc.
There will be some readers who will be taken in by that story so I’m right behind you Stu. Sue the erse off them for as much as you can get.
mealer @ 5.05pm
TBF, JKR’s enormous wealth is built on fantasy, that chap Gates’s on something that actually works and operates in the real world.
So we get The Express and Rowling v 50% of the Scottish people?
I doubt it will come to that, common sense tells me so, I might be wrong of course. I’ll support you because you are in the right and somebody has to challenge the liars.
If you do you will be representing an awful lot of folk who will want you to win and will back you. One word of caution Carmichael was a liar and still got away with it.
I’d get after them though, we should take the liars head on, pulling the blankets over your head is no longer an option. The UK is going to the dogs due to those that run it for their own purposes. The media is what allows them to do that, the media gives them “legitimacy”.
No chance, we need to fight their lies and together we can.
Her coming over to yes after the bigoted English vote to leave the,Eu and drag Scotland with it. Sure didn’t last very long. She can take her millions and live in Brexit land seen as she hates 50% of Scotland. Why does she hate the very people who actually stand against British bullying and narrow minded bigotry.
She just doesn’t get it blinded by her rage.
What`s wrong with these women. Is someone in the shadows encouraging them? If you go after the Express Rev there are a lot of people who will contribute to your legal fees.
‘Has anyone forgotten to take their meds today’?…asked Nurse Ratched.
Normally, ‘slicker than snot on a doorknob’ ,looks like somebody’s might have just ‘stained their pants’….still they prowl,….’more nervously,than a pair of long tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs’.
#purpleproseseptictankisms
;-j
They will employ the favourite Unionist defence which is
“But that’s what you were thinking”
The media do it all the time with everything the FM says
eg; The FM says she will do everything in her power to keep Scotland in the single market (But we know that she wants Independence above all else on the planet earth and world universe at the cost of peoples lives she doesn’t care the evil woman that she is and she hates all English people so there Meh)
And now the weather
This has kept me amused all day.
Ms McFadyen’s line manager surely needs to have a quiet, but serious chat with her.
In my opinion, her work is vexatious and hate-filled – no doubt written to attract a certain fringe of society. How can anyone be so full of hatred towards fellow Scots?
She perhaps needs out pity rather than our scorn.
You’re too smart for them Stu. When we get Indy so much of it will be down to you and the quality posters on this site.
When can these types accept its Westminster and the tories we no likey – the English are grand. Although post Brexit it’s all a bit concerning. And then along comes Gary Linnekar. Can we make him an honorary Scot? Or give him the freedom of our cities?
All we want to have is self determination. Like normal countries.
@ Rev could you lodge the Paperwork to sue the Express in Scottish Court , that daytime telly’s shite.
Just do it!
Just joined…not a life ‘newby’….but def a Wings fan…and Stewart..’We nearly had you @ Hampden..Quitongo vis.a.vis Dons keeper (he’s an octopus!)..well done..go on and win it though in light of yesterdays result………
Hold the front page! Scoop McFadyen reporting from the Twitter Front Line. “It’s Hell out there”, says Scoop, dodging incoming tweets landing thick and fast (oops – cliche), “but JKR is retweeting as we speak…”
Oh I can’t be bothered.
I hope you rake in a mint to spend on Wee Blue Book 2. Let us know if a fund-raiser is required.
That is some bitches brew McFadyen and Rowling have concocted for you there Stuart.And yet they look so sweet.
Yoons’ rabid British Nationalism blinds them to all else in their endeavor to keep their Britain whole and great.
Lies and hypocrisy are truly the most defining British values which most Yoons like those two exhibit.
They are also shameless,but perhaps a little taste of their own litigious medicine may cause them to have at least a minute or two of introspection.
Count me in for the fundraiser.
Please take action against them, they need to be made an example of in this case! It’s bordering on offensive & abusive behaviour, do they just think it’s something they can get away with, or pay their way out of? Does JK really think it’s OK doing this, or “leading by example”, to the children who are following her activities?
Go on Stu, kick their earses.
Some people seem to think if they have lots of money and lawyers they can say and do as they like and no one is to answer back or object in any way but they have to be very afraid. Not likely. I am astonished she cannot find something more constructive to do with her time and energy. As for the SMCF she just says anything to get her name mentioned and get talked about – you cannot take her seriously – even if she does.
Off-Topic
Did anyone catch the BBC News at 6pm this evening when they discussed the news item about death of a man involved in the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie Bomber.
When it came to listening to an interview from Jim Swire whose daughter died on the flight, did anyone else find it odd that the Swire’s personal comments which were done over a telephone, seemed to be distracted by a ‘graphical sound-level’ that played in the background while he talked. I had to rewind the news piece and then look away from the TV so I could understand what Jim was saying.
Call me paranoid, but with the telephone conversation already fairly poor due to the fact that it was a …telephone conversation, why did the BBC not put up a transcript of what Jim right next to the picture of Jim, instead of a fairly large graphic that continually danced before your eyes while Jim spoke.
Very odd. I’ve never seen that being done on the BBC News before.
As I said yesterday, re Hamish and Chris, yoons don’t do humour.
And to prove it, along comes McFadyen, apparently outraged by “creepy” Jack Deeth’s comical one-man “frenzied hate mob” posing outside Sexpress offices with his bit of cardboard requesting the reinstatement of Wings’ Twitter account after McFadyen had it closed down.
You gotta feel sorry for them.
Well, not much.
I hate liars. These 2 liars have definitely stepped over a line today.
The British public need protection from such disturbed persons, clearly determined to stir up nationalistic hatred between the English & Scottish peoples.
The press regulator is a paper tiger but the courts will take a very dim view of millionaires and their press flunkies thinking they are above the law.
Dim Macfadyen clearly could not get through to her editor or the Express lawyers who would have told her she has just fallen through the ice.
This miscreant ..liberally termed ‘a journalist’ obviously loves her country.Question is…which one?
>>@HandandShrimp says:
30 October, 2016 at 5:18 pm
Surprised that Rowling is in cahoots with Siobhan. I seriously doubt they share anything in common politically
===================
I used to think that, believing it was ignorance of what goes on up here that led her to be so anti-independence. However the more I’ve seen of her actions (the Spanner nonsense for instance and now this) I’m led to believe she isn’t at all left wing but Blairite probably thinking it’s not “cool” to be Tory which is probably what she really is. No one can go one about a topic in such a wrong headed manner unless they had some axe to grind which meant they didn’t care about the real facts.
This IndyRef2 phony war really is heating up.
The whole “Scots Indy Supporters hate the English boll*cks”, and it is boll*cks (just see English Scots for Yes) etc.
Is in my opinion see a continuation of, and in the same vein as:
1. The Bone Picker and Hair Flickers Scots and the KKK TV prog
2. Conservative MP Sam Gyimah filibustering the SNPs Turing Bill in Westminster
3. MSM daily reports of SNHS, Forth Bridge, Polis Scotland etc. etc. etc.
WM, The Yoons and their MSM supporters cannot and will not allow SNP, Scots Govt. or even the Scots People to have the moral high ground regarding anything but especially Europe.
This line of attack is to offset the xenophobia stirred up South of the border and make their readers feel good about hating Indy and it’s supporters.
More and more people see through this sh*te every day and are question the never ending SNP Bad line based on their own experiences.
As pointed out previously, if they can’t argue with the message they will target the messenger hence the ramp up against WoS and the negative comments re: Inform Scotland billboards.
link to ericjoyce.co.uk
Even more amazing yoon culture, in UKOK action.
SO I went to see the Glasgow Uni Professorising people and asked if I could be a Professor too. They said had I ever been to Oxford, Cambridge and or Nuffield. I have, day trips and the chemist, lovely towns, athletes foot cream. They asked me if I was clever, I said yes. They asked me if I believed every word BBC Scotland say about bad Nic Sturgeon, yes I do and that’s it, I’m a Professor, just like Professor Jim Gallagher.
@ Rock, 5:30pm
I’m not with you on your idea of the franchise for Indyref2 being restricted to people with at least one Scottish grandparent.
Maybe you forgot to mention a residency requirement? Otherwise millions of people outwith Scotland would qualify. (How would that even be administered??)
Restricting the franchise in such a way would also smack of ethnic nationalism, which is not my experience of Scottish nationalism at all. Such a restriction would resemble the UK franchise for the Brexit referendum, in which EU nationals – many of whom had lived in the UK for years or even decades – did not get to vote on the future of their home.
I think the 2014 referendum mostly had the right of it. Everybody resident in Scotland. People born in Scotland and people who’ve chosen to make their home, for whatever reason, in Scotland. Yes, you might get the likes of JKR or tory-voting wealthy retirees from other parts of the UK, but like it or not, they live in Scotland and indy is going to affect their lives, so they ought to have a say. Tough.
The only gripe I have with 2014 is how loosely “residency” seemed to be interpreted and/or scrutinised. Next time, I’d like to see a more stringent scrutiny and the franchise limited to those who’ve genuinely lived in Scotland for a certain period of time before the ref. Three years, five years? During that period, never voted in a local or national election in some other part of the UK (or another country). That would “cull” holiday-homers and many rUK students.
The problem with this approach is, of course, that the UK has no central population register and no co-ordination between local electoral rolls, so it’d be a nightmare to implement (but still less of an adminstrative mess than finding out who each voter’s grandparents were).
This comes from somebody from a country where we have a central population register, which also serves as an electoral roll. You don’t have to worry about registering to vote, they know where you live and send you notifications for any election you’re eligible to vote in.
A bit “bigbrotherish”? Maybe. But the Nordic countries have had this system since our Reformation (in practice, mid-1550s to early 1600s) so we’ve never thought it was a problem until the modern internet age. Most people still think it’s a good thing because it cuts away lots of unnecessary, duplicated and triplicated and quadruplicated public admin.
Just a different mindset and culture. Shrug. You win some, you lose some.
You do realise, Stu, that legal action, should it be necessary, could be deemed newsworthy, whereby potentially bringing you – and your site – to the attention of many, many more Scots and.. Hmm?
No news is bad news. We’ll support you on this; say the word
I am surprised and disappointed in Jakey R. Associating with the foul-mouthed artificial construct Spanner was bad enough, but you might have though someone with an apparent progressive take on life and some kind of social conscience (as one might assume from the Potter saga) would have had very good reason to pause and re-think things in the wake of Brexit and the staringly obvious democratic deficit (nay, chasm) that the EUref result has so clearly demonstrated here in North Britain.
Instead she reacts with her own brand of careless mud-slinging and now lets herself be fodder for zoomer Siobhan McFadyen’s wacky world of BritNat porn? When the chips are down, the real person is revealed, and the result here is far from complimentary.
Not for me to say, Rev Stu, but I believe you would be perfectly justified in demanding satisfaction from the vile chronically-lying Daily Slug. Somebody certainly oughter.
The more I see of it, the more I am convinced Twitter is a force for evil in the world. I’ll never have anything to do with it and would encourage others to think very carefully about using it themselves.
Was the original comment from the lunatic tendency not actually about the Rev and his Twitter account?
However to get back to this forum, I don’t think for one second it’s anti English, quite the opposite in fact, and I think that is what annoys them the most. I can believe that newspapers would like to click bait, but what on earth is JKR playing at, associated with the likes of the express and spanner? Honestly I can’t understand it, it deifies logic?
Twitter is for idiots, at least that’s my impression.
Oh boy, I’m buying champagne if the Rev manages to successfully get a settlement out of JK for defamation, that would so be worth celebrating, OMGod, please, please can this happen 😀 😀 😀
You don’t think it could be anything to do with the fact that actor Colin Farrell said he felt ridiculous being asked to rehearse for the new Harry Potter spin off
MSN News
In other UKOK news
link to bbc.co.uk
Make Farage a Lord
link to bbc.co.uk
Michael Gove under scrutiny for leaving son alone in hotel to go dancing.
Isn’t Mrs Gove also an Express or Heil hack?
Siobhan McFadyen is the Scottish Indy equivalent of a Katie Hopkins who must be her role model. I’ll say any old shite if it gets me noticed is her mantra.
She fails to understand that her bile printed in the Express has got her noticed but that making lies obvious has it own consequences.
SLAM, SLAP, HUMILIATE, BATTER, and SQUASH these simpletons masquerading as journalists.
She may just have bitten off more than she can chew this time, take these liars to court and show them up for what they are.
You can insult and defame one man but not 50% of a nation.
One thing is clear about McFadyen, highlighted by her remarks about Jack Deeth – She has absolutely NO sense of humour.
Some of her previous stories are corkers ! Snake bits Penis of Irish farmer whilst he’s peeing in a field.
link to archive.is
Take them all the way Rev, if you have to. In spite of Rolling’s millions, we’ve got your back. If she has seen fit to take on half of Scotland then so be it. Her mistake. Just say the word.
Rev wrote:
“From the preceding text, that can only possibly refer to us – or to be more precise, me.”
Relax, dear fellow, it wizzny you. Right? Got it? We’ve got it sussed, we’ll set up a patsy tae take the fall. We’re gaunny point the finger o blame at Lollysmum.
She’s vileness personified and to top it all she’s just recently been smuggled across the border in the hope she’ll no be identified.
All is well my friend but SHhhh, dinny tell a soul, i’m setting up the posse to hunt her down as we speak.
😉
Ms McFadyen is performing badly, but performing as a member of the fourth estate. And as abhorrent I find her trolling she is perfectly within her brief as a political actor to do so.
JKR is however a different kettle of fish, she is an author of children’s books. Her political leanings are, and must be taken in that context. She has no defence of political sentimentality, no party to fall back on, she is not a member of the legislature, not a party leader. Can she not see she is being used by the dregs of political life in Scotland?
She depends on the adulation of political hacks, and although she is privately supported by Tory and red Tory she is not brought into mainstream political life, and the question she must ask is why?
Quite honestly she is at serious risk of becoming the Donald Trump of the independence debate. And actually that is just so sad!
Other other news, Dr NO! strikes again,
Gary Retweeted Scott Arthur
Wish more Nats would he angry about things like thisGary added,
Scott Arthur @DrScottThinks
SNP Unis:
15% drop in students receiving bursary/grant.
36% drop in the total amount of grant support paid.
24% drop in the average paid.
0 replies
link to bbc.co.uk
Budget 2015: Student maintenance grants scrapped
University maintenance grants for lower income students in England and Wales are to be scrapped from September 2016, Chancellor George Osborne has said.
In his budget, Mr Osborne said the grants had become “unaffordable”.
Its 100% drop in students receiving bursary/grant, but Dr NO! and chums not bothered about English stundentos. Its all about borders for the SLab crew now and the fact that Crash Gordo bankrupted teamGB.
I don’t post very often but I look in every day for my daily dose of sanity.
Happy to donate if there is a campaign
@ Stu Mac (6:47pm) and Robert J. Sutherland (7:00pm)
I’ve been wondering about JKR’s politics.
Maybe she genuinely supported left-wing policies in her younger days, when those policies enabled her to write her first book or two.
But let us not forget that the basic story in her books is underdog gets into a prestigious public school (in the English sense of the word), finds friends and allies there and thereby becomes a winner and a friend of powerful people, ultimately becoming one himself.
Hmm.
Arseholes.
Quite pathetic behaviour. I tried posting some real stuff people threatened Salmond with but it got wairing for moderation, changed it to take out worlds like shot, strangled, got moderated, broke it down got one though, the next got “reached posting limit”. Sigh.
Yeah, defamation. Oh, if it’s Rowling, and it’s the court near her residence, Scots Law, but also perhaps a small claims at the Sheriffs – that limits her island of lawyers to a couple of fold-up seats and no costs for them, unless your claim was deemed to be unreasonable – clearly it isn’t. Not sure what the limit is these days, fee was £28 last time I had to threaten a non-paying agency.
@Tam Jardine
Yes, it looks like the decent posters are getting sick of it. Which means you’re doing a good job patiently pointing out to them the errors in the article – or their posts. Keep the heid and they kick themselves in the round objects. Kick, oh, kick, oh, kick oh, stop hitting yourself. Drives them loony, which is a very short drive.
Maybe have all the Tweets, Facebook comments and Newspaper reports from the Union side collected to show the abuse we get. Including so called family members.
lumilumi @ 18:50,
I agree with you 100% about the residence requirement, especially the need for some kind of time period, so that transients can’t wilfully influence the result. The principle of conferring the vote on all those – and only those – who are significantly impacted by the result is a very sound one. JKR et al included.
You always have to gain the desired result on convincing a majority, including a sufficient number of natural sceptics. There is no other way.
As to implementation, it is perhaps stretching things just a little too far to simply rely on the honesty of everyone on the current electoral roll: “You are not entitled to vote if you have not been a resident in Scotland for a total duration of at least 200 weeks within the last 5 years” or suchlike.
Given the limitations of the electoral roll that you mention, one possible solution might be to require all those not on the electoral roll of 5 years ago (if still available), or in the case of young people, of their parents, to re-register with some proof of long-term residence.
Another possibility is to rely on the same multiplicity of public-domain sources used by these “people finder” services. They seem to be able to generate a large amount of historical place-related data about nigh on everyone. So it surely can be done.
Stu- backing you 100% against McFadyen and the Express. Whatever you need.
Re Anti-Englishness- there is no equivalent forum to the Daily Express or Daily Mail BTL where xenophobic, anti Scottish remarks are commonplace. I keep asking the troglodytes what forum exists where anti-English xenophobia is aired with impunity?
On Wings, for example, anyone making an anti-English remark will find themselves pounced upon immediately.
There is nowhere I know of- there is no answer and the question remains unanswered.
There are obviously horrible things said on the internet- one side ignored and the other amplified but the man who wants to clean up the internet better have a very big broom.
@ Andrew Mclean (7.36pm)
She depends on the adulation of political hacks,…
It seems to me she first and foremost depends on the unreserved adulation of hardcore Harry Potter fans. That’s her lifeblood. She’s their god and as a consequence seems to believe she can do no wrong, her Potterhead fans tell her so, and now the British MSM.
Sad, really.
yesindyref2
I’m an addict now!
@Tam Jardine
I don’t check out the Express but I do read most if nota ll postings here, so if you find a good thread, archive.is it and post a “welcome to post”, and I’ll give it a shot. It’s fun, and I’ve a couple of serious things to bring up about that so-called anti-English thing. I do tourist areas and there’s a load of English guys come up to Scotand for the banter with Scots. Sadly we usually lose when it gets round to football, glum faces. Hmmm.
Richardinho wrote (5:07pm)
“I’m a little sceptical that there’s an actual case for legal action.”
Me too but keep in mind at this stage the Rev is just consulting his lawyers. They will determine if he has a case or not and then just about every one of us, or a substantial number of us, will give him any financial support he needs, should he get the green light from his legal team.
What i will ask of the Rev is that, this time around, he doesn’t settle for the meagre few thousand he took off The Hootsman. You know, all things considered, like inflation, the soon to be useless pound, financially unstable times and…well…just because it’s The Express rag. 🙂
Pretty much a regular visitor to wings. I have not as far posted, however I can guarantee a contribution to the funding of any action you consider appropriate in the event you want to take legal action.
I take it back I widnae pish on her if she was on fire….
This from 2010…
link to girlsguidetohomelessness.com
Siobhan McFadyen has a reputation for being one of the worst tabloid journalists in the land. She is renowned for making up quotes, finding “friends” and “sources” and being an all-round diabolical character. If it’s any comfort, I don’t think her reputation is really going to get her much further than subsisting on scurrilous lies and fictions for which she is paid very little. Perhaps her life of abject misery is some comfort
I didn’t know the collective noun for abusives messages was “a torrid ” ???
Good on you Wings. Take those lying bastards to the cleaners. Jaikie probably thinks you’d be afraid to challenge her because she is litigacious and wealthy.But you have the crowd behind you.
@Tam Jardine (7.53pm)
Haven’t you learned it yet, you silly bugger? 😉
Unless you unreservedly love the British (UK) state, you’re anti-English.
Yeah, I don’t see the logic in that either but that’s what it is. Shrug.
Its all making Euan MacSpanner very angry. On balance, old JK does like her hard core Euan rough trade.
link to twitter.com
Read this site for years and enjoyed same everyday. Never had a need to post as most covered my views.
Tonight I post to congratulate the Rev and confirm my backing.Its about time we developed a backbone!
@Croompenstein
Good find!
Sounds like her previous efforts make her ideal for the Express!
‘the free press is the ubiquitous vigilant eye of people’s soul, the embodiment of a people’s faith in itself…It is a people’s frank confession to itself, and the redeeming power of confession is well known. It is the spiritual mirror in which a people can see itself, and self-examination is the first condition of wisdom…It is the ideal world which always wells up out of the real world and flows back into it with ever greater spiritual riches and renews its soul’
Karl Marx
(after completing his doctoral thesis in 1841 Marx abandoned the idea of a university career and pursued a career in journalism)
link to marxists.anu.edu.au
What would Marx make of today’s journalistic standards?
The co-ordinated attempt within ‘journalism’ to diminish and misrepresent the YES movement’s educational reach and its embodiment of an inclusive egalitarian movement is astonishing and deeply disappointing. Unfortunately for the negatively motivated press that cannot stand outside its own maladaptive belief systems the YES movement continues to think positively and constructively to stay self-motivated to achieve its aim and is spear-headed by a majority of independence parties that believes in the common good.
The journalist –flâneur that Marx would recognise from his time in journalism who embodied the ideals of a dynamic urban culture and sensibility is long gone.
Even daft old hootsman piled on, different issue but
link to archive.is
“Then, when writer and campaigner Kirsty Strickland suggested the billboard might be self-defeating, she found herself “Wingsed” – that is subjected to an attack by the pro-independence blogger Stuart Campbell.”
The strangulation one: I read as metaphorical, rather than literal, and referencing a generational predilection for Unionism.
The use of the female anatomy as an insult was unseemly, even with context but you may not share my generationally conditioned perspective on that.
heedtracker
Followed your link to Brian Spanner twitter feed (is that the right word?) Never read his stuff before. Quite disturbing, clearly someone with a serious personal problem. What is equally disturbing is that JK Trolling likes him so much. This makes no sense if you’re a level-headed millionaire best-selling author. There must be a personal connection that blinds her to his vile nature or she’s a deeply unpleasant person herself. Given her obsession with ‘cybernats’ etc it makes me wonder if Spanner is not her alter ego articulating the things ‘JK Trolling’ cannot say herself publicly.
Should I care what these two very neurotic woman write in a gutter press rag?
Perhaps I should feel compassion for JK Rowling because I believe there is something very seriously wrong with the woman.
Hootsman’s reassuringly tory mad as ever. Only actors like Ewan can save the world. Everyone knows that.
link to archive.is
“I was worried that Scotland would flounder if it was on its own and I believed in the union and I felt like we were stronger together. Then Brexit’s happened. Now I’m totally confused.”
@woosie says: 30 October, 2016 at 4:34 pm:
“I don’t read the express, so I’m not clever enough to understand the phrase “a torrid of abuse”.
This lady doesn’t need protection from vile cybernats, she needs english lessons!”
I’m sure, Woosie, that all the lady, (for lack of a more appropriate, and legally acceptable, term), needs is a primary school child to set up a freeware Spell Checker for her. It is quite clear that she has not the capability to do so by herself.
I didn’t know that Stu got £6K from The Scotsman!
Very excellent!
Another £6k from the Express?
Perhaps now that JK Rowling is a YES voter she might give a huge donation to Wings!
Given her obsession with ‘cybernats’ etc it makes me wonder if Spanner is not her alter ego articulating the things ‘JK Trolling’ cannot say herself publicly.
Its possible. But MacSpanner is a ferocious misanthrope, in fact probably the worst imaginable. So its unlikely Euan MacSpanner is a girl tory, red or blue. But youre right, the fact JK’s a twitter follower and worse of the reprobate, speaks Harry Plopplop sized volumes about present day UKOK yoon world.
Money cant buy klass, even if you have more money than Hillary Clinton. Even Hillary’s only worth about a third of a JK Rowling, $240 million.
Rock
Human rights are the kryponite Rock. Only the yooniest of those living in Scotland would support Britain’s continuation if they were aware that it meant willfully surrendering their inaliable human rights? Why not sell them the concept of “life under the rule-of-law”?
link to un.org
I didn’t know the collective noun for abusive messages was a “torrid” ???
heedtracker says:
30 October, 2016 at 8:44 pm
Given her obsession with ‘cybernats’ etc it makes me wonder if Spanner is not her alter ego articulating the things ‘JK Trolling’ cannot say herself publicly.
Its possible. But MacSpanner is a ferocious misanthrope, in fact probably the worst imaginable. So its unlikely Euan MacSpanner is a girl tory, red or blue.
Ruby replies
Someone who writes fiction can create any type of character they want their gender makes no difference.
Well, REV, this is most interesting. You would have thought that by now, and following what happened to the laughingly titled ‘Scotsman’ newspaper, that unionists would have realised that you are sharp, specific, and stick to facts. They no doubt thought they were writing about some average ‘blogger’ with a large following, how wrong they were. They appear to know very little about you.
It is somewhat ironic that perhaps it does seem the writers at the Express, had no idea you were likely watching like a hawk, for them to slip up. Away to the cleaners with them. We will all enjoy this. 🙂
@Rock says: 30 October, 2016 at 5:30 pm:Scotland will never
“Unless the next referendum restricts the vote to, for example, residents who have at least one grandparent born in Scotland, we are not going to be independent any time soon””
Pish!
I look forward to an in depth Express article upon The Joy of Spanner.
@lumilumi says: 30 October, 2016 at 5:46 pm:
” … TBF, JKR’s enormous wealth is built on fantasy, that chap Gates’s on something that actually works and operates in the real world””
So you don’t have Windows 10 on your computer, Lumilumi?
;-))
The yooniists want us to respond in kind.
They want us to respond like spanner and co.
This is a time for discipline and not to be lured into a trap. Be on the look out for pretend Indyre2’s who will then try and stick it too us,
Their concerted, organised attempts will fail.
Good luck stu. In their excitement their malicious campaign has spilled onto you but they have overstepped their mark in their attempt to smear you.
Move back to Scotland!!
Ruby replies
Someone who writes fiction can create any type of character they want their gender makes no difference.
Maybe, but our Euan is a malice dripping ghoul that hates everyone, well everyone to the left of St Snatcher Thatcher. JK keeps saying she’s a Labour vote. Although she really hates JC. But then they all do in SLab, or at least the ones that get the BBC vote SLab Scotland hard core backing.
One things for sure, WoS really gets up the noses of our chums on the right. They have the whole of the UKOK tory BBC led meeja to tubthump vote tory red and blue, but woe betide anyone answering back.
Haha, Robert!
Yeah, I’m still a Windows 7 girl, me. Trying to keep my trusty 6-yr-old laptop alive as long as possible. Looking into other options like Linux…
I cannot agree with the Pish! sentiment more Robert.
Here is a born & bred English woman with another 4 relatives who chose to live in Scotland & all vote for independence after making our home here for 26 years.
I rather think I’m more useful to the independence cause than born & bred Scottish yoons,don’t you?
Oh Ruby don’t take your case tae court ,you settle to easily ,£6000 from the Scotsman ,but times moved on & so have prices .
Screw them for every penny you can get Rev.
Awaiting the whistle blawing fur the start of the Crowdfunder.
@shiregirl says: 30 October, 2016 at 6:00 pm:
This has kept me amused all day.
” … She perhaps needs out pity rather than our scorn.”
I believe I know exactly what she needs … but I wouldn’t dare say so on a public forum.
;-))
So who gets sued, McFadyen, Rowling, the Express or all three?
Be nice to see them getting brought down a peg or two.
Hamish100 at 909pm,
Wise words. They will indeed try to use division and arguments to cause the indy campaign to fall apart. We must be wise to this. Don’t rise to the bait – even if it comes from those we think are on our side.
Elizabeth Stanley and Robert Peffers, I wholly agree with your point. No place for such divisive nonsense.
Robert Peffers
I got ageist dogs abuse the other day from some adolescents, simply for suggesting they might try not to block the pavement with their bicycles. I think they learned a lesson 🙂 but it did make me reappraise how others see me.
OT but on the subject of the press. There has been much violent imagery used in the headlines of the Express and Daily Mail in relation to Nicola Sturgeon and many disparaging attacks on her in ‘Scottish’ and other London based mainstream newspapers. Along with the commentariat, even in some supposedly pro-Ind on line media.
Not one of them has made a stand against the constant stream of abuse. The whole of the 4th Estate is in terminal decline and they seem totally unaware of what they they’re doing.
The UK, as witnessed by this decline, is crumbling as a state and along with it the institutions of power.
Sadly, JKR continues on her confused road to somewhere. Problem is,she is so mixed up, I doubt if she’ll recognize it when she gets there. A very troubled person much to be pitied – to have so much and feel so worthless.I wonder what her young readers would think of the company she keeps? Will give what financial support I can Rev if you go for these disgraces to democracy, decency and journalism!
Somewhere in London a torrid of chardonnay is being glugged in a room strewn with kleenex as tomorrow’s SNP baad copy stutters on a passive, yawning word document.
See- I can write purty too
@Robert Peffers 9.04pm
‘So you don’t have Windows 10 on your computer, Lumilumi?
😀 LOL
It’s remarkably quiet on the JKR front. I guess the Express and of course the groupies at the Herald will be preparing something, along with the ‘Scotsman’, Telegraph, Times, Guardian, BBC, STV, P&J, Courier, uncle Tom Cobblers and all.
O/T
The concerted attack last week by Ruth, Kez, Willie, Jacquie Baillie and the media on the SNHS is part of a campaign to convince as many as possible that we are unable to run our own country. They have been knocking education and mental health and will no doubt pick on the police soon.
‘Better together two’ have been fundraising and no doubt planning strategy too. Picking on The Rev is probably part of it to try and deflect Stu and discredit Wings further. Anti-english sentiment is noticed north and south and is a dangerous subject to play with but it’s all part of the plan to make us look too reactionary for nice people to side with.
We have to play a careful hand, but one that exposes lies where there be lies.
Do we know what the polls are saying re YES/NO yet?
Ruby wrote (@8:38pm):
“Perhaps now that JK Rowling is a YES voter she might give a huge donation to Wings!”
You’ve lost me Ruby, serious or sarcasm? Explanation please!
The all out attack last week on the SNHS is part of a campaign to convince as many as possible that we are unable to run our own country. Similarly with education, Scotrail and the police.
‘BT’ 2 have been fundraising and no doubt planning strategy too. Picking on The Rev is probably part of it to try and deflect Stu and discredit Wings further. Anti-english sentiment is noticed north and south and is a dangerous subject to play with but it’s all part of the plan to make us look too reactionary for nice people to side with.
We have to play a careful hand, but one that exposes lies where there be lies.
Sorry for duplicate post but website rejected previous post as a duplicate when I tried to post it first time. Think the cat nudged my hand as i was posting and caused a double click?
@Andrew Mclean says: 30 October, 2016 at 7:06 pm:
” … I can believe that newspapers would like to click bait, but what on earth is JKR playing at, associated with the likes of the express and spanner?”
There is a very old Scots saying, Andrew, It goes like this.
“If ye maun flee wi the craws ye micht weel bi shot iz a craw”
Methinks the authoress of children’s fantasy novels has indeed always been prone to, “Flee wi the craws”, and what we see today is the real persona while that concocted by her agents for the purpose of selling fiction to unwary children is much more a fantasy than the woman’s fictional outpourings.
If you will pardon the mixed metaphors, “Such Leopards do not change their spots”.
Maybe the unionist coalition are trying to render you harmless before any referendum comes along because of the influence they know you have!
[…] refer, of course, to these matters. The tip of the […]
“A torrid of abuse”, eh? They must be having a torrent time of it.
Go get ’em.
Christ the extra hour does not make English telly any less boring, Dan Snow makes the Rockies boring, Neil Oliver’s extremely excited on the Coast of dullness, Humans is terrible, Goggle box is the most brilliant cheap tv though, not.
Other other other UKOK news, Macwhirter says lets all pay higher taxes in the greater English region of Scotland and no, its NOT paying twice for the privilege of being British and great, at all.
link to archive.is
Jk is as right wing and xenophobic as the people she associates with. She is a wolf in sheeps clothing. Under that butter wouldn’t melt expression. Is a ruthless paranoid and vain woman.
Anyone that needs to threaten legal action over every tweet. Is basically thin skinned and self obsessed.
She is not unique as it’s common to many rich celebrities. She likes to walk over the little people as it makes her feel powerful. Hence she went after working class Mcgarry and used a mob mentality to bully her.
“But Nicola Sturgeon should have more courage in her own social democratic convictions. The way to combat the Tory threat is not to starve public services of funds, which will only undermine public faith in them, but to use the Scottish dimension to start a debate about increasing taxes, marginally, to pay for the NHS.”
Wish hacks like Macwhirter and co would go back to their “Scottish dimension.”
Nothing stopping Macwhirter paying “marginally” more tax either. Or even standing for election with his Pay More Tax In My Scottish Dimension party.
This is through the looking glass stuff.
The Express is whining about fabricated anti-English sentiments which don’t exist, while it’s own xenophobic vitriol about immigrants, Scots, the poor, the disabled, those on benefits, is largely responsible for inciting hatred which has led to Brexit and the sharp swing to the right which now panders to UKIP and National front type bigotry.
Just have a wee review of the vile filth routinely said about Nicola Sturgeon in below the line comments from Britnats knuckle draggers.
These people are just common or garden shit stirrers without a care in the world about those injured or damaged by the shite that they stir. Just a pair of drama queens who like being the centre of attention.
Elizabeth Stanle @ 9:13pm
Absatootly. If you allow ideological or nationalistic justifications to prevent Scotland sharing the human rights enjoyed by the bulk of the global community (there’s only a few none signatories to R2D), what chance Scottish society?
link to un.org
Watched “Young Victoria” on Amazon Prime. She was the Queen of England, you know. Her English Ministers were very keen to influence her – Lord Melbourne and Robert Peel – in the English Parliament. Her English palaces were very grand.
Prince Albert wanted a place in Scotland because he’d heard it was like Germany there. Heavy rain.
“Is it always like this?” asked Albert.
“Yes,” replies Victoria, though how she knows that is a mystery. Scotland appears to be a totally foreign country.
It still is. I’ve just listened to “The Westminster Hour” on R4. It’s about England.
Why are we still hanging around?
@Elizabeth Stanley says: 30 October, 2016 at 9:13 pm:
” … Here is a born & bred English woman with another 4 relatives who chose to live in Scotland & all vote for independence after making our home here for 26 years.”
I was born in Scotland and my first wife was English but she died far too young. I have been a supporter and activist for Scottish independence since around 1946 but I treat everyone as belonging to the same race – the human race.
The point of the law of Scotland is that, at least since 1320 and the Declaration of Arbroath the law of Scotland is mainly based upon the legal premise that, “The People of Scotland”,, and not either the crown or the parliament, are legally sovereign.
The definition of, “The People of Scotland”, is that anyone, of any creed, colour or country of origin, who is mainly domiciled in Scotland and who is registered to vote in Scottish elections is one of the people of Scotland”.
That is Scottish law and here is another fact – nether the crown nor the parliament can legally be head of any Scottish church and that one is enshrined in the Treaty of Union.
The Scottish Legal System is also enshrined in the Treaty of Union to be independent in perpetuity and the reason for that is because English Law, (that applies to the rest of the three country Kingdom of England), is incompatible with that of Scotland.
This is because that Kingdom is a Constitutional Monarchy in which the Monarch is still legally sovereign. Ergo that means the royal sovereignty has only been legally delegated to the Parliament of England.
The mere fact that the Westminster parliament has always ignored those legal facts is cause enough for Scottish independence and it has nothing whatsoever to do with hate of anything or anyone, other than the incompatibility of the two legal systems and its abuse by Westminster.
So, there you go, Elizabeth, you are indeed a valued member of, “The People of Scotland”.
Mcwhirter asks why the NHS is failing. Well first of all its not. Yes there are issues but where do we get the funding? Team ukok and Tory cuts have caused the problems. You can’t spend your money if someone keeps cutting your allowance.
He suggests Scottish Taxpayers be taxed more to fund gaps caused by Tory cuts. The principle is paradoxical daft logic. When the UK cuts our budget we hurt the people even more to fund the gaps. Not only that it’s political suicide and he knows it. Does he want the SNP to lose the next election?
No Mcwhirter you are absolutely wrong. The problem is not the SNP or the Scottish people. The problem is the Union. We are tinkering around with block grants. We need to control our economy,spending,welfare and full taxation. In short we need independence. Faffing about in a pretendy country will solve nothing. The UK hurts Scotland. The SG does what it can to lessen the pain.
Taxing everyone even more is just utter madness from planet Zorg. That’s what the unionists want the SG to do and that’s exactly why they won’t do it.
Project fear has started people’s and people like Mcwhirter so called indi supporters are part of the machine. They unwittingly become project fear by ignoring the responsible party and government. They join the Scotland is a basket case reporting we are all so familiar with.
Mcwhirter is the most scitzophrenic indi supporter since Jim Sillars.
These people are just common or garden shit stirrers without a care in the world about those injured or damaged by the shite that they stir. Just a pair of drama queens who like being the centre of attention.
It must sell papers though, in greater England land. Look at that deeply creepy Liddell in the Sun, Kelvin Legalise Slavery McKenzie, that horsy dame that knows no depths Hopkins, Quentin Letts, he’s barking, Jeremy Clarkson, the peoples fascist, Ian Hislop, most punchable face on tv, Sunday Times has the most extraordinary zoomers like AA Gill, Mike White o the Graun, a ferocious old school UKOK imperialist, Max Hitler Hastings, he’s terrifying. You can do this all day but clearly teamGB loves its far right loonies.
Severin Carrell, hammer of the Scots, cant leave him out:D
Siobhan just doesn’t know when to quit, does she? I’m getting the popcorn in for this one.
@Tam Jardine
Yea, was able to post again, not my best efforts I think. What I noticed is that the worst of the posts were from an expat or two, and one or two with Scots names. I might check back a few threads by Siobhan, and see if it’s similar in older threads.
The expats don’t live here, and I’ve found myself that their knowledge of modern Scotland is often well out of date, and largely London press derived. And when they come home, their family and friends don’t put them right mostly, which I guess is understandable. I even met one who thought hotels shut on a Sunday.
Others are anti-SNP in nature, perhaps they’re sacked Labour MPs! Well, other readers just get to see the tripe put about by these Scots, and take it as gospel. And perhaps that feeds up through the line to some of the article writers. Who knows.
Anyway, seems like a good idea to post this, Arbroath:
link to nas.gov.uk
It still is. I’ve just listened to “The Westminster Hour” on R4. It’s about England.
Why are we still hanging around?
Could a Scottish media be any worse than the English lot? I’ve watched the same Family Guy a hundred times. C4 show Big Bang Theory so much, its blended into Frasier, the Big Frasier Bang. And why is everyone in any English tv drama upper class white? Probably because everyone behind the English camera is upper class white, in HD. I’m not saying our media chums in the south shouldnt do a Black Frasier, its just that isn’t there anything beyond watching Dan Snow being upper class English around the world, in history, on the moon etc?
Insular, dull, naval gazing, narcissistic, inward looking, creepy white posh domination, vote tory, for ever. And now, Family Guy.
Vote tory.
Sorry, I meant pubs shut on a Sunday! Hotels used to be the only place to get a drink …
link to twitter.com
Stoker says:
30 October, 2016 at 9:46 pm
Ruby wrote (@8:38pm):
“Perhaps now that JK Rowling is a YES voter she might give a huge donation to Wings!”
You’ve lost me Ruby, serious or sarcasm? Explanation please!
Ruby replies
link to twitter.com
Perhaps I misunderstood her tweet!
I was both serious & sarcastic!
People always talk about how unpopular politicians are. It’s about time there was a backlash against journalists.
It should be the most noble of professions, but sadly it’s all too commonly one of the least, these days.
@Meg merrilees says: 30 October, 2016 at 9:45 pm:
” … Do we know what the polls are saying re YES/NO yet?”
The point of such polls, Meg, is that there is no longer a way for them to be a true, or even a close approximation of, the truth. There never really was but now it just cannot be done.
To be anything like a good approximation a poll has to be totally random or has to cover an unworkably large sample.
Even, “a stop in the street at random”, sample is going to be unreliable. For example a sample from Edinburgh’s Morningside will throw up a different result from one in Edinburgh’s Granton/Muirhouse/Drylaw area.
A random telephone poll is now useless as many now do not have landlines and the internet polls are useless as they are done by people choosing to participate.
The Most stupid are those by YouGov as YouGov sign people up to a list. They even pay them and after they have participated a few times the pollsters know just who to include to get the result their customers want.
You may have read the USA news that the opinion polls in the Clinton/Trump, “Who won the debate”, polls were made bent by the use of computerised, “Bots”, that were set-up to vote in the polls with random names and addresses.
JKR put in loads of effort trolling for the union in Indyref1, along with her now titled Darling pals.
Must have been some savage when even the Mone woman got the Lord’s gig and she got zilch. Enough to flip a yoon over the edge?
Stu, I’ve not read through the responses, but if you need a fund for Court, im sure we will all oblige.
Take her to the cleaners, Stu! Clean her out! Make sure she never works again! 🙂
Breeks
Master’s tools, as in using not being?
link to quora.com
To get back to the premise that those who support the principle of Scottish independence are, somehow, ANGLOPHOBIC.
I’ll just point out that at the Glasgow Green rally on 18th September, “English Scots For Yes” were housed within the Ayemail, iScot, WOS street of gazebos.
At the Hollyrood rally last week, WOS was housed within the Ayemail/iScot gazebos. “English Scots For Yes” turned up with no gazebo so Ronnie Anderson went to Mitch Kilbride’s car and brought the WOS gazebo for “English Scots For Yes” to use.
See Wingers? Wur absolute b@$t@rd$, iye?
“constructedness”
That takes me back. 🙂
Surely “Torrance of abuse”?
Conan the Librarian™
That one not peaked yet?
…next!
I’m not anti English, French, German, Spanish , Dutch etc. I just don’t want any of them to run my country.
link to google.co.uk
yesindyref2
Re the expats and supposed Scots- how many of them actually are? Trolling 101 tells us you should introduce yourself as Scottish, formerly a yes voter who now hates the SNP and is now actively campaigning against independence. Dissolutioned big time.
Or personal anecdote like some fantasist today talking about their son going to uni in Scotland and getting verbal anti english abuse from a tutor and dropping out. Just sounds like pure pish.
anti English sentiment exists in the odd zoomer but I’ve never seen it in the yes camp or SNP. Some tradesmen… The odd settler watch slogan on a wall in my youth many years ago. Anti – English National Football Team is alive and well but that’s more a football rivalry… not great but I am a pretty strong adherent.
I just came back from hols in Northumberland and I would be happy if the rebuild hadrian’s wall brigade ceded most of it to us. A win win I think.
enjoy your work on the Express- I gave up with the herald because you’ll never talk those fuds round. Those on the express basically get Scottish Independence- they just don’t know it yet. Herald types would vote for the union if they started gassing us IMHO
PS I love Ewan MacGregor and I enjoyed his volt face on Marr- cue abrupt end of interview. Tommy fae the first movie is arguably a bigger star now after his work on various series Inc Grey’s Anatomy and he jetted over to do his bit towards the end of the indy ref. Good guy.
@CameronB Brodie
It’s like peak SNP…
Could Jakey be working for MI5? Would explain why her shite books have been allowed to do so well – payback from the establishment.
Could Jakey be working for MI5?
SPECTRE more like. Starring Crash Gordo as the arch villain, seated at a massive desk, stroking his pussy, North British pussy!
Not the sharpest tool in the box but definitely suable for that dim piece.The editor is even dimmer letting it go to press.
heedtracker
The Mysterons?
BDTD @ 23:27,
Is the redoubtable resident Englishwoman Sue Varley still around? Or former regular poster titler from down south? Maybe someone like one of them could set the record straight about WoS for self-victimhood sufferer Jakey.
(The ultra-yoon Siobhan is probably unredeemable, alas. Is her hinterland possibly some kind of Ulster/OO/Loyalist?, I wonder…)
JK Rowling’s millions are just bits on a hard drive, and promises to pay from anonymous persons placed above the law, all she has a intangible virtual IOU, albeit a big one. UK banking is a tottering house of cards, built on bluff and bluster, scams upon scams, zombie-banks on state life-support, the state concerned: rUK a bankrupt, broken war-criminal world pariah. All of it, every last centigroat, can be gone vanish, with a click, anywhere in the world untraceably, or devalued, halving in real worth every day, till it wouldn’t buy a loaf of bread. That is the leverage finance has over Rowling, all the super-wealthy have put enormous trust in the least trustworthy, most shifty people imaginable, with an abysmal track-record, who spirit away and mind their tallies of worthless and highly perishable tokens. She is, along with many others in these lower tiers of the super-wealthy, someone’s mug, the super-rich are one event or another, say, one banking scandal or collapse, or one indy ref, one departing free-at-last golden-goose, away from destitution when UK banks and currency tank, and she has to rely for the first time on her tragically deficient wits and imperceptible talent. Laugh at her predicament, a slave all the same like us, but an outcast, no wonder she’s such miserable sod, her shrinking gilded-cage is too small for her ego. Her public persona so unhinged and repellant, who would buy such books, knowing of her character? She’ll have to resort further to buying her own books in bulk, if something of this sort hasn’t already been happening to account for the claimed bloated ‘sales’ of her Blytonesque re-heats. Somewhere in the world people must have them stacked like firewood and have been kept them warm by them through many a winter.
Robert Peffers @ 11.17
I mentioned polls as I thought there was one coming out around now – maybe got that wrong! But yes, how reliable are they really?
O/T
FBI chief may have ‘Broken the Law” link to bbc.co.uk
Also, here’s a disturbing bit of news on the BBC website.
link to bbc.co.uk
Apparently there are fears that cracks in Hinckley Point B might mean that it could not be shut down in an emergency. Also same cracks in Hunterston B . Only being reported in last 20 minutes Concerns that if you run reactors past their shelf life parts can wear out or fail.
Programme on tv tomorrow in W and SW England but in I-Player later.Will thy show it in Scotland?
Tom B
The discipline is- you break up your prose with line breaks otherwise no one reads it. Please resubmit. I say this not as a dick but someone who wants you to post stuff people will read.
Cheers
Hi Tam Jardine at 12:56 am
You typed,
“The discipline is- you break up your prose with line breaks otherwise no one reads it. Please resubmit. I say this not as a dick but someone who wants you to post stuff people will read.”
Agreed. To be honest, I read about the first three lines then my eyes started doing the old crossing ploy…
A paragraph break every two or three sentences makes for an easier read.
I mean it does say he’ll kill ye wi hammers if ye don’t include paragraph breaks right above the comment box ye typed intae Tom B…don’t get hammered get breaks 😉
If you have trouble with around 14 lines of text, I suspect it’s your reading comprehension that needs improvement, or it’s something an optician could help you with or you’re reading this on some device more suited to watching cartoons or which doubles as a sex-toy. There are no paragraph breaks, as it is one paragraph. In other words bugger off, diddys, address the points made or ignore it.
Leading historian predicts Brexit will not happen
He also predicts no Indy2 yet & he’s fallen out with Brownie!
(Not the footie one that’s coming back to save Scotland, that other yin that clunks his fist and makes vows)
link to archive.is
Tonn B
Folk offered you constructive criticism and you don’t appear to be handling it well. Not a good look.
Tom B
Sorry, I need glasses but my poor state of mental health presents a barrier to my well-being.
Wanker.
So, the unbiased BBC. Happened to look because of a Torrance article decrying the billboard campaign. The BBC News Scotland’s web page, has an article link for “FM ‘twiddling thumbs’ on legislation” (7 hours ago), but curiously has NO article on “How Brexit will ‘devastate’ Scotland’s world-class universities”, or from Prof Curtice who they like to quote on polls “Independent Scotland could remain in EU after Brexit, leading expert says”. Both covered in the Sunday Herald.
Bias by omission. Which the BBC does much more than bias in its articles in which it’s much more careful, though still is selective in what it quotes.
The BBC is unbiased, right. When will these people wake the f up?
@yesindyref2
I know that feeling!
Radio shortbread has been employing this tactic more over the last few weeks especially Saturday & Sunday mornings where its not a case of mis-reporting Scotland more a cause of non-reporting Scotland.
Nothing happening in Scotland it’s all foreign news. Trump. Iraq Mosul Trump & Clinton, Politics in France or Germany or India, Trump Brexit as per Westminster and so it goes.
Now of course we need news from other places but I have been told by my partner (who I moaned to about this three weeks ago) that I was right and she has begun to notice it too.
Rant over…try some sleep now. 🙂
@meg
The guy Large is knowledgeable, but turned against nuclear. Quick look at wiki to confirm what I knew: “Large has been critical of the nuclear power industry, and has been commissioned in the past by Greenpeace and other national and international NGOs to provide technical analysis on nuclear issues”.
The cracks at Humterston aren’t new, in fact there’s detailed modelling of the cracks which perform according to the model. Reported, mmmm, maybe 2, 3 years ago? Not new news (I live fairly near Hunterston). Like many living here, I’d prefer a Hunterston C to a proposed coal station, any day of the week!
Mmmm, better turn the light on, this glow isn’t enough to see by.
@call me dave
Yes, it’s why we need the billboards, but perhaps the focus should also be on “NOT-reporting Scotland”!
@Tam
Very possibly. I might concentrate on so-called Scottish posters a little, though not too far as otherwise they’ll be off with that “divided nation”, rubbish. I might just do it occasionally though – surprise visits!
In case anyone remembers my mentioning I got glasses, I lost them. They were only out of the £ shop though. True story.
Anybody still up can tell me what Autonomy Scotland is
I’ve just had and email from them but I know nothing
dr Jim is this what you’re looking for.
link to archive.is
@Dr Jim
Never heard of it but a couple of posters ring a bell (iandi), and even their names rings a vague bell. Website registered March 2014, registrant Glasgow. I’m being cagey because I always protect personal details, even if they are available publicly.
Looks legit to me at a quick glance.
You might want to wonder how they got your email address!
Thanks for that @Cherry and I now realise it’s my own daft fault I remember answering a question from this site and now it’s decided because of that it likes me or I like it
It’s a sort of apprentice Wings but I think I’ll fire it for being cheeky
Dr Jim
you’re welcome night night! 😉
I suspect this next 3 or 4 weeks is going to be a very annoying niggly time, because not a lot will happen. But hopefully more will drift to YES, and to undecided from NO.
Wow, I can’t believe I found this after all these years, an old cartoon which says it so much.
link to archive.is
I’m a bit disgruntled that folk haven’t pointed out I can’t tell the difference between a nut and a breakfast cereal. Or perhaps you thought I was being inclusive? Anyhoo, constructedness.
The Social Constructedness of Resilience
link to mdpi.com
This one’s a good bit easier to access. 🙂
link to thesocietypages.org
Unfortunately the links don’t work but you should get the picture.
@Tom B
I can understand getting hacked off with being “told off”, I suspect most Indy supporters don’t like being told what to do, or not do. It’s like “Hello, is there something abour the word Independence you don’t understand?”.
Thing is there’s a lot of postings around, a lot to read, and probably many people scan things, speed-read, where you catch a few letters, a few words, get the drift, and focus in on something you’re interested in.
Hence the paragraphs!
Don’t take it to heart, or personally.
Sorry, that should have read links to the vid-e-os.
link to pinterest.com
Tom B
Yep, I don’t think it was personal and apologies for getting a bit angry and letting it show. You must have hit a pressure-point.
@CameronB Brodie
link to youtube.com
Time I hit the pit!
🙂
lumilumi says:
30 October, 2016 at 9:11 pm
Haha, Robert!
“Yeah, I’m still a Windows 7 girl, me. Trying to keep my trusty 6-yr-old laptop alive as long as possible. Looking into other options like Linux…”
Have a look here link to peppermintos.com
It’s Ubuntu based free to try, no risk,lightweight and great support, perfect for older hardware
I should point out I’m one of the developers so maybe a little biased but if you’re serious about switching to Linux no harm giving it a try and remember you can try it without making any changes to your PC/Laptop
Graeme
@Grouse Beater
My local bookstore has a half price table for JKs books. I think it is a permanent fixture. It has been there every time I have been in for about the last year.
I can’t help feeling that this is an attempt to shut down the most effective critic before kicking off the next campaign.
This is just nasty…
Tom B@12:33
I hope she reads your post and hates it as much as I enjoyed it. Never really thought about my savings like that.
Maybe safer under the mattress even although they wouldn’t take up much space!
Dr Jim
“Anybody still up can tell me what Autonomy Scotland is
I’ve just had and email from them but I know nothing”
Half the MSM journo’s think Fiscal Autonomy is the study of skeletons.
Tom B
It may be 14 lines on your PC but on my Samsung sex toy it is 37 solid lines of microscopic prose and is very hard for me to read. It is also hard to read because it is not written in sentences.
I understand it is not nice being rebuked and my intention is not for you to feel criticised so please don’t take it that way and keep posting
link to economist.com
link to theneweuropean.co.uk
Northern Ireland leader says special status for province possible after Brexit
link to archive.is
Brexit: Chris Johns on Britain’s lazy, jaw-dropping act of visceral self-harm
link to archive.is
@ Tom B 12.33
I agree about the paragraph breaks. But now that it’s morning and the eyes are fresh, I read your comment.
It’s a great piece of polemic and worth reading.
Just needs a couple of paragraph breaks.
Would be a shame if most skip over it. Worse still, if Stu kills you with hammers.
senior-tory-mp-calls-for-keith-vaz-to-be-sacked-from-justice-committee
link to archive.is
FBI obtains warrant to examine Clinton emails – source
link to archive.is
link to middleeasteye.net
link to amnesty.org.uk
So McFadyen is in fact from NI (with a loyalist background) and worked for the News of the Screws when it still existed.
She’s fair game.
Nissan deal opens door for Scotland concessions – SNP
link to archive.is
link to thecanary.co
link to wearechange.org
link to uk.businessinsider.com
Nana:
Good morning Nana,thanks for the links,kettle on.
🙂
Peace Always
Robert J Sutherland and Illuminati
The franchise is not devolved, meaning that the Scottish Government can’t simply amend it. What the Scottish government did was to choose to use the same franchise as that for local government and Holyrood elections.
(Westminster had to amend the UK law to enable Scotland to lower the voting age to 16 for local government and Holyrood elections in Scotland. It is still 18 for UK general elections)
siobhan accused me of being a stalker then blocked me last night 🙂
heedtracker says:
30 October, 2016 at 8:25 pm
Even daft old hootsman piled on, different issue but
link to archive.is
Ruby replies
This idea that every single YES voter who makes a comment is a political activist and their aim should be to convince NO voters to vote YES annoys me.
Is there no space in the Yoon world for ordinary people just expressing their views? If I say that this Dani Garavelli article is super boring as is the Strickland article about billboards does that mean I am trying to shut down both of these women and that would put people off from voting YES???
‘Even when I had decided to vote Yes, an abusive tweet or an unreasonable accusation of MSM bias would cause a spasm of doubt. Would independence really provide the kind of Scotland I hoped for?’
Dani Garavelli
That is utterly pathetic! What kind of Scotland is this woman wanting?
Why no focus on NO voters do they not have a similar obligation to convince others of the benefit of the Union? Apart from handing over loads of cash is JK Rowling doing anything to convince people to vote NO? Does her constant ranting about people in Scotland being anti-English really help the NO side?
Will we see an article in ‘The Herald’ some time soon claiming that the behaviour of the NO voters especially J K Rowling is not helping to convince people to vote NO?
There’s plenty out there for anyone looking to write a story about the behaviour of the NO voting political activists! The Scotsman would be a good place to start!
ronnie anderson says:
30 October, 2016 at 9:13 pm
Oh Ruby don’t take your case tae court ,you settle to easily ,£6000 from the Scotsman ,but times moved on & so have prices
Ruby replies
£6K sounds like a fortune but then I’m always skint!
On the hoots man article, Danni Garavelli is with the Herald and so is irrelevant from the get go.
One or two zoomers below the line, but the piece itself is interesting. 😉
link to archive.is
Got to love the strident repeating of the mistaken claim that as long as you don’t name one you can say what you like. Unfortunately there’s a distinct lack in subtlety in that. What she may think is her raising her voice in order to speak over someone comes across as panic.
OK so it’s the BBC but
link to bbc.co.uk
The legal viewpoint
An online comment, such as a tweet, is potentially libellous in England and Wales if it damages someone’s reputation “in the estimation of right-thinking members of society”. It can do this by exposing them to “hatred, ridicule or contempt”.
It is a civil offence (rather than a criminal one) so you won’t go to prison, but you could end up with a large damages bill. These rules also apply to a ‘retweet’ – which is when you share or forward someone else’s message on Twitter.
You may not have made the original allegation, but retweeting it could be seen as an endorsement. You could be accused of making a defamatory statement, and you could be sued.
You can also be sued even if you do not name a person in a defamatory statement. Basically, if the person you are talking about can be identified from what you have said, then you can be sued.
Scotland has a different legal system to England and Wales, but the same principles broadly apply when it comes to defamation.
Word of warning
In a court of law it would be down to you to prove that what you’ve said is true or to use one of the other defences to defamation, such as truth (ie what you can prove to be true) and honest opinion.
And don’t think that if you delete a defamatory post then you can’t be sued – you can. The length of time it is visible could affect the amount of damages you would have to pay, but just because you’ve deleted it doesn’t mean others haven’t already reposted it. Once it’s out there, you can’t always take it back.
Any material published in the UK – including online content – is subject to defamation, privacy and contempt laws and could even be a racism or terrorism offence.
So if you’re a national newspaper editor, a bedroom blogger or just a quick-fire tweeter, you do need to think before you post. The only way to be completely safe is to avoid posting gossip unless you know for a fact that it is true.
Now one might think that someone employed by a national newspaper might possibly have some knowledge of the ins and outs of defamation in order to not land themselves or their employer in the doo doo. It certainly seems the kind of thing you’d learn in journalism 101. Historically authors have even been sued for fiction where a public figure claiming a character is an identifiable version of themselves regardless of whether that portrayal is unflattering or not. JK knows all about protecting characters and would be justified in taking a punt at a lawsuit if there was a novel involving a divorced mother writing a novel in a cafe who made it big only to have success go to her head.
I love the English, like family -but I don’t want to share a room with a bullying big brother for the rest of my life.
orri
That is very interesting!
Brian Powell
Brian, if you must comment on matters referring to the media, at least do your homework.
Dani Garavelli is a freelance journalist; like all of us freelances, she is free to sell her work wherever she likes – hence, her by-line appears in The Herald, The Guardian, the Evening Times and The Scotsman, among other titles.
Her main media outlet, however, is her weekly Scotland on Sunday column.
Never met the lassie, but, she is a very good columnist. You don’t have to agree with her, but, she is worth reading and is far from being: “irrelevant”.
If you wish to highlight an irrelvant female columnist, the prime example is Mrs Cochrane – Jenny Hjul.
Re. the Conservative Party and the Blairite being the war party. Well what do you expect. British nationalism could be interpreted as being a product of the Young England wing of the late Victorian-era Conservative party and the Fabians, who were both imperialistic in outlook. Fancy that?
Fixed that for you, Tom B 🙂 :
JK Rowling’s millions are just bits on a hard drive, they are mere ‘promises to pay’ from anonymous persons placed above the law; all she has is an intangible virtual IOU, albeit a big one.
UK banking is a tottering house of cards, built on bluff and bluster, scams upon scams, with zombie-banks on state life-support; the state concerned – rUK – a bankrupt, broken war-criminal world pariah. All of it, every last centigroat, can go, simply vanish, with an untraceable click from anywhere in the world; or be devalued, halving in real worth every day, till it won’t buy even a loaf of bread.
That is the leverage finance has over Rowling, she and all the other super-wealthy have put enormous trust in the least trustworthy, most shifty people imaginable, people who have an abysmal track-record, who spirit away and mind their tallies of worthless and highly perishable tokens.
She is, along with many others in the lower tiers of the super-wealthy, someone’s mug, someone’s financial accident waiting to happen. The super-rich are just one event, one banking scandal or collapse, say, or one indy ref, one departing free-at-last golden goose, away from destitution when UK banks and the UK pound tank, and she has to rely for the first time on her tragically deficient wits and imperceptible talent.
Laugh at her predicament, a slave all the same, just like us in fact, but an outcast – no wonder she’s such a miserable sod, her shrinking gilded cage is too small for her ego. Her public persona so unhinged and repellant, who would buy her books, knowing of her character?
She’ll have to resort further to buying her own books in bulk, if something of this sort hasn’t already been happening, to account for the claimed bloated ‘sales’ of her Blytonesque re-heats. Somewhere in the world people must have them stacked like firewood and have been kept warm by them through many a winter.
————————-
The best phrase of that is “Blytonesque re-heats”, I like that!
————————-
But seriously, Tom B, I’m using a computer with 20″ monitor, and on it your original text comes to 27 lines. With no paragraph breaks, that is almost impenetrable.
Keep writing, but do this site’s readers a favour in future, and please break your text into more manageable portions.
louis.b.argyll says:
31 October, 2016 at 9:20 am
I love the English, like family -but I don’t want to share a room with a bullying big brother for the rest of my life.
Ruby replies
I wouldn’t be able to say if I love ‘the English’ or not as I haven’t a clue what is meant by ‘the English’
Are ‘the English’ people like J K Rowling, Kevin Hague, Adam Tomkins, Andrew Neil, etc etc. Is it a pejorative term used to describe a certain type of person?
Socrates MacSporran
I know who she is, but when her articles are in the Herald and the Scotsman irrelevance beckons.
Macart says:
“Why doesn’t England just leave the UK?”
Why not indeed! They had their Indy Ref and England voted to become independent. Perhaps they should just get in with it! That would save everyone else a lot of hassle!
Do the decent thing, for once, eh?
The problem with that solution is they want their cake and eat it. They don’t want to leave the UK because they think they are the UK. And they want all the prestige and world status that goes with it, like the UN Security Council seat.
It’s a nice idea, though 🙂
Ruby on 30 October, 2016 at 11:09 pm
Thanks for the reply Ruby, i know nothing of that woman unless it appears on WOS, even then it takes some effort to read.I wouldn’t trust any of them as far as i could throw them.
_____
Has anyone else had trouble accessing WOS overnight? Not long after posting a comment to Ruby last night i couldn’t access WOS, until now.
Macart @8.48.
An interesting article, and the btl comments weren’t as loopy as I expected, apart from that rather worrying Independent England character. Was he/she threatening us with Britnat sectarianism? Sorry, we’ve had that already, when the Saltire Burners invaded Freedom Square and advised us to Obay Ur Qwene.
It’s a pity nothing is simple in life but Scotland wants to stay and England wants to go. Wouldn’t it be nice if the FM just said, “Dragging us out of the EU against our clear democratic will is clear grounds for terminating the Union. It’s been nice (!) but time for us both to move on.”
No mess, no fuss, no fractious propaganda war for Indyref2.
No chance, unfortunately. The irony is, if we were the economic basket case WM claims, we would be dispensed with quickly. It’s because we save it from bankruptcy and perform the function of Trident Park that they cling to us so desperately.
On topic: it would be nice if the Rev could teach the Gruesome Twosome a lesson but frankly I have little faith in the Law where the rich and powerful are concerned. A crowdfunder would be fun, though.
Socrates MacSporran says:
31 October, 2016 at 9:22 am
Dani Garavelli is a freelance journalist; like all of us freelances, she is free to sell her work wherever she likes – hence, her by-line appears in The Herald, The Guardian, the Evening Times and The Scotsman, among other titles.
Ruby replies
I suppose these freelance journalists looking to sell their work would have to take into consideration what sells!
This seems to result in most of them writing pretty much the same stuff! Stories about ‘cybernats’ and abusive Yes voters, SNP Bad, SNHS in crisis seem to be the current best sellers!
Ruby, aye, it’s the kind of love you extend to people in general.
I love the folks in our neighbouring countries, more personally, as naturally they are like us.
Understanding the differences, and loving them too, is where we’re at.
England confuses me more than any other nation on this good Earth.
I feel sorry for the “English”. Lorded over by arrogant Normans for nearly 1,000 years, they haven’t a clue who they are. Turned into a howling dog-pack whenever their masters blow the dog whistle, they chase after whoever is the latest “prey” to be hounded out of sight.
There’s an excellent film called “The Shooting Party” set in Edwardian England just before the start of WW1, it portrays the crushing class system and its evil consequences. At least in Scotland we (most of us) know we’ve been ripped off. The poor English plebs believe they are the beneficiaries of the centuries of looting.
link to youtube.com
ooft i see yer birds have joined forces Rev lol
Those crazy tory chicks so which one are you taking to the blogger awards Rev.
@ Tinto Chiel
‘No chance unfortunately’
Or fortunately, as the case may be. 🙂
Our SG are democrats first and foremost, regardless of what the media would have the rest of the world believe. More importantly, they believe in the sovereignty of the Scottish electorate. What we decide, good or bad, is exactly what they’ll carry out.
Oh they’ll advise us on outcomes and keep us appraised of ‘changes in circumstance’ which could adversely affect our choices, but the bottom line is they believe it is in the people’s hands to decide.
We’ve seen how parliamentary sovereignty works. We’ve seen the effect spoon feeding society harmful and manipulative narrative through a compliant media works. After 300 and odd years of this system, its safe to say it hasn’t worked out so well for the vast majority of the population. Yet still some folks within that majority would vote for more of the same mushroom politics.
Perhaps they like being fed on a diet of manure, who knows? (shrugs)
One thing is a dead certainty however. If it were any other party in power in Scotland, there would be no choice offered to the Scottish electorate to decide upon whatsoever.
Maybe some readers out there should have a think about that. Do they honestly think a Conservative, Labour or Liberal ‘Scottish Executive’ (as they would term it), offer them the chance to decide on Scotland’s constitutional and economic future?
What people do need to bear in mind is the difference between defamation (or libel/slander in England) and “vulgar abuse”. It’s pretty obvious from Stu’s writing that he is well aware of the difference.
Defamation is saying or writing something untrue that damages someone’s reputation. Or words to that effect (IANAL). Simply hurling insults at them is not defamation.
So, calling someone a vile pustule is not defamation and is not actionable. It’s absolutely categorically in the “vulgar abuse” section and you can do as much of that as you like and you will never find yourself in court over it. To the best of my knowledge and belief calling someone “catastrophically stupid” is also within the bounds of “vulgar abuse”. Saying that this insult has damaged your reputation and producing certified proof of your IQ if 150 is not going to get you any money from that. Stu knows this perfectly well or he wouldn’t be using that term against Siobhan. (I was warned once that calling somone “bonkers” was inadvisable as it could be construed as an allegation of mental illness or retardation, but I left it in and the person didn’t take any action. So my contention that the word was intended as vulgar abuse was never tested.)
However, identyfying someone as a “vile, anti-English racist” and stating that he “regularly posts hateful abuse and encourages others to do so” is most certainly defamatory. I’m not 100% sure about the first half of that as Stu can be spectacularly rude to individual people on Twitter so the first half just might be deemed to have the defence of truth. However he has never encouraged anyone to abuse anyone else, so the second part would definitely appear to be actionable.
Including him in a group described as vile anti-English racists is probably actionable too, and indeed anyone who is identifiable in person who is included in that group and who isn’t in fact an anti-English racist may have a case against the Express.
Someone who has been called a smelly poopy-head, not so much.
I like this idea being mooted of England leaving the UK, and thereby making a clean, immediate break free from the EU. Wales could vote if they wanted to leave with little xenophobic England, or stay in the rUK, with progressive forward looking countries, Scotland, N.Ireland and Gibraltar. Just think, no long negotiations, and Scotland who want to stay in the EU would not be dragged out against its democratic wishes by an increasingly xenophobic England.
Theresa May should consider it. Brexit with immediate effect for England, just end the treaty of union. Done, no messing, finished. The London Tories should embrace this.
Seems like a winning idea to me. 🙂
louis.b.argyll says:
Aye, and the Yanks are not far behind!
Nice to see “vile” getting an airing again. Reassuring, frankly.
l support the call for England( and Wales?) to leave the UK.
What a great solution! I’m sure most of the Brexiteers would love to be ‘shot’ of Scotland and it would solve the problem for those of us who wish to Remain. Plus the name of ‘England’ would be on everyone’s lips- none of this confusion about GB or UK.
“It’s Englerland Mate! Innit?’
They can keep EVEL and have their own Parliament, the Monarchy, Wayne Rooney and use the £.
What’s not to like?
Tabloid “journalist” teams up with fantastically rich status-quo supporter. Jings, whit a surprise.
Robert Louis says:
On the downside, it hard to imagine that happening,given their addiction to all things we have.
One bright side for them though, is they could cancel Trident as they have nowhere then to else to base them, they could save countless millions, and blame the Scots at the same time.
Win win for them!, and for us of course.
Hi Robert Sutherland, yes, still here, always read but rarely post. Still (and always) YES, still not anglo-phobic! Didn’t know I was redoubtable though, doubtable definitely.
Sorry, but I prefer to have nothing to do with a certain author of childish fiction whose name may be inferred from reading this thread. I think they may both be beyond redemption.
Happy to contribute to any necessary crowdfund though.
It never ceases to amaze me that people think Yessers are anti-English, I challenged an English No voter on this a while back, asking what had been said to her. Her reply? You get looked at in a funny way if you are English! I suppose if you are determined to find anti-Englishness you will do so, even if there is nothing to find.
It’s not a patch on the anti-Scottishness we get in certain parts of England. Simply mentioning you live in Scotland is enough to provoke a Scots-bad rant amongst some peo
What independence for England i wonder who came up with that idea lol
No Indy for England no referendums either in fact no constitutional power what so ever they will do as the UK says bleeding vile separatists thinking that they should be allowed to run their own country.
Capella: “There’s an excellent film called “The Shooting Party” set in Edwardian England just before the start of WW1, it portrays the crushing class system and its evil consequences.”
Hey, I remember it! You’re right – it was a good essay on the English class system.
I thought Master and Commander offered the same lesson – a 12 year old aristo’s son with one arm given captaincy of a ship over and above experienced sailors who had served for decades.
Macart, Robert Louis:
The main problem with the “Independence by England’s EU default” is that the Scottish people would not have expressed a clear will by referendum for independence and this would not really be a good foundation for our reborn country. The usual suspects would question its legitimacy, of course.
Indeed, I expect any narrow Yes winning margin to be questioned. There will be more and more talk of supermajorities if WM thinks it’s going to lose and it’s not beyond fomenting problems with the Marching Men and Women, I’m afeared.
This Union is a quagmire and finding the right path out is going to be very tricky. The stubby wee pencil on a string is the answer to it all of course but that depends on getting our arguments heard above the white noise of Yoondom.
Capella, thanks for The Shooting Party. I’m looking forward to seeing it again. When it first aired I was repelled by the depiction of the ruling class. How little has changed in their social attitudes.
bjsalba: “My local bookstore has a half price table for JKs books”
🙂 Rather like that oak furniture store with its permanent sale that ‘must end this week’.
Well that is the popcorn and drink just been delivered so go get ’em Stu.
We are all behind you, our natural place … apparently. 😀
You do a fantastic service in righting the wrongs and flat out lies of unionists and we will never be able to thank you enough for that. It is only right and proper then that when unionists spew flat out lies against you personally that you take appropriate action.
Unionists like these, especially Rowling, do seem to be very quick off the mark when they “perceive” abuse against themselves but for some unknown reason are blind to the abuse THEY themselves commit. The time to start balancing the lawsuit scales of justice has arrived.
Take them all down … HARD!
Comment – new users please read this page first for commenting rules. HTML tags like and are permitted. Use the live preview box. Include paragraph breaks or I WILL KILL YOU WITH HAMMERS
Was merely pointing out the ‘site’s’ ‘actual’ rules Tom B. Dinnae take it personally. 😉
Hi Socrates MacSporran at 9:22 am.
You typed,
“If you wish to highlight an irrelvant female columnist, the prime example is Mrs Cochrane – Jenny Hjul.”
There’s a reader’s letter in today’s Courier. I paste it below.
“Stop blame game, Jenny
Sir, – Your columnist Jenny Hjul really is shameless. She blames “a society that has not provided (young people) with an education, a job or in some cases even a home” on her bete noir, whom she rather rudely refers to as Sturgeon.
Ms Hjul chooses to ignore the disastrous effect on Scotland’s low-and-no-paid of greedy and incompetent London governments, resulting in savage austerity, foodbanks and the “bedroom tax”.
She even has the gall to blame the Scottish Government for the delay in securing a minimum price policy for alcohol, when this has been ruthlessly obstructed by the makers of the Tories’ favourite tipple, Scotch whisky.
No doubt Ms Hjul is a perfect saint, kind to children and animals and so on, but her ceaseless, bitter attacks on the SNP and, in particular, her constant peddling of the blatant nonsense that the Scottish Government is failing to run the country competently because of its “constitutional obsession”, perhaps qualifies her to be oor very ain nasty woman.
David Roche.”
link to thecourier.co.uk
@Tinto Chiel
Always a highly unlikely scenario IMO. 😀
How and ever, it does make you wonder just how would your average unionist react to such a betrayal of their vote and their trust. Most still haven’t grasped the true nature of better togetherness, pooling and sharing, the devolution journey and other such meaningless sound bites as it is.
They should probably ask Mundell just how much influence, how valued and important he feels currently? How much input he has to any discussion beyond one lump or two, at any cabinet meeting he may be involved in? I very much doubt though they’d receive an honest answer.
@mark johnston says: 31 October, 2016 at 8:24 am:
“siobhan accused me of being a stalker then blocked me last night.”
That has to be a wonderful endorsement of your indy credentials, Mark. You should be justifiably proud of yourself.
Journalists just can’t stand being called out on the pish and lies that they produce. Do so and it’s abuse, back off scary cybernat. As their sales plummet, it’s clear more folk are becoming wise. So come ahead Siobhan, make our day!
Got to love the approach oor we Siobhan takes to the idea of facing a lawsuit these days, and not for the first time either I hasten to add. ?
link to twitter.com
Apparently it is usual business for the person PURSUING the lawsuit to send the details of their lawyer to the person being sued! ?
I wonder where she studied law. … the University of Cracker Jacks perhaps? ?
It’s all that peroxide, it’s softened their brains.
Katie Hopkins recently referred to the First Minister as a ‘poisoned dwarf’.
I found that comment particularly offensive as I’m an inch shorter than Nicola.
Anyway, coming from a woman who is built like a Clydesdale and has a face like a slapped arse, I found it profoundly bizarre.
Tam Jardine on 31 October, 2016 at 7:38 am
“It may be 14 lines on your PC but on my Samsung sex toy it is 37 solid lines of microscopic prose and is very hard for me to read.”
LLF Tam, great start to the week, thanks!
“England leave the uk” article here
link to archive.is
And don’t forget the comments!
Watch that blood pressure, Mr Peffers.
Jeeez, just reading that they’re issuing a new pound coin which comes into circulation in March 2017. Apparently it’s modeled on the old thrupenny bit.
Do these people not realise the constant confusion they make for the blind, with the neverending issuing of new forms of currency. They really are living in the past. A pound coin with 12 sides? ffs!
Hootsman belatedly catching up and quoting Times story but strange that Prof Curtis, well known political pundit much vaunted commentator, is missing!
(Times version behind paywall) 🙁
Scotland to become ‘successor state within the EU’
PS:
Oh no! It’s footies turn to be an SNP bad again.
70% back Labour MSP’s move to repeal Offensive Behaviour At Football Act
link to archive.is
PPS:
So good they had to print it twice…FGS!
National repeats Friday’s X-word…still cannae get two in the bottom LH corner. 🙁
@Stoker…
It’s cos the current pound coin is an easy forgery..
The new one is to be composed of two types of metal (like the £2) to make this harder.
call me dave says:
Oh no! It’s footies turn to be an SNP bad again.
70% back Labour MSP’s move to repeal Offensive Behaviour At Football Act
link to archive.is
So that makes a grand total of sixteen, yup that’s right SIXTEEN Labour M.S.P.’s then. ?
Looks like oor James is a shoe in for the title of Labour Branch Manager next time round then.
link to youtube.com
“Unionists today’s have ….”
“… forelock-tugging Unionist elderly …”
The word Unionist cited in two allegedly anti-English tweets.
How daft is that!? There are no Unionists in England. They are a Scottish and Northern Irish phenomenon.
Absolutely no one in England gives the Union a second thought. They are English or British, which are seen as interchangeable, and sometimes nationalists or imperialists.
‘Union’ implies partnership. Only some Scots (and Irish) are daft enough to believe the UK is a partnership.
Criticism of Unionists is aimed purely at fellow Scots who place their primary allegiance outside Scotland,
Macart, your mention of Peerie Mun’ell, aka Snackbeard/Magnificent Husk/Sometime Tea-Boy to the Cabinet, reminds me that there are actually two of them, the Mike and Bernie Winters of Scottish politics.
Gwoosome, simply gwoosome 😛
If this is true, it’s a catastrophic breech of protocol and betrayal of trust.
link to archive.is
Bad and bad enough Nissan may have been offered a deal granting exceptional status, but if it was based on revealing government detail of brexit strategy which the devolved legislatures were not privy to? I’d say we’re well beyond digraceful and contemptuous behaviour by HMG at that point.
The point when you realise the ‘misreporting Scotland’ billboard idea is a must.
link to archive.is
They really don’t like it up them.
turnbull drier on 31 October, 2016 at 12:09 pm
Cheers, TD, i suppose, feeling wise, it will be better for the blind in the long term. As for the ‘forging’ reason i’m not that convinced. They’ve known how easy it is to mimic/forge a pound coin for some considerable time now.
Anyway, do these currency designers not get paid to pre-empt the likelihood and simplicity of possible forgeries? I personally think they’re all about keeping themselves in a job, but then again my cynical nature would have me thinking that, wouldn’t it!
😉
@ Stoker
By March 2017, a pound is going to have the same purchasing power as an old thrupenny bit. I wish I’d kept some.
crazycat
🙂 I’ve got some in my small collection, along with some silver sixpences. Whoop whoop!
Will James Kelly MSP! and the other brave loons accept responsibility of anyone being killed, maimed etc at or near a football ground.
Yes?
Well power to their convictions. I would have thought they would hide away and blame baaaaaaaad snp policy when it happens.
@ Grousebeater – Master and Commander isn’t on Youtube in any watchable quality. Will look for it on Amazon Prime. At 2 hrs 45 mins it’ll have to be an early evening start!
@ Tinto Chiel – The Shooting party has a stellar cast too. I’ve watched it several times.
BTW Visconti’s “The Damned” is also available on Youtube should you want to see some German aristocrats behaving badly. Dirk Bogarde stars.
Spoiler – it didn’t end well.
link to youtube.com
Thanks, Capella, for “The Damned”, another one for my evening viewing. I was going to reciprocate by swapping you “The Leopard”, another Visconti masterpiece, but you can’t get it legally on YouTube.
The ballroom scene in particular with Lancaster and Claudia C. is brilliant.
They’re doing a remake with The Secretary of State for Scotland in the main role, called “The Pussy Cat”.
Small budget, of course.
Sue Varley @ 10:33,
Maybe I got that wrong, Sue, but I had the impression from something you wrote previously that you were in fact …errrm… English. So I regarded you as redoubtable for daring to raise your head above the parapet in this nest of separatist vipers (alleged).
I thought some of our English contributors might be best-placed to refute the supposed anti-Englishness of WoS.
But you’re welcome anyway. (Hope nothing serious happened there, you seem to have got cut off in mid-flow…)
These people like Jk are the cosy establishment. We are the rebels the revolutionaries. They fear us more than anything else. Because we can expose and bring down their empires.
They can only abuse us and defame us. Much like the French aristocrats did with the peasants. They make us look like the wrong ones but history will not be kind to them.They need the poor to protect the wealthy they don’t need the poor! The Empire is on its knees and their greed and inhumanity will end soon. Scotland will break free from the shackles of the class driven UK.
When is a £10bn boost to the NHS really only worth £4.5bn or less?
When the Tories get to do the counting. UK Auntie not too happy either.
NHS funds need urgent boost, say MPs
link to archive.is
Not good for the population darn Sarf! 🙁
I wonder what the Barnett formula consequential is then for the SNHS maybe Ruthie or shortbread radio should tell us all.
Well said Big Jock!
call me dave says:
31 October, 2016 at 12:03 pm
Hootsman belatedly catching up and quoting Times story but strange that Prof Curtis, well known political pundit much vaunted commentator, is missing!
(Times version behind paywall) ?
Ruby replies
Are you referring to an article that was in the Times yesterday or today?
Since someone has introduced the subject of football, however obliquely, did anyone notice that East Kilbride FC has equalled Ajax record of run of unbeaten matches?
Ajax have congratulated them but some po faced people say it may not be recognised because they are such a lowly team and part-time to boot.
Scottish Daily Express Front Page proclaiming it is:
“Now 15p.
Cheaper than the Daily Record and the Daily Mail.”
I think the Express may have got it right.
I think James Kelly’s offensive regardless of football, and I conducted a poll up my street on that very subject and the answer was Yes Defo Guy’s a Nut Job
I think that’s pretty comprehensive there
In other news: I see we’ve found more worthless oil again, and it makes me wonder why these oil digging up companies go to the expense and bother of finding this useless valueless stuff
In really important news: Michelle Mone spoke again, yeah that’s pretty much it
SNP say to Westminster “Show us the letter” to Nissan,
which we know will say very little but annoying for the Ides of May team
Surprisingly odd behaviour from Nissan though Japanese companies don’t like scandal and they must know this will leak out eventually and could hurt their business more than the Two Billion Quid R&D developement money promised to separate companies but owned and operated by Nissan Tut Tut
Shouldn’t take long before other companies start squealing
Macart says:
31 October, 2016 at 12:23 pm
If this is true, it’s a catastrophic breech of protocol and betrayal of trust.
link to archive.is
Ruby replies
‘His comments will lead to speculation that the government wants to remain part of the EU customs union, though he refused to be drawn on that issue.’
This ‘customs union’ thing is interesting vis a vis ‘Better Together’s’ argument re iScotland ‘walking away from their largest trading partner.
Am I correct in think that if the RUK joined the customs union then very little would change with regard to trade between EU countries & the RUK?
Sue and teach them a lesson they cant be allowed to get away with this
Capella – re ‘The Shooting Party’
This is a great picture – full of mind-opening events and moments (even for YOONs).
Sadly though the landed aristocracy have has the last laugh – they still own half of Scotland for shooting wee animals and any poor soul who gets in their way!
I’ve not read all the comments here so apologies if I’m repeating a suggestion, but can I propose a way to approach this? Tell them you don’t want money. You just want an apology on the front page, above the fold. If it comes to a day in court, you can make clear your longstanding argument about giving greater prominence to corrections and note that money doesn’t undo the smear or show the paper and the “journalist” up for the lazy and/or stupid eejits they are. A sympathetic judge might well look at Ms. McFadyen’s history and especially her outright ignorance of libel/defamation law and decide that humiliation is a much mote effective punishment thqn just paying you off. What’s more, if you can get it on the Sunday Express, it’s hard to see how it wouldn’t get discussed on Marr and Peston and whatever other shows. The publicity from that is worth more than almost any amount of cash.
@Ruby
I think that the Hootsman was referring to this but I can’t get beyong the appetizer here! 🙂
Sorry I was away out to the postbox.
link to archive.is
OT
Still waiting for Douglas Fraser to cover this story given his obsession with the problems of the oil and gas sector
link to bbc.com
@Ruby
‘Am I correct in think that if the RUK joined the customs union then very little would change with regard to trade between EU countries & the RUK?’
This: ‘His comments will lead to speculation that the government wants to remain part of the EU customs union, though he refused to be drawn on that issue.’
The intent may be there, but the ‘guarantee’ to deliver can’t be.
The EU have made it abundantly clear already that the UK cannot pick and choose what they wish from the four freedoms. Its an all or nothing deal. In this case, I’d say the ‘nothing’ part of that statement being the more accurate.
In any event the devolved legislatures, in fact all politicians and the public across the UK, would like to know just what kind of sweetheart deal has prompted Nissan to stay. 😉
So, if Scotlnd becomes the successor state, doesn’t that mean it’s our UK debt?
Careful what we wish for.
call me dave says:
31 October, 2016 at 1:50 pm
@Ruby
I think that the Hootsman was referring to this but I can’t get beyong the appetizer here! ?
Sorry I was away out to the postbox.
link to archive.is
Ruby replies
You can access Times articles on
link to search.proquest.com
with Edinburgh Libraries membership.
I couldn’t find the article
‘Sturgeon could ask for Scotland to take UK’s EU membership’
and I think that is because it’s too new it’s marked
October 31 2016, 12:01am
or perhaps because it’s not in the print version of the Times.
@ Tinto Chiel – I have “The Leopard” on DVD and, you’re right, it’s a cracker. Worth watching again on these long winter evenings.
Look forward to “The Pussycat” when released. It will rival “The Pink Panther”.
link to youtube.com
Macart says:
31 October, 2016 at 1:58 pm
The EU have made it abundantly clear already that the UK cannot pick and choose what they wish from the four freedoms.
Ruby replies
I don’t think the ‘Customs Union’ arrangement includes the four freedoms.
Turkey is a member of the ‘Customs Union’ I believe.
I could be totally wrong the first I heard of ‘Customs Union’ was here:
link to archive.is
Stark reality dramatised in 100 minutes: link to wp.me
Proud Cybernat says:
31 October, 2016 at 1:58 pm
So, if Scotlnd becomes the successor state, doesn’t that mean it’s our UK debt?
Careful what we wish for.
Ruby replies
The RUK couldn’t default on their share of the debt where would they stand vis a vis lenders etc blah blah blah
Capella says:
31 October, 2016 at 12:51 pm
@ Grousebeater – Master and Commander isn’t on Youtube in any watchable quality
Its essentially just another English war film that doesn’t say anything at all really, other than the French are devious cheats and the English are nice.
What you never see in these movies, is that the Napoleonic wars were won for the princes and royals of Europe, just like ours now. If Napoleon had won, there would have been no British Empire, or British royals today for that matter.
The Napoleonic wars were one of those fundamental points in our history that never get even an honest mention by our tory dominated UK culture, for obvious reasons.
Much the same could be said about Culloden, and how it triggered the staggering violent expansion of Hanovarian English colonisation and slavery, across the planet.
Who really knows what Napoleonic Europe would have looked like, especially after the 18th century revolutions around the world, in the US in particular. With no British Empire, its likely there would have been no World War 1, nor a second world war, no Holocaust, and no nuclear cold war.
Sorry to be a bit expansive. Our history is just another aspect of how planet UKOK toryboy lies to us on an industrial scale.
This is nice though, from that movie
link to youtube.com
When it comes to Scottish history, think big and small, it is ours:D
@Ruby
Hmm. Now that is a different kettle of fish right enough. It is however, not what the publicised government line to the UK public has been to date. Which is to retain access to the single market whilst opting out of immigration legislation and freedom of travel. If this other option is now their preferred route of travel, how they square that circle with the public should prove interesting. Not to mention pretty volatile.
They’d still also have to explain to the devolved legislatures just why they weren’t informed of this change of tack when a motor manufacturer was?
Again, it all centres on the letter from HMG and the exact nature of the deal proposed. By this point I’d imagine that there is a not so orderly queue of other overseas based maufacturers forming to enquire as to the nature of that letter.
call me dave
I found it:
link to thetimes.co.uk
continued from preview:
independent Scotland to inherit the UK’s position within the EU.
A source inside the SNP administration said: “We will bring forward specific proposals in the coming weeks to protect Scotland’s place in Europe and in the single market.”
He added: “In terms of how Europe looks at the situation, there is clearly a huge amount of goodwill towards Scotland from our friends and neighbours, and there are a number of senior and influential people across the continent who have made clear they are keen on keeping Scotland in Europe”.
The issue of inheriting the membership was first raised by John Curtice, a leading Scottish political academic.
He said it could be possible that an independent Scotland could simply swap places with the UK, with latter leaving the EU and Scotland retaining the UK’s previous member-state position. Professor Curtice based his claim on the Foreign Office paper published before the 2014 referendum that stated an independent Scotland would not inherit EU membership because the UK was the recognised member state.
He said: “It seems difficult to deny that possibility [that Scotland could take over EU membership] … I’m not saying it’s an option the EU would definitely take.
“These are all tough questions for the EU and if I were the Scottish government I’d try to run a referendum predicated on that assessment.” There may be opposition from Spain, however, as it would not want to encourage its own separatist movements. Universities Scotland, which represents 19 higher education institutions and research councils, has warned that it is essential that EU nationals be allowed to remain working in Scotland after Brexit.
Macart
Could be they told Nissan that Brexit ain’t going to happen.
link to archive.is
@ heedtracker – that was a bonny tune. Pity we have no broadcaster or film industry to produce decent films depicting our own history. £300 m siphoned off every year for the TV licence and so little to show for it.
Heard Sally Magnusson interview Tom Devine on Sunday morning radio. Seems we are all deluded by myths such as “Braveheart” which is very very bad.
I always thought William Wallace really existed. Are film dramas obliged to be factually correct in every detail? There wouldn’t be much left on TV or cinema if that is the case. Could Neil Oliver’s History of Scotland pass that test?
Ruby @ 14:42,
What a naughty thought! One does wonder if the Brexiteers like Davis and Fox (who has gone strangely quiet of late) have been put in charge in the expectation that they will eventually fail. (Revenge served cold.)
But personally I’m not with the astute Prof. Devine on this one, despite the legion of Brexit difficulties lurking in wait. There’s too much political prestige hanging on the issue now. (Not that that is a perfect guarantee of follow-through these days, mind you, but still… )
@ Kenny You should read the comments before posting & no I don’t think anyone other than yourself has made that suggestion.
There,s a good Man’s reputation at stake here The Rev’s & the reputation of this WoS site . I think your very naive in the purpose of suing ,ie to make others think twice is but one, re dress another.
A Judge can order a sum of money & a printed retraction. The Express certainly wont print a apology on there own. McFadyen would be aware of the Scotsman’s paying £6000 not to be taken to Court , but continued unabated as with her Editor in Publishing lies.
There is more than one instance to be taken into account should it go to Court .
Go get em Rev .
Could Neil Oliver’s History of Scotland pass that test?
Its a good UKOK question. If you ever go to Culloden, its worth considering just how much that one battle changed the whole world and gave us the world we live in today.
Maybe a Stuart Great Britain may not have been much different from the teamGB House of Hanover we have today but Culloden and the aftermath really taught English imperialists how to do empire.
Fort George is a actually just a carbon copy of Dutch low country battlements but its there as a reminder of just how much thought went into how to kill as many as possible in a Highland charge.
Exact same imperialists press ganged the same Highland warriors for over 200 hundred years of war, for the biggest empire the world has ever seen. Then the German royals wanted one too.
We Scots are lied to about our country in all kinds of mad ways. We keep being told that the Scots invaded Scotland from Ireland but there is no record of the Scots in Ireland at all, let alone an invasion by them, other than one word “scotti” in a very garbled Roman record.
You can debunk planet toryboy UK history all day though. Its incredibly easy if you just google it. And as usual, the truth is infinitely more interesting than the tory royals focused crap the BBC etc keep belching out, via filthy rich toryboys such as Dan Snow, or tory royals grovels like Starky.
Over to you Neil:D
Can we call the court case
The Great British Media Tweetypie Bake Off.
@ Ruby Big Elephant in that room ( could ) ( Nicola Sturgeon’s blueprint will feature plans for Scotland to forge a soft Brexit on its own within the UK ).
(not just as an independent nation but as the UK’s “successor state” ).
Ruby thats not just Elephants in the room , its Bloody Great Big Hairy Mammoths.
Its ma name at the top of this post no ma spokespersons , ah think you get ma drift.
@Ruby
Now that would set the cat among the pigeons. Be interesting to see if the SG FOI on that letter comes to fruition and then assess the content.
Whatever the outcome, HMG is in an awfy shoogly position over this nonsense.
link to archive.is
STV’s not exactly a YES vote but she loves Scotland, wants Nic Sturgeon to woo her, usual stuff and then
“Age? I ticked 55 + and to my great relief the screen didn’t immediately flash up that I was an old hag who was holding the country back and deserved to die. We’ll leave that to the cybernats.”
In the scale of things, our fledgling Scottish democracy is really so young but with so many weird enemies, all desperate to kill it off.
As everyone has strayed of topic.
On a lighter note, all those who are determined to keep us in this glorious Union will be happy to learn that any nuclear waste from the new Hinckley Point power station will forevermore be the problem of not EDF but the UK mugs , quite apart from the more than generous guaranteed output cost of Electricity generated, add to that HS2 + bribes to Nissan + all other large manufacturers down south in the Queue to soften the Brexit blow.
And Surprise Surprise who’s going to foot the bill, look north dear friends, the Tories tried to rob us during the last negotiations of our budget with a slight of hand deduction of Seven Billion pounds, this time they won’t be so generous
Mike Cassidy 12.34
Jeez that Torrance really is a moron isn’t he when he says that evidence of bbc bias re Scotland is “slight.”
@mike cassidy says: 31 October, 2016 at 11:57 am:
“”England leave the uk” article here
link to archive.is
And don’t forget the comments!”
I already read the article, Mike, and commented on it.
“Watch that blood pressure, Mr Peffers”
Och! I’ve got blood pressure problems lang syne, Mike but nothing the Yoon Loons can say or do affects it in any way. After all the years I’ve been an activist I’ve heard it all and seen it all too.
Some day one of them may come up with an new argument I haven’t already got at least one good answer for.
hedtracker – Melanie Reid’s article was like “lets play ill informed unionist bingo.” Darien – check, Need fracking – check, cybernats abuse – check, scared of Putin, need Trident – check, feels more British than Scottish (too scared to give Scottish a higher vote) – check. She’ll never vote Yes, no matter what.
I expect her “attack dogs” jibe is a reference to Siobhan. I expect journos to close ranks over this and it wouldn’t surprise me if a few of our indy supporting ones do too. Nevertheless, if Stu has a legitimate legal case he should take it to the max.
Clipper @ 3:42 pm
Doesn’t calling Torrid a “moron” amount to a torrance of abuse?
@ Heedtracker Dan Snow searching for gold in the Klondyke , it wont be long tae he finds Tynedrum & Wanlockhead ,but it will be the wrang kind of Gold lol.
@turnbull drier says: 31 October, 2016 at 12:09 pm:
“It’s cos the current pound coin is an easy forgery..
The new one is to be composed of two types of metal (like the £2) to make this harder.”
Isn’t steel hard enough for them, Turnbull?
For the first time in my Octogenarian life I’ve seen United Kingdom currency that bloody well rusts.
In my young days we even had silver threepenny bits and silver tanners. Then they replaced the former with the multi-sided coins but they were not made of iron or steel. Some brass or bronze like amalgam.
I think the confusion over successor state is that there can be more than one. Strangely enough one of those can actually be recognised as a continuation of the original state.
The whole special status of the “continuing state” in Barroso’s original put down in the 2014 referendum was to obfuscate the fact that Scotland would be a successor state. Not that that’d guarantee anything.
The argument has now been made far simpler in that regardless of whether the UK splits up or not Scotland now has two ways to remain inside the EU. First by the UK negotiating a reduction in it’s territory included in the union to include Scotland and, potentially, NI and Gibraltar. The other being that as the rUK have cunningly cut it’s nose of to spite itself it no longer has any say in whether the rEU, or any other organisation for that matter, can treat an independent Scotland as a successor state of the UK if that suits them.
Greannach
Can’t think of a suitably snappy rejoinder to that right now, suffice to say I’d rather be under a torrent of crap than suffer another torridly torranceish article like that one.
There will be enormous cheques to be written by the UK Gov to keep so many industries, but in the short term Brexit has handed the Tories enormous leverage in the UK.
Universities will be on their knees looking for funds as will many other organisations. The Tories can choose where they put funds. As well as with regions and Councils.
That’s if Scotland doesn’t go for Independence.
onnie anderson says:
31 October, 2016 at 3:51 pm
@ Heedtracker Dan Snow searching for gold in the Klondyke , it wont be long tae he finds Tynedrum & Wanlockhead ,but it will be the wrang kind of Gold lol.
God that was awful. BBC sends hundreds of upper class English people around the world, to make lots of dreary progs about upper class English people going round the world.
Its probably completely engrossing, if you’re upper class English people planning on going round the world and also enjoy listening to other upper English people going round the world.
Otherwise, its just more awful but fantastically expensive English tv.
Nigel, (soon-to-be Lord) Farage has been on LBC prophesying that ‘we’re all doomed!’. No not a tribute to Dad’s Army – he thinks that Brexit isn’t going to happen, we’re all (?) going to be betrayed by the Government and there will be a second EU referendum.
Maybe, like Vince Cable he understands a bit more of what the Nissan deal really is; maybe they’ve already said to Nissan it’s not going to happen, Carney seems to be staying on as well.
Are ‘they’ about to go to war to distract us all? – I hope not.
Robert Graham @3.33pm
Yes, the UK tax-payer will have to pay the most expensive tariff rate ever per unit of Hinckley nuclear generated electricity, then pay to dispose of the waste – look at the headache in Fukushima and how much that is costing and a large part of that problem is what to do with the contaminated water they’re using to keep the rods etc cool.
Where will they dispose of the waste and how will it get there?
I think there is also a clause about the UK footing the bill if construction goes over budget and given the current exchange rate I think it’s a safe bet that construction costs will soar.
It’s a really good deal though, so they say! Sooner we get away the better and they can come and get Trident too.
harry mcaye says:
Well she’s extremely offensive towards “cybernats” which is actually extremely offensive, to actual people. We all know just what thug life of yoon culture really is too realworld and virtual. But she’s a torygirl, in a tory world, its fantastic, hating cybernats… and democracy.
I know this article will seem a long read to some –
but the devil is in the digital details –
and it puts our tweetypiegate affair into digital perspective.
link to archive.is
Does anybody know if the ‘yes’ side have any people operating at this level?
Because it might be needed.
I note the article is already out-of-date re Raheem Kassan –
who, ironically,
“..accused some Members of the European Parliament of using party databases to “effectively campaign against me – ostensibly against the rules”.
link to archive.is
Funny bunch Yoons,
We’re hearing them now saying mibbees aye mibbees naw but you’ll need to talk us into it, Woo us they say, don’t bludgeon us over the head they say, we’re not stupid they say, be nice to us and we might vote Yes next time, convince us and we’ll forgive you for being unpleasant to us
See I’ve got a wee problem with that attitude and it’s this, they’re still bullying us but in reverse this time and still we’re supposed to be grateful for the fact that their brains are starting to move from their Arses to their heads and their knuckles are getting less skint
These Yoons, instead of having a modicum of regret and proffering at least a tiny apology for being absolute uncompromising lying Bastirts and foul mouthed bullies to our female elected politicians are now asking us to still respect their behaviour of the past as justifiable
So called journalists are at it as well, writing pish articles about the YES behaviour as if well aye ye were right but it was only by luck and accident and us Yoons are actually the brainy lot who were taken in, we really are the chosen ones and let’s face it you can’t win it without us and by the way you still lied so we were a lot right as well
The self destructive Scottish in me wants to say I hope we lose and hell mend the lot of you
But the canny Scottish side of me says well, all’s forgiven and fogotten and if you want me to apologise for something I didn’t do for the sake of Independence because I’m desperate, I will
But there’s another side that says, and see after we win I still wont talk to the loathsome Bastirts who’ll no doubt be preaching their self righteous deserving crap about how they saved Scotland from the UK by a disorganised Yes movement who would have lost without them
Woo me? Aye I’ll feckin Woo ye
At the moment the profits for Nissan from cars assembled in the UK and sold in the EU have gone up. All they really need to persuade them to stay in the UK is to frustrate any campaign the workforce might embark on in order to secure a wage rise in line with the inevitable cost of living increase due to imports going up. No dead to stay in the EU if the UK can maintain it’s recently acquired status as a low wage economy. When we can compete with Indian call centres is when it get’s bad.
Talking of fiddling figures, I just heard Jeremy Hunt bragging about the Tories putting £10 billion into the Health Service in England over the next five years. About 15 minutes later he answered a question and said the NHS would have to find efficiency savings of £22 billion over the next term of government.
Is it just me or is that an overall reduction of £14 billion?
Dr Jim says:
31 October, 2016 at 4:19 pm
Funny bunch Yoons,
Indeed, a wild, disparate bunch if ever there was one. It never ceases to amaze (and amuse) me how so many natural enemies collaborated in Better Together. Seriously, these people hate each other with a vengeance, but their fear and loathing of an independent Scotland forces them to try and work together. With a few exceptions, hardcore yoons are not nice people.
One thing worth remembering however:
At least half of those who voted NO in 2014 are not yoons. These soft NO voters were, and still are open to persuasion. The other half we can forget. They would rather go down than admit it’s over. Game on. 🙂
@ Bob Mack
Not only that, but the Health Select Committee claims that the £10 bn is a myth. Theresa denies it, of course.
link to archive.is
Is there not a pattern that is developing where people ,who previously , were talentless unknowns, and who are now leeching onto the SNPBAD bandwagon by being OTT provocative , offensive , confrontational in both the language and tone they choose to use in communicating via social media and in sub standard bias (non) newspapers.
Their agenda is so blatantly transparent that one would need to be an idiot not to think their real motives was not to PROMOTE TRUTH……….. but to merely PROMOTE ….THEMSELVES.
This particular hackess raises questions from me like :
Who is she ? Where did she come from ? Why did she come at all ? When will she go ? What will she write next ? Who gives a f**k if she never writes anything again ? When will she just put up or shut up ?
Look at ME…..Read what I say…yes ME….Notice ME……yes ME ….See how rude and offensive I can be…..Yes ME……..look at the responses I get…..Yes ME….look how many people I can bait. MY status will rise…Yes ME ……now if only I could bring down that pesky Bath person….Yes ME…..How to ?….oh yes ME knows…..drag in a renowned biased SNP HATING whiner ……get HER on my side and everyone will then notice ME.
Her obsession with her own self promotion……ME..ME…ME… it is bordering on serious OCD of Olympian proportions……she plays the double role of both victim and perpetrator with the same level of sincerity/credence/honesty……that is ……NONE.
I despair that this hackess tries to drag us into her tabloid sewer world and tries to distract us from the REAL issues and REAL truths…… Freedom of the press surpasses Joe public’s right to Freedom of speech ……in tabloid sewer world don’t ya know.
However her piss poor agenda is so so so obvious…….she seeks to try to damage those who DARE to WRITE the truth and who DARE to EXPOSE the promoters of lies, and hey ho if she can PROMOTE herself at the same time …….well then job jolly well done.
I think perhaps she should abort her flawed mission as frankly she fails on all fronts as a Journalist and as a decent human being…..we , the Scots, are mere pawns in her game ……a game where she is determined to be the winner……the selfish ME’s are always like that are they not. They only jump on bandwagons where they think there is something in it for THEM. Ambition over decency, respect and morals ……virtues that are sadly lacking in this hackess. Hope she reads some of the comments from our friends down south on Scots , as they EXPRESSED their low opinions on Scots in the EXPRESS online article on Cybernats tweets to She who must not be named. Beyond parody it is, an article on cybernat abuse when the comments on article are abusive to both SNP and Scots. Irony meter off Richter scale.
@heedtracker 4.01.
Believe me, there’s nothing wrong with Scottish gold, definitely the right sort. Herself has a ring I made from my own gold panned around Wanlochead and my ring I made from Tyndrum gold. Hallmarked at Edinburgh Assay Office, both with their little castles on.
I did enjoy the Klondyke program but they could have made one just as interesting for a tenth of the price by celebrating Scotland’s gold rush at Kildonan.
Robert Peffers, Mike Cassidy
Just read this article re England leaving the UK
link to archive.is
Very mild-toned, simple article but some of the comments afterwards are shocking for their vile, anti-Scottish tone. e.g.:
“We English are sick of you.. independence squealing toads…don’t put it past civil war if you go.. we’d have a field day” and accuses us of having a ("Tractor" - Ed)ous attitude after all these centuries of England helping us!!!
So, is vile, anti-Scottish cybernat abuse ok? Seems that any difference of opinion we might have, however mildly expressed, (no pun intended) counts as vile Anti-English cybernat abuse and that’s not ok!
@Clapper57
“Freedom of the press surpasses Joe public’s right to Freedom of speech”
Well said, hit the nail on the head to coin a phrase.
@mike cassidy says: 31 October, 2016 at 12:34 pm:
“The point when you realise the ‘misreporting Scotland’ billboard idea is a must.
link to archive.is
They really don’t like it up them”
I always used to say, “The day I pay the slightest bit of attention to anything, Torrance writes will be the day I know I have some form of dementia”. Today I have to worry because I do believe he has said something that actually is true and newsworthy.
“I’ve been travelling around the US for the past few weeks and have spoken to several Trump supporters who were personally polite towards me as a journalist but share their candidate’s low regard for my trade.”
But I do have to tell David that the vast majority of the people of Scotland also share, “The Donald’s”, low regard for Torrence’s claimed trade”, but even more of them are of the opinion that he, Torrence, is neither a journalist nor a tradesman of any description. The guy is a charlatan, and he always has been.
Customs union, like wot Turkey has? Is that their ‘solution’?
Sounds a Hell of a long way from full membership of the single European market. And presumable we don’t get to keep the EU citizenship we voted overwhelmingly to retain.
IndyRef2 gets closer every day.
@Robert Peffers 3.53.
Now, its not often I would cross words with you on Scottish history, your depth of knowledge and understanding are boundless.
However, tut tut! ‘Brass’ octagonal 3d coins were a cupro-nickle alloy and amalgams by definition contain mercury. To my knowledge, no mercury has been used in modern coinage (last 100 years or so).
You are however quite correct about current 1 & 2p coins. They are basically steel discs plated with a copper alloy and are shyte!
It’s about time someone took the Daily Express to task, over its outlandish accusations, mostly directed towards, the SNP, and those seeking Scottish independence.
As for Rowling and McFayden, could we expect any better? I very much doubt it.
Tae be fair Meg it was just that one comment btl on that article that was completely ‘vile’. Thought it was a reasonably balanced affair btl otherwise. Seen worse 😉
Heedtracker: “ BBC sends hundreds of upper class English people around the world, to make lots of dreary progs about upper class English people going round the world.”
Have you listened to radio Scotland of late? outside a local doctor, is there an academic, expert, businessman who is actually Scottish and working here, fit to ask their advice? Doesn’t seem like when you count heads.
BBC researchers and producers are lazy: don’t look past your aging ‘Rolodex file’, the old interviewees are the best.
Meg merilees @ 4.01 pm
Re disposal of nuclear waste and costs: it will be sent to Sell afield, one of the world’s most dangerous industrial sites.
Short article about it here which should not be read late at night!
link to newscientist.com
Thepnr says:
31 October, 2016 at 5:02 pm
@Clapper57
“Freedom of the press surpasses Joe public’s right to Freedom of speech”
Well said, hit the nail on the head to coin a phrase.
Oh FFS Thepnr, don’t mention ‘nails’ and ‘heads’ the hackess will have you up in front of the parish beadle fir inhumanity against inhumanity.
To deem ‘that’ expression as a threat just shows you her mindset does it not……or her lack of intelligence….or both etc etc etc
Have a good evening .
@Proud Cybernat says: 31 October, 2016 at 1:58 pm:
“So, if Scotlnd becomes the successor state, doesn’t that mean it’s our UK debt?
Careful what we wish for.”
Of course not, Proud Cybernat.
The Westminster Establishment has plainly stated their view of what the United Kingdom consists of :-
That is their claim but that is very much provable to be utter tosh. The Treaty of Union says no such thing. At worse the claimed part of the debt apportionable as Scottish would be well and truly much outweighed by the part of the assets of the former union. Especially if we go by the stated Westminster intent to share things on a current population ratio basis.
We would not be members as the existing United Kingdom but replacing that United Kingdom as the member state in Scotland’s own right.
Happy “All Hallos Eve” to all Wingers.
I daresay you´re all putting the final touches to your guising outfits.
Personaly I´m going out and round the doors of my yooner neighbours made up as one of those mad mental BBC Misreporting Scotland Posters.
Aye that´ll put the wind up them eh?
As you all know of course All Halos Eve was originally a pagan festival and the best remark ever made on that subject was by Homer Simpson on being informed of this by Lisa.
“Well God bless those pagans”
Funeeee 🙂
@Ruby says: 31 October, 2016 at 2:36 pm:
I found it:
link to thetimes.co.uk
continued from preview:
” The old prof is spouting bovine waste matter as usual there, Ruby
” … He, (Curtice), said it could be possible that an independent Scotland could simply swap places with the UK, with latter leaving the EU and Scotland retaining the UK’s previous member-state position.”
This is total idiocy for the United Kingdom is legally a bipartite union of kingdoms and its title actually describes it as such. There are only the Kingdoms of Scotland, (the senior members as Scotland signed first), and the country of England that contains three countries as the Kingdom of England, while under the rule of Devine Right of Kings, annexed the Princedom of Wales in 1284 by the Statute of Rhuddlan.
The proof of that particular pudding is that ever since 1284 the Monarch of England’s first male son becomes the Prince of Wales and has done so long before there was a United Kingdom. That title then passes to the Prince of Wales’ first son when the Prince of Wales becomes the monarch of England. Wales is an English Principality.
Ireland was annexed in 1542 by the then King of England who had defeated the Irish Monarchy in battle and declared himself Lord of Ireland. Later forcing the Irish Parliament to pass, “The Crown of Ireland Act”, that placed the Irish Crown upon the King of England’s head.
As both these events were before the law of England partly abandoned the Devine Right of Kings legal system, in 1688, by deposing James II of England, (who was was also James VII of Scotland), but Scotland was still independent in 1688, so the English Parliament’s, “Glorious Revolution”, and importation of William & Mary had no standing under Scottish law and independence.
There are but two kingdoms signatures on the Treaty of Union and Wales and Ireland came to the Union as parts of the Kingdom of England.
Curtice is blethering when he says that Scotland would be taking the United Kingdom’s place when the United Kingdom leaves because it will not be the United Kingdom that remains. The legal Status Quo Ante when a bipartite union ends is that both partners return to their pre-union status.
Look at it as if it were a marriage – how could it be that a wife divorces her husband, for cheating on the marriage or cruelty, and she becomes a single woman but her former husband is still married to her?
That is what the daft old buffer is attempting to claim. The only two partners in the United Kingdom are going to split up but one of them is still going to be united to the other partner while the other partner is not united to the other one.
It is irrelevant that there are four countries in the United Kingdom for the simple reason it was NOT four countries that united – it was two kingdoms.
As for the hilarious claim that the United Kingdom is the member state so the United Kingdom will be leaving the EU and continuing as the United Kingdom. The old guy is getting senile. The United, KINGDOM will NOT be leaving the EU only one member Kingdom of the United Kingdom will be staying in the EU while the other Member Kingdom leaves and that is the end of the United Kingdom.
I would not be surprised if both Wales and Northern Ireland then decided to also leave the Kingdom of England.
Hi Robert Peffers.
Re coins. When I was around 14, I received an almost mint 1893 shilling in my change from the Post Office/newsagent in St Giles Terrace, in St Mary’s, Dundee.
My curiosity was piqued. I found out that, up to 1920, ‘silver’ coins were almost pure silver. I’ve just had a wee Google and found this:-
“Prior to 1920, British silver coins contained high purity, 92.5% (Sterling) silver.
From 1920 to 1946, British silver coins contained 50% silver.
From 1947 to 1971, some denominations of British pre-decimal coins issued for circulation were “silver-colored,” however these coins were made of copper-nickel, and contained no silver.
From 1971-on, some denominations of British decimal coins issued for circulation were “silver-colored,” however these coins were made of copper-nickel, and contained no silver. In addition, there have been some silver decimal coins minted in limited quantities as commemorative or bullion issues, typically in Proof condition; these coins were not intended for circulation.
The standard circulating denominations of pre-decimal British coins from 1800 to 1946 which contained 92.5% or 50% silver, included threepences, sixpences, shillings, florins, two shillings, halfcrowns, double florins, and crowns. “
That’s from:-
link to ebay.com
One of the tweets Stu mentions/JK screenshotted wasn’t by a Nat at all. @1ofthe45plus was a fake ‘cybernat’.
See this page for info.
If I could give chris@budge73 any advice it would be, man before you jump in, make sure you have the intellect to back it up.
Maybe Zommerwoman can get her lawyers to use him as her star witness. Lol.
“…a torrid of abusive messages…” ?
@Socrates MacSporran
I’ve read articles by Dani Garavelli, and rarely commented on them. Some people can make you think, maybe bridle a bit, disagree, but I always think it’s best just to leave the article as it stands.
The Tories enacted their divine right to be their own judge and jury today.
Although the Tories and Thatcher’s government have been proven many times to be corrupt liars, and West Yorkshire Police have been proven corrupt liars over Hillsbourgh, and of taking no action against organised paedophile groups, the Tories have decided, on your behalf, that we do not need an enquiry into the fact that the criminals in charge of West Yorkshire Police followed the instructions of Thatcher’s criminal cabinet, and instructed the Police to attack the Miners, who had legitimately gone on strike.
The Beat Bobbies who were there are willing to testify
against their superiors instructions to attack and to lie in their statements regarding the day’s events.
Could one of the Tories show me where in Law it advised that the Police should no longer use a minimum of force to apprehend a suspect, but should beat them to a pulp if the
suspect disagrees with Tory government policies?
UK, this is your future!
The Tories make the law, change it to suit their needs, and don’t apply it when it may punish one of their own.
Big Brother right in your face.
lumilumi,
“@ Rock, 5:30pm
I’m not with you on your idea of the franchise for Indyref2 being restricted to people with at least one Scottish grandparent.”
I said “for example”. There may be other better suggestions.
The UK denied millions of EU nationals living in the UK from voting in the Brexit referendum.
In my view, this was right. It wouldn’t be fair for non-UK nationals to have a say in the future of the UK.
Same applies to non-Scots having a vote on the independence and sovereignty of Scotland.
There will have to be a restriction on those who can vote.
The vast majority of English settlers consider England to be their parentland, not Scotland. They should not have the right to deny independence to Scotland.
Once independent, all residents should be given the opportunity to get Scottish nationality and be fully equal citizens.
“Robert Peffers says:
31 October, 2016 at 3:53 pm
@turnbull drier says: 31 October, 2016 at 12:09 pm:
“It’s cos the current pound coin is an easy forgery..
The new one is to be composed of two types of metal (like the £2) to make this harder.”
Isn’t steel hard enough for them, Turnbull?”
Not hard… difficult…
Rock at 12.14 am
The Scottish Government do not have the power to amend the franchise. That power is reserved.
May I also add that I know many people who were born and grew up outwith Scotland that voted YES, my own man and at least a third of my local SNP group included.
AuldGranny,
“Rock at 12.14 am
The Scottish Government do not have the power to amend the franchise. That power is reserved.”
I don’t think it is.
The Scottish government foolishly let the rotten to the core Electoral Commission run the referendum. Next time it must not.
“May I also add that I know many people who were born and grew up outwith Scotland that voted YES, my own man and at least a third of my local SNP group included.”
The vast majority of English settlers and EU nationals voted No.
This time most EU nationals will probably vote yes, but the loyalty of the vast majority of English settlers is to England, not Scotland.
Honestly, I think there should be a fundraiser so you can sue JK Rowling and the express I am deffo donating to that. Those two deserve a good suing after all their mischevious trolling of late. In fact they deserve much worse.
Jamie says at 1:12 pm
“In fact they deserve much worse.”
Similar to previous shite you’ve posted beside your Palestinian Flag gravatar Jamie.
No need to lower it to gutter level veiled threats of violence Jamie.
Lest you’re a Troll hoping to make it onto JK/McFadyens wall of abusie comments.
I did not believe Wings assertions that a writer of Rowling’s public profile (or a member of her staff) was cherry picking tweets out of context and publishing them on her site. So I concocted one that externalised thoughts but nixed physical action … sure enough, it appeared on her site within two days.
I am still looking for my “Dear JK” essay, an open letter, or any reply to it.
Well, well.
I notice that you (in mercy?) did not even highlight the strange McFadyen phrasing ‘The Harry Potter author”…”has been collecting a torrid of abuse”.
Perhaps she meant “a torrent of abuse”?
It would be uncharitable to suggest she is really illiterate, so I will suggest instead that a spellchecker or predictive text system pounced, and she did not notice in time.
But, wait. I thought there was supposed to be a “raft of vile abuse”. In this metaphor, is the raft of vile abuse being carried on the torrent of abuse, and if both the raft and the torrent are composed of abuse, which is the worse abuse: the raft, or the torrent?
Or if they are each just as bad, why distinguish them? It’s a bit confusing.