Yellow for timewasting
Well, no wonder they’re having trouble shifting tickets.
Because that’s all you’re getting for your tenner, SNP members.
Billing the above as a “conference” is stretching the definition of the word to breaking point. You get to listen to a few speeches from the party leadership and the most timid and tame “grassroots” voices possible (Christ, even Ruth Wishart would have injected more bite), most of it about how the SNP can win a general election – a game that already looks like a bogey – and then there’s a little bit of time tacked on at the end for “member contributions” and that’s that. No debates, no votes, no decisions. You’ll have had your tea, we’ve cashed your cheque, off you go home now.
Not one of the people who’ve been scheduled to speak from the platform has ever advocated a meaningful strategy for independence different to whatever the party’s official policy was at the time. Indeed, as far as we can recall not one of them has ever dissented from the official party line on anything.
So you can be sure that whatever Humza Yousaf says in his opening speech – if he actually takes a position at all, which we’re increasingly beginning to doubt – everyone else on stage will faithfully back it up.
Will it, aye? There’s no room in the schedule for the MPs and MSPs who’ve spoken up before with bolder ideas, like Ash Regan and Angus MacNeil – we assume they’ll have to take their chances on getting 60 seconds or so in amongst the general melee of “member contributions” from the floor, if whoever’s in the chair allows it.
Unless “member contributions” means something else entirely, of course.
Quite frankly, readers, the whole thing looks more like an exercise in raising a few quid to pay the party’s spiralling legal fees, and a pretty miserable way to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon cooped up in a hot and stuffy hall being bored out of your mind by a limp attempt at a pep rally.
SNP members have provided us with a lot of recent evidence to support the idea that they’re daft, but it looks like maybe they’re not quite THAT daft.
They are finished
link to archive.ph
Was it, er, a friend of Nicola who wrote the timetable, with all those times written with an ‘h’ in the middle in the French manner? Fair takes me back to language classes in school.
Seeing that Agenda, I’ve never been more pleased that I left SNP when I did. That so called conference isn’t even worth the petrol from the Borders to Dundee.What a waste of time & effort for a day just to hear that it’s all rehashed speeches that you’ve heard before.
But:
The SNP have legal fees to meet and a payroll to remunerate.
Paul Kavenagh has a crowd-funder to advertise.
Lesley Riddoch has a new book to punt.
So there is a purpose.
Actual “member contributions” mostly looks like two fingers raised in the shape of a ‘V’ for “Vamoose” sign by their lack of ticket take-up.
At least Pete Wishart didn’t get a slot.
But why John Swinney he resigned from cabinet.
A he is safe pair of devolution hands and still has faith in Nicola.
So glad I left that party 3 years ago.
Same old, same old.
“that’s all you’re getting for your tenner”
You’re not usually a man for the typos, Stu!
It’s like any Tory PM coming to Scotland – no way they would go on the street and be met by the public.
I remember Clunker Brown the disaster of a Chancellor and PM when inadvertently leaving his microphone on when degrading pensioner Gillian Duffy for confronting him with difficult questions.
He was fuming that his team allowed a member of the public to speak to him.
Still going on since as when the BBC give him a propaganda special slot he spouts garbage in front of a room full of Labour seals who clap on demand and keep their mouths shut.
The state of politics today is one way traffic in communications that the public are not allowed to address.
I’d suggest any SNP members who want a real debate on, and to hear real options for, routes to independence attends the SSRG conference in July instead. It was excellent last year -full of energy and hope, which the SNP just keeps on trying to suck away again.
https://www.ssrg-conference.com
Hey Stu, seen this?
link to archive.ph
I’m not surprised by what the bulk of the article states about the bullying, but a important details within the article directly implicates Liz Lloyd acting as Sturgeon’s footsoldier for SNP party matters.
Liz Lloyd was a Scottish Government SPAD, reportedly the highest paid out of all Scottish Government SPAD’s, all paid for by Scottish tax payers, public money, and undertaking party political work – something that they are explicitly prohibited from doing.
If these claims are true, then this is a massive missappropriation of public funds and indeed begs the question of what else Liz Lloyd was doing on the SNP party’s behalf prior to and in the 8 years since these events – all while being paid for by the public.
If this doesn’t spurn at the minimum an investigation by the Scottish Parliament or perhaps even a referral to Police Scotland to investigate these claims, then they really need to overhaul their procedures and the law – fraud of Scottish public money should carry a prison sentence by default, it is a crime of the highest order against the Scottish people.
Wonder if Humza will get to say : “And so today, I can announce…!”
“You’ll have had your tea, we’ve cashed your cheque, off you go home now.”
We’ve got your money, now fcuk off!.
There sorted that for you 🙂
I said a while ago if it turned out they paid cash for the motorhome it would be a real bad sign.
This really looks bad now. This is money laundering but the real question is where did the money come from and why did it need laundering in the first place. No wonder the cops are all over it. This is shocking.
I said a while ago if it turned out they paid cash for the motorhome it would be a real bad sign.
This really looks bad now. This is money laundering but the real question is where did the money come from and why did it need laundering in the first place. No wonder the cops are all over it. This is shocking.
Is this the conference where they were going to debate which of two ways the SNP would choose to move forward? Even the conference is a rowback from Sturgeon’s definitive statement last year that Supreme Court failure would mean GE would be de facto referendum
Are they not supposed to have a motion, debate, vote, that kind of thing?
I notice Forbes is taking part in this charade too, seems telling.
What stuns me is the fatalism, the passivity, the acceptance of the mess the SNP is in and the idea that walking away is a good strategy.
There is logically, practically no alternative to the SNP. A new nationalist start up would, even with solid financial backing, take decades to reach impact, more precious time wasted
Reclaiming the thing, is that too problematic? Too much like hard work?
There is a viable vehicle in existence needing a fresh crew.
So, Labour have overtaken the SNP in the polls. The SNP’s own fault, of course, though Rev Stu’s kicking at the corpse probably didn’t help. BTL, the ALBA-supporting ukippy Wings fanbase bay and cheer, but the lost SNP support isn’t going to ALBA. It’s going – gone – to Labour. ALBA is still the party no one has heard of with flatlining just-above-zero support. It’ll stay there.
In hammering down the SNP, for all their incompetence and possible corruption, you hammer down any prospec for independence. No one else could or will deliver it.
Certainly, absolutely, positively, not the Wings/ALBA rabble.
Well haud me back, and only a tenner. Naw I think I’ll keep my tenner in my purse thank you.
What a list of speakers especially ” a presentation from Jamie Hepburn msp minister for independence”. That should be riveting eh. After what he said the other day we all know now that he is anything but the minister for independence.
The SNP are finished, I don’t even care, the sooner they disappear from the scene the better.
It will be interesting to hear about The Summer Campaign for Independence – given that it’s only scheduled to last for 15 minutes is it safe to assume there isn’t actually going to be any Summer Campaign for Independence?
Boring, listening to this lot you’d have to go and see the Doctor to be tested for diabetes.
So a few hours of the usual guff and platitudes from approved party hacks and a couple of tame bloggists.
Historical event…..not.
Not taking the bait of the Saint Nicola’s Party apologists and staunch defenders, I would argue that any new party will find a way to mass popular support very quickly.
It took a handful of years for UKIP to garner enough support to pull the Tories to the far right.
The Scots are primed and ready, much further down the path of Independence than the wilted corpse of the Saint Nicola’s Party.
I shall remind everyone here that Yes is at 53% while the Saint Nicola’s Party hovers at half that.
The disconnect between an opportunistic vote for “the party that gives you free stuff” and the choice of being a nation again has never been bigger.
Either the Yes movement takes back control of the SNP, if necessary with assertive actions, or it’s condemned to lose so much short money that bankruptcy is certain.
Assuming that Operation Branchform doesn’t wipe it out first, of course.
Sound like it is not worth using a free bus pass to attend.
I see Gordon MK is getting a profile recently to extol the benefits of using the pound.
Westminster is still concerned but is happy to use these stooges to seal the kill.
It is impossible to imagine being independent and relying on the Westminster treasury. The best measure of their understanding of indy is their position on using the pound (which only purpose is to retain London control).
Christ ! That line-up looks like the festival from hell
Will Wee P.K ( Licking the hand that feeds him ) be charging by the word ?
Leslie Riddle-me-this donning her emotional incontinence pants
Gordie Mull of Kintyre hoping to see donations rolling in from the sea ( ok , puddle ) of attendees
Mhairi Black sporting a not entirely convincing moustache & a T-Shirt proclaiming ” I don’t care who pees on Scotland ”
John Swinney’s slot a perfect opportunity for a nap
Humza doing a human beatbox version of former Dundee blue-eyed-soulsters Average White Band’s ” Pick Up The Pieces ” ( easy enough – you would think – as it only has one vocal line ) .
Hmmm maybe not , that White in the band’s name could be problematic .
Don’t touch the yellow acid , * man *
All that’s needed to complete this fabulous * show * would be a surprise finale comprising a Nikki n Petey duet on ” Can’t Stand You Now “
Members given 45 minutes at best, lets see if Ash Regan gets to speak, i think not.
Strategy for independence? There is no strategy for independence. All people talk about is getting a referendum, secure in the knowledge that they won’t get one, and if by accident some idiot like Cameron allows it, it will be lost like the last one because there is no strategy for actual independence as will become abundantly clear. Barnett stops, jobs tied to UK membership stop, pensions have to be paid from Scottish tax receipts, which aren’t enough, anybody who wants to can move to England if they can sell their house, the domestic, barrier free market drops from 67m to 5m and there is an immediate groundswell to reverse it and seek retribution. Where’s the strategy for that? The strategy is “hope it won’t happen”. Good luck with that. If you want independence, stop planning for a referendum and start planning for independence. Honestly!
Session 2: Creating an Independent Scotland
Presentation from Jamie Hepburn MS, Minister for Independence
Member Contributions
Scenario 1: Hepburn has been working night and day on a real (real) plan for Scotland’s future (not just the ”How?” but the “What then?”) since his promotion in March and everyone will be amazed and delighted. “Here we go, here we go, here we go…o!” All those in favour…. oh wait, as Stu points out, there’s no scheduled voting. On to the important matter of members’ contributions then. Where’s the hat got to?
Scenario 2: Hepburn shuffles to the lectern, shrugs and says, “Anyone?”
If Hepburn shows up empty handed he’s going to look a right tit.
This “convention” has no constitutional standing in the SNP rulebook (as amended by the NEC), and so it was only ever going to be a talking shop.
But now it appears no-one is allowed to talk.
Maybe they can sell off their brass necks for scrap and raise funds that way?
DMcV says:
18 June, 2023 at 11:10 am
So, Labour have overtaken the SNP in the polls. The SNP’s own fault, of course, though Rev Stu’s kicking at the corpse probably didn’t help. BTL, the ALBA-supporting ukippy Wings fanbase bay and cheer, but the lost SNP support isn’t going to ALBA.
Aye whatever McVitie
Get yersel a biscuit.
It is actually £5 concession. And tickets are issued on a quota basis therefore if for example North East has full quota you can’t get a ticket. Anyway at least they are doing something. Any idea if the press are allowed.
11:03 Ottomanboi says: “There is a viable vehicle in existence needing a fresh crew”. The ONLY way forward in my view.
The SNP leadership needs replaced, and the SNP constitution and committees reformed.
A way needs to be found for SNP branches to communicate directly with each other, to establish which ones are on board for a wholesale reformation.
I see that the conference offers psrticipants several opportunities to meke “member contributions”. On past form can we assume the SNP woulkd like these contributions in used notes, in brown envelopes?
In the press now . . .
A camper van at the centre of the police probe was purchased in cash, the Sunday Mail can reveal.
A source said: “There was no loan or credit required for the sale, it was a cash purchase. Not many people are lucky enough to have £110,000 sitting in their bank account.”
How very sensible.
One can often get a discount for paying in cash, and paying in cash can save quite a lot on the cost of VAT too, expecially if one doesn’t need a receipt. After all, the VAT alone would be over £18,000.
“Police are investigating whether SNP cash was used to purchase hundreds of pounds worth of online computer games.”
And why not? One needs something to do on those long boring evenings when out on the campervanning – sorry, I mean CAMPAIGNING – trail.
Like all ‘wokerati’ and authoritarians, they cannot afford to allow an open debate because, then, the horse manure would filter through. This is precisely what we are dealing with in the SNP and its reactions to the wider YES movement and other independence parties. We are being fed the same horse manure by people who know they are lying through their teeth. They do not want independence, never wanted it. They will never deliver.
That fact has to be faced and the SNP abandoned by any sane people left. However, I think we need to look at the bigger picture, and decide just what kind of Scotland we want to evolve and become established, and, even there, the SNP has let us all down badly, especially the 51-52% of the population who are female.
Anyone seen The National on Sunday? Couple: he, actually a she, and a she want to have a baby, so, the he who is a she is coming off testosterone so that he, who is a she, might ovulate again. Testosterone atrophies and withers the reproductive organs of females. Perhaps he, who is a she, did not know that? Essentially two lesbians, one butch, one femme who know when biological sex matters: yep, in reproduction. You couldn’t make this c**p up, except they do. Not one balanced counter-point made, especially about that poor putative baby.
Look at the older autogynephiles, youngsters: nearly all have kids and they had them before they ‘transitioned’. Yet, they want YOU, kids, to ‘transition’ preferably before puberty, even at age two, when they claim they knew they were ‘trans’. Deliberately drawing in young children and teens – and all to validate a paraphilia/fetish. Narcissism on stilts and a complete lack of regard for other people. Next time anyone wants to make excuses for transsexuals, give them the info and the truth. They are no more genuine ‘trans’ than any other overcome by social and/or sexual addiction/contagion, although they might appear to be allies. If they are truly allies, then they need to drop the ‘born in the wrong body’ mantra and the “i knew at two years old I was ‘trans’ mantras and start admitting openly that they are paraphiliacs and/or fetishists.
Yet, women are jailed for taking hormones to abort a late foetus (which, personally, I find abhorrent, to be honest). I do believe that abortion should not be too late unless there is a very, very sound reason, but it’s a personal belief. I just do not believe that any desperate female should be jailed for managing to avoid being FORCED to have a child against her will. Anyone who aborts at that late stage must be very desperate indeed. Yes, she broke the law and a potential child died, but it was not infanticide, and all the circumstances should have been examined. The case was not a Scottish one, but a persuasive English one.
I no longer recognize the Scotland I was born in, and grew up in – and, normally, that should not be a problem as we hand over the baton to younger generations and we, gradually, start to let them get on with it. However, in Scotland, the SNP, for almost nine years, has dillied and dallied, shillied and shallied, made excuses, lied, behaved like medieval robber barons and betrayed us all over and over again, bringing in regressive policies masquerading as progressive ones, rather than face down Westminster. If there is no alternative in my constituency, I will destroy my ballot paper, but I will vote. I would urge others to do the same: do vote, but ruin your ballot paper if you cannot find it in you to vote SNP.
It will take a complete U-turn by them for me, personally, ever to think about voting for them again. They need a good kicking, but we need an alternative in place. We will get our independence, but it will almost certainly not be via the SNP. Time is of the essence, yes, but, if we wait for the SNP to change, time will move on anyway, but we have to be ready for the next SE. Independence might not come about in my lifetime, but that is not important. What is important is that we can be sure, those of us who possibly will not be around – who can tell? – that we have left Scotland in safe hands and that the Scottish people’s future is assured.
Right now, that seems most unlikely if all this ordure is allowed a free rein and allowed to undermine independence and/or a decent future for our children and their children. Independence is vital, but the kind of Scotland we bequeath is also extremely important – one in which people can hold opinions, where free speech is assured, where democracy reigns and reality is not subverted before delusion.
So, that’s their platform to launch their devolution campaign. As far as devolution is concerned I would not trust them to hold on to what they have and no way will they ever increase those powers so kindly given to us by Westminster.
The ticket response is an indication that the members just don’t care what the SNP has to say nowadays and people of Scotland will have to pay the price of yet more years in this toxic union.
The date of their “conference” is of course another slap in the face to the Yes Movement as we gather next week AUOB at Bannockburn. I can remember back in the 1970s when the SNP was proud to lead the march to Bannockburn but now it is clear that they cannot even face the Yes Movement let alone lead it!
Not turning up next week where they should be is an illustration of their cowardice and that they are not prepared to face the wrath of real campaigners for self-determination and independence after what the SNP has done and not done during 9 wasted years.
Bogeymen paying for a campervan with cash in white envelopes, all very mysterious.
The convention itself, not so much of a riddle, just another time wasting exercise.
At what point does this charade, play out? Are those in charge, waiting until AFTER a disastrous election result for SNP. It looks that way.
Whatever transition of SNP, whether that takes place before or after the next election, cannot be trusted. There must be no remnant of SNP which claims to be the party of independence!
A coup of SNP is not the answer. The party already hi-jacked and infested over the last decade.
The sooner the party is truly over, the better.
DMcV: get it into your thick skull.
They were not going to deliver independence. Ever!
It’s bad news that Labour are the main beneficiaries but, you see, it’s because some voters seem to be sharper than you in seeing that the game’s a bogey and they are rushing to Labour as the new “quickest way to get rid of the Tories”.
Now I think that’s a bit deluded as I don’t think Sir Keir Warmer is going to bring the relief they imagine, but that’s why it’s happening.
People know the SNP will NEVER deliver independence. The SNP has signalled it to them. The SNP’s fault. No-one else’s!
““that’s all you’re getting for your tenner”
You’re not usually a man for the typos, Stu!”
I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU MEAN.
Is Yousaf trying to channel Zelensky in that photograph?
You would think a rebellion or mass defection should be in the offing but the walls of that bubble are very strong, supported as they are from both within and without.
It will burst eventually but probably not before the GE.
Anyone seem Sky News this morning.
Big interview with Anas Sarwar who aside of telling the viewers he was in charge of Scotland, was giving it big licks about our British future and how he would make Britain work.
Of course with his ethnicity there could be many in the UK who might think due to ethnic characteristics that he is the first minister.
Yousaf has not been First Minister for long, some of our southern colleagues know little about Scotland save for their colonial attachment, so telling the UK audience he was in charge was probably a fallacious leg up porky pie in support of UK Labour.
But as to the future, it goes without saying that the SNP are political history. And after the last eight years not a moment too soon. The SNP have been a blocker to independence these last eight years.
But we will break the colonial yolk. That is for sure.
At least we know who will not be attending the AUOB march on the same day
I hope we get decent shots of the crowd so that a reliable head-count is possible.
2000 tickets available, but not all sold?
There will be some individuals and branches who buy tickets but then don’t attend, especially after they’ve seen the line-up. Then there are others who will buy tickets and will claim to have attended. Then others will be ‘unwell’ on the day or miss their bus or get landed with an unexpectedly high MOT bill.
Hopefully there will be someone right outside the hall with a wee clicker to count them in and out.
But right now, gut-feeling, if I had to stake a tenner on the actual turnout, excluding speakers and journalists i.e. ‘real’ bums on seats in the audience, I’m plumping for 250 max.
Intertesting to see that Ms Black gets two shots & a chance to finish it all off with a longer speech than Useless. Are we being groomed for our future Alphabetty leader. nearly wrote FM but then réalisée that the SNP are unlikely ever to get another FM as the spiral down the bowl of gender minority politics….
Strategy isn’t mentioned once. All they care about is winning the general election.
Horrible people our electoral cheats.
Who is Jamie Hepburn? Where the hell did he come from?
Swiftly avoid them.
Kate Forbes. She dissapoints me. We need her at the All Under one Banner rally. She’d earn more respect if she pulled out the fake conference.
She’s been screwed over by Humza. She owes him nothing. He took away her role as Finance secretary. He demoted her.
And now he’s given the wee lassie off the BBC the new role as transport minister. While she’s been talking to Ballantyne about sorting out the island ferry diaso.
What a joke the party are. They are a disgrace.
A closing speech by Mhairi Black. No wonder she’s doing the closing speech. She probably can’t get up early enough for the morning session. Unless she’s rubbing more kit kat on her gums.
Sorry not sorry.
ALIN SCOT. 11:43
Régime change, the equivalent of a «palace revolution» with tanks on the lawn. Nothing less will penetrate the arrogance of those inside.
This is no time for polite restraint. This ascendency is impotent in every sense.
Looks like a convention for the colonial payroll; i.e. you can speak if you are on the ‘continuity’ gravy train.
Hits nae wunner thay daeless an deceitfu naitional pairty heid bummers aye seem awfu confuised aboot hou tae deleever oor naitional leeberation an rekiver oor soveranety; acause thay’ve nae will tae leeberate oor fowk, nor ony unnerstaundin o oor wratchit colonial condeetion. A rogues gaitherin.
Mhairi Black never turns up. She ignores her constituents. That’s what I mean by that. She’s a terrible MP for Paisley. She doesn’t do any work.
She is loyal to the cult and not the cause.
This is sham convention.
When Bannockburn get’s blown a kiss,
It doesn’t take a scientist,
To understand what’s going wrong baby.
We’ve seen something in their lies,
With Humza, Independence dies,
So don’t vote SNP baby.
Just let them do what they’will do,
Don’t make a fuss and go crazy over “she and he”,
Here’s what we’ll do,
We’ll say fk you!
And keep SALVO’s date with destiny…
It’s just, a little crush, that’s on it’s way, next time we vote….
It’s just some little thing (crush)
Not like anything we do, now depends on you…
Sha-la-la-la, sha-la-la-la….
It’s raising my adrenaline
To hear you talk this shite again,
Don’t you get sick of it, baby? (baby)
You say the words “one mandate more”
Like none of us heard that before,
But then all you can commit to is “some-day” (some-day)
It’s just, a little crush, that’s on it’s way, next time we vote….
Sha-la-la-la, sha-la-la-la….
Wonder who’s family member has been sliding money under the table. Would they perhaps, pay a lot of money for they’re family member to say, be put forward to be selected for standing for an election, not out with the realms of possibilities.
“In hammering down the SNP, for all their incompetence and possible corruption, you hammer down any prospec for independence.”
DMcV, is that you Paul?
Ha ha ha, I haven’t laughed so hard since Sturgeon the Judas claimed they’d be an indyref this year.
It’s now obvious that even the SNP membership are gutless and spineless, well the ones that have attended this cash raising exercise at least, who still believe that these charlatans will deliver indy.
Get the SNP/Greens out they are a barrier to independence, Vote Alba, Join Alba.
That agenda above seems a rushed/back of a fag packet scribble to purposely thin down the amount of people at the AUOB pro independence demonstration. It looks desperate, rather than thought out.
Just 45 min for the independence panel and 90 min for a campaign to win the general election. Geez, couldn’t they be a little bit more subtle? Clearly Black, Flynn and Hosie are worried about losing the seats.
I am surprised not to see included in the list of speakers some of the staunch devolutionists like Alyn Smith, Ian Blackford, Stewart Macdonald, Kirsty Blackman, Shona Robison or, heaven forbid, the diva herself, to complete the canonisation process of Sturgeon’s political persona.
Mac @ 10.55.
The campervan was bought for cash apparantly. That could mean one of two things:
1. There was no finance involved and it was paid for by cheque or by bank transfer which has been interpreted as “cash payment”. There would (or should) be a way of tracing this through the SNP accounts.
2. It was paid for in hard cash. The question then is where did it come from and why use this means of payment.
It is interesting to read today that (it is alleged) a relative of an SNP MSP donated tens of thousands of pounds to the SNP in cash.
I think that companies selling large value items are usually very careful to not fall foul of money laundering laws so I can’t see the supplier of the campervan accepting payment in readies.
I expect somone with an accounting background could throw more light on this.
motorhome – to be used for election campaign
who in SNP said this first ?
total LIE
worse it a lie , they thought they could get away with
The Kirk may as well have a General Assembly to discuss among themselves whether God exists, and if so, what are they to do about it.
After all, the SNP seem to be having a discussion among themselves about whether Independence is a good thing, and if it is, what to do about it.
These people are beyond help.
At least they only have to listen to John Swinney for 15 minutes. That’s a blessing.
Snp must have been doing tax evasion on undeclared finances,
bluegrass banjo at 1:01 pm
“motorhome – to be used for election campaign.”
13h15: Tombola.
James jones,
You made a statement to myself, re Bank of England and Wales, you stated I was speaking rubbish.
You have to provide evidence of that disclaimer statement you made, go through all the details,
I had provided the details and records for making my statement earlier.
Other wise you look like a contrary troll blowing hot air just to be contentious
Imagine voluntarily listening to John Swinney micturating from his big foolish mouth, when you could just walk into the sea instead.
Effijy says:
18 June, 2023 at 10:42 am
The state of politics today is one way traffic in communications that the public are not allowed to address.
DING! DING! DING! CHICKEN DINNER!
You may have noticed that nothing works in our country and the main function of politicians is to threaten you with higher taxes and worse living standards while explaining that none of the things you voted for will ever happen.
They know you won’t do anything about it, because you didn’t do anything about it when they put you under house arrest, forced you to wear a gimp mask, and threatened you with being excluded from society if you refused to get Mystery Vaccine.
No “returning control of party policy to the membership” or “Learning from past mistakes” then?
What was the point of that appearance by Sturgeon?
Mia @12:49pm has nailed it, I think.
The SNP ‘conference’ is obviously a hurried and lacklustre plan to divert attention from the AUOB march in Stirling.
It’s probably a move from the SNP’s “Counter-Independence Tactics for Dummies” handbook.
Tactic number one being; smoke and mirrors, mirrors and smoke.
As a strong supporter of the union, I’d like to congratulate Nicola Sturgeon for the last seven years or so. Under her leadership, the SNP has managed to advance the practical prospect of independence so far backwards that it’s probably where it was in 1939.
Good job, Nikla.
…“member contributions” … is not about members being able to say something to the assembled conference.
It is about the box being taken round for members to put their money in it.
If Labour are going to displace the SNP as the largest Scottish party at Westminster, what does it matter? Labour are as firmly invested in the madness of trans genderism as the SNP but openly declare that they are a unionist party, unlike the dishonest SNP.
If support for independence remains the same while support for the SNP is in a death spin then voting should be transferring to the Alba party. However, a Westminster election revives the old Scottish electoral tactic of voting for who will rid them of the Tories. They seem to have forgotten the lessons of the past that it is just a desperate short term tactic that will not deliver them a different political situation.
Starmer is just an establishment prop, just like Blair with a different anti-voter venom. Blair despised the ‘ underclass’ and divided the Labour vote recast as non-socialist. Transgenderism is a modern version of his Manichean views on society with similar concealed religiosity. Voting for Labour is at heart a punishment for the SNP, not an endorsement for Labour.
The electorate is still going to have to find a way to change politics for Scotland. The political situation in Scotland is a quagmire of unfulfilled expectations sunk by the unforgivable legacy of the SNP. It’s difficult to see anything on the horizon that bodes well – yet.
There is possibly more that unites the electorate outside of traditional political loyalties but judging by choosing to vote Labour, it doesn’t seem to have played any part yet. Perhaps that is still to dawn. Perhaps the true horror of what transgenderism means for their everyday lives has to filter in before ordinary voters decide that it is a tyranny that can’t be ignored. For now, it’s a sleeping giant being bound by many insidious restrictions it doesn’t recognise yet.
James Che at 1:51 pm.
Must I?
The ‘Bank of England’ began as a private company and later became the acknowledged central bank of the United Kingdom. It was privatised in 1946 but is given a degree of independence from the UK government of the day.
If you want them to change the old name or say you personally prefer GB to UK then write to them, I’m sure they’d welcome your feedback, but you’re taking the traditional name too literally if you think that’s what defines the bank’s remit.
I think you should stop wasting your time trying to apply a lay-person’s reinterpretations of ancient texts which, though interesting in a historical context, won’t ever be a means to declare the Union null and void as if it was all a big misunderstanding.
A Scot Abroad says:
18 June, 2023 at 2:41 pm
As a strong supporter of the union…
But you’re not a strong supporter of the Union. You’re a strong supporter of Scotland’s outright subjugation. That’s not a Union of Equals.
You don’t give a flying fk about what the Treaty of Union says, so why not at least be honest about it?
Ignoring all the chaff. we can at least see where Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp is getting most of his funding.
Scotsrenewables says:
18 June, 2023 at 11:52 am
Is Yousaf trying to channel Zelensky in that photograph?
………………………
Does Yousaf think England is massing troops on the Border, and getting ready to invade Scotland?
Cruise Missiles into Crieff?
Rockets into Rutherglen?
Paratroops into Penicuik?
I believe Humza might be daft enough to think that.
“This is another fine mess he’s gotten us into . . . “
Ian Brotherhood says:
18 June, 2023 at 2:23 pm
What was the point of that appearance by Sturgeon?
Not watched it, not going to either, but I see the Sturgeon Fanzine has gone all BBC on us, and isn’t allowing comments beneath it’s Sturgeon article.
link to archive.is
It’s pretty sad to watch the demise of the SNP right before our eyes. I had such high hopes for them and for the Scottish people under their leadership.
There is an inevitability about it all, and even now when there is time to do something, the leadership refuse to change course.
Ah well, the dream of independence through the SNP was fun whilst it lasted.
Ian Brotherhood @ 2.23pm asked:
“What was the point of that appearance by Sturgeon?”
That was the BBC reminding the non-Labour voters that the Tories aren’t the only bunch of fannies in modern UK politics.
Actually, curiouser and curiouser…
That archive link I posted above was 2 hours old and DID allow comments…
This archive link 2 hours later conspicuously doesn’t.
link to archive.is
Ian Brotherhood @ 14.23
To background music of, “Don’t You Forget About Me”, it was time for Scotland’s “Big Mammy” to appear, not in killer heels and red power suit, made up and styled to within an inch of her life.
But, rather, pale, wan and interesting, to proclaim her innocence to the gullible throng and demonstrate the strain this appalling persecution is having on her.
Next step perhaps, the Crowdfunding Defence Fund.
Or, then again, perhaps she never saw a camera she didn’t like.
Breeks,
I utterly reject the idea that Scotland, or Scots have been subjugated by the union. To assert so is a nonsense. A total fallacy.
Scotland, and Scots, have since 1707 been given the very greatest of opportunities. A land at peace (-1745), and boundless opportunity across the world to seek fame and fortune. And vast amounts of good, proper Scotsmen and Scotswomen have taken that opportunity with both hands, and been grateful for it.
JASON HOFFMAN 3:30pm
What leadership?
There are those who dream independence and those who do it.
The Sturgeon SNP was all about the former.
Scottish nationalism will ineluctably shift to a new paradigm.
James jones,
When did it become the acknowledged Bank of great Britain? please provide dates and the acts, Bills and Statue dates.
Please provide how the Bank of England and Wales started and its direct connection to the Treasury and exchecquer through appointee’s
Please provide evidence when a private Bank Corporation is the bank of Great Britain and why you think this is,
Vague statements are not enough,
Jeeze guys.
Nicola’s entitled to a bit of privacy. And her neighbours. Think of her neighbours.
She’s done nothing wrong.
She won’t be attending the Indy pretend convention or the all under one banner march!
She’s vanishing this weekend. Like the missing 600K. She’s a human being after all. Like the victims of massive scale financial fraud are!
Charles (not the R one) @3:20pm
That’s an apposite array of alliterative questions you’ve asked there, Charles (not the R one).
Sturgeon’s heading out of town this weekend.
She’s off on a road trip. But she better not travel too far.
The cops may need to call her back in at any given second to answer some more questions on where abouts of the missing 600K.
will there be a raffle, at least?
first prize : camper van
second prize : MOT certificate
third prize : camper van, fully MOT-ed
A Scot Abroad @ 2:41 pm
“As a strong supporter of the union”
What ‘union’ might that be? In a ‘union’ alliance a partner would always have a veto on opting out of decisions they did not like, such as the endless propensity of another ‘partner’ for wars, or theft of our territory and resources, of altering our population, subordinating our culture and languages, advertising all our best jobs in his capital.
What we see is only a corrupt and violated treaty, theft of resources, cultural obliteration, under-development of the Scottish people and nation; nah – that’s no ony ‘union’, that’s abuse, deceit an worse.
According to the UN, colonialism is a crime and a scourge – i.e. a form of punishment – which should be ended. That is why Scots seek independence, which is decolonization.
From yesterdays Herald, David Leask calling for Neil Oliver to be fired, in his words cancelled, by the National Academy for speaking his mind. I do not watch Neil Oliver but I do frequent a few online hobby boards. These boards supposedly have a rule of no politics, no religion and no taking sides in a current conflict but these rules are blatantly flaunted by people who, for some reason, all look as if they could be relations of David Leask. They gloat at the white minority status of some Western cities, have a hatred of Christianity and Christians and have the 404 or sometimes trans flag and sometimes with the BLM fist over them as their avatars. Crossing them in any way results in a ban, they are members on one board but moderators/admin on the companion boards and viceversa, it is a monopoly made up of people who all share the same ethnic/religious/cultural background and who say that cancel culture does not exist but that there are consequences to exercising free speech, unless you are them, coincidentally. This is hobby boards I am talking about, ffs.
Re Leask, a few years ago he stated on Twitter that anyone who mentions Cultural Marxism and Govanhill is a US based Nazi using a sockpuppet account as no one outside of the US uses the term Cultural Marxism. When some Twitter uses asked him to back this up he blocked all of them saying that he was tired of having to explain things to the far Right. He recently stated that New Scots is a code used by Nazis.
Re the article, a number of the, few, it has to be said, people coming in on Leasks’ side are also vocal supporters of the trans lobby. Could there possibly be a connection or is it a coincidence and we must never speak about it?
link to archive.fo
The only reason she came out and made that statement today. Is because she’s dodging the pretend convention this weekend.
She’s been fighting for Independence all her life.
And she’s dodging the convention.
A sleekit timerous cowering beastie. We knew she never wanted Independence. Her abcense will confirm that.
Oh no. I need a bit of privacy after my arrest. She needs a bit of privacy. Yet there she is at her front door talking to the cameras.
Unbelievable.
‘Prism’ earlier today.
🙂
link to youtube.com
A Scot Abroad says:
18 June, 2023 at 3:38 pm
Breeks,
I utterly reject the idea that Scotland, or Scots have been subjugated by the union.
I couldn’t care less what you reject. In 2016 Scotland emphatically voted to say in the European Union by 62+%, but were removed from Europe against our democratic will, in explicit contravention of our sovereign constitution.
What would you call that Mr “Unionist” if not unequivocal subjugation?
James jones,
The state of the hoax union is at the moment a separate issue,
But interesting how you vaguely interlock the two issues,
James Che
The Bank of England became the English Government’s banker in 1694. When the Kingdom and Government of England was dissolved in 1707 by the Treaty of Union, this transferred to the new Government of Great Britain
There have been a lot of legislative changes over time, but the Bank was nationalised in 1946 by the Attlee Government
The press reported ” . . . envelopes stuffed with cash were regularly given to MSPs or members.”
And, I saw mention of the cash being in BROWN envelopes.
The use of the racist word ‘BROWN’ is truly shocking.
Probably circa 0.0001% of the population of Scotland (i.e so-called “GREEN” MSPs) would claim to find that offensive.
But what about our WHITE WHITE WHITE First Minister?
It would be quite wrong to say they took cash stuffed into brown envelopes.
Reportedly, nothing could be further from the truth.
Reports make it clear that the envelopes were WHITE.
Humza must make someting racist from that, in a statement to ‘Wholly rude’.
It is utterly shocking that the bungs and backhanders envelopes were WHITE WHITE WHITE. Everyone knows that
bungs and backhanders should come in politically correct BROWN envelopes.
Humza could make someting racist from that, by adding the bungs and backhanders envelopes to his list of WHITE WHITE WHITE, that seems to offend him so much.
Would he be as offended by the contents of the envelopes as by the colour of the skin in which it was said to arrive?
Alf Baird,
Hey Alf, you forgot to mention that Westminster eliminated Scotland from the union by extinguishing the Scottish parliament in England in 1707:
That is their statement in 2023.
Without The Scottish parliament in Westminster since that date the union is a hoax,
This means EnglandS Westminster is running Scotland solely under Colonialism,
Alf Baird,
still banging on uselessly about colonialism. The argument’s a busted flush. It’s poorly made, ahistoric, ignores reality, and to the point, nobody important is invested in it. So keep wasting your time.
Breeks,
the U.K. voted 52:48 to leave the EU. It’s irrelevant what a region of the U.K. voted for.
“…seen handing over ‘cash in white envelopes’. ….he had donated “tens of thousands of pounds” to the SNP over many occasions and years’.”
===========
WHITE envelopes? What a snob!
Well, BROWN envelopes are sooooo old Labour.
The arguments of ‘A Scot Abroad’ in support of the ‘union’, laid bare for all to see in his comments, are Shakespearean in their composition,.
Or more accurately they remind me of Shakespeare.
In particular this line from “Macbeth”:
“It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
John Digsby.
If you had been following the research done and already provided by myself weeks and months past on here, you will be aware that I am not new to this research subject on Acts, bills and Legislation regarding the Bank of England and Wales,
How does a “private Corporation” become a British Bank, or for that matter the Bank of England and Wales,
The Westminster parliament does not own the Bank of England and Wales, it never did.
When they borrow money it is from a private Corporation
It is a private loan, not public.
The national debt is accumulated through a private loan from a “corporation”
James Che at 3:44 pm:
“When did it become the acknowledged Bank of great Britain? please provide dates and the acts, Bills and Statue dates.”
It’s the central bank of the United Kingdom, to be precise. If you disagree, tell them their website is wrong, and while you’re there read up on the history, including its nationalisation in 1946, and more. I’m clearly not going to paste it all here.
You seem to think you’re constantly in possession of esoteric knowledge. Why don’t you take these gems to an independence-supporting lawyer keen to make a name for him/her self, or give the ammunition to any remaining true-believers in Holyrood. Or have they too already said it’s rubbish?
link to bankofengland.co.uk.
‘Some people think the Bank of England is owned by private families, the Royal Family, or even run as a private corporation… but this is untrue.’
@ Ottomanboi says:18 June, 2023 at 11:03 am
A new nationalist start up would, even with solid financial backing, take decades to reach impact
Why’s that then?
Over on the continent, new parties come from nowhere to power sharing, if not outright power, in less than 5 years.
Greece, Italy, Holland. Three examples aff the top of my heid.
What’s so intrinsically naff about Scotland that we can’t do the same?
John Digsby,
“The kingdom of England and Government was dissolved in 1707,”
Under “The Triennial act” of the old English parliament of Westminster under its third session took the English parliament through to 1708.
Records in Hansard numerically continue in order from pre 1707 in Westminster.
Both of these sets of Westminster record denote that the Old English parliament did not dissolve it self,
And then Queen Anne by proclamation transferred without a new election in Westminster the members of the old English parliament to the created new name parliament of GB,
The first election in Westminster for its old English parliament members took place in 1708 after the supposed union. And in accordance with the Triennial act,
The English parliament was not dissolved in 1707.
@ willie says:18 June, 2023 at 11:58 am
with his ethnicity there could be many in the UK who might think due to ethnic characteristics that he is the first minister
Really Willie?
Are you claiming that Sarwar was also voted into his position by a flawed and fraudulent process?
That’s what you should be focusing on with Yousaf. His election was a fraud. That’s all that is needed to regard his position as illegitimate.
That’s all you need to know about any speech he makes on any subject, ever.
Alf Baird @3:54pm
“What we see is only a corrupt and violated treaty, theft of resources, cultural obliteration, under-development of the Scottish people and nation; nah – that’s no ony ‘union’, that’s abuse, deceit an worse.”
Well said, Alf. And the truth, plain as day.
The speakers seem to be a combination of SNP comfort blankets and cuddly toys and as Duncanio pointed out they are all selling something.In a previous comment I said the SNP has drifted into a marketing outfit and that seems to be confirmed ny this event.
Its a ‘cash crash’. or should that be Rec.vehicle cash crash.
We can only wait and see ,but it’s difficult to see how the SNP can survive in its current condition. It may survive but in a much diminished form.
As a point of interest does anyone think that Rec Vehicle will make an appearance at some future electoral event. And who will the driver be?And who will get to sleep in it?
That purchase is beginning to acquire ever more layers of absurdity. Whose idea was it?
James jones.
Passing the book on details and records,
If I can make the effort to the references, the bills the acts while looking after someone ill that takes a lot of my time,
Surely you can,
When I have a bit of spare time in the future I may copy it all out here again to help you,
Meanwhile it is not a good look to tell someone they are speaking rubbish then avoid proving it by passing the book, telling me to take it up with them,
Huh.
All of this is a symptom of how the SNP are lost politically. Absorbing activist politics which pushes individual issues which aren’t thought out with any sort of intellectual rigour and a focus on neoliberalism has seen the party move firmly away from social democracy and of course, independence.
This day is just to try to keep the faithful happy that the party is doing ‘something’. In reality, all it does is paper over the cracks. The SNP are not the driver for independence anymore and having Mhairi Black and Paul Kavanagh carry on their personal grift is just a bloody insult.
@Red says:18 June, 2023 at 2:07 pm
you didn’t do anything about it when they put you under house arrest, forced you to wear a gimp mask, and threatened you with being excluded from society
You missed one, Red.
Nobody said or did SFA when the ancient, much celebrated Scottish right to roam was unilaterally rescinded for the duration.
I pointed out at the time that a right that was not absolute, was no right at all. By definition, no right can be watered down or canceled in any way.
Now hardly a week goes by without posts about the ancient, much celebrated Scottish Claim of Right.
Hoo boy, y’all should really have been paying more attention during the Covid Years.
When we all collectively agreed that a right need not signify a non-negotiable, cast-iron absolute, we gave away carte blanche for the ruling elites to treat all our rights as flexible, nice-to-haves.
Johnlm says:
18 June, 2023 at 3:15 pm
Ignoring all the chaff. we can at least see where Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp is getting most of his funding.
Aye… that caught my eye this morning too.
As an aside… with no particular direct reference to or aspersion cast against anyone…
Having actually run a proudly, typically small (micro actually) Scottish business which, since being set up in 1986 has never had (never actually been able to bloody access!) a blind penny in support – not by way of cash nor kind nor concession; I’m always somewhat ‘bemused’ by those that talk endless pish about “Global Marketing” … being “Founders”, “CEOs”, “world class”, “Entrepreneurs”, “Leaders”… Usually off the back of what we’ll euphemistically call ‘funding’. – i.e. something other than actually making a thing or doing a (skilled) thing and getting paid a fair price for it.
I have to laugh out loud sometimes at these ‘individuals’ claiming they’re part of the ‘Blue chip’ scene, getting their photaes taking and this sham event and that sham event etc. etc. etc. …But when you actually drill into them, they are themselves (at best) one-man-bands or tiny micro-businesses.
Now… don’t get me wrong; I’m not criticising microbusinesses. I run one myself… and am pleased to have the personal and professional freedom that being a Sole Trader brings. I require no childish aggrandisement; nor would I ever take the piss out of my potential customers by pretending to be …well whatever. Smoke and mirrors is all it is…
Of the 5.5 Million of all UK businesses 5,465,320 have less than 50 employees. 1,187,045 have less than 10 and 4,061,035 have none – that is to say they are either Sole Traders or Limited Companies which employ only their principals (Directors)… That’s about 73% of of UK private sector businesses; the majority of which are not even registered for either VAT or PAYE.
Scotland’s own specific figures seem to be somewhat ‘occult’ – but the wider, ONS stats reflect a business scene where the vast majority of real-world businesses are of no consequence, not understood and of no real interest to our political classes.
Out of five-and-a-half-million businesses just 7,700 are large concerns; to which every snivelling, grovelling low-life grifting politician kautaus; like hopeless druggies licking spilled white powder off a lavvy floor…
Aye; they’re ‘big shot’ blue chip types right enough.
…It is (on reflection) risible I know. But somehow I had hoped (in an independent Scotland) for something other and different and better for real-world Scottish businesses than corporate fantasists and the usual ‘me love you long time’ (will be anything for anybody anytime for the right money) shite from people that would literally struggle to run so much as a burger van.
“Why not Scotland?” …Why not Scotland what? Why not Scotland in game that actively filters resource – wealth – from the people who actually create it, to an elite “1%”? …The same game beloved of Thatcherite Tory Boys of Westminster? The same game that routed Scotland in the 80s, brought false promise after false promise in the 90s, and in the last twenty years has left it a post-industrial wasteland, really. – Actually the same game that has done great harm to most parts of the UK and is one of the problems with being part of the UK.
Still, that isn’t really an issue now; is it?
Who was it said in comments the other day that at 70, they’d given up hope of ever seeing Scottish independence? At 70 you might 30 years in you – another nearly half-a-lifetime to see out. It’s a sad admission, a damning indictment of where hopes have been driven in the past decade or so; sad that someone so ‘young’ is driven to that point…
But at 60, I no longer believe I will see it either; in fact I’m bold enough to suggest that the chances of my 27-year old daughter seeing it are equally dim… so damaged is the cause now.
Returning to the original point… When the ‘business’ you claim to be ‘CEO’ of has less than five-hundred-quid in fixed assets (down from just over a grand the previous year) and is ultimately ‘worth’ considerably less than five grand, well… it’s less “Howard’s Way” and more – how are we going to pay the cleaner this month? …in fact; it’s effin’ comical.
Wish somebody would give me a chunk of free money every month just because…
Another day , another story about SNP corruption.They really have taken their supporters for fools, From the Scottish Evita to a Scottish Kleptocracy and the punchline of satirical TV shows it really is the end for the SNP
James Che,
Good, it won’t be beyond you to find information on the BoE then, especially since I posted a link (-and a quote directly addressing your point about a ‘corporation’ !)
I’ve looked at the few Acts, etc. you’ve referred to. Your individual interpretations of 300-year old language and subsequent outcomes are just that, nothing more. If they had value in terms of the independence cause they’d have been picked up on. I think you’re just wrong.
@Breeks says:18 June, 2023 at 4:06 pm
In 2016 Scotland emphatically voted to stay in the European Union by 62%, but were removed from Europe against our democratic will
Alert readers must decide 1) if Breeks sets out to misrepresent the situation, 2) if Breeks’ memory is fading, or 3) if Breeks is unable to reason logically.
Here’s the referendum question:
Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?
Logicians will clearly see that because a majority of Scots voted for the UK to remain, any gripe by these EUphiles can only be that the UK was removed from the EU when a majority of Scots wanted to remain.
Rationalists will see that because the question was never phrased in a way that allowed for different UK nations to achieve different outcomes, (nor different cities, counties, ethnic groups, age groups or occupations, etc) then claiming that the result was “undemocratic” is frankly risible.
Still, none of the sour losers epitomised by Breeks are going to give up on such a dearly cherished grievance, however imaginary it obviously is.
So we rationalists just have to endlessly ponder the question about Breeks and his fellow travelers: is it 1), 2) or 3)?
Some of us will even wonder why none of the grievance mongers ever care that Scotland (and the UK) were never given a vote on joining the EU in the first place. The vote to join the then EC (Common Market) in 1975 was notable in that the Outer Hebrides and Shetland were opposed. But they had to just suck it up. Their grievances didn’t count.
Northcode says:
18 June, 2023 at 5:21 pm
Alf Baird @3:54pm
“What we see is only a corrupt and violated treaty, theft of resources, cultural obliteration, under-development of the Scottish people and nation; nah – that’s no ony ‘union’, that’s abuse, deceit an worse.”
Well said, Alf. And the truth, plain as day.
Playing the victim card again, eh? Such nonsense.
@Matt Quinn (5.45) –
Those stats are jaw-dropping. I had no idea so many folk were going solo.
Not saying it’s good or bad, just hadn’t ever seen it in black and white like that.
North Code,
The evidence that the old English Westminster parliament was not dissolved in 1707, but simply gave itself a new ego name is evident.
But the Scottish parliament was extinguished in England by the parliament and by Queen Anne,
There is no parliamentary union, ie, no treaty of union that proceeded past the ratification period.
Colonialism took place in Scotland by Westminsters English parliament under a fallacious highly debatable hoax treaty from Scotlands point of view.
That cannot be denied.
And is in evidence with the “Colonial Stock Scotland Acts” in the 1800s. Passed by Westminster.
And by the Small holdings land grab under agriculture and fisheries board, Scotland act,
Colonialism is still a part of Scotland present history that reflects in the devolved government to Scotland posts and appointees to Scotland for the management of Scotland,
Many Countries besides Scotland had this half control over their Nations and Countries,
While Colonisers retained the fundamental control over resources, licences, army’s, infastructure, trade and other treaties just to name a few,
The very fact that the Coloniser is deciding wether Scotland can hold referendums freely in its own Country, argues this point satisfactory,
While Scotland is supposed to be in a voluntary union,
If the 1707 treaty of union had proceed or materialised as it was meant to at its conception,
Scotland would not be begging to its “Coloniser” today.
So indirectly Westminster is building up evidence against itself favour of Scotland,
the right to self determination for Scots has been withdrawn by the “Coloniser” in its response and actions.
In Revs article he produces this quoted snippet from the SNP:
“Our Convention will act as a platform for honest and open discussions about our route to independence.”
Anyone else noted the need to include the word “honest” in there? Why use it? I just find the fact they (SNP) have to use that sort of wording is very telling indeed. It clearly demonstrates what the SNP have become under Sturgeon & Murrell, a party no different than the political Unionist branches such as the LibLabCons etc. Untrustworthy self-serving liars.
A scot abroad 2.41 pm
“I utterly reject the idea that Scotland, or Scots have been subjugated by the union. To assert so is a nonsense. A total fallacy.”
The Scots have not been subjugated by the Union. Really? Facts; The English electorate because of their greater numbers, gets to chose, gets to decide, who governs Scotland, at every general election.
Gets to chose, the government of Scotland regardless of the political choices made at the ballot box by the Scottish people at general elections. This usually results in the Scottish electorate voting for a left of centre Govt and getting a right of centre govt. If this is not political subjugation, what else is it?
If every 4 years the Scottish electorate got to decide on the composition of the UK govt and therefore the govt of England (because they were more numerous than English voters), this would not be tolerated by the English people, for a single second (see Brexit).
The votes of the Scottish people have in all but 4 of the general elections since 1945, been utterly irrelevant in deciding who governs them at a UK level. The political control and subjugation of Scotland facilitates its continued economic exploitation by England.
Hmm, now let me think, what a difficult choice. Whether to attend the AUOB rally at the site where our ancestors fought so valiantly to secure our independence, or go to a make-believe conference and listen to the drivel of the politicians who are the direct inheritors of those who sold us out in the first place and continue to sell us out at every turn?
There was a report on here or elsewhere that said it was a suspicious transaction getting reported to those specialist fraud cops down south that is forcing police Scotland to at least pretend to conduct an investigation…
That suspicious transaction has to be walking into a dealership and paying for a hundred and ten grand for a motorhome in cash!
Why is this not being discussed here because it is massive.
James jones,
Fluff and bluff,
There has been no details given by yourself that deflects from hot air you first blew and as it first appeared to other readers here,
I will take the time soon to post my detailed research again, taken from historical records,
It always amuses me to hear bluster and vague statements based upon a brief look through google I presume today, or a quick squint through the internet,
Then dismiss hundreds of years of record keeping of no consequence, because its old or does not fit in with your debate,
To convince me that you know all the detailed research on the subject at hand, from the very beginning to present day,
You are going to have to produce more than skimpy knowledge.
Huhh.
I really don’t think I can emphasize enough how bad it is that the motorhome was bought in cash. That is utterly damming and reeks of criminality.
Interesting!
The party rank and file who have purchased tickets are not there to confer, they’re expected to defer.
Also, whenever you see the word workshops at an event of this kind you know it means the powerless are going to be conned into remaining powerless by being given the illusion of having their say.
A Scot Abroad says:
18 June, 2023 at 4:44 pm
Breeks,
the U.K. voted 52:48 to leave the EU. It’s irrelevant what a region of the U.K. voted for.
Thank you. QED. Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty and democratic mandate overruled and subjugated, but our resident “Unionist” troll in total denial about it, and gratuitously disingenuous about the truth. No, no, no, it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen because England said so, and these douchebags lap it all up.
Conformation too, it isn’t the Union you’re advocating, but Scotland’s outright subjugation.
Both Westminster and Monarch concede Scotland’s Claim of Right, but even that’s a concession too far for our “Proud” Scot-buts in uniform, or those likeminded frauds disgracing the kilt and Highland tradition like Cole Hamilton, another home grown ten-a-penny Unionist gobshite quite adamant that Scotland isn’t colonised, while advocating that it should be.
An indelible stain on Scotland every one of them.
David T @ 1.18
Genuine lol and snotter there.
thanks!
James Che at 6:51 pm:
“I will take the time soon to post my detailed research again, taken from historical records,”
Again? Why?
“Huhh”
Are you a child?
I missed this, but caught it catching up.
The Boss telling it like is.
link to twitter.com
JOHN MAIN 5:09
Reason, the countries cited are independent sovereign states. The mindset is quite different from that current in Scotland which seems, judging by the politics, afraid of its own shadow.
See yourself as others see you….the beginning of wisdom?
Ian Brotherhood says: 18 June, 2023 at 6:13 pm
“Those stats are jaw-dropping. I had no idea so many folk were going solo.”
They always have been Ian, it’s nothing new. The stats come from here, if anyone needs the reference:
link to gov.uk
It’s always pretty-much been the way of things… the first time I had cause to ‘drill into’ these stats was back in the very early 90s when (having been self-employed for 5 or so years) I decided to ‘go get a business qualification and had a simple ‘research project’ to do. In my working lifetime it has always been the case that well in excess of 99% of all businesses are ‘micro’. This pattern has existed for 35+ years that I know about; probably longer.
…You hear ‘them’ in the media banging on about ‘business this’, and ‘business that’ and what ‘business leaders’ are saying. And if you run a business you’re led to think; they must mean me. You’re actively tricked and manipulated into imagining that the concerns and operational behaviour of large businesses (big corporates) actually represent how the majority of business is done. – That their worries are your worries are everybody’s worries – that their ‘economy’ is your</i) economy.
This is one of many ways in which they hide the malignancy of the system they run.
If you remember (and maybe were, as I was, a wee bit taken in by) the bullshit rhetoric of 1980s'Entrepreneurial Britain'… or have been exposed to the hyperbollocks of many of the so-called ‘enterprise agencies’ that exist, you start to see these things in a clearer light; assuming of course you actually survive long enough in business; which you’ll probably do despite such things.
It’s all smoke, mirrors and weasel words…
For example; consider ‘turnover’ as representing the overall movement of resource… Many of us might (reasonably) labour under the illusion that the reason why Government should support and encourage business is as a means of creating and distributing jobs and thereby general wealth; that in essence being at the heart of many an argument put forward by politicos…
But let’s just think for a minute about what those stats say;
Small businesses… including that ‘73%’ who are ‘soloists’… create 48% of the employment from just 34% of the turnover. That’s your self-employed Window cleaners, Tradespeople, Hairdressers, wee tiny shops; family run take-aways and garages. Medium sized enterprises Create another 13% from 17% of the turnover; and from experience I can tell you they’re simply an extension of the first group.
Together, that’s 61% of employment ‘created’ with just 51% of the available resource… Whereas large businesses achieves 39% of employment by swallowing up 49% of the resource.
Now, quite clearly it would be lunacy to suggest that big corporates don’t play a vital role in the overall mix. Scale is necessary to get certain things done. – But it’s not the ‘be all and end all’ nor even particularly useful in terms of providing operational exemplars. ‘Big business’ is plagued by rote managers and their wrong-headed rotten philosophies.
– Yet it is cowboy outfits like the CBI that get all the recognition. And when we hear about business it’s the predatory, exploitative big corporations that are prioritised. – Look even at the terminology used on that government page.
“The UK private sector comprises largely of non-employing businesses and small employers…”
NON-employing? Not that at all… they employ their principals. “Small employers”, for whom life is not made simple thanks to red tape etc.
In terms of employment resilience it makes more sense to ease the way for micro/small businesses. In terms of social justice and distributing work fairly it makes more sense to ease the way for small businesses… But that’s not what the entirely self-serving enterprise agencies or their political cronies are interested in.
– In my going-on 37 years of experience as a self-employed person serving the ‘B2B’ sector; people like this are troughers all! – And the fact that people like your good self are kept in the dark is the result of them simply fiddling the books.
BfS has – in my view – proved itself to be a particularly disappointing parcel of rogues. But then, so much about the modern SNP is.
@Ottomanboi says:18 June, 2023 at 7:35 pm
the countries cited are independent sovereign states
Nah, you’ve got that one wrong.
Greece. Italy. Holland.
All in the EU. All using the Euro.
Nuff said. My point stands. These three examples are colonised from Brussels. Yet they can still re-make their politics in a very few years.
The million dollar question remains: why can’t Scotland?
James Che @ 6:18pm
Thanks for the info, James. It’s clear that you’ve looked deeply into Scotland’s constitutional history and its current situation.
Between yourself and Alf Baird, and a few others on here, I now know how Scotland was colonised with the help of Scotland’s ‘elites’ selling out their ain folk for a quick buck and some baubles.
In Dante’s Inferno, the second round of the Ninth Circle of Hell is named after Antenor; a Trojan soldier who betrayed his city to the Greeks.
The Ninth Circle of Hell is a large frozen lake of ice named Cocytus.
Here lie the ‘proditores’: those guilty of ‘perduellionis’ against political entities such as parties and countries and those with whom they had special relationships, trapped in the ice and suffering eternal torment.
So, according to Dante, those guys who dropped Scotland in the shit a few centuries ago are not having a great time. What a shame.
@Saffron Robe says:18 June, 2023 at 6:40 pm
the site where our ancestors fought so valiantly to secure our independence
On his deathbed, King Robert 1 of Scotland acknowledged that he had sinned by breaking the vow he had made to go and fight the Saracens in the Holy Land.
As long as Humza Yousaf squats in the role King Robert once occupied, I would let his shade sleep on in eternal rest.
By all accounts he was a strong, brave and aggressive warrior. It’s a brave man would disturb him to tell him how things now go in Scotland.
@Breeks says:18 June, 2023 at 7:04 pm
our resident “Unionist” troll in total denial
Uh oh. Looks like ASA has bracketed Breeks with his ranging shots. Maybes the next broadside will be a direct hit.
Here’s another way to look at it.
Two colonialist setups were plundering Scotland, based in Brussels and London.
So it’s one down. And one to go.
As with a few on here, Breeks has lost sight of what this is about, so here’s a wee reminder:
INDEPENDENCE
noun
the fact or state of being independent.
synonyms: self-government, self-rule, home rule, self-legislation, self-determination, sovereignty, autonomy, non-alignment, freedom, liberty, autarky, self-sufficiency, self-reliance, etc.
See anything about rule from Brussels in the above, Breeks?
link to campbellmartin.blogspot.com
My question is this. Did Sturgeon address a press pack who just happened to be encamped out side of her ‘Uddingston home’ or did the press pack receive advance notice that she would be there?
Sturgeon: “I know I’m a public figure, I accept what comes with that, but I’m also a human being that’s entitled to a bit of privacy and my neighbours are also entitled to a bit of that as well.”
Did she want privacy when she was bragging about being in Vogue (twice) or did she want privacy when she was on the sofa tours (loose Women etc) after she resigned?
This place gets more and more mental every day.
We’ve got people wandering about in mediaeval rags moaning about ancient guff and a constitution that never existed, endlessly on loop as they circle about, hardly read by anybody. We’ve got an utterly nonsense “Professor” (as though anybody ever thought that Napier was anything else than a fourth rate Poly) whining about some completely contrived “colonial” status that no serious academic ever subscribed to, we’ve got completely confused people trying to conflate the ancient guff and the colonialism, there’s a fellow who has shit his trousers in his efforts to be angry with the English, and now people hinting darkly about UDI and doing a sort of IRA campaign. I suppose that it’s a small mercy that at least Ruby has been ditched over the side, because all she did was screech at people in foul language.
There’s a few that make sense, including John Main, who is on the opposite side of Indy to me, but at least he’s got a brain.
You are none of you _yet_ fit for independence.
link to twitter.com
Take That’s been cancelled from pride. Howard Donald cancelled for liking a tweet about woman having periods.
A blockbuster musical in the cinema isn’t enough for the LGBTQIA+ community.
He’s been forced into grovelling apology at the altar of gender ideology.
The full statement reads: “I have made a huge error in my judgement liking social media posts that are derogatory towards the LGBTQIA+ community and for that I am deeply sorry and I know I have let everyone down.
“I am really disappointed in myself and I am sorry for any hurt that I have caused by my uneducated actions I clearly have a lot to learn and it’s a priority for me that I do this.”
A once proud man capable of Independent thought is no longer welcome to perform. Shows you how powerful their lobby is.
Neither stigamitised, marginalised nor abused. They are in total control.
Gender ideology has captured the gay pride. They are marching across the world with the rainbow storm troopers and pronoun badges on.
Cath says:
18 June, 2023 at 10:43 am
I’d suggest any SNP members who want a real debate on, and to hear real options for, routes to independence attends the SSRG conference in July instead. It was excellent last year -full of energy and hope, which the SNP just keeps on trying to suck away again.
https://www.ssrg-conference.com
It has Peter Bell as a speaker.
Whatever credibility it ever had is in complete tatters.
FFS, you may as well have Peter Dow and see how much more of the barrel you can scrape!
Agent x says:
18 June, 2023 at 9:53 pm
Did she want privacy when she was bragging about being in Vogue (twice) or did she want privacy when she was on the sofa tours (loose Women etc) after she resigned?
Did she worry about Alex Salmond’s privacy and reputation when she was sticking the knife in, defaming him on National TV and casting aspersions about the man’s innocence after being acquitted by jury that mostly comprised of women, because her pals were such wholly unconvincing liars and their paper thin conspiracy was seen through by the jury?
I’d give privacy alright. As much time as she wants in solitary.
“NEC agreed updated rules for Leader and Depute Leader elections” on 17th June 2023 per the Rev’s twitter.
Now let me think, they are opening the vote to the party membership and encouraging applicants so there will be a healthy debate rather than just the leader rolling on from year to year without challenge?
No, I don’t think so, either.
Hi Ian B.
RE: Caird Hall gig.
As far as I know, Graham Brown is organising a ‘pro-independence’ rally outside Caird Hall, in City Square, Dundee, next Saturday.
BTW: the “Graham Brown Band” is now known as “The Stone Eaters”. (No, I don’t know the reason behind the change of name.)
I can’t make up my mind whether to bus down to Bannockburn or stay in Dundee and support Graham.
On the steps at the entrance to the Caird Hall, he’ll be performing stuff like this:
link to youtube.com
I know it is not going to happen but if Nicola Sturgeon resigned from the SNP tomorrow and stepped down as a MSP, could the potential electoral disaster the SNP are facing at the next UK election be averted?
ASA,
Thanks for your considered opinion regarding Scottish self determination, it might be difficult for people to assign much gravitas to the meanderings of an intellectual munchkin though.
link to twitter.com
So much cuter than Yoons when they’re climbing the walls… lol
Hi ASA.
Thanks. You have become the archetypical “Scot Abroad”.
You have forgotten, or never known, the history of the nation that you claim membership of.
All you do is tell us Scots what it is impossible to do (In your eyes).
Give up – you’re sussed!
Sturgeon can’t control the storyline anymore.
She is the story.
And that is Yusef’s problem.
Breastplate,
at least have the decency to address your thoughts directly to James Che and Alf Baird. Because that’s where the intellectual munchkinness is originating from. The pair of them are properly bonkers.
Yawn. Attendees will be required to bring matchsticks for the eyes. Dark sunglasses are also allowed. Copious amounts of complimentary strong (Free Trade) coffee will of course be supplied. We also encourage members to join in enthusiastically and move their hands when the clapping machine is turned on. Let’s all stand proud together (members only) and show our true colours (rainbow). Let’s show Scotland and Westminster something they cannot ignore. Footnote: No snoring and no mention of what’s going on in Stirling will be tolerated. Not a peep – understand?
ASA
What kind of mental are you? You give all of Scotlands wealth to another country for free cause in your infantile opinion its all worthless shite anyway & having to ask permission from yer imperial master before you can scratch yer own arse while doffing yer cap, isn’t colonialism.
Sit down, ya fcking plank.
Yer no more Scottish than Sunak is. Yer a Brit nat immigrant sponging abroad. That’s if *abroad* isn’t yer Mams spare bedroom in fcking Manchester..
PacMan says:
18 June, 2023 at 11:07 pm
I know it is not going to happen but if Nicola Sturgeon resigned from the SNP tomorrow and stepped down as a MSP, could the potential electoral disaster the SNP are facing at the next UK election be averted?
Is there not a mechanism for the people to remove an MSP? A petition to remove NS may not secure enough signatures to get rid of her, but boy it would gather a fair few IMHO. A worthwhile effort perhaps?
The event will be a big Green Trans event.
It’ll be as joyous, stunning & brave as a bucket of cold sick.
It’ll be a Devo fest.
Those clowns actually believe they’re the gatekeepers to protect Devo – they’ve done more to fk it up than any Yoon could ever have imagined. They’re a liability. Get them out.
Has Sturgeon not resigned yet? What a joke. A justice secretary sending a criminal a bunch of flowers LOL!
I’m surprised Emelda doesn’t steal the show & be one of the speakers FFS!
What a time to be alive! Roll on General Election.
I’m glad to see that Shona’s Ex is getting to speak. He is blinking brilliant!
Scotland was colonised from within. Unlike India or Ireland , which were invaded. Scotland was sold by a few dishonest carpet baggers. Our country was stolen from us.
Over the centuries the idea of North Britain was invented to erode Scottish identity. It worked to a certain degree. Many unionist Scots gave up their culture and identity. We see them today in the Tory benches at Holyrood, the Rangers fans who fawn over the Royal Family and unionism. The ones who think Scots are inferior to their English masters.
They really did a job on Scotland. So good that many people deny Scotland was colonised, some even laugh at this idea. But colonialism is what is holding Scotland back.
Much harder to undo 300 years of brainwashing. Than it is to repel a foreign invader. Scots are colonised in their minds , as much as in their land.
Do I expect one of these victims to recognise or understand this? No, because it’s sometimes impossible to let the light in.
Luigi
No. Only the leader can force a resignation.
As far as I know the Tories have tabled an upcoming debate to be able to sack MSPs. It’ll be interesting how that turns out. Apparently they tabled it to get shot of sex pests & non attendance, poor results.
That’s all of them gone too then..lol.
Until Holyrood is no longer a mini Westminster the ppl can’t sack any of them until popular sovereignty is restored in an iScot.
Breastplate says:
18 June, 2023 at 11:07 pm
“intellectual munchkin”
You’re being too kind. DNFTT.
If only a couple of hundred turnip, then I can see them putting cardboard cutouts on the empty seats, like they do at football stadiums.
The Trolls (Main) seem fairly quiet tonight.
Have they given up on their futile pursuit of trying to turn hard core indy campaigners into Yoons?
Big Jock.
So true. But they think they’re Scottish patriots while they celebrate becoming extinct. They wannabe like next door so bad it’s embarrassing.
Have to laugh at these so called defenders of the Union going on about ‘ancient shite’ BTL as they then launch into a tirade about a 300 yr old Union where folk in tights still mince about in parliament, a draconian royal family who they couldn’t pick out of a line up, don’t know all the words to the national anthem while fluting & tooting pish fae 1690 annually during marching season screeching about thier identity LOL.
They’ve Zero self awareness. I’m mortified for them.
Big Jock says:
“Much harder to undo 300 years of brainwashing…Do I expect one of these victims to recognise or understand this?”
That’s the trouble, Big Jock. When you’ve been brainwashed it’s impossible to recognise you’ve been brainwashed because otherwise you wouldn’t be brainwashed!
Spot on “ saffron robe & Big Jock “ .The brainwashing continues unabated 24 hours per day 7 days per week via television ( cultural propaganda via soap operas , Victorian dramas , ( note how US programs such as Kojak, Dallas , Charlie’s angels , Hill st Blues etc etc have been removed and not replaced ) , neverending progs about the Royal family , day time Tv with the same establishment chosen propagandists “ fronting” , news channels with the same old format ( eg Gove “ apologising “ for lock down parties ( as if he actually GAF ) , sports output ( essentially English ), radio channels pushing the same old establishment artists ( local radio now under state control via ex BBC Ken Bruce & Simon Mayo ) . Newspapers ( essentially establishment controlled output . So it goes on . You don’t actually “ see it” when your in the “ eye” of it , however a good test is to go abroad for a period of months or years ( outwith the country ( where you can’t be got at) and then “ return” and have “ a look in” . You will be staggered at what you “ see”
It would appear that some believe that a coup of SNP itself, is the only way forward.
Those in charge of the party, have already openly stated.. ‘only the people of Scotland can deliver independence’.
Inference from the above admission, the party is hamstrung by devolution. Having already contested election within the parameters of the Scotland Act. The party already aligned to Westminster rule. By any other definition, the party is owned by London.
The only apparent alternative to a singular political ‘party of independence’, is a coalition of independents on the ballot paper, whom collectively run on a ticket to reject the Scotland Act, in favour of ending the Union.
Would the background of every independent candidates require to have previous political experience? I’d suggest not, only a basic core, of those, would require the necessary experience, to successfully coalesce a legitimate coup of Holyrood.
Is there any alternative solution to replacing SNP, when the party is already beyond repair?
Big Jock, @ 12:14,
you talk about Rangers fans.
Well, what about the Celtic? That’s just a bunch of Irish colonisers. Half of the west of Scotland colonised. By the Irish. Much the same with Hibs.
Is there a SNP MP who is related to a prominent Scottish businessmen? If so who is it?
Geri,
you call me a Brit Nat immigrant.
I was born in Ayr. Lived there, and later in Edinburgh. Got three Scots grandparents. Went to school in Edinburgh. Joined the Army in Penicuik. Served in a Scottish regiment. Own a flat in Edinburgh. The only reason that I’m “abroad” is because the world’s nicest woman and my main squeeze, lives in Norfolk, and my work is mostly in London.
How am I a Brit Nat immigrant? I’m far more a Scots emigrant.
@Matt Quinn (7.42) –
Thanks for that. Very interesting.
😉
SNP must recognise the fact, that delivery of Scottish independence, would ultimately spell the end for the party, in a new political landscape.
Having now literally boxed itself into a devolved corner of the UK. The party has in effect prematurely brought its usefulness to an end, barring one obvious conclusion.
The party must step aside, to make way for the people of Scotland, to enable self-determination in a general election.
Yousaf is already on borrowed time.
Individuals within the party can see what’s coming, many will opt to stand as independents, come what may.
The party could redeem itself by a final selfless act or it could attempt to prolong self-preservation.
By endorsing the independents ballot box route to self-determination, SNP could at a stroke, influence a significant majority to finally end London rule.
Too much to expect from our politicians or not, a sinking ship may be capable of delivering a fatal volley, to the other side. It really all depends on why anyone joined the fight, in the first instance.
PacMan says:
18 June, 2023 at 11:07 pm
I know it is not going to happen but if Nicola Sturgeon resigned from the SNP tomorrow and stepped down as a MSP, could the potential electoral disaster the SNP are facing at the next UK election be averted?
I don’t believe so.
Because Scotland’s media is so lamentably corrupt and dysfunctional, I fear that many Scots are actually disengaged politically, and simply not up to speed with what the SNP hasn’t been doing.
It leaves Scotland disadvantaged, and public opinion that is slow to react, exasperatingly complacent, and has all the momentum of an oil tanker when it comes to changing direction. In other words, exactly what the BBC and Unionist Establishment want us to be. Stupefied.
In recent years, this inertia has served to the SNP’s great advantage, and very much to ALBA’s disadvantage. However, I believe the pennies are finally dropping.
Once the appetite for change is established, I think it takes much more than a single event to influence direction.
The SNP’s opportunity to avert catastrophe was back when new Leadership was being chosen after Sturgeon, and frankly, choosing Humza, and their damned continuity was when they blew their chance of recovery.
Independence is now in the process of decoupling itself from the SNP, but if the SNP has adequately poisoned public opinion against ALBA and Alex Salmond, then I fear the Independence minded voter will simply stay at home. Perhaps the political route is now closed to us.
The best possible result from Saturday is a massive turnout at Bannockburn, and the Fraudsters in Dundee preaching to an empty hall. But we’ll never know, because the media will do their usual, and use deceptive camera angles to obscure any scandalous lack of attendance in Dundee, while we assemble in our “hundreds” in Stirling.
That’s why we go to these AUOB marches. Go and you know. You can see for yourself.
I also fear that another SNP “product” is permanent and lasting damage to ALBA from a purely vindictive SNP.
ALBA I feel needs to react too. Don’t focus too much on facing the SNP across a ballot paper in a UK Election that we know will be rigged by the media and Establishment. We need a route to Independence that is outside the rotten UK system, .and focussed upon the unconstitutional subjugation of Scotland’s sovereign integrity, and we take International opinion with us; persuaded to recognise the truth of what we’re saying.
The focus in my opinion should be a seedy Treaty of Union that has been violated and breached once too many times. It was never sincere in the first place, we know this, but a breached Treaty is our shortcut to expelling this blight upon Scotland.
The SNP says there isn’t a magic bullet but there fkg is. The legal definition of sovereignty; the Claim of Right which Westminster itself recognised and recorded in Hansard.
The politicians can gorge themselves on a ratification plebiscite held down the line a bit, but declaring the Treaty of Union irredeemably breached requires radical and decisive action now.
If ALBA won’t adopt SALVO’s more radical agenda, then it is beneath SALVO’s banner that we must assemble. But right now, I will bust a gut trying to get to Bannockburn. Right now, it’s 50/50 whether I can. I don’t have a network of patsies to chin for £2.5k because the MOT’s up, but I’ll find a way if I can.
I cannot imagine any reason or indeed satisfaction to be gained, by going to Dundee to hear platitudes from charlatans and devolutionists masquerading as allies, who put their own self serving interests before Scotland’s. How blind are those who cannot see this?
If you’re in the SNP and want to make a statement, then don’t hesitate, get your arse to Bannockburn on Saturday, and be visible. If I’m reading the runes correctly, you’ll be all the more welcome in Stirling for not going to Dundee.
Do what is right for Scotland, and always be led by that instinct.
I just can’t believe they (whoever they were) paid cash for that motorhome. This is so much worse than I ever thought it would be at the start and I don’t any of the secrets that Craig Murray or Stuart Campbell know. This motorhome is absolutely reeking.
To pay cash for it is so bad… The stuff going on at SNP HQ is staggering.
And unsurprisingly it is all total amateur hour stuff as well.
I don’t know but I’d bet it was this ridiculous cash purchase that triggered the suspicious activity report to the elite fraud cops down south.
Whoever masterminded the motorhome scheme is a complete berk. So my money is obviously on Pete Murrell.
the missing 666k was a fraud but never in my wildest dreams did I think we would see stuff like this motorhome. Whatever happens or does not happen here with Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Police Scotland this is damning. Grubby sordid petty criminality. Normal people do not buy 110k motorhomes in cash never mind a political party that is supposed to be whiter than white.
This fucking stinks. I only know a fraction of it but this really stinks bad now.
Mac,
I only know as much as you, but I suspect that the fraud is broader. The Police scale their investigations to the size of the (alleged) crime. 22 months, and 20 detectives. So far. That’s a lot of effort. I don’t think this is about £667k of private money, which would merit far less investigation. I think this is about public money.
David Hannah, I agree completely with your post of 10:40.
It has caused me to revisit my views of a year ago where most here seem more concerned over the issue of Independence(which would be nice, if a bit costly).rather than recognising the dangers in the scenario that you illustrate so well.
I believe that had Sturgeon ben prepared to really push for independence her criminal social agenda would have been waved through by many on these pages.
The LGB section of the alphabet people turned on the Trans minority whom they had supported for years, simply because they realised that the Scottish electorate would not tolerate what was being proposed in the act and moved to distance themselves.
These people are dedicated to societal change regardless of which initials they adopt and with the SNP they almost succeeded, if the fanatical leader had not overstepped herself.
STAR-SAR/23 the very, very new retro wonder energy drug from LabourLabs.org
GET VAXXED NOW!…..pay later.
All together..
There are bad times just around the corner,
There are dark clouds hurtling through the sky
And it’s no good whining
About a silver lining
For we know from experience that they won’t roll by,
With a scowl and a frown
We’ll keep our peckers down
And prepare for depression and doom and dread,
We’re going to unpack our troubles from our old kit bag
And wait until we drop down dead.
(Noel COWARD)
Geri @ 1:42 am
“But they think they’re Scottish patriots while they celebrate becoming extinct.”
Yes, the Imperial paradox implies that we are dealing with a psychological condition, the ‘colonial condition’, where an oppressed people ‘crave dependency’ for another ‘superior’ culture, and their own nation perishes, sacrificed to the dominant culture.
Such a people first have to understand what independence means and why it is necessary before they can be liberated. To understand that the ‘union’ is a hoax, that ‘Britishness’ is a ‘cultural illusion’ for Scots just as much as it was for Kenyans, Indians, Irish and many more.
link to salvo-cor.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com
(Jeezo I submitted this before but it never appeared nor went into moderation so trying again.)
So if the story about the SNP receiving large amounts of cash from a businessman related to an SNP MP and the motorhome purchase are likely connected.
If someone had gifted large bungs of cash illegally (or at least against the rules governing donations) then it would be a problem. The SNP can’t bank the money as they can’t declare it. Even storing it is a problem.
Solution: send a couple of shady characters to Birmingham to buy a motorhome in cash and park it on your mum’s driveway for two years.
Motorhomes which are well known for their slow depreciation are a great store of value relative to normal cars. Indeed they were even appreciating due to over demand.
A few years later sell the motorhome and bank the proceeds as normal. (I’ll be kind and assume the proceeds would have been banked in a SNP bank account.)
Et voila, you have just laundered 110k.
This is wild west shit.
I guess this how the SNP have been ‘propped up’ in the face of dwindling donations from independence supporters. If so the motorhome might just be the tip of shitberg. The motorhome may have been done in desperation after other money laundering avenues had been exhausted.
I am starting to understand Murrell’s refusal to let anyone see the detailed accounts. They must be shocking. 110k motorhome cash purchase FFS… no wonder the auditors walked.
Remember the information the auditors gave as they quit. Someone was making direct journal entries to the accounts and because of ‘related party’ transaction.
Innocent until proven guilty and all that but I am struggling to see how they can explain this away. Buying that motorhome in cash is damning, absolutely damning.
They may have thought they were being double wide going to Birmingham to buy the motorhome in cash but that was possibly another bad fuck-up.
That was entering a jurisdiction outside of the COPFS & Police Scotland’s control. After that the conduct of COPFS and PS had eyes on them from outside.
When the motorhome dealership deposited the cash it must have triggered a suspicious activity report by their bank (I think anything above 10k normally does), or maybe the dealership itself was legally obliged to report it, I am not sure.
Either way it is very hard to transact a large amount of cash like that these days without it triggering these anti money laundering reports. Eventually someone in the chain of cash transactions deposits it and at that point it has to be explained. If that explanation is not supportable… they can follow it back. Not difficult in the case of vehicle.
If the people buying it in cash are different to the registered owners then that is another suspicious sign.
I wonder if the direct journals to the accounts and the related party concerns were because the motorhome purchase was only recorded in the accounts well after the purchase had occurred… Maybe that was Plan B after Plan A failed, if you know what I mean.
Lesson of the hypothetical tale is you can run to Birmingham but you can’t hide.
It is a talk shop to discuss how they keep the mugs voting SNP . Tag on the word independence here and there with an air of sincerity during your speeches and everything will be tickety boo.
The mugs will lap it up_____and we keep our jobs!! That,s what really matters.
If this vehicle was purchase with ACTUAL cash- you know bank notes then money laundering rules will have been broken
Something else to be looked into
What a mess -of the cabal’s own making
There must be another player in the motorhome affair. It would be extremely difficult to buy any type of vehicle of that value from a main dealer. They would run a mile from a deal like that.Is there a Patsy in the chain,(a high net worth “private individual”) who bought it legitimately from the dealer, then accepted the £110K in a brown envelope from the “second owner”. It’s the only way it can be done without leaving a very smelly trail all the way back to you know who.
Not one article of reference on BBC Scotland website regards this ultra important “Convention” being held.
Its been pushed off the headlines by the more important items such as “Midgie Hatching warning” ( insert your own gaga there!)
I suspect the best the SNP can hope for is JUST STOP OIL paying a tenner to get in and exploding a bag of orange talc over the stage to generate some headlines.
I’m more intrigued by all the Anas appearances in last week, even on Newsnight with Kirsty to talk Partygate(!)…just as the rumours Jackie now Dame Jackie was looking to oust him too..has a deal been down with London to keep the useful idiot in place?
It is going to be very interesting to find out who were the two men who went to Birmingham and paid 110k cash for the vehicle.
Looks like they must have drove down with the money, and then one of them drove the car back up, while the other drove the camper, two man job.
So obviously we have one prime suspect (looking at you Peter) but who would be the ‘second man’ I wonder. The paper said two men so we can sadly, probably rule out NS as the second man.
I can think of a couple of likely faces…(Gosh, I would not want to be whoever that was.) Just a side note but poor show from Murrell involving his mum in all this… he does seem to have a habit of dropping other people in his shit.
Plan A could have been just to keep the motorhome for oneself. Simple as that. The cash donations were never recorded apparently so if the motorhome was registered in my mum’s name or my name then who would know…
Maybe if I was tipped off ‘they’ were onto the motorhome, by a high ranking cop say, then I might hastily, and in a panic, belatedly put the motorhome onto the SNP books using my access to the accounting journal. We can call this ‘the motorhome was only resting in my driveway’ defence. This then becomes Plan B ‘save my ass’.
The explanation the motorhome was bought as a campaign bus was completely non-believable. Mike Russel never even knew it was bought.
So I think it may well have started out as Plan A and morphed into Plan B when it became clear that the motorhome-cat was out the bag.
This would explain why the auditors walked and why Murrell could not show anyone the accounts. Because it looks so bad. The auditors must have felt they were being lied to is my guess.
Just based on the limited information I am seeing it really does look bad. Even if Plan A was never the intent… it was set-up beautifully for it all the same.
@Alf Baird says:19 June, 2023 at 9:09 am
‘Britishness’ is a ‘cultural illusion’ for Scots just as much as it was for Kenyans, Indians
Here you go, Alf, some facts:
Kenya is one of the most diverse countries in the world. It has over 150 ethnic groups. However, Kenya is commonly recognised to have “only” 42 official tribes.
India has more than two thousand ethnic groups, and every major religion is represented, as are four major families of languages.
Uh oh. Two of your examples seem to be afflicted with cultural illusions too.
This is one of the problems I see with your “Colonialism” thesis. It has some utility, but it is far from the “slam dunk” many believe it to be.
Scotland herself contains a number of different cultures, languages, ethnic groupings, historical traditions, etc.
It’s arguably “colonialist” to assert a one size fits all, even if originated in Scotland, and supposedly intended for Scotland. As I pointed out yesterday, to give but one example, the Outer Hebrides and Shetland both voted against joining the Common Market in 1975.
And thus the common, incorrect trope that Scotland was dragged out of the EU “against her will”, ignores the fact that these major Scottish regions with their own distinctive histories never wanted to be in the EU in the first place!
Anyways, as a Sovereign Scot, who, according to you “craves dependency” for the “dominant culture”, I will just put on record that the alien cultural values I crave most are good and competent government, a fair but non-punitive taxation regime, and decent (without being over-generous) public services.
Regards the Motorhome…and Nicolas recent brave doorstep challenge…I liked how she boldly declared:
‘I know beyond doubt that I am in fact innocent of any wrongdoing.’
That really is the sort of backing a husband and wife team give each other…isn’t it?
Dear Murrell Motorhome meet Under the Bus….
Alf Baird @9:09am
“Yes, the Imperial paradox implies that we are dealing with a psychological condition, the ‘colonial condition’, where an oppressed people ‘crave dependency’ for another ‘superior’ culture, and their own nation perishes, sacrificed to the dominant culture.”
I always suspected something wasn’t ‘quite right’ with Scotland, even as a child, but was never able to identify the cause of my suspicion.
I remember the first time I went to London. It felt like an utterly foreign place to me – and still does. I couldn’t reconcile in my mind why I, ostensibly British, should feel so out of place in the capital of ‘my country’.
Of course I now realise why the place felt and feels so alien to me; it’s because it wasn’t ever, and isn’t now, my country.
Both the anecdotal and empirical evidence is overwhelming; Scotland has been colonised and its people deceived.
Theoretical Case for Scottish Independence
John Main says:
18 June, 2023 at 5:40 pm
@Red says:18 June, 2023 at 2:07 pm
You missed one, Red.
Nobody said or did SFA when the ancient, much celebrated Scottish right to roam was unilaterally rescinded for the duration
Project Fear worked brilliantly.
Which raises a number of questions, such as “why do our politicians no longer have anything to offer us except fear and threats?”
(The answer is because they don’t work for you, they’re hired to manage you.)
Anton Decadent says:
18 June, 2023 at 4:00 pm
From yesterdays Herald, David Leask calling for Neil Oliver to be fired, in his words cancelled, by the National Academy for speaking his mind. I do not watch Neil Oliver but I do frequent a few online hobby boards. These boards supposedly have a rule of no politics, no religion and no taking sides in a current conflict but these rules are blatantly flaunted by people who, for some reason, all look as if they could be relations of David Leask. They gloat at the white minority status of some Western cities, have a hatred of Christianity and Christians and have the 404 or sometimes trans flag and sometimes with the BLM fist over them as their avatars. Crossing them in any way results in a ban, they are members on one board but moderators/admin on the companion boards and viceversa, it is a monopoly made up of people who all share the same ethnic/religious/cultural background and who say that cancel culture does not exist but that there are consequences to exercising free speech, unless you are them, coincidentally. This is hobby boards I am talking about, ffs.
How are you supposed to have a “political debate” with smirking weirdos who want your children castrated (and/or dead in a ditch fighting Russians) and your people extirpated from their homeland?
And that’s just the SNP.
It’s true about large deposits triggering a red flag at banks to alert suspicious activity. First question they ask is where it came from.
Even more suspicious is the ‘wealthy business’ bullshit. Why is the donation even in carrier bags in the first place FFS? Like someone’s just came home from a drug deal or something dodgy as fck lol!
& Then there’s PC fckwit who has squandered nearly two years on this bullshit & erected forensic tents to remove teabags in what looks like the wrong property LMAO! A justice secretary sending flowers to a suspected criminal & various MPs who know they’re likely breaking the law but do it anyway to defend Sturgeon. I’ll not even mention the money & manhours they squandered over Salmond before this shit.
You really couldn’t make this shit up & the SNP have zero hope of recovery. As someone said above, that change of direction ended when Dumbza, the continuity of fuckwittery candidate, was duly elected.
Alba are in danger if they don’t wise the fck up too. The SNP are NOT thier friends. They have zero chance of working together & they will never call a convention. He’ll would freeze over first. They need to take the gloves off now & realise they are opponents & a dead weight to YES. They’ve morphed into the Greens & Better Together Devo max bullshit cause they need to remain in power to enact more trans bullshit. They’re an obstacle that needs removed. The leadership is NOT interested in Indy. They’re Unionists now & Dumbza is starstruck he’s in the British Establishment.
Get everyone telt. The SNP & the Greens are a wasted vote for indy. They’re not for turning.
Oh dear. Tory Brexiteer troll ‘John Main bot’ got it all wrong yet again.
Thinks that Scotland in the EU would be a colony…
Steal our resources, would they, John? Stockpile illegal nuclear bombs right next to our largest city? Deny us the vote? Aye, right.
“….Greece. Italy. Holland….” Main bot doesn’t even know that there’s no such country as ‘Holland”. Sad.
Proof that plan A was the original plan is that the motorhome was bought using cash. This is damning and is in itself strong evidence of bad intentions. But it is not quite enough.
What would be case closed however would be if there was a significant time gap between the motorhome being bought and the motorhome being recorded in the SNP’s accounts.
If (and it is a big if) weeks or months passed between the motorhome being bought in cash, and then belatedly recorded on the SNP’s accounts, then I personally would say for sure that Plan A was the original intent. The bigger the time gap (if any) the more sure I would be.
If there is a big time gap and the excuse is ‘oh I just forgot to record it in a timely manner’ that excuse has to be seen in the context of not banking the original cash donations and then using them to covertly buy the motorhome in cash. So not at all believable in that context.
Belatedly putting the motorhome on the SNP’s books would be way to head off any potential criminal charges if you knew they were onto you, to retrospectively legitimize the purchase. The only problem being the purchase is clearly ridiculous for the stated use, because it was never bought with the SNP in mind.
It is one of those ones where everyone who looked at it would know what the real intent was (Plan A) but without conclusive proof would have to accept the bullshit explanations (Plan B) even if they found them entirely unbelievable. That happens once and then they resign. Which is the pattern we have seen with the auditors and other SNP insiders.)
We have not even touched the Gupta stuff yet if that is out there as well…
The SNP are toast. The good guys and gals that remain should get out now while they still can disassociate themselves.
John Main.
Does Kenya give its wealth & resources to its neighbouring country & receive beans & a set of instructions on how to spend them in return?
Scotland is colonised. It’s resources plundered for the benefit of said country. It’s ppl (of whichever background) held back & forbidden to enact change *without express permission* while it lives in abject poverty & under the colonisers *rules*
The Scotland Act & Holyrood elections prove we’re colonised, we are. We are forbidden from even recording our own accounts or holding any licence to our own assets.
Get a grip.
If found guilty of any corrupt and illegal practices, the Scottish National Party could be forced into bankruptcy.
Is it any wonder Scottish independence is kicked further down the road, by the replacement NEC? The party itself, is hanging by a thread.
SNP is currently sitting it out, waiting for the hammer to come down, while going through the motions of governance.
Forcing an early general election, is no longer an option.
It appears that redemption is no longer in the hands of the party. The end game of independents for independence, in the next general election, could be due to dissolution of SNP.
I would add… ‘No animals were harmed during production of this post!’
The mysterious cash donations..
Just throwing this out there but remember when Scotwind was being auctioned – it was either Robin McAlpine or Ash Regan who mentioned something that auction had *confidentiality clauses* at the fcking travesty it was auctioned so low.
Could this wads of cash have been a bung to fck up that auction?
So we have accusations of large amounts of cash being handed over to the SNP in white envelopes. This money was not declared and as such most likely never banked. This is the dirty money flowing in.
And we now know of a large amount of cash being used to buy a motorhome. This is the dirty money flowing out.
And who does it all flow around… who has the means, motive, and opportunity. Who has the access, the executive power, the mum with a driveway…
The next question is what was the businessman who was making these large cash bungs to the SNP getting for his money? Has he ever benefited as a result of decisions made by the SNPG? The fact it was all done in cash suggests both sides knew what they were doing was not aboveboard.
And the chances of this being an isolated event over the last 9 years would have to be put at nil. You don’t go from nothing to motorhome overnight.
ASA 6:25 am.
You made yourself sound exotic when in fact I was correct, you only live in England & think they’re yer brethren & see Scotland as cringe who doesn’t deserve to return to being an Independent country. Typical colonised. I bet you voted Brexshit too to give little England it’s sovereignty back..lol!
Why describe yourself abroad when you consider the UK a country?
Well I am going attend Dundee Conference. There is provision in the agenda to voice opinions and I mean to take it. I am still of the option that we will not move No voters by being hare brained
.
James at 11:07 am
“Oh dear. Tory Brexiteer troll ‘John Main bot’ got it all wrong yet again.
Thinks that Scotland in the EU would be a colony…
Steal our resources, would they, John?”
If you’re saying Scotland would be no better off in leaving the UK and immediately joining the EU (even if accepted in) I think you’d be right. Scotland would be a State. The EU will set the taxes and exert an increasingly heavy hand on ‘national sovereignty.’ You’ll pay for an EU army (assuming Scotland becomes a net contributor) despite previously asserting that you desire neutrality. All this talk of independence, then rushing into the arms of nanny-EU.
Away from James’ post I see the word ‘culture’ again, which reminds me I didn’t see a response to my question, “How does Scotland’s culture differ significantly from the rest of the UK to the point of incompatibility?”
Mac @ 11:48
The businessman encouraged his daughter towards a SNP MP position and she is now in the SNP inner circle. The Family jumped from Labour to the SNP in 2014. She has very close ties to the current FM.
@ Mac
Scooby Doo mode on/ Could this litter bin be overflowing because it is stuffed with used white envelopes…
link to archive.is
@ Geri
ASA is actually one of those NuEnglish seeing as anybody that rocks up here in Scotland is classed as a NuScot.
@ James Jones at 12.10pm: As you refer to Scots as “you”, I think it’s safe to assume your opinions on how Scotland should be governed and, indeed, Scottish culture, are irrelevant.
Nevertheless, I shall state the obvious: the Tories haven’t had a majority of Scottish votes since 1955, yet Scotland continues to be lumbered with Tory governments that we have overwhelmingly rejected time and time again and for longer than I – nearly a pensioner – have been alive. Scots generally believe in social and economic equality and the common good, while the English repeatedly vote for greed, extreme inequality and private ownership of industry and public services. There’s a huge chasm between the two countries.
The colonialism and 300 year old shite being given ‘big licks’ from the usual nutters on this thread. Mind you, they post exactly the same on EVERY article Stu produces. It must be awful to constantly live in the past with no thoughts whatsoever about how to shape the future.
I genuinely believe that this is a complete turn off for 99% of the electorate but the nutters seem happy doing it and it does keep them off the streets. I don’t think many people would like to meet them in the flesh.
Can we all be brutally honest and accept that any realistic hopes for an Independent Scotland are dead for at least the next 10 years, or is stating that unpatriotic?
Strangely the best thing for Scotland is to vote Labour at the next elections. This should see the demise of both the SNP and the Tories, when a fresh start can be made.
A few have said it before, only to be shot down in flames by the BPHB, but the best and only chance we will have of gaining Independence will be to convince the electorate that somebody has a plan and we would be better off financially, mentally and physically. Has anybody seen such a document recently?
Imagine what it would be like living in a Scotland with the SNP/Loons in charge of EVERYTHING!
Sadly, ALBA are going nowhere. Their only hope is to garner support from disillusioned SNP supporters, of the worse kind.
Of course, you can always spoil your ballot paper at the next elections. That will work!
Seeing as being colonised remains a discussion point.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
Cultural differences…
We don’t vote Tory.
We’re not racist & drive about in vans terrorising immigrants to go home.
We wouldn’t celebrate & cheer at them drowning.
We don’t celebrate a hostile environment in parliament.
We don’t arrange free flights to hostile nations.
We don’t want to bomb the fck out of anything that moves that has an asset to covet.
We’re not inherently racist.
We don’t have a hard on for invading other countries.
We don’t revere a defunct disfunctional family we’ll never meet.
We don’t suffer exceptionalism & think we’re special & everyone owes us.
We don’t prance around in trinkets & baubles like some medieval fckwits.
FFS, even Merkel couldn’t leave the cesspit without the racist feckwits baying for her blood.
The EU doesn’t have an Army. It has Americas army under the guise of NATO with a protection racket price tag & a ready made squatter taking a huge chunk of real estate that can never be evicted. Empire 2.0
Joining the EU makes Scotland a trading partner to 500 million others as well as a seat on the council, a revolving presidency & a vote on the goings on on an EQUAL footing.If at any time we would wish to leave, we can. No permission slips required.
There’s a few *cultural differences* to get the ball rolling.
Main seems to think Brexshit has returned his Sovereignty..LOL! He has hee-haw sovereignty.
Wha’s Like Us
The average Englishman, in the home he calls his castle, slips into his national costume, a shabby raincoat, patented by chemist Charles Macintosh from Glasgow, Scotland.
En route to his office he strides along the English lane, surfaced by John Macadam of Ayr, Scotland.
He drives an English car fitted with tyres invented by John Boyd Dunlop of Dreghorn, Scotland, arrives at the station and boards a train, the forerunner of which was a steam engine, invented by James Watt of Greenock, Scotland.
He then pours himself a cup of coffee from a thermos flask, the latter invented by Dewar, a Scotsman from Kincardine-on-Forth.
At the office he receives the mail bearing adhesive stamps invented by James Chalmers of Dundee, Scotland.
During the day he uses the telephone invented by Alexander Graham Bell, born in Edinburgh, Scotland.
At home in the evening his daughter pedals her bicycle invented by Kirkpatrick Macmillan, blacksmith of Dumfries, Scotland.
He watches the news on his television, an invention of John Logie Baird of Helensburgh, Scotland, and hears an item about the U.S. Navy, founded by John Paul Jones of Kirkbean, Scotland.
He has by now been reminded too much of Scotland and in desperation he picks up the Bible only to find that the first man mentioned in the good book is a Scot, King James VI, who authorised its translation.
Nowhere can an Englishman turn to escape the ingenuity of the Scots.
He could take to drink, but the Scots make the best in the world.
He could take a rifle and end it all but the breech-loading rifle was invented by Captain Patrick of Pitfours, Scotland.
If he escapes death, he might then find himself on an operating table injected with penicillin, which was discovered by Alexander Fleming of Darvel, Scotland, and given an anaesthetic, which was discovered by Sir James Young Simpson of Bathgate, Scotland.
Out of the anaesthetic, he would find no comfort in learning he was as safe as the Bank of England founded by William Paterson of Dumfries, Scotland.
Perhaps his only remaining hope would be to get a transfusion of guid Scottish blood which would entitle him to ask “Wha’s Like Us”.
by C.G. Buswell
Izzie @ 12.03.
Good for you Izzie. What do you intend to say?
I can see how a positive outlook can be a good things, but this is getting out of hand. From Talking Up Scotland 2…
Oban to Mull ferry back at 100% reliability after only hours out of service, link to archive.ph
Oh, yes. CalMac ferries are always 100% reliable. Right up to the moment they break down. Dear God.
Michael Laing..
You put it more diplomatic than I lol.
There is a world of difference. Next Thier English exceptionalism will kick in & we’ve all just to lump it.
When WM moves to Scotland for a chance of Scots being in charge for a change then I’ll maybe agree to lump it & compare it to the EU.
Dan,
Thanks! Lol at new Englishman. He’d be laughed out the pub.
I lived there for over a decade. They despise all & any newcomer & that includes *foreigners* from the home Nations. Taffy, Jocko & Paddy are always the court jester for thier amusement.
I don’t know where our resident squaddie stands on Unionism (I haven’t been paying a lot of attention) If it’s absolute Unionism (abolish Holyrood/ Westminster direct rule) then that’s very much a minority stance in Scotland.
The Scottish electorate has consistently shown considerable majority support for self-government (Devolution) and it appears around half support full-Independence. I think there is always some confusion when people appear to be, or say they are Unionist, because there are two flavours of that, and one is not like the other in Scotland.
It could be argued there are also two flavours of Independists – Gradualists, and whatever the handle for non-gradualists is these days (Abrubt Independists? Total Independist?)
I ponder though, whether Gradualist Independists, and Devolutionist Unionists are not actually the same thing (they just aren’t aware if it) and if not, where does the overlap lie.
The data is there in all the surveys, and polls, but by the auld gods it’s a pain trying to extract it, far less make sense of it. Nothing is absolute in Scotland politically, I’m not even sure Scotland knows what it wants at all – deep-diving Scottish polls, and surveys gives you the bends – at best, we can say what she doesn’t want.
I don’t know whether ASA’s posts are born of bile, or exasperation, because these things are difficult to assess in any forum format – ad-hominem is easy to spot though.
Beacause it’s difficult not to engage with some form of troll btl nowadays, I’d like to ask A Scot Abroad directly, out of curiosity, which position ‘they’ (got to be careful of pronouns nowadays) they are arguing from – is it Total Unionist, Devolutionary Unionist, or some other flavour?
I’m asking because I like to try and get a handle on people’s default starting position, and proceed from there, because it can be very difficult to work it out from limited format posts.
Myself? I would be in the Total Independist camp, though I have lived my life under Total Unionism & Devolutionary Unionism, so I don’t know what Independence is, and therefore cannot debate it based on experience. In the Venn diagram of “What Scotland wants” ‘Total Independist’ puts me in with the greater majority in Scotland – that which is not ‘Total Unionist’
My arguments (occasionally debate, and often just post-and-run opinion) can be all over the floor like a mad wummins shite – as opposed to all to one side like Gourock, simply because I cannot debate Independence from experience of it; I can only extrapolate, posit, and guess Scottish Independence, and naturally my ‘arguments must be weaker than those flavours of Unionism rooted firmly in empirical evidence.
Within that empirical evidence for Unionism (of either flavour) I believe the current ‘Westminster model’ is not for me, and does not suit Scotland (I think it barely suits much of England) I think Scotland can, and should do things differently, and most importantly, better.
It would be easier to find some common ground with people, even if it is just ideas for making Scotland a better place to live rather than wasting time, and effort shouting back-and-forth at one another.
I can say I want Independence, but what exactly I expect from Independence, I have no experience. ASA, you appear to want Unionism (I don’t know which type) and we know what to expect, and have experience of it – but is it really the best either of us can aspire to?
Sadly you may be correct, because perhaps when all is said and done, the UK is Independent from other nations, and so therefore, I actually do know what to expect from Independence – and what a fucking shitshow that is.
Maybe I just fancy wallowing in my own dung for a change.
Other regions of the UK also habitually vote ‘not the Tories’ and accept the democratic vote like grown-ups. They’re not daft enough to throw their toys out of the pram.
You must know there have been Labour governments too, which Scotland had a significant role in electing until it decided it preferred the SNP (lordy!).
Treading water, currently a popular pastime, while the house is on fire.
If found guilty of any corrupt and illegal practices, the Scottish National Party could be forced into bankruptcy.
Is it any wonder Scottish independence is kicked further down the road, by the replacement NEC? The party itself, is hanging by a thread.
SNP is currently sitting it out, waiting for the hammer to come down, while going through the motions of governance.
Forcing an early general election, is no longer an option.
It appears that redemption is no longer in the hands of the party. The end game of independents for independence, in the next general election, could be due to dissolution of SNP.
Happy holidays.
Having managed to finally get a ticket I want to find out what the plan is after Westminster says no to Section 30 once again. The first minister has said that he believes if there is a mandate after the GE then the Scottish people will see this as unfair. I want to know what he expects them to do.
Ian mhor @ 12.53
Gosh, I did enjoy that post, Ian.
James Jones;
So, you’re what? A wind up merchant? 77th? Or just thick?
Scotland is not a ‘region’ of anywhere.
Clown.
Northcode – nice find. Didn’t know about John Paul Jones.
Here’s an extract from C.G’s latest, with some judicious edits.
Trans Zombie Haven…
The bullet thudded into the shoulder of the running man. He had dried blood crusting on his mouth, down his neck, and onto his flapping shirt. It exited after ricocheting off his clavicle, causing a huge hole to burst from his back. He didn’t feel a thing. Nor did the smaller woman, behind him, as it burst through her face, the heavy 8.59mm calibre bullet exploding her features like a burst tomato. Her all-in-one waterproof jacket, reaching down to her ankles, didn’t protect her clothing from the gushing torrents of blood that poured from her writhing arteries and veins as they danced and made her muscles contort and twist.
Both undead were victims of the Aberdeen Independence Movement plane that had flown overhead yesterday, spilling a strange yellow smoke, turning Aberdeen and the surrounding Aberdeenshire into a science-denial zone. Those affected by the chemicals had turned feral upon each other, craving the blood of those few lucky enough to survive. The couple, united in death, took another faltering step, then dropped to a merciful release. As an act of irony, the man twisted as he fell and lay prone on his back as if awaiting the delivery of the woman. She obliged and fell on top of him, her mushy neck nuzzling into his unfeeling face, giving the appearance of a last embrace.
Gripping stuff and apologies to C.G. link to cgbuswell.com
James Jones
There is no *democratic vote*
64 million will ALWAYS outvote 5 million.
A parliament that awards itself England) 533 seats against a paltry 59 to Scots, 35 to Wales & 11 to NI can never democratically outvote them in parliament either – even if all three clubbed together.
So we have a perpetual Tory government voted for all of us by ONE Nation out of FOUR.
Get away with yer shite about democracy. That’s a myth & glad to see you demonstrate perfectly that exceptionalism that we’ve all just to lump it that I mentioned earlier.
Stuart MacKay @1:16pm
Thanks, Stuart. And thanks for adding the link to C.G. Buswell’s site.
I found his Scottish Inventions and Inventors piece here:
Scottish Inventions and Inventors
But completely missed adding the link below his name.
Izzie..
It’ll be the same bullshit reply Sturgeon gave to that question at a Women for Independence AGM in 2018 when asked if Mayhem just continued to say ‘Now is not the time’ what was her plan..
Imeldas response: ‘We just keep making the case. YOU have to get out there & convince others’
Who are we convincing? She had the mandates!!
Dumbza will answer the same shite – £100 quid he says it has to be over 60% over at least 100 yrs first or some other elasticated measure to keep them at the trough as long as possible….Zzzzzzz
@Geri says:19 June, 2023 at 11:05 am
Dumbza, the continuity of fuckwittery candidate, was duly elected
A quick fix and we’re done.
Dumbza, the continuity of fuckwittery candidate, was fraudulently elected.
In all seriousness, and bearing in mind how far away from actual conservative values today’s conservative party actually are, it is probably more likely that the conservatives will deliver independence well before the SNP aedos.
@Geri says:19 June, 2023 at 12:41 pm
Cultural differences…
We’re not racist
FFS, laughed so much I spilt my tea.
We don’t suffer exceptionalism & think we’re special
FFS, Geri, put a health warning on your posts. It’s not a myth that people can die laughing.
Northcode says:
19 June, 2023 at 12:42 pm
Wha’s Like Us
The average Englishman, in the home he calls his castle, slips into his national costume, a shabby raincoat, patented by chemist Charles Macintosh from Glasgow, Scotland …
[SNIP – You all know this predicable English baiting garbage much sold on tourist knick-knacks]
…Perhaps his only remaining hope would be to get a transfusion of guid Scottish blood which would entitle him to ask “Wha’s Like Us”.
by C.G. Buswell
Northcode, that steaming offal long predates C.G. Buswell’s vanity press output by half a century – it was written by Tom Anderson Cairns, and is about as good as Braveheart when it comes to historical facts.
JGedd says:
18 June, 2023 at 3:07 pm
‘There is possibly more that unites the electorate outside of traditional political loyalties but judging by choosing to vote Labour, it doesn’t seem to have played any part yet. Perhaps that is still to dawn’
The dawning will come, JGedd, during the 18 months between Dec ’24 and May ’26 when they realise that the New Labour government they’ve elected is every bit as dire as the two they are running from.
When that dawning comes, the rejection of SNP, Cons, and NLab2 will leave a massive void. But who/what will fill that void in the lead up to HR ’26?
ALBA’s first ‘Special National Assembly’ in Perth in December seemed to be an effort in preparation for filling that void, but there seems to have been little progress since. The later ‘Scotland United’ voting proposal left me underwhelmed, as even if it did come about, the s(t)inking SNP would be the lead player.
With under 3 years to HR ’26, we urgently need to develop a plan and structure that the circa 50% of YES support can unite around with one lead organisation, and a group of main speakers representing the united organisation. Alba, Salvo, Lib Scot, ISP are all doing what they can, but unless they can merge into one entity, all the electorate will see is confusion and minor parties/groups.
John,
Yes – he was.
Until those figures are checked & verified he is fraudulent.
My point stands tho, the SNP MPs, MSPs & whatever the membership who were left – all backed the continuity fuckwittery candidate in public.
They rejected the offer of Independence on the table & squawked like stuck pigs for Devo like they were the new Better Together party which showed Thier true colours. No amount of *indy* conferences will erase that.
They shat it.
Yet AGAIN.
Izzie says:
19 June, 2023 at 1:02 pm
” ……. The first minister has said that he believes if there is a mandate after the GE then the Scottish people will see this as unfair. I want to know what he expects them to do. ” .
Ah , right , AFTER the GE , when – he hopes – they will have been given ANOTHER mandate ie… another 5 years of unmolested ( hmmm ? ) gravy-slurping . Nae bother .
” ….what he expects them to do ” . Not sure who the ” they ” are in this sentence ; the Brit State or the people who voted for the SNP ?
If the former , that’s easy , they’ll say something like ” fuck off Sweaty Socks ” – albeit in more polite language and in a nice RP Oxbridge accent . The meaning will be the same nonetheless .
If the latter , alas , they’ll probably just go back to sleep for another 5 years .
How about HY telling us NOW what HE intends to do in that scenario . Rather , telling people like yourself what he intends to do .
I and probably most readers BTL here know what he intends to do
Fuck all .
At least , fuck all of any value eg ….1st think ” what would Nicola say / better phone Nicola ” , stamp his expensively-clad feet in a crap impersonation of justified outrage ,moan n whine about ” respecting Democracy ” ( LOL ) for a bit ( about 24 hours ) before sitting back down on his fraudulently obtained F.M’s * throne * and hoping no one will notice the total feebleness of his response .
All this on the assumption H.Y will still be around after the G.E . If , as expected , the SNP get bitch-slapped by the Scottish electorate he’ll be gone like post-Election snow off pre-Election * p/ledges * .
Mac says: 19 June, 2023 at 9:16 am
“If someone had gifted large bungs of cash illegally (or at least against the rules governing donations) then it would be a problem.
This is wild west shit.”
Wild west shit indeed… and as much as we’ve seen spectacularly transparent levels of bufoonery, corruption and dishonesty emerge among the political classes; it needs to be acknowledged that such things have always existed, particularly at the petty-parochial level.
“The motorhome may have been done in desperation after other money laundering avenues had been exhausted.”
With apologies for having to be a tad cryptic in all this… but when you realise the ‘calibre’ of career criminals involved you might understand that all I’m prepared to do is throw the dots out there; join them yourself. And no, I’m not going to name names.
Around 2013, I found myself given considerable cause for concern…
– A few years previous (circa 2009/10) I had encountered an individual linked to organised crime masquerading as a ‘leading business figure’ in various entrepreneurial forums. To cut a long story short; they were ‘laughed out of the room’ by the legitimate cohort of one such board.
…In the process of which some ‘drilling into’ the businesses that were servicing them, happened. A certain one of those businesses just didn’t ‘ring true’ …their back story just didn’t hang together.
Where were they were getting their turnover from was a bit mysterious; their pitch being a bit of a ‘mug’s eyeful’ and their key tactic being to pretend to be ‘anything for anybody anytime’ Oh; there were some ‘legit’ bones being thrown to them… but by-and-large; they were full of it.
What was clear though was that the ‘leading business figure’ (their key client) did have links to violent criminals; myself and the forum owner were among a number of people who received threatening phone calls from not-very-bright thugs – those events being immediately reported to the Police.
‘Plazzy gangstas’ are best not given the oxygen, so it was all ‘let lie’ at that… though a weather eye was kept as further stories emerged about the individual at the centre of all this.
On another page; some may be aware of the tragic story behind the manipulation and exploitation of the Artist, Peter Howson (a vulnerable Aspergic) . -At the hands (as reported by Russell Findlay back in 2009) of Heroin dealer, William O’Neil…
link to dailyrecord.co.uk
Findlay has explored the underworld extensively; a dirty job which most of us shy away from… He has in the course of this frequently named the individual that was involved in the wee ‘stairheed rammie’ that took place on the forum I mentioned. …And made clear the link between them and real-life mobsters such as Daniel Kinahan.
As the old saying has it; you lie down with dogs and you get up with fleas… And it’s not unreasonable in my view to take the position that there is most-likely something dodgy about everything a ‘gangsta’ touches.
Money laundering? Well, that’s one possible explanation for the existence and survival of a ostensibly ‘legitimate’ service business that (if you know the business they claim to be in) makes no sense and doesn’t have the books to support the outrageous claims they make in terms of achievement and market position… For example: what kind of ‘global marketing’ expert pinches the trading style (name) of a large foreign cinema chain to trade here, under that name? – As they once did! And even today, claims to be this and that and anything you might want to hear under a trading name that is far from unique to them…
Money Laundering may well be an area of expertise in some circles.
So, I’m a little surprised that Russell Findlay hasn’t noted the link between a certain ‘underworld figure’ he so-often reports on and another (possibly linked through family to the gangster who abused Peter Howson) person who – until August 2019 – appeared on the list of directors of a certain organisation closely linked to the SNP.
Maybe I’m underestimating Russell, and it just hasn’t been politically expedient to do so? – Given that he is a part of that which Bevan once described as ‘lower than vermin’ and harbours his own political ambitions.
…The particular individual I’m thinking about had first become associated with the (SNP linked) organisation as a service provider in around 2013/14 – which is when alarm bells rang with me. – And about when I really started to question the integrity of the overarching SNP.
Regardless of how you feel about Salmond (personally I feel he was a huge disappointment) it was the filthiest and most depraved of moves to try and frame him the way they did for what they did… A sickening act of moral bankruptcy; one more of the sort of behaviour you might associate with career criminals; mobsters.
What sort of a sick mind comes up with a plot like that? We’re now hearing of missing money and yes, this bizarre carry-on around the Motorhome… white envelopes stuffed with cash etc. etc. etc.
It’s only a semi-rhetorical question; where has this endemic criminality in politics generally, emerged from? Oh we know there were always crooks and shysters involved. – But it’s so bare-faced these days!
What influences are really in play here?
It’s behind a paywall (no I haven’t read it) but when The Times are recently carrying headlines like “Kinahan crime gang ‘is bringing dirty money to Glasgow” (May 19th 2023) and Findlay’s byline appears frequently on pieces such as “Spanish gang kidnap & torture Fake Bake boss’s drug dealing ex” (Daily Record, 7th September 2012); Well you have to wonder why these are dots that have not already been joined.
Sturgeon claims she has done nothing wrong… Except that no completely honest person in a position like that fails to question things like envelopes stuffed with cash or unexplained giant motor vehicles stashed away where no-one is inclined to look.
“Innocent until proven guilty and all that but I am struggling to see how they can explain this away. Buying that motorhome in cash is damning, absolutely damning.”
I suppose it depends what they mean by ‘in cash’… – Folding, cheque or bank transfer; either way it stinks!
@Iain mhor says:19 June, 2023 at 12:53 pm
A well balanced, moderate post.
The usual suspects will have to get you banned or shouted down.
the UK is Independent from other nations, and so therefore, I actually do know what to expect from Independence – and what a fucking shitshow that is
Careful, you are not allowed to point out to the EUphiles that if leaving the EU is BAAAAAD, who’s to say that leaving the UK won’t also be BAAAAAD too.
it appears around half support full-Independence
Ever wondered if that’s the same half that wants back in the EU?
I have and I think it is. Which means, of course, they don’t want Indy at all. They want Brussels rule.
Which means, possibly, they agree with the Too Wee, Too Poor trope, which may be why that one always gets such a violent reaction.
And then there’s the question of how much the wish for Indy is driven by little more than hatred of the English.
Which goes to explain, possibly, the frequent posts claiming that we Scots don’t do racism.
My post @12:42pm
I might have incorrectly attributed the piece I posted to C.G Buswell.
On review it looks like it was written by Tom Anderson Cairns and popularised on a tea towel with that famous line on it, “Wha’s Like Us – Damn Few And They’re A’ Deid”
So, my aplogies to C.G Busell and Tom Anderson Cairn.
On the upside I haven’t come across C.G Buswell’s novels before so I might give them a read.
Izzie @ 1.02pm I want to know what he expects them to do.
Good question Izzie. I expect the answer will be, the same answer as always, ‘Just keep voting for us.’
When will you get it, Izzie, that these SNP lotus eaters have no plan for you other than to keep your votes coming that provide them with a cosy berth on the gravy train, never reaching the destination of independence if they can help it? They don’t deserve the misplaced loyalty of SNP members. They’re taking advantage of you.
One of the most unhinged and utterly stupendously ignorant comments. Comes from our very own Troll A Scot Abroad: ” The Irish Colonised Scotland”!
Anyone with even a miniscule grasp of British history. Would know that the Irish were colonised by the Brits , and the colonised became economic refugees to Scotland in the 18th and 19th century.
A coloniser comes to a nation to take it over and destroy it’s identity. The Irish were kicked out of their own country and shoved down the pits in Scotland.
Ireland was part of Britain by force. It didn’t have a parliament or army to conquer other countries. Furthermore you cannot colonise the same state that you are part of.
Colonise: ‘send settlers to (a place) and establish political control over it.’
ASA is not only as thick as shit. He is a bigoted anti Irish moron.
James Jones.
There you go again with you child like knowledge, without correction even to someone elses comment,
They are not regions,
They are the four Countries in Great Britain, each individual with its own ethic communities,
There are areas within those countries but no Country in Britain is a region of the Empire.
There are four Countries.
@Northcode says:19 June, 2023 at 12:42 pm
From my own knowledge, I can tell you that 2 of your names (Bell & Jones) were colonists.
There may well be others.
I suggest you re-submit your post with all references to apologists for colonialism removed.
You being such a staunch adherent to colonialism theory, it saddens me to see you falling into, undoubtedly innocently, error.
Northcode, there did seem to be a bit of disconnect in writing styles but yellow smoke and an Aberdeen infested with zombies was too good to pass up.
As for John Paul Jones, it seems Scots were pretty adept at building navies. Enter one Samuel Greig, link to en.wikipedia.org.
It’s pity Nikla banned the display of the saltire after you-know-who invaded you-know-where. Another cringing unionist ashamed of her past.
James Watt didn’t invent the steam engine: he just adapted it.
“No single inventor deserves credit for the television. The idea was floating around long before the technology existed to make it happen, and many scientists and engineers made contributions that built on each other to eventually produce what we know as TV today.”
Karl Drais (German) is known as the father of the bicycle. Getting bored with googling now. Carry on with the hubris…
North Code.
I read you’re comments regards Scottish inventions and entrepreneurship of Scotland inhabitants, and it reminds us, what direction Scotland could go if it were independent and the contributions it could make to the world,
James Che
Before some clown pipes up to say the Union was responsible for this, it wasn’t. None of the output from the Enlightenment would have come without a world class education system.
Talking of clowns. Here’s what Alistair MacDonald of the British Council has to say:
The Scottish Enlightenment was very much a part of the British and European Enlightenment – the Scots shared the values of rationalism and humanism of Voltaire, Kant, Descartes and Rousseau, enriching it with their own very British empiricism.
Unfortunately the dimwit let’s the cat out of the bag a little bit further on:
The Scottish Enlightenment was powered by its five universities (St Andrews, Glasgow, Edinburgh and King’s College and Marischal College, both in Aberdeen). At the time England still only had two universities (Oxford and Cambridge) while institutions in continental Europe were under pressure from a succession of ruinous wars and regimes hostile to dangerous, revolutionary thinking. Scotland offered a high quality liberal education to both Scots and international students who were attracted by a reputation for innovation and excellence, most especially in what we would call today the physical and life sciences, law, the social sciences and philosophy. Scottish institutions were more open – and less expensive – than their English and continental competitors which, combined with the extensive network of Scottish schools that allowed bright young Scots greater social mobility than many of their contemporaries and gave rise to a broader, more socially mixed and intellectually vibrant student body.
link to britishcouncil.org
James Che @2:38pm
Very true, James. Given half a chance us Scots could re-invent the entire world – again. And solve the climate change issue at the same time.
It would seem our coloniser isn’t just holding the Scots down; but, indirectly, the peoples of the world.
And have you ever noticed how much fun you can have with a tea towel?
A shabby raincoat is not the National English dress. I post all of these in an attempt to curb the flow of disinformation on the internet. No thanks needed. It’s a given.
James Che says:
19 June, 2023 at 2:38 pm
North Code.
I read you’re comments regards Scottish inventions and entrepreneurship of Scotland
——
The train containing Scottish entrepreneurship and invention left the station many years ago, James me old mate. It’s a shame innit.
So, the NEC’s ne’er-do-wells, will obviously not hang up their guns, until that prospect is made certain by any criminal prosecution, which could result in their insolvency. The UK’s sheriff and his posse, obviously not headed for the pass and are taking the long ride to Justice.
Cue the tumbleweed…
Meanwhile, back at the Holyrood ranch, cowpoke politicians continue to whittle on their sticks, waiting for the townsfolk to erect the gallows.
In old London town, Pete, the saloon piano player, continues to dodge bullets, to empty Tory spittoons.
Unforgiven 2. Coming to a screen near you.
Izzie,
There’s an old proverb you should keep in mind when at the conference, “fool me once, shame on thee; fool me 318 times, shame on me.”
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me three hundred and eighteen times, shame on me.
That last message was for all the people attending the ‘snouts in trough’ conference
Indeed, that was a fine list of great Britons.
DASBLIMP
Eine kleine Frage an Sie.
«Konzentrationslager», wer hat die erfunden?
Der englische, aber deutsche Einfallsreichtum verbesserte das Konzept.
Enough of this who invented what nonsense. However, you do seem hell bent on putting down Scots as a nation of intellectual turnips deserving of their indifferent status in the current political model; an old «colonialist» ploy.
Tha na h-ammanan ann an gluasad…..the times they are a’ changin.
Let’s get some perspective to Scottish Entrepreneurs and Engineers. Taking as a proportion of GDP Scotland, is third behind Sweden and Switzerland in the number of Nobel Laureates. Source The National aye OK I apologise for using that source. I spoke to a neighbour whose son graduated in engineering in Scotland last year. Just got his green card. Despite everything Scottish Engineers are still valued globally.
I was just Googling Anum Qaisar …. and came across a tweet from Yusaf.
He apparently denied any affair saying that, “she was just interested in the size of my constituency” !!
dasBlimp
“James Watt didn’t invent the steam engine: he just adapted it.”
Correct, the steam engine we understand when we talk of the beginning of the Steam Age was invented and constructed by the French.
“No single inventor deserves credit for the television. The idea was floating around long before the technology existed to make it happen, and many scientists and engineers made contributions that built on each other to eventually produce what we know as TV today.”
Wrong. Having the idea about something is not the same as inventing it. Inventing it is bringing it to reality. For example, the idea of time travel has been around for a very long time but no one has brought it to reality, no one has invented a time machine.
JLB was the first person in history to capture a live moving image and transmit it. He was the first to bring it to reality, the first to invent a machine which did it. No question about that. The fact that systems based on CRTs won out commercially in the end is irrelevant. He was first. CRTs have long since been superceded by other television systems.
If you WERE to ascribe the invention to CRT systems only then Alan Campbell-Swinton from Edinburgh would be the first to propose a complete system in a paper in 1908. His experiments in using CRTs not just to display images (static) but to capture them as well, provided the theoretical basis for CRT television systems.
Finally, because of the great weight of early electronic TV cameras, NASA resurrected a mechanical scanning system of much the same principal as JLB’s to transmitt moon landings etc.
Geri at 12:41 pm
Cultural differences…
“We’re not racist & drive about in vans terrorising immigrants to go…”
-and other holier than thou, fanciful ideas about the English. It was funny though, even if it wasn’t meant to be.
On the subject of regions, James Che should know that places such as East Anglia, The North East, etc. exist and send representatives to Parliament.
To those who occasionally pop up here berating Alex Salmond for asking for an electoral alliance with the SNP, just a couple of thoughts:
1. Do you really think he’s daft enough to ask a question he doesn’t already know the answer to?
2. Can’t you spot a win-win when you see one?
The man’s not so green as he is cabbage-looking.
A little look at the «British Council»
link to venicebiennale.britishcouncil.org
Pseud? Nous?
DasBlimp
Aye, & the English invented the kilt, whisky & dolly the sheep. We know. They’ve constantly tried to rewrite history for centuries. Were you there?
John Main.
England isn’t a race.
England hasn’t left Brussels. Both through Royalty & trade.
All you got for leaving the EU was more Tory authoritarianism starting with the vandalism on Holyrood. Remember the internal market, no consent pish as they seized powers returning? So you’ve not achieved anything at all. The Tories are about to unleash the beast of fascism on the UK.
Well done.
That’s what you won, shite in the rivers, fck all rights to protest about it & shite workers pay & conditions.
You weren’t *ruled* by the EU. They worked in conjunction for the good of everyone & no one had more consessions & opt-outs than the UK did.
You also haven’t really left the EU.
& NI, who is thriving, definitely hasn’t.
An iScot may or may not vote to return to the EU. I would prefer EFTA for a decade test on Scotland becoming Independent. You forget that the SNP don’t speak for everyone & will probably be feck all near an iScot negotiation.
Finally, it’s not racist to want to RETURN to being an independent country & cast of the shackles from our bigoted neighbours who have a well documented history of bigotry even today we see it in full flow at Westminster.
It’s normal for an ancient nation to return to Independence. Unionism has been & always was a massive FAIL. Dependency on a payout while you are being humped stupid by your bigger neighbour is ABNORMAL.
We only have to look at the recent furlough to see how this was NOT a family of Nations in a crisis. It was racist WASP first & fck the Scots as demonstrated so eloquently by the bigot BoJo every week in parly! ‘on yer knees Jocko & thank us for yer vaccine. We *allowed* you to have it’. Pffff!
Izzie @ 1.02
What could he say that you would find satisfactory?
Stuart MacKay
“The Scottish Enlightenment was very much a part of the British and European Enlightenment – the Scots shared the values of rationalism and humanism of Voltaire, Kant, Descartes and Rousseau, enriching it with their own very British empiricism.”
Voltaire said. “We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation.”
Kant, himself a third generation ‘German’ Scot (original spelling Cant) got back into philosophy after reading Hume.
James Jones
Those are regions of England LOL.
Big difference.
Yer not Andy Burnham are you? He also gets confused regards regions & countries of the UK.
From the shining stars at Believe in Scotland – the SNP newsletter, we have:
5 things you need to know about today’s independence paper announcement, link to archive.is
3. A written constitution will protect the NHS
…It protects us, through a written document, against the dismantling of our NHS and its replacement with an insurance and for-profit based system (as was promoted by the current Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in a book he co-authored).
There must be some mistake. Surely you mean Mike Russell, link to craigmurray.org.uk
Don’t bother clicking on the BiS link. It seems the SNP know as much about constitution writing as they do about biology.
Talking of Scottish inventions. It might interest some folks to know that I’ve been thinking about anti-gravity for a while now.
I had a breakthrough with my research in ma shed a couple of weeks ago.
I managed to create a batch of solid helium. And It turns out that solid helium barely vibrates at all.
In fact, solid helium is so different from the vibrations of our planet that, thanks to a new law of physics I also created whilst mulling over a ginger square, it is repelled by our planet in an anti-gravitational kind of way.
I think with a wee bit more development it could even become the drive power for starships.
I’ve decided to call my starship engine the “Solid Helium Anti Gravity” drive – or the SHAG drive for short.
It might well be that within a few years us Scots will be ‘SHAGGING’ our way across the universe.
Exploring strange new worlds; seeking out new life and new civilizations; boldly shagging where no-one has shagged before!
Geri says:
19 June, 2023 at 3:52 pm
DasBlimp
Aye, & the English invented the kilt, whisky & dolly the sheep
—-
No, they didn’t. More disinformation. Although I have heard that English whiskey is very good. I wouldn’t know, I can’t stand the stuff.
George Ferguson..
Well done to him.
That’s always been Scotland’s problem – talent has to leave our shores to find opportunity, prospects & advancement elsewhere.
The clearances never stopped.
The SNP Commandments
1 I am the transgender God, thou shalt have no gods before me.
2 Thou shalt not take the name of Sturgeon in vain.
3 Remember to keep holy the Month of Pride.
4 Honour daft Humza and the Murrells.
5 Thou shalt kill all hope of independence (Nicola)
6 Thou shalt commit adultery with thine ‘research assistant’ (Humza)
7 Thou shalt steal the indyref2 money and buy a motorhome (Peter)
8 Thou shalt bear false witness at the Salmond trial (the Alphabetties).
9 Thou shalt covet thy neighbour’s wife (Nicola again).
10 Thou shalt covet thy neighbour’s ass (Peter again).
Stuart MacKay @2:27pm
“Aberdeen infested with zombies was too good to pass up.”
Impossible to pass up, I’d say. 🙂
And thanks for the Samuel Greig link. Interesting stuff.
Northcode @ 4.10
When you read the book on anti-gravity did you find that you couldn’t put it down?
Lolz Northcode & Owen…
Northcode said:
It might well be that within a few years us Scots will be ‘SHAGGING’ our way across the universe.
—
Dirty boy! On past form it’s unlikely. The Scottish population is declining. So I don’t think there’ll be much spreading of the Scottish gene throughout the universe. Female alien life-forms needn’t worry.
@Geri 4:13pm
I joined a walking group and was asked by his parents to comment on the company he had joined. He has landed on his feet I said. And last year we persuaded our son from going to Australia. Actually it was a Consultant A and E that came up a solution. We have to get conditions that stop our young men and women from leaving. The SNP cannot be the Government after the next election. They look after their own members and not the population. The next scandal is social housing that has gone to SNP card carrying members rather than locals.
Geri says at 4:01 pm
James Jones
“Those are regions of England LOL.
Big difference..”
Intentional and relevant. They may also not get a government they voted for. “Oh, but Scotland’s a country.” What of it?
It is a peculiar psychology of a ex pat Scot turned unionist,
When you read comments, it is very noticible their want and need to be recognised as Scottish, to have the right to vote in Scotland by entitlement of some connection or ancestory to Scottish relations past or present,
Yet in the same breath they seem to have this internal battle within themselves of inferiority, you hear this constantly from these ex pats,
Scots cannot manage their economy without the rest of Britain,
Scots are not due any respect for the inventions of the modern world wether by participation or direct involvement.
Blaming Scots for bad politics while under uk legislation for half a pretendy wee Scottish parliament, must be blamed on Scots first,
That Scots would not know how to manage their oil, or revenues or been able to set up a future fund from that income,
An ex pat Scot is the first to be derogatory to his fellow Scot, perhaps more so than a english man would to a Scot,
Having Scots English, polish Welsh, American friends and acquaintances it is often only the ex pat Scot that learns to shame himself once they have left their Country.
The other nations do not do this to themselves, they remain proud of their heritage.
But contrary to their fight internally, They still want to belong, to be Scottish, to be Recognised by other Scots as Scottish.
I wonder sometimes when I read the Comments that it is not their sub conscious laying a guilt trip upon them for abandoning their homeland and Countryman for financial prosperity gains else where.
What develope’s is a need to “defer” blame on his fellow Scot rather than himself or than seeing the political manipulation at play in Britain for what it is,
It is easier to kick those nearest to you. And to look for different shoulders tohsng the sub conscious blame on.
Which ever is the truth, We can all see the Conflict on the commentary from ex pats We ARE Scottish, You Scots in Scotland should Recognise us as having a heritage right to our claim We are Scottish,
Scots are Stupid, Scot Cannot support themselves economically, Scots are not Clever enough to have made inventions on their own,
And the internal conflict goes on within themselves, and the seeds of their conflict finds no solace or comfort living in a in a in between world.
I feel your pain, James Che, I really do.
Stuart MacKay says: 19 June, 2023 at 4:09 pm
“From the shining stars at Believe in Scotland”
I’m struggling with this a bit… perhaps someone can clarify? Is this BELIEVE IN SCOTLAND LIMITED – SC719521 – a Private limited Company which lists Gordon MacIntyre Kemp as its sole Director? He is also its sole shareholder and person with significant control.
Said company lists the nature of its business as:
73200 – Market research and public opinion polling
85590 – Other education not elsewhere classified
But elsewhere claims “Believe in Scotland is a national campaigning organisation for Scottish Independence which exists to reach the undecided voters and to give a voice to and facilitate the needs of the grassroots Yes movement on a local and national level.”
It is also actively seeking donations from its web page.
Should this not actually be a “Private company limited by guarantee without share capital”?
They do claim “Believe in Scotland is managed by Business for Scotland Ltd” …which is (quite properly) Limited by guarantee. – As such businesses normally are.
I am struggling however to see how that ‘management’ isolates the sole Director and shareholder of “Believe in Scotland Ltd” or the assets of that company itself. This opens many questions…
Clearly; the company is not ‘dormant’ (i.e. ‘parked up to protect a name or IP) but is actively seeking to ‘trade’ through being funded by donations. The ‘optics’ of this are quite disturbing; especially when set against the background of the SNPs general conduct in relation to what we’ll coyly frame as “fundraising”.
What’s worse is that we can hardly put this down to a slip of the pen or (the non-defence of) general ignorance; given the nature of Mr MacIntyre-Kemp’s education.
Personally I’m struggling to reconcile what appears to be nothing more than an e-begging campaign with the objectives of ‘education’, polling public opinion or market research; likewise the chosen structure for what is going on, seems to me, inappropriate.
BLIMP
noun
A nonrigid, buoyant airship.
An obese person.
Any elderly pompous reactionary.
Excelsior!
Listening to MPs take revenge on Boris for doing what it said on the tin (and not being as sleekit as they continue to be over seasonal flu (FFS!)) question arises as to what an appropriate penalty might be for the whole house KNOWINGLY MISLEADING itself:
(a) GE with all sitting MPs suspended until next election, or
(b) Immediate termination of the treaty of union
nonrigid, obese, pompous. It’s like you know me Ottomanboi. We must meet up.
Merganser @4:34pm
“When you read the book on anti-gravity did you find that you couldn’t put it down?”
Indeed, Merganser. In fact the more I read the more it went up in my estimation.
I saw Angela Merkel mentioned upthread. Merkel is the name from her first marriage which ended in divorce in 1982. Her actual name is Kazmierczak, the family changed it to Kasner when moving to Germany from Poland. Her current husband is one of seven trustees of the Friede Springer Foundation, Springer being one of the richest people in Germany and owner of a media conglomerate, the largest in Europe, which includes Bild. Rather than state the obvious I would advise people to research Springer themselves to see the things which she is a trustee of.
[…] Why? Because let’s just say trust isn’t high right now. This independence paper is promising citizen participation with about as much specific detail as when the SNP told its membership they could get a chance to ‘discuss’ independence strategy at a special party conference. Of course, it turns out that what they can do is rather more like sit for an entire day listening to speeches from the SNP payroll. […]
Stuart MacKay @ 4:09 pm
“It seems the SNP know as much about constitution writing as they do about biology.”
Or ferries, the A9, freeports, the value of Scotland’s plundered economy, or the Scots language etc
Then again, the national party elite don’t even know that self-determination independence means decolonization.
James Che @4:48pm
You might be on to something there, James.
Alf Baird thinks, and I’m sure he’ll correct me if I’ve misunderstood some aspects of his theories on colonialism, that the psychological effects of colonisation on the colonised require a lot more study.
The human psyche is hugely complex, and there are probably a multitude of variables to consider when evaluating the impact of colonialism on a colonised people.
It might be that some of the effects of colonisation will manifest differently between individuals, but more homogeneously across the whole group.
But I don’t know and I’m only speculating; those are questions for brighter minds than mine.
@Merganser 4.34: “When you read the book on anti-gravity did you find that you couldn’t put it down?”
Shameless 🙂 .
@Geri 4.01: I think my favourite example of English ignorance of basic geography is Ian Botham’s immortal “England is an island.”
There’ll always be an England, of course (or so we are told) but the island is called Great Britain by geographers.
For those interested :
I used to visit the Bradford Film & Photography Museum.
Not been this century.
It’s is home to an I-max cinema, old technology etc
For me the gem is a working J L Baird set up.
@Sven 1:07pm
Thanks, I don’t know that it was particularly uplifting though!
@Geri says:19 June, 2023 at 3:52 pm
The Tories are about to unleash the beast of fascism on the UK.
Well done.
Nowt to do with me. Soz.
That’s what you won, shite in the rivers, fck all rights to protest about it & shite workers pay & conditions
Your beloved EU didn’t used to clean up rivers and still won’t if we ever join.
The trains have been on strike for what? a year now, with no signs of that stopping. Plenty of other strikes pending to ruin many people’s summer breaks.
Pay rising at record rates.
Do tell us more about the beast of Fascism though. How many heads? Wings? Fiery breath?
Northcode.
Touche!
Matt Quinn.
There is something very questionable about the way the SNP has targeted donations from people, the way it has recorded them (or not as the case may be), and the ultimate resting place for them. There appears to be a lot of ‘circularity’ for want of a better word.
I am reminded of wheels of chance, and the expression: “Round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows”
Now that Starmer has hitched up the Labour wagon to the ‘green jobs’ mirage and, in effect, sunk the North Sea oil industry it seems Scotland and the rest of the UK must inevitably lose that source of jobs and wealth in the very near future- save in the highly unlikely event that another Conservative government comes into being.
This also makes the UK wholly dependent on EVs-and diesel of course for anything serious; still, I’m sure Russia has plenty of that left…
@James Che says:19 June, 2023 at 4:48 pm
You missed one from your long list of things that Scots (allegedly) cannot do:
Scots cannot find an ethnic Scot to front their official Independence movement, or lead their wee, pretendy parliament.
I can see you have yet to get your head around that one, and I am sorry to see your subconscious overwhelming the shame that your conscious mind must feel at this travesty.
Which is why you can do exactly what you are accusing others of doing – pretend it never happened.
But the sooner we all confront the truth the better. Scotland has the only Independence movement in the world to have outsourced its leadership.
Matt Quinn @5:23pm
Believe in Scotland is best looked at as the spiritual wing of the MacIntyre Kemp business empire. Business for Scotland is more like “TedX for Independence”. If this was California they’d be promoting retreats for “Getting in Touch with your Personal Circular Economy” and “Outlander Experience Tours” to Edinburgh for women in their late forties who can see the sun setting every morning in the bathroom mirror. (That was horribly sexist and I’ll answer for it in Hell, I know).
https://www.voices.scot carries both BfS and BiS, more for a sense of balance than anything else. It’s certainly not for the riveting content. Again, see the link above. It’s a small part of the NGO Industrial Complex and it gives the SNP an outlet to float various kites.
dasBlimp
> Female alien life-forms needn’t worry.
Thanks for the complement – as long as the label matches the contents of the tin, Scots are quite happy.
Stuart MacKay says:
19 June, 2023 at 4:09 pm
From the shining stars at Believe in Scotland – the SNP newsletter, we have:
3. A written constitution will protect the NHS
This is actually a brilliant policy: if you’re smart enough to know why this is a ridiculously stupid idea, you weren’t going to vote SNP anyway.
Humza and the other roasters must be picking up tips from Nigerian email entrepreneurs.
Meganser @3.50 I don’t know. It does seem like there is no way out of this. Civil unrest would not gain support from the civilised world. UDI didn’t work in Rhodesia and God forbid we went down the Irish route. But it was people power that brought down Thatcher and the poll tax.
Robin McAlpine reminds us that the SNP NEC is now empowered to change the party constitution. He thinks their new system decided this month of electing the party Leader has cut out the membership completely.
Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. The SNP is no more going to reform itself than Boris Johnson is going to become honest.
Northcode @ 6:20 pm
“the psychological effects of colonisation on the colonised require a lot more study.”
Indeed they do.
One hypothesis needing tested may be that natives exhibiting higher levels of Appropriated Racial Oppression (ARO) will tend to hold a high propensity to vote against independence.
Another hypothesis may be that very little study of the psychological (or other) effects of colonisation on the colonised group occurs within a colonial society because so few academics are representative of the native group (approx just 1 in 10 across elite uni’s).
Izzie @ 7.21.
I will await with interest how you get on with your question at the conference, and the reply you receive, and how you feel about the whole event.
So the millionaire Knight of the Realm and leader of the Labour Party Sir Keir Starmer, wants to steal more Scots energy than England is already stealing by creating a GB power company, called GB Power that’s based in Scotland.
Alba MP Kenny MacAskill penned an article that showed Scotland is losing out on billions of pounds every year for its energy, because it being stolen by Westminster and the power companies, Starmer appears to want to cement that position for good at our expense.
Red,
Aha, you’re way too clever for me.
My problem with that that I was naive in thinking that a constitution was all about how a country is governed and how the governors can be held to account when things get out of hand – think along the lines of the death penalty for breach of public trust. It has very little to do with policy or law other than “you can do this, but stay well clear of that”. The deep-thinkers at BS were way ahead of me, but then, when you’ve dangled carrots for a many years as the SNP have, stuff “protect the NHS, vote for trans identity” come with no effort on their part.
The founding principles of the Scottish Parliament are Openess, Accountability and Equality for all. Failed on every count. No minutes recorded, no WhatsApp messages, no fair Committee scrutiny. See Linda Fabiani. Any Countries Constitutional integrity is based on principles. The SNP don’t understand the difference between a Party Manifesto and a Constitution. Here is the difference social housing goes to locals and not SNP members.
Imagine SNP managed the impossible and won a de facto referendum, at the next election, then within weeks, criminal proceedings brought the party down?
Which party, then takes over, to deliver independence? The election manifesto destroyed.
That existing threat to SNP, is reason enough as to why independence is not party policy. The organisation is utterly compromised.
Tinto Chiel @ 6.29pm
Shakespeare got it wrong too with, ‘This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle…..etc., but Botham couldn’t manage the poetry. Great poet, Shakespeare but like Botham, his geographical view was a wee bit…insular.
I know, I know….Going out now.
It seems to be very difficult for some people to confront the truth,
The Treaty of Union was A Hoax played upon Scots.
There, wrap your colonial brain around that truth,
The old English Westminster parliament did not dissolve, but certainly continued until 1708, then re-elected itself. And has continued ever since.
There wrap your Colonial brain around that truth,
The Scottish parliament was extinguished from the treaty of union in 1707, once ratification took place,
Scotland unbeknown to most Scots due to Colonial education do not realise that Westminster has been lauding it over Scotland with a Colonial flag only for more than three hundred years.
Scotland retained its independence from the English Westminster parliament by default of the extinguished Scottish parliament in England,
I hear you crying into your hanky .
Don’t talk about it, I would rather you didn’t, I can’t face the truth, wail wail wail. I don’t want Scotland to wake up, wail wail, I don’t want Scotland to leave us without a hiccup, wail wail, I don’t want you to tell anyone else, sob sob,
I can hear you,
I can’t face the truth, wail, sob, I wish you would stop talking about it, slurping up sliver and snots that is running down your top lip,
The treaty is sooo…old no one is interested, wail wail,
You can’t walk away from us in England any way cos yous guys is in a old treaty with us unionist,
Aye the truth is hard to hear if your are in favour of a everlasting union, even harder to acknowledge if you realise it was the unionist side that made a balls up of the treaty when they extinguished Scotland from it, then ratified it.
Blind eyes never see, and selective hearing will never hear,
We can walk away with no repercussions financially other than some reparations to Scotland from the illegal Colonisation, and reparations for the illegal hoax played on Scots by the Westminster singalong treaty Hoax all these years.
I hear you, it totally, I hear your denial of the truth, Shut up Che or us unionist will try get you cancelled.
Shut up, shut up sob sob, sniff, hiccup while the bubbles coming out the side of you’re mouth burst and slice down your chin,
Oh Wail oh wail, I need support, come other unionist jump in, squash that information before all the Scots wake up,
Dribble dribble. Wah haa ha ha red rimmed eyes not focusing any comprehension otherthan htred of those stupid Scots
Obviously, English isn’t your first language, James Che. You are trying and good for you but there’s a bit of a way to go yet. I did like the bit about bubbles slicing down your chin, though.
@JGedd 8.28: yes, insular. As an antidote I would normally quote MacDiarmid on these occasions but, knowing that Old Grumpy Campbell hates poetry, I will restict myself to a link:
link to scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk
To think at one time the SNP frauds used to stand up in Holyrood wearing the wee white rose, just as the Skye Blowhard stood up in WM and assured us that Scotland would not be dragged out of the EU against our will.
Och, well, we live and learn.
The population of Scotland, and Europe, is projected to drop this century, in Africa meanwhile the number of inhabitants is estimated to reach 4.2 billion people by 2100.
In Africa, for the moment, people are considered «a resource» not a costly societal liability.
The national prob no one is prepared to address.
link to nrscotland.gov.uk
@James Che says:19 June, 2023 at 8:36 pm
We can walk away with no repercussions financially other than some reparations to Scotland from the illegal Colonisation, and reparations for the illegal hoax played on Scots by the Westminster singalong treaty Hoax all these years
Well, James, that’s certainly a plan.
As those living in the Great Satan would say, “let’s run it up the flagpole and see if anybody salutes”.
You know what, I don’t mind UDI as a “plan”. As long as it is made crystal before the HR or WM election in the manifesto: “Return us with a majority and we will declare UDI”.
How could I object? How could anybody? Scots voting democratically to install a government that intends to declare UDI. Exactly as promised in the manifesto.
I will be honest with you though, James. I foresee one or two realpolitik pitfalls along the way. So maybes that’s why no serious Scottish politicians have ever stuck UDI on their manifesto.
Just saying.
@Republicofscotland says:19 June, 2023 at 7:54 pm
Scotland is losing out on billions of pounds every year for its energy
I think you are adopting the mindset of the colonialist oppressor there, RoS.
Easy enough error to make, in fact I often make it myself, by asking how much richer I (and other Scots) could be post-Indy.
But still, try to remember it’s not about the money, RoS. No way.
John Main 6:53
Of course the EU cleaned up the shite running into rivers. They set up environmental standards to keep, remember the clean beaches campaigns? The UK was swimming in shit before it.
They also set workers safety standards, pay & conditions so ppl stopped dying of hazardous conditions at work.
They also set the minimum wage, holiday & maternity pay & were about to do the same with pensions before Brexshit happened.
Now all those rights are replaced with a super duper Tory version. Work until yer fcked & screw yer conditions. Pollute the beaches all you like & let’s reverse that standards malarkey. When can we frack the fck out of the jocks & get some GM crops planted to trash thier branding. Slap a jack on everything & fk animal welfare, origins & branding protections.
Fk that protesting malarkey too. Anyone who makes a noise gets it & let’s make it illegal to strike too..
The train saga is over safety. Just like the nurses strikes were over safety.
George Fergasun 4:38
SNP are ex Labour. Of course they slipped back into Labour traits of preferential treatment to thier friends & family.
Holyrood has been a fail since the committee stage fail to do thier job & actually scrutinise bills. A problem by appointing 2nd rate politicians because they’ve purple hair & like vegan or wear Union Jack socks while shouting Queens Eleven & FTP! Rather than appointing the best ppl for the job. Sturgeons equality drive went tits up when she’d to deep dive into the manky swamp marked ‘sycophants & mentally ill candidates found here’ & allowed them to be rubber stamped as suitable for election. Unionists did the same. Ruth’s candidates all came from the knuckle dragging ranks of the orange order.
I don’t see that changing because Holyrood is a mini Westminster. We can’t sack individuals for being an arsehole under achiever until we’re Independent.
@Ottomanboi says:19 June, 2023 at 8:53 pm
In Africa, for the moment, people are considered «a resource» not a costly societal liability
Naw, they’re nae.
Beyond belief that you can have that one completely arse over tit.
Anton Decadent 6:08 pm
Sorry if that was me. I meant Markle as in Meghan Markle.
Despised by the English for daring to leave. *Coming over here & stealing our Prince* bullshit. The Aussies also fell into line as did the yanks with baying for her blood while pretending it was nothing to do with her colour. A typical trait of the English colonisers mindset passed down from generation to generation. They’ve zero self awareness how crass they are & spiteful looking for revenge.
Merganser says: 19 June, 2023 at 6:57 pm
“There is something very questionable about the way the SNP has targeted donations from people, the way it has recorded them (or not as the case may be), and the ultimate resting place for them.”
Of course BfS/BiS will tell you ‘they’re not the SNP’ – perhaps they’re just very naughty boys.
Stuart MacKay says: 19 June, 2023 at 7:07 pm
“Believe in Scotland is best looked at as the spiritual wing of the MacIntyre Kemp business empire. Business for Scotland is more like “TedX for Independence”.
Further up the ‘thread’ I pointed out how the vast majority of real-world businesses in the UK are tiny; basically one-man-bands – microbusinesses; and made it clear that I see nothing wrong with that; one such business has put a roof over my head, raised my child and puts food on the table for nearly 37 years. – It’s been a living; for most business people, that’s what it is. – They stay grounded; they have to. That’s reality.
– It is however quite risible when you encounter the ‘Arfur Daley/Dell Boy’ types that spout endless quasi-corporate bullshit about being ‘global this’ and ‘global that. – Full of buzzwords and theories they’ve picked up off the internet; ‘fake it till you make it’ types. – Less funny are the various grifters and chancers that play Pied Piper for them.
Let’s put it this way… if your ‘world class’, ‘global’, ‘macroeconomic’ business took a steady five-hundred quid a day (excluding weekends) on average, your turnover would be £130K; that’s market trader/Ebay seller territory.
In such a situation your books probably wouldn’t be showing a ‘business’ worth just over two-hundred quid net either! …If you’d built an actual ’empire’ you probably wouldn’t have got into the situation where one of your businesses was owed just short of (a presumably irrecoverable) £52K, itself owed just a little over £52K and was resultantly worth less than £600 when you had it struck off.
Given that these things were debtor/creditor entries…where did the £52k come (was borrowed) from? Where did it go (was ‘lent’) to?
Such escapades don’t really give the impression of evidencing a business mastermind at work… Not exactly another Alan Sugar in terms of being a shrewd ‘playa’… Perhaps not best placed to be preaching from on high and proclaiming the way the truth and the light?
Empire you say? – that takes the biscuit! 😉
@Geri says:19 June, 2023 at 9:15 pm
Wow, you are certainly having a bad day.
frack the fck out of the jocks stands out for some reason.
So does The train saga is over safety. Just like the nurses strikes were over safety
Anybody know the death count from the industrial action the nurses are taking over safety?
Anybody?
Please don’t tell me there are people who think the longer you stay away from hospital, your check ups, your scans, your chemo, your operations, etc. then the safer you are?
Please don’t tell me there are people who truly believe guff like this?
Che
Seek medical help!
I guess an Alba-Conservative coalition is on the cards. They have the same energy policy. Energy policy is a prime driver of the economic system, as everybody knows. It takes extra brains to explain how to burn more oil and reduce carbon emissions. None of the oil pumpers here have managed that so far. They are in effect denialists. Or maybe they do believe the science but just don’t care about the horrors it predicts, dazzled by their sovereign wealth fantasies.
H.Y attempted to differentiate SNP’s plan from Labour’s moratorium-on-new-wells policy by emphasising that he wants a “Just Transition” though, which came across as a wink to the North East oilmen. They have already benefitted most from decades of harmful exploitation.
The Just Transition should have been started by Salmond’s administration, likewise the house insulation project Harvie pushed Salmond for in a budget vote, but bottled.
Despite all the oil we have not reduced poverty in any obvious way. Living standards for working people have gone down. What would continuing with it achieve?
@Geri says:19 June, 2023 at 9:28 pm
nothing to do with her colour
Aw Geri.
I have more photos than I can count of me looking browner than Meghan ever does.
A week in the sun is all it takes.
I would say your increasingly deranged posts are also showing clear evidence of your week in the sun.
Stay indoors until you recover.
@fruitella the hun says:19 June, 2023 at 9:40 pm
Despite all the oil we have not reduced poverty in any obvious way. Living standards for working people have gone down.
Is that right? Sorry to hear you missed out. Plenty of working Scots have coined it in. You should have got off your arse while you had the chance.
What would continuing with it achieve?
Excellent question. Starting tomorrow, Fruit, eliminate all fossil fuel use from your life. Petrol, gas, you know the sort of thing. Public transport too if fossil fueled. Eliminate all plastics. All deliveries (including stuff delivered to your shops) where fossil fuel or plastic packaging, or oil-based fertiliser, was used.
Not sure how your leccy is generated? Switch it off and stop reading/posting here until you are guaranteed fossil free.
Put your money where your big, stupid mouth is. Report back here in a month – let us know how it went. Assuming you are still in the land of the living.
Good luck.
On the matter of Scotland “never getting the government it voted for”, it isn’t true. There have been occasions when the Scottish vote tipped the balance and put Labour in, doubtless to the disappointment of opposition voters in countries/counties/cities (regions) across the Union, but that’s democracy for you.
Some contributors here seem to have retrospectively decided that the Union of parliaments should have meant Scottish MPs had a bloc veto. Was it ever recognised that the rest of the Union would have to bow to Scotland’s will whenever Scotland decided it didn’t want to abide by the will of the wider Parliament, or that Scotland could opt out of key decisions?
How many divorces do you know of where one side walks away in the manner James Che suggests? An independent Scotland would have to get used to negotiation and international diplomacy, yet indie-supporters seem ready to ignore all that from the off. It’s not a good look.
So denialist then. Thought so.
John Main.
What on earth are you on about?
Nurses & paramedics are overworked & understaffed. Of course it was over safety. If you’d bothered to listen to them they’d harrowing stories to tell of ppl needlessly DYING waiting 8 hours on an ambulance or dying in corridors waiting to be seen. Overstretched & underfunded.
I recently had 4 weeks in hospital. 4 nurses for 30 patients in the ward & 3 porters for 650 bed hospital. A simple scan from ward to scan department & back again to yer bed could take up to 5 hours. Not great eh? & That was internal pressures (not counting outpatients & emergency) Especially if it’s a fasting scan & you’d assume yer only nipping down a few floors. It’s not. 1. You need a porter & 2. You need staff on the machine. For 650 bed. Of course it’s patient safety. Some poor sods need round the clock bed care, spoon fed etc. They weren’t there for the fun of it to watch daytime telly. One nurse was 66 yrs old and was trying to shuffle from bed to bed helping the sick when she should’ve been at home retired instead.
You really are a plank. Cloth eared Tory voter. I bet you think we should all pay private eh? The Tory wet dream.
The trains are the same. Overcrowding, underfunded & customer safety while running on Victorian tracks as old as Moses to appease Tory donors who are only interested in a buck.
No one made England the superior power. No one.
It doesn’t get to dictate terms to the other half of the Union, is: Scotland.
Who the fck gave them sole permission over OUR referendums & elections? No one.
There was terms & conditions prior to the Act of Union being agreed. There are countless episodes of that being broken to the point of declaring it void. The Supreme Court decision has put the tin lid on it.
Treaties are internationally recognised documents. Treaties can be terminated with international recognition of them being for just cause & outdated pish. Scotland is NOT unique. The same rules apply. Otherwise we’re a colony & we can fast track to the decolonisation department & declare UDI.
Countries recognise other countries. Not the imperial masters permission slip. Unless they (England) want to sit in the dark they’ll be first in the queue to see what they can scaveng.
We’re not stupid. An iScot knows we need partners. We’re not isolationist little Englander brexshiteers.
Scotland doesn’t tip the balance anywhere. That is another Unionist myth. Sometimes England decides it’s had enough of Tory & wants Tory lite. That’s fck all result of the Scottish vote.
“Starting tomorrow, Fruit, eliminate all fossil fuel use from your life”
You and I both know that that’s impossible in the current way of the world.
What we can do, though, is reduce it as much as is possible. I’m now in the happy position of working a 5-minute bicycle ride / 15-minute casual saunter away from my flat. I bought a bus pass earlier in the year, so my motor vehicle use has dropped hugely. Motorbike use was about 4,000 miles a year; I’ve done less than 300 in the last 6 months but it’s a useful thing to have. The van’s a bit different, as it’s usually shifting things for people who don’t have a van. It’s a useful tool which, over its 25-odd year lifetime, has done around 3,000 miles per year.
One thing about walking to work is that you can look at traffic and see just how many cars contain only one person. Those are the folk that you need to persuade to use the bus or dig their bike out of the shed.
@ Geri at 10.15pm: I’m a former train driver and I have a friend who is a nurse in a big city hospital, and I can confirm that what you said is exactly right. Train drivers work ten-hour shifts with constantly-changing starting and finishing times, often starting at 4am or finishing after midnight and driving hundreds of miles each day with minimal breaks, and they cannot and must not make even the slightest mistake. Every signal must be obeyed; every stop made from 100mph to an exact point. Understaffing has been endemic on the railway since privatisation and train drivers are under constant pressure to work overtime, rest days and Sundays. People are not robots, but train drivers are treated as if they are! Likewise nurses: grossly under-staffed, two nurses looking after an entire high-dependency ward, twelve-hour shifts doing a highly responsible job. Anybody who thinks the people who do jobs like these have no cause for complaint hasn’t got the slightest clue. I doubt if they would last a day as a train driver or a nurse.
John Main
Speaking of deliveries & waste of fuel…
Did you know they transport tatties fae Ayrshire to Leeds to be wrapped in a Jack & transported back to the shops to be sold?
No wonder they go to seed so fast these days because of that branding union jack pish!
Fuel, driver costs, road delays & wear & tear potholes, staff, packaging, traffic on roads for its return journey & all for a fking fleg. Lol..Do they taste any better?
The population of Scotland has not benefitted in any way from our own vast resources & the abundance of wealth they create. Close them until the licenses are all returned to thier rightful owners. It’s Scotland’s oil to do wtf they like with it.
It only benefits Unionist shareholders in thier offshore accounts & refurbishes England from the shit show it used to be & funds illegal invasions.
Very interest stats on the NHS from a leading expert using facts and not political alliance’s.
Taking into account the growing population, an increasing percentage of elderly citizens and new procedures the NHS before the Tories came to power was receiving 5.8% annual increases.
Since Tory control in 2010 the NHS has a negative ratio each year.
Call it austerity, Tory greed to feed the rich, recession or whatever the Tories are slowly strangling the NHS in hope of making money with insurance companies, private hospitals
and loan companies.
A friend I’m agony yet still working can take no more waiting on a hip replacement is taking out a £16,000 loan with House at risk if work was impossible after recovery.
A Tory victory squeezed out suffering and 50 years of paying them National Insurance.
Michael Laing
Spot on!
You listen to Tory eejits who think they should all work for nothing because it’s some sort of vocational calling while they pocket £100k plus benefits, 2nd homes, travel & side hustles with annual pay rises. Jeez! You really have to wonder what planet these ppl arrived from & those apologist sycophants who defend them with the usual old Boxer motto of *should’ve tried harder* Pure greed & not a clue how the other half live.
It can’t be ignorance. It’s on the news daily the dangers of train drivers & nurses face on a daily basis. It wasn’t that long ago a few died working on the tracks due to lack of safety equipment or nurses suffering breakdowns & leaving the profession altogether due to unbearable pressures. 12 hours shift until 67. Jeez..
You’re right, they wouldn’t cope living in the real world & probably have never got thier hands dirty a day in thier life.
My sister went private for surgery.
A total nightmare that nearly cost her her life. (Blood poisoning)
Treated as a conveyor belt.
In & out & don’t come back unless you’ve paid for extra care.
They refused a follow up until my Mam dragged her there by car. Call an ambulance stat! Was the response the minute they seen her as she was quickly transferred to the NHS where they saved her life & two weeks later she was allowed home.
There is absolutely no room for complications unless you have London treasury at home with a blank cheque book.
What do we expect from a party under the control of a cabal of pronoun fanatics? Certainly not independence.
Geri says on 19 June 2023 at 10:55 pm:
“It’s Scotland’s oil to do wtf they like with it.
It only benefits Unionist shareholders in their offshore accounts & refurbishes England from the shit show it used to be & funds illegal invasions.”
I remember very well during the 2014IndyRef campaign there was a poster/A5 Card doing the rounds. Top half showed a very desolate shithole of a London skyline during the 70’s when oil was being discovered in Scottish waters. The bottom half showed a modern day photo of a wealthy and vibrant London skyline 40 years on and a trillion miles away from the poor pre-1970’s London. I think it had in big lettering across the middle something like: THEN SCOTLAND’S OIL WAS DISCOVERED
It was a cracking message, done very well. Can’t seem to find it these days.
You cannot do UDi unless you are part of another Country, and you are declaring your separation from it doh,
We have no need to declare UDI, Westminster parliament did the honours for us in 1707,
Not facing the truth is a problem for unionist it seems.
“One thing about walking to work is that you can look at traffic and see just how many cars contain only one person. Those are the folk that you need to persuade to use the bus or dig their bike out of the shed.”
——–
I used to walk to work when I was younger, thankfully, the factory was nearby. These days, you’re still expected to work for next to hee haw but you’ve to simultaneously ‘save the planet’. Good luck. You deserve better.
I see the Rutherglen Constituency reecall petition opens today. Now, all they need is to find around 7,000 voters to sign this petition and they can have their by-election.
I dare say the various parties, even the SNP, will be doing all they can to round-up that many voters who are bothered.
For me, given a choice between Margaret Ferrier and some apparatchik who suits the current leadership of any of the political parties – i rather hope they cannot find 7,000 examples of voter fodder, willing to sign-up.
Geri, Stoker
On independence we may acquire the rights to the remaining oil in our consequent territorial waters but what chance us there of the English ruling class (or their other classes for that matter) letting us waltz off with it? Much mire likely we will negotiate it away as part of the divorce – and we don’t need it for fuel given som feasible changes in our infrastructure.
Undrilled oil everywhere needs to stay where it is. That seems impossible to many folk now but give it a couple more years and the need should be obvious to anyone who understands the interaction between the industrial economy as inherited and the biosphere we depend on for peaceful survival.
Iain mhor @ 12:53 pm
“I don’t know where our resident squaddie stands on Unionism”
The colonial arrangement ‘disfigures the colonized’ as well as the colonizer (Albert Memmi); their minds are shaped by the colonial environment and their role in maintaining ‘the racket’ and ‘protecting the colonizers interest’.
As Frantz Fanon put it: “In colonized countries, colonialism, after having made use of the natives on the battle-fields, uses them as trained soldiers to put down the movements of independence. The ex-service associations are in the colonies one of the most anti-nationalist elements which exist.”
We do not have to look very far for such examples.
JOHNMAIN 9:16pm
We may beg to differ on the matter of of the «value» of population, nevertheless future Scotland is projected to be a geriatric country with the young sensibly getting out as soon as they can.
A potential reality on an old theme no Scottish political org. Is prepared to address. Certainly the hyped values of so called genderism contribute nothing.
The UN view of the matter. link to un.org
Unfortunately, it omits to mention the need for home grown «expertise» in the familiar fields of government, education, planning, economics, infrastructural development inter alia.
Reproduction is also a Europe wide concern.
And then there’s this- link to bbc.co.uk
All makes Scotland and the UK look totally «out of it».
Oops, obvious typos in my recent pist. Ipad keyboard combined with trying to get it posted before the site parkie stirs.
The reason politicians don’t do it, is it would have an instant effect on their pocket,
It was a politician that drew my attention to the treaty of union hoax, but that very politician sits happily going the long way round today like diverted traffic,
It needs the people to wake up to the politicians and the pretence they play of fighting for independence,, and I am not pointing that accusation at just the Snp,
Because “they”were not a Snp politician,
fruitella the hun says: at 9:00 am
“Undrilled oil everywhere needs to stay where it is. That seems impossible to many folk now but give it a couple more years and the need should be obvious to anyone who understands the interaction between the industrial economy as inherited and the biosphere we depend on for peaceful survival.”
As I tuck in to yet another 1/2 pound of homegrown strawberries for my breakfast… I ponder that if we are all to use these planet saving modern day Sinclair C5 equivalents to get about, then the huge machinery required to mine the mineral ores used in all the batteries, and the huge ships that will transport this ore about the planet will all need diesel or bunker fuel propulsion.
Fairly sure ripping out existing state of the art quiet electric storage heaters which could be powered by renewables, only to replace them with noisy but complex air source heatpump systems that take a lot of minerals and energy to create ain’t that green an idea.
But when we have fucking idiots making decisions and spaffing taxpayers’ cash away on clagging all this “planet saving” pish onto houses that aren’t even well insulated or double glazed, then you know the game’s a bogey.
ALFBAIRD.
It is predictable in the scheme of things for a country’s history interpreted by third parties to be by design a «fabrication».
It is a truism that the victors and their local enablers will write your history books and teach the contents to your children in the language of those victors. You were nothing until we discovered you.
In addition, there is so much superficial, and biased according to who funds the research, scholarship to contend with in academia.
Random thought;
Wouldn’t it be great to have Dan as Minister for Sustainable Energy & Housing over a reasonable time scale.
With Stuart Ballantine & Prof Baird leading a Ferry & Ports Development Project.
Never going to happen, but I bet it would be great.
Nicola Sturgeon – ‘that’ Brexit speech, the one that prompted publication of The Betrayer in this place.
A lot of us avoided watching this at the time because we knew roughly what she was going to say.
But it’s shocking, in retrospect, how brazen she was.
We mustn’t ever forget this or let her get away with it.
Boris Johnson has, at least, been served some punishment by WM.
When will she get what she deserves?
link to youtube.com
Glasgow follows Edinburgh in bringing Cult propaganda into schools.
This is dangerous propaganda and parents are being excluded.
link to twitter.com
Dan
Dan, not sure what your point is. Is it that, like it or not, we have to keep using – and therefore finding – oil to keep our current lifestyle going?
As I am clear that our current lifestyle is destroying the human world as well as the natural (same thing, when you know how to look), I accept the changes we need to make.
With you on high-tech greenwash contraptions. A spade is all that’s really needed for survival one year to the next (given the ratio of humans to other meat in the landscape at this moment in our history) as long as seed is stored over winter. And a plot of land of course. We can do that easily and still have most of our time, and space, for farting about (or practicing defence tactics…)
I know this is beyond the comprehension of some but I’m pretty sure you get it!
Dan,
Note that those pushing climate change still have plastic soled shoes on and not wooden cloc’s , keep connected on plastic component phones and laptops,
Probably drive plastic shell cars with electric “climate change” dangerous batteries,
Used their plastic kitchen untensils like blenders, washing machines, fridges and freezers that have plastic coatings and interiors,
And the cooker with plastic coated electric cables.
And forget to study geology which confirms their was once a ice age, but the planet went through global warming climate change in a big way, but then geological studies show this has happened many times in a cyclic pattern to varying degrees,
Someone somewhere is being paid lots of money to convince stupid people.
I suppose killing wildlife such as hares, rabbits, foxes, badgers, deer, hedgehogs is now good for planet.
Unbalancing Britains eco system for the future,
We have to remember it is not the poor people doing the damage to the planet , but the big Corporations and the politicians in parliament whom provide licences to drag the depths of the oceans, to cut down natural habitats for palm tree oil, or like the UK whom is helping itself to many barrels of oil today, under the radar,
Those same people ( politicians) introduced, and provided chemical licenses for spraying crops, even sent the farmers on government corses how to handle them,
It would be the same kind of big Corporations that are spewing sewerage into the sea down south, while another big Corporation like Sepa ignore it, and climate change extremist are far away throwing paint on a Monet.
JAMES CHE 10:45
Planet Earth has a dynamic that does not need human meddling on the level of the emotive «Gaia» model. There have been, according to source, perhaps six «mass extinction events» during which biodiversity has been radically depleted yet life of some sort has survived. The dinosaurs, re-designed, are still with us, and mammals of course. Climate changes, land shifts, earthquakes and vulcanism reshape the landscape in a «normative» manner, often to the disturbance of human settlements.
However, letting corporations do as they might please with an entity they can never «own» is another issue.
Bio-Science being made subject to the fancies of greedy commerce and maudlin sentimentality is a recipe for the current mashup.
On a dynamic planet humans must be also.
There is no going back to Eden.
Izzie..
I win my virtual £100 quid LOL!
Dumbza : “we have to keep building support”
That’s it. That’s the elastic plan!
link to albaparty.org
Interesting.
Humsa was on the telly last night, that one on STV; he wasn’t getting it hardball I would say, but just the kind of questions he should have already prepared for.
– he came across a bit funny, at times it was like he was channelling David Brent
… ipso facto … vis a vis …
I was waiting for a smug grin and a look to the camera and then an announcement he was giving up politics to get back into music
– what is urdu for “foregone conclusion”.
An office style show of SNP headquarters would be good
– lots of fat women, with rainbow pride badges and flags stuck everywhere, at their cubicles, all playing minesweeper and monitoring various twitter accounts for transphobia
– in a back room, a shifty wee bald guy is absolutely hammering this crosscut paper shredder, and telling people “I’m not in … ”
– the locked door, no one goes in or out, except the bald guy. People are trained not to even ask about the locked door.
– comic highlight; the greens turn up for a conference, lots of strained silences and looks to camera, especially when lorna slater speaks
“shutdown the oil, stop building or repairing roads; wind farms mining bitcoin to pay for free transitioning surgery for all scots”
I have been wondering about what might happen next and if anyone has any suggestions I do want to hear them. What I see as key possibilities are:
1)Nicola gets off and returns to take control. She does nothing about indy and fudges the general election refusing to compromise with the movement. The number on MPs crash as does the SNP vote. She resigns and is given a peerage or some other gift by UK
2)Nicola faces court during an election and the MPs are all out. Humza blames Nicola and thinks he can rebuild. Alba goes on the rise and indy might happen in another 10 years
Humza remains in control for a while and is replace by KF. No change to the collapse
3)Nicola pleads guilty for quick trial, Humza comes to compromise with movement, next election the SNP and others win the majority of seats and votes followed by UK rejecting the result.
I think number 1 is the most likely but am open to suggestions.
In all fairness to Humza he is left holding the can and to be fair it is not his fault. He can only succeed if he gets into the SNP HQ with a scalpel and excise the dead wood around him
James, Dan,
Here’s one more item for the green-washing list. Electric trucks are roughly 2.25 tonnes heavier than their diesel counterparts. So, for trucks with a carrying capacity of 25 tonnes we’ll need 10% more trucks to move the same amount of stuff. More wear and tear on roads and bridges. More space needed for container terminals. Maybe those containers can’t be as full as they used to be so we’ll need more containers, more ships, more port space and more distribution hubs built on farmland. The ripples extend as far as you care to imagine.
Thank goodness we have Lorna on the case. I’m sure she has this all figured out already.
Ottomanboi “There is no going back to Eden”
That’s true, time travel is unimaginable for the vast majority of us non-physicists, and this assumes Eden was the beginning of the human story. There seems to be “going forward” to Hell though, if we are not astute enough to divert.
Quoting AS:
“No hydrocarbon province can operate on zero exploration and development. For a start, that’s where the jobs are concentrated. They would cost tens of thousands of skilled jobs in Scotland and provoke a collapse in high tech supply industries – the very companies needed by the growing offshore renewables sector.”
What is a “hydrocarbon province?
Why would the “… very companies needed by the growing offshore renewables sector…” collapse if they switched from oil exploration to renewables provision?
Despite greenish inferences in their wee book, Alba is an oil-based party. To me that means they don’t follow the science. I doubt I’ll be voting for them again.
@ fruitella
My point was that oil and gas will still be needed for some considerable time whilst a transition is made by certain energy and resource hungry societies to kerb their excessive consumption and exist in more sustainable ways.
And also that the production of supposedly “planet saving” electric vehicles isn’t exactly a net zero industry because they are also packed with tech and resources that take considerable energy to produce.
As an aside I understand there currently isn’t a single vehicle insurance assessor in Scotland qualified to comprehensively check over accident damaged leccy vehicles.
It is possible to live an interesting and fulfilling life without using excessive amounts of energy or resources. But so many folk don’t seem able or even want to alter how they live.
Stu retweeted this yesterday which gives some global perspective on our emissions. But it’s also worth remembering that since the UK makes virtually heehaw now due to de-industrialisation, we have just offset much of our would be manufacturing industry emissions to elsewhere on the planet, where they also get the economic benefit of jobs to produce the stuff we import.
link to twitter.com
Dan
“Stu retweeted this yesterday which gives some global perspective on our emissions.”
The argument that individual self-restraint produces a result so insignificant that nobody would think it a worthwhile sacrifice is pretty much the way the communists took over the green movement with their “system change” agenda they had prepared (much, a century or more) earlier. Ironically, the same device is used to mock the UK taking any action in global terms. It’s bogus.
Did you read on down that twitter page? Usual right-wing nut job suspects in abundance
Now if I remember basic science humans are made partly of and hydro.
First the cows, then the sheep, then wee furry animals and then humans.
Mmmm.
Hydro+ carbon = human beings.
In all the stories about Nicola’s front door interview and return after a week to parliament, did anyone ask here what she had been up to that week.
It’s a nice job if you can just take an extra week off on top of your fifteen weeks of holidays.
@ fruitella
Aye, I did actually expand and read all the comments yesterday, so prior to posting the link. I don’t see an abundance of right wing nutjobs. Most of the comments seemed to be pretty rational discourse related to the original post subject matter.
I’ve been out for a 8 mile mountainbike ride to get some exercise and keep my muscular system balanced. My back was not unexpectedly beginning to show slight pain after a week of long physical work shifts in high temps lifting slates up and down ladders and working in odd body positions on the roof. Cycling helps work the other muscles that can counter the problem of humans developing bad posture and associated issues because of sedentary lifestyles and working at a desk for long hours.
Humans create so many of their own and society’s problems, yet lack the discipline or will power to alter their habits to make a difference.
I get that some folk really struggle due to negative life circumstances or disabilities, but I find it difficult to accept or excuse normal able bodied folk with time on their hands making fuck all effort to do even the most basic of tasks such as recycle their waste properly in the respective bins located at their back doors provided and emptied by their local authority.
The concept that humans should have any legitimate authority on the long term destiny of this planet is pretty laughable when those in power can’t state what a woman is, start wars which ain’t a particularly environmentally friendly pastime, and can piss taxpayers’ money on flawed initiatives such as the Deposit Return Scheme, or the latest wheeze of fitting air source heatpumps on unsuitable properties*. And lets not forget global commerce and trade which includes the insanity of shipping lamb from New Zealand to Scotland.
It’s frankly pretty bloody comical how humans can be so emotional and concerned about so many things but at the same time so fucking dense and unable to critically think their way out and resolve so many of the issues that plague us.
Maybe it’s just our destiny that in the intergalactic scheme of things we really aren’t that bright or special. After all, a reality check is that human beings are basically just a dna strain host carrying their own unique genetic makeup over the passage of time of their lifetime. Some reproduce to continue a semblance of their dna into the future journey, whilst others now choose to have their sex organs hacked off so effectively self selecting eugenics stopping their particular dna continuing.
So similarly to a bacteria sustaining its existence in a petri dish, if the parameters that humans currently exist in alter too much, we’ll be gone soon enough and return to space compost.
*The grant subsidies are something like 7.5 grand for an ASHP installation. I’ve 7 ASHP being fitted to unsuitable properties in close proximity to my own property. That’s 52 grand of taxpayer funded subsidies, so goodness knows how much is being spent nationwide on this.
Dan
Is Stu’s retweet a message that we are too wee (and too stupid?) to do anything about climate change or is he just trying to stir debate, do you think?
[…] hard that a change of leadership in the SNP would lead to a new approach. It hasn’t – this weekend’s conference really demonstrates how little has changed, how much we’re still stuck in the same loop, how […]