You are all idiots
Not our judgement, you understand, but that of Scottish Labour spokesclown Michael Kelly, former Lord Provost of Glasgow, speaking on today’s Good Morning Scotland:
(Good Morning Scotland, BBC Radio Scotland, 19 August 2015, 2h 47m)
.
Appearing with a clearly embarrassed Stephen Purcell – the party’s former leader of Glasgow City Council who’s now in the running for the job again following the departure of Gordon Matheson – Kelly echoed the view of right-wing commentators like STV’s Stephen Daisley, the Spectator’s Alex Massie and Chris Deerin of the Daily Mail that the Scottish electorate is in the grip of a kind of quasi-religious mania, hoodwinked out of all reason by the dastardly brainwashing SNP:
“At the moment we’ve got a Teflon-covered SNP and Scottish Governmnent that appears to be able to do no wrong… Nothing sticks, they can get away with all of these things and people still fall over themselves to vote for them.
That’s why I think it’s an irrational kind of voting, and until voters come to their sense and actually look at the arguments again, and appreciate them, the Labour Party’s going to have a very very tough time in Scotland.”
So there you go. You’re just a bunch of thick morons who haven’t appreciated the arguments for the last eight years and need to come to your senses and vote Labour again. We trust you’ve all learned your lesson.
They don’t get that the SNP is only temporary state of affairs, a means to a better democracy
Yeah, that will be right.
Bloody cheek.
Hahahaha… “until voters come to their senses…”
Aye. Right. Thanks for the heads-up!
You are all just a big bunch of bullies! BOO HOO!
You won’t do what WE tell, you. BOO HOO!
WE are the party that you need. BOO HOO!
WE can save you all from this nasty SNP party. BOO HOO!
You have all been infiltrated by the nasty Cypbernats. BOO HOO!
Just wait till your father get home. BOO HOO!
You’ll be laughing on the other side of your face in a minute. BOO HOO!
Where’s my dummy? BOO HOO!
What do you mean I am the dummy? BOO HOO!
I want my mammy! BOO HOO!
Well, that will have folk flocking to vote Labour!
Hardly likely in my case Mr Kelly, I looked at your Party in 1968 and found it wanting then, if anything the Labour Party has sunk even lower in my opinion and looks like most others. It really is time that you were held to the same sort of scrutiny that you and your mates in Labour BBC use on the SNP.
I almost did my self an injury in the shower this morning as this drivel came on and my first reaction was to jump out and change the channel before the radio was sent flying out the window
You can personalise attacks of your political opponents – that’s to be expected when you can’t compete with that party’s vision or popularity. Members of the electorate can have a go at each other, that’s just par for the course.
But the big no no. The one thing you must never, ever do when you are a politician. Is to attack the electorate you are trying to win over.
Kelly seems to aspire to the view, that the Scottish electorate are fools, to be so enamoured by the SNP government. A government he maintains is a failing Scottish SNP Government. Stating they fail at everything they do. He also implies that the same electorate have no right to vote for the SNP, and should only provide votes for Labour. His is the arrogance of entitlement. He believes in his own self right to the status of permenancy. A position that should never be questioned by any of the electorate. If they do so, they must be cretins.
I was pishin masel laughing when he said that, what a numpty
In a democracy if I choose to be a ‘thick moron’ I will.
Not so thick that I would consider SLAB as anything other than a bunch of opportunistic liers though.
Nothing sticks, they can get away with all of these things and people still fall over themselves to vote for them. Labour- 1950-2014…RIP
Confirmed I am an idiot.
I couldn’t believe he said it.
I have a recurring ironic image in my head of him & Caesar, tattered UJ in hand, running to the barricades to defend the union.
Makes me smile.
Wonder what that “wheel” is meant to be. SLabour think they own Scotland and it must be rather frustrating right now. 70+ years right to reign over their Scotland region and every 21st century Scottish/UK election has seen them slide further and further down the UKOK drain.
Can BBC creep show really stop people voting SNP? no pressure lads n lasses of Pacific Quay, no pressure at all:D
The sooner that crew are chucked out of the city chambers & we get a look at the books, the better!
“That’s why I think it’s an irrational kind of voting, and until voters come to their sense and actually look at the arguments again, and appreciate them, the Labour Party’s going to have a very very tough time in Scotland.”
It is because the voters have came to their senses, and stopped voting for councillors promoted above their pay grade that, the Labour party is having and will continue to have a very very tough time in Scotland.
That and they’re a bunch of useless, careerist, opportunistic, vainglorious tractors to the working class.
I heard it live and nearly pranged ma car !
Meant to ping you an e-mail to alert you…..only stopped laughing as I eat lunch now !
As always yer on da button Rev , well done.
It the voters fault ………
Wow.
It’s this robotic even mindless denial of reality which is consistantly being promoted by unionists that amazes me.
The public have made their voting wishes clear yet not one unionist recognises this.
It just beggars belief.
How to make friends & influence people Scottish branch of UK Labour style.
Wonder how many voters they’ll persuade to return with performances like this.
This is Day 3 of Kezia’s reign & it’s not going too well is it
Carry on-loving it!
Purcell = Another disgraced coke-head.
Kelly = A nugget who’s been lying to the people of Glasgow for more than 40 years. A person who, along with other friends and family, almost bankrupted and destroyed Scotland’s largest and most successful football club. Who emptied the biscuit tin, Kelly?
Nope, there is absolutely no reason to trust in anything any of these two twats have to say. They are Slabber through and through!
He seems to think we are all stupid. Typical labour no wonder their extinct
Another instance of Brecht’s advice: time for Labour to dissolve the people and elect another one.
Je suis stupid.
Why, oh why does the BBC give this man airtime?
I’m sure Ms Dugdale will have words with him, “Well done Michael”
The all-new improved mega shiny Labour cabinet is a hoot. I’m putting my money on James Kelly to be the first to make an impact with voters.
The SNP Govt need an effective opposition, but it is not Labour, Tories or Libdems.
Will it be the Green Party? What is the Green Party view on indyref2?
Wow! He’s good, isn’t he? Can’t we have him on every morning, perhaps in tandem with McTernan, in a slot called Why Youse Is All Eejits, By The Way?
I still say there are secret SNP agents: nothing else explains their loony behaviour.
Well, even if Michael Kelly can’t see it, since the General Election, “Glasgow’s MILES Better”
Different when they were getting 41 MPs in 2005 and 2010 for fucking up Iraq, Afghanistan, MPs’ Expenses and many, many more.
They didn’t listen and now we have the reality of what happens when a party with little mandate ignores their electorate time and again. Their arrogance is still palpable.
Labour no more.
I came to my senses a long time ago. That’s why I don’t vote Labour.
Boo feckin hoo Kelly, get over yourself. Eejit!
What a load of rubbish. SNP are the only party that are willing to move Scotland forward labour and the others are holding Scotland back.
Oooor, it could be we do understand and appreciate the arguments only too well and that after due consideration and deliberation our decision as an electorate is as follows.
That Labour failed us on every conceivable level. They lied to us, stole from us, turned us against each other with premeditation and with personal gain and political profit their only object. That Labour used/abused the positions of trust and power WE placed them in. That Labour and their media support are guilty of naked and malicious manipulation of their own electorate for self serving political ends, because it sure as shootin’ wasn’t to any clear fucking benefit of ours.
That when we needed them most to be the party of the people, the poor, the working man and woman, the common folk. When we needed a Labour party that could work with others in government and be still proud to do so in our name, THEY ABANDONED US in favour of focus groups, spads, marginal seats and ELECTAFUCKINGBILITY.
For a wee bit of added hilarity folks try this:
FORMER social justice minister Jackie Baillie is to spearhead the opposition attack on the SNP Government in the forthcoming Holyrood election campaign.
This is in today’s Hootsmon. Sorry I can’t link to it, don’t want to link to actual page and I don’t have the archive thingy up on my new hard drive yet.
I believe that Labour could indeed form a Scottish Government, and that Ms Dugdale may indeed become the First Minister – but it wont be until at least 10 years after Scotland becomes independent!
Ha! I listened to this too. It was great. In a few sentences Mr Kelly gave substance to the fag end of Labour’s ideology, rendered souless by triangulation, a twisted and stunted thing you couldn’t sell on eBay let alone to the electorate. And now with it’s head so far up its own bahookie it may yet prove impossible to extract.
Quel dommage!
It’s a shame he couldn’t name any services that are a devolved power that is funded by the block grant – NHS, Education, Justice. If you cut the funding to those services, of course they are going to suffer; so lets do away with Free Prescriptions and see how popular that would make the SNP. Or perhaps Mr Kelly would like the SG to cut the 80p in every £1 block grant Glasgow Council gets, to fund its services; forcing them to raise council tax on their residents?
Michael Kelly and Stephen Purcell, two very good reasons not to vote Labour.
Anyone just seen the Headline on the Mail online?
Of all the Ashley Madison emails leaked there happens to be , shock, Horror….. An SNP MP!
What in 1.2 Million members who details have been leaked the only one of any note that the Mail could find was an SNP MP??
Haw Kelly, save yer breath, man!
Our very own village idiot on here wouldn’t even vote for Slabber, how fecking idiotic is that, eh! How will us mere peasants survive? The mind boggles! Where would we be without the likes of you and Purcell, eh! You’ll soon see how thick we truly are when we rid Glasgow of your ilk.
Watch this space. Idiots-R-Us right enough.
It it was me in charge of their “vote SLab ya ingrates and diddies” campaign, I’d take a leaf out of the Vote anyone but SNP electioneering book, by Edwardian butcher’s boy impersonator and future Lord Murray of Morningside, in his triumphant 2015 general election campaign. so, just NEVER EVER NEVER mention Labour ever again in any kind of shape or form, to anyone, anywhere in your Scotland region, ever.
link to bbc.scotlandshire.co.uk
Future Lord Ian of Morningside, Embro, last great bastion of Corbynite Labour Party socialism, mentioned the Labour Party once but he thinks he got away with it.
the people have forfeited the confidence of the government and can only win it back by redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier for the government to dissolve the people and re-elect another? [Brecht]
The SNP hardly need to campaign with foot shooters like Kelly around. Bravo to BBC Scotland for giving the moron maximum airtime so as many Scots as possible get the message.
O/T now on Livestream
Tommy ShepherdSNP from Edinburgh YES Cafe
link to livestream.com
We arrive at that time of the year when we compare dimwit coonsillors to stand-up comedians at the Embra Festival of Arts, vying for a Perrier Award.
Kelly should be short-listed. No doubt about it.
Let’s get up his nose with an annual Referendum Day:
link to grousebeater.wordpress.com
“The electorate need to come to their senses” Pot, Kettle and Black comes to mind here !!
When the first SNP gains start to be announced after the next GCC election, the sound of the document shredders going at full tilt will be deafening, as Kelly and his crew frantically try to destroy the evidence of dodgy deals and corrupt practises over their time in office.
Meanwhile, is “NHS shambles” the latest soundbite thought up by Jenny Marra, in another futile attempt to give Eleanor “NHS IN CRISIS” Bradford yet another non-fact-based attack on the SNP Government?
@Stoker
‘Scotland’s largest and most successful football club’.
I wasn’t aware he had anything to do with Rangers FC?
So happy to be a ‘thick moron’ – and I’ll keep on being a ‘thick moron’ until, and beyond, the time everyone of these vainglorious tossers is thrown out of office.
Attacking the people you want to win over……who’s the ‘thick moron’??
Reminds me of Curran’s Freudian slip when she said the electorate had to regain Labour’s trust.
These London Labour erselings really do believe they have a divine right to own all the votes in Scotland.
Heard this this morning getting the kids ready for school… put a smile on my face all day lol
I’m sure I heard “police running amok”. Can’t see that myself,and I can say that the NHS in Scotland is doing a great job as far as I can see by recent experience.
Unionists couldn’t complain anyway,they voted NO after Labour and their bettertogether best pals told everyone that everything is fine just under a year ago.
SLab will always have hypocrisy red and blue tory The Guardian style, yesterday Graun said
“The new Turner prize bus tours reek of tartan fetishism
Jonathan Jones”
“But nationalism cannot leave it there. Nationalism is a toxin. It is viral. Once it gets in the cultural bloodstream its petty attitudes corrupt everything.”
link to theguardian.com
Today, Putin, Nazi’s, Nicola Sturgeon all in their UKOK oner.
Rancid Graun says
“imagine if Nicola Sturgeon posed in a bathyscaphe as she descended into the North Sea to prove the antiquity of Scottish fishing rights in a future cod war with England – it is important to recognise how astonishingly effective such propaganda has been”
Our imperial are displeased/morons.
He was quite happy when people followed Labour blindly….
We need more Labour Party apparatchiks and former apparatchiks to come forward to trumpet this message. It has worked so well to date.
Exquisitely textured hubris of this quality should not be hidden away. Deny Boss Kelly no platform to display it so that he might to demonstrate to 60% of the Scottish electorate that he has the requisite vision, and that they are as thick as two short planks.
Michael Kelly, dispositive evidence that absence of a cerebral cortex is no barrier to advancement in the Labour Party.
Where did all the money go when you were running Celtic, Michael?
I truly do not understand the labour party. They have been wiped out in Scotland, and still it does not appear to occur to them that they are in any way responsible for that outcome.
I get that those in Westminster can live in their neoliberal bubble, and remain unaware of just how they are coming across elsewhere: but Mr Kelly does not have that excuse, even.
I get that sometimes it is important to recognise a “50,000 flies” argument: the electorate are not always wise and not always right on every issue and principle must of course sometimes result in real leadership: that is direct challenge to the views of the majority and a recognition that the principle must be defended even when unpopular. But that applies to particular issues, and is not in play here. The electorate is not wrong about what it wants: it is like telling someone that he honestly does not prefer dark chocolate to milk chocolate, not matter what he says: it makes you look foolish
I doubt anyone who votes SNP agrees with every policy they adopt. That is also true for voters who support other parties. It is in the nature of party politics that compromise is made, and the voter weighs up the various policy options and chooses the party which best reflects his or her views. With the exception of some very vital single issues, which may be “red lines” for an individual, what one really votes for is a party which shares one’s view of the kind of society you want to live in, as a general thing. At least I think that is true.
This is the essence that they don’t seem to grasp. Those of us who want to live in a social democracy have been abandoned by the labour party. They no longer share that aspiration in principle or in practice. Only the SNP currently represents that strand in our electorate. Mr Kelly and his party may not think that is a true or a fair perception, but the evidence is there in Labour’s adoption of the neoliberal stance at every turn.
I am not irrational. I know what I want from a government, and Labour do not offer it. They oppose it, and in doing so they work with the tories to make society worse in every way that counts.
Since Thatcher’s victory in 1979 the things I care about have been undermined. Even the things neoliberals value are worse than they were prior to the shift in economic priority from pursuit of full employment to pursuit of low inflation. We have higher unemployment as a policy choice; we have lower growth; we have greater inequality. All of that is perfectly demonstrable, and it is not a law of nature. It is a direct and predictable result of their policy choices.
There is no labour party any more. It really is as simple as that. And every time they open their mouths the re-affirm that truth.
I am sad to see the demise of labour but it happened long ago and I no longer grieve. And this, too, they need to understand. Many have come to that conclusion later than I did: and if Corbyn wins, and if he can do what he says he wants to do, some may return to the labour fold. But even if he wins, he is surrounded by saboteurs: he has less chance than Syriza, for he will face the global elite, and he has the added disadvantage of being beset by their agents within his party.
Only a truly clean break with the Blairites can save labour: only a clean break with the union can save Scotland. That is how I see the situation and I do not think it is me who is irrational. I think that it is Mr Kelly and his kind who are.
@ David S. Briggs:
He said “Scotland’s largest and most successful football club”
not
“Scotland’s deadest football club who’s tribute act are followed by Scotland’s biggest bunch of gullible idiots”
“Cutting your throat to feed yourself”??!!
Those were the days my friend.
link to thedrum.com
He makes me really angry. I think it was when lab were in power at WM, they introduced the ridiculous charge system where power stations in less populated areas had to pay the national grid to take their/our excess energy.
And even if they didn’t they made no effort to change it.
Since Scotland has a low population density, this was discrimination.
As a direct result of that Longannet will close but its OK cos a new power station is opening in Kent.
Its the likes of that eejit and his party that keep Scotland in poverty and cause migration
“.until voters come to their sense[……] the labour party’s going to have a very very tough time”.
We are stupid and they are entitled? Dear God in Heaven! I voted this mob for 30 years. I am an arse!
Angry rosette monkey, he say voters are thick, but actually what he mean to say is:
“It’s no fair – the voters are smarter than me!”
Ah, so I take it the whole ‘we need to listen to the electorate’ thing has all been well & truly flushed doon the cludgie then?
If they took off those unionist, BritNat blinkers for just one second, they would realise that the vast majority of people supporting Scottish independence are neither starstruck, nor blinded, nor hypnotised idiots. They are just ordinary folk who can think for themselves.
Are labour blind or stupid? genuine question.
They just dont get that the electorate has taken politics back from the conmen. We will no longer just do what they tell us. They have to appeal to us or we will not vote them in.
If we do vote someone in we will now be watching them very closely and vote them out if they under perform. Teflon has nothing to do with it. Labour are shite, thats why people vote for the SNP.
Mr Christian I’ll hang you from the yardarm sir!
link to youtube.com
I am NOT an idiot!….
…..oh wait……
Here’s why Mr Kelly.
This from a Labour voter following defeat at GE.
“I wish I could go back and undo my vote for Labour yesterday. They really are taking the proverbial.”
And this from last week.
Anyone But Corbyn
Oh Doctor doctor heal thyself, whit ! your no that kind of doctor, well go tae the ither doctor & take the meds he prescribe’s, free curtesy of the SNP Gov.That may stick in yer craw.
Kelly,s slipped doon the Totem Pole, but he likes tae keep his hawn in lol.
Kennedy says:
Are labour blind or stupid? genuine question.
Yes!
Next question please.
Geoff on Michael Kelly’s dismissal of the electorate’s will:
“I take it the whole ‘we need to listen to the electorate’ Labour thing has all been well & truly flushed doon the cludgie then?”
Spot on!
Now that’s what you call a real Labour branch office spokesperson, whether you mean old or new Labour, start of by insulting all those voters you want to win back, yes that should do the trick!
@Fiona: Fantastic comment.
Labour really don’t have much to offer.
“Labour is seeking legal advice to ensure its leadership election is being conducted according to party rules, amid fears that the contest is being infiltrated by people who oppose the party.”
Are they red tory boys red or blue? This is rancid The Gruan under photo of Harriet Harman, looking suspicious. Harman looking suspicious and not, Harman looking suspicious.
What on earth will red tory Slabour do when ye Labour man of England JC, gets to the dispatch box and starts saying actual old style leftie stuff?
BBC vote SLab Scotland will go even more madder now, trying to keep in red SLabour toryboys by attacking, Nic Sturgeon and Jezza Corbyn. Cant wait:D
@Baronessamedi
SNP temporary ? in what way do you mean ?
As a couple of us commented two threads ago that these labour folk continue to pop up on the BBC Scotland media, like a bad penny to howl down the SG.
Folk see through their paper thin arguments and generally ignore the fuzzy noise. BUT…
Gordon Wilson’s ‘SNP bad quotes to go’ for the MSM. A gift to the Hootsman and the Record. That’s three times this month counting today.
Did someone in the SNP do him a bad turn in times past. He’s entitled to his view but everything in moderation surely.
A whillygoleerie and no mistake!
Never mind Jeremy Corbyn, Michael Kelly is the man to lead the Labour party, he’s bound to win back Scotland with this sort of rousing speech. He’s got my vote because I am just a irrational simpleton with a democratic deficit between my ears who votes in the same way as I play pin the tail on the donkey.
O/T: The public break up of erstwhile lovers Daisley and the Rev is heartbreaking.
Blind Unionist Scots like Kelly and his ilk hate democracy when their party isn’t in power, seek to bad-mouth and damage Scottish democracy and our public institutions (i.e. health service, police, education etc.) in cheap, bitter attempts to regain that power and seem to be embarrassed by the very existence of Scotland and the Scottish people.
Vote the way the want, reset the clocks to 2006! We’re all idiots if we don’t!
‘Labour Spokesclown, Michael Kelly’. Mwahahahahahahaha
Seriously though, I always thought I voted for the SNP because of their competence in Government, the fact they fight Scotland’s corner, and agree with me, that the decrepit, stinking, unwanted, one-sided, undemocratic union with England needs to end.
Now, having listened to the irrefutable ‘wisdom’ of that Labour party ‘oracle’, Michael Kelly, I have realised the folly of my ways, and realise I just vote SNP because I am too thick to see through the hype, and because I inwardly believe Nicola Sturgeon can walk on water – she can can’t she?
Seriously Labour, I give up.
For anyone who is interested, and I know the vast majority are not
, the latest bit of the new floating football park … to be named H.M.S. Prince of Wales. at some dim and distant point in the future, is currently South East of Wick heading for Rosyth.
link to marinetraffic.com
“people still fall over themselves to vote for them.”
Half of Scots voting SNP? A sensible choice given recent unionist incompetence and behaviour.
Everyone should remember that half of English voted for Con+UKIP ie parties way out on the extreme right. Now that really is inexplicable – we can only presume they definitely have been hoodwinked out of all reason!
Fiona at 436pm
Quote “Only a truly clean break with the Blairites can save labour: only a clean break with the union can save Scotland. That is how I see the situation and I do not think it is me who is irrational. I think that it is Mr Kelly and his kind who are.”
That is it in a nutshell. Labour can witter on as much as it wants, and even elect Corbyn, but we the Scottish electorate have moved on. Labour in Scotland died many, many years ago, all that is left is a rotting corpse and some maggots.
so yet again, it is only democracy if you vote the way they tell you, anything else is apparently total muppetry and rebellion. I hate to be the one to tell them but what passes for the Scottish Labour Party are the muppets at the moment, and the show just keeps going.
The difficult thing to get your head round is that they actually seem to believe that. Naughty, naughty voters!
If SLabour are Unionist as Kelly states, then why will they not say it out loud?
I think they are big fearties!
Eloquent and nuanced comment as ever Fiona. And an utterly accurate synopsis of the problem with the Labour party. Brilliant.
You know what Scottish labour just doesn’t exist in the MSM daun Sarf! Had a turn through the usual suspects and not even a whisper about Kezia’s reshuffle.
But a comment about Gordon’s rant here from Mr White.
————————————————————–
Will the sermon, for it was close to being one, make any difference to the looming landslide? Possibly not in such heady days. Brown’s own career had taught him five lessons, he concluded: Labour activists must seriously seek power, but also listen, they must go beyond sloganising and address problems, they must offer hope, but also vote, not as a protest, but to help the neediest.
It’s not like clicking “like” on Facebook, he told them. Facebook, eh? Does Jeremy do Facebook?
link to archive.is
Och Martin they were only flirting…hardly lovers
That’ll be the Irish nationalist who believes in a united motherland but sooks up to the Britnat establishment. I can’t work it out.
Well done Rev for picking it up. I knew you would.
Is this the same Michael Kelly that was in charge of Celtic Football Club at the time of the biscuit tin fiasco?
Michty! 30p no more for your Irn Bru bottle. Big news on BBC News Drive with a wee discussion.
No SNP spokeperson was invited to comment and labour didn’t put up a candidate either, that’s political balance then.
Footie links Glasgow teams KO soon.
link to myp2p.ec OR
link to mytvlive.me
O/T I know Stu but are you going to do anything on the DR coming out for Corbyn?
Putting his pro-Union to the side does this mean the DR is now anti-Trident, pro renationalisation of the public utilities, etc.
If not how can they be supporting him?
the problem for SLab is that they have never had to go chasing the electorate here before and they quite simply don’t know how to do it. Somebody above spoke about how the big no no was to attack the electorate – and they’re right. It’s politics 101 and actually just common sense really. Not surprising then that Slab fail to meet the mark.
The saddest thing is that these people STILL believe that they have a God given right to govern Scotland. If these people want to remain subservient to Westmonster then that is a matter for them and their party. That they believe that the scottish people will get back in their box and happily follow them back down that road is a matter that requires some serious therapy on their part.
Slab is in essence asking the electorate to change their views in order to accommodate labour policy and fall back in line. Therein lies the arrogance that is the foundation of the labour party in Scotland. This interview confirms to me just how far beyond repair the labour party is. Delighted.
Stand by your beds folks.
Oh on second thoughts it may be better if you are either sitting down … preferably on the floor for what you are about to read here.
Please keep all laughter down to a dull roar … PLEASE!
link to newsshaft.com
If not how can they be supporting him?
Daily Record are the most cunning out there, they’ve decided, so at a guess I’d say those freaks think that JC is the man to take away SNP voters that used to vote SLab, but I could be wrong.
Maybe the brilliant Crichton Torquil will tell us.
Scottish Voters have come to their senses. That’s why we stopped voting Labour.
(Always nice to have your worst suspicions confirmed. Labour isn’t useless after all. We’re just stupit.)
@Steveasanalien
I think it is quite simple. They think he will win back Scottish voters to labour. They may be right: certainly labour’s best chance. They do not care about policy, it is just to dish SNP.
“Better to remain silent and have the world think you a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
(Abraham Lincoln)
Or, as an old, dear friend who is no longer with us* used to always say:
“If yoo keep yer mooth shut, only yoo ‘n’ me’ll know yer stupit.”
(* He’s no longer with anyone.)
Tonight, I have watched the Grampian news at 6 (I know, showing my age), followed by Reporting Scotlandshire on the BBC.
The phrase “Labour Values” must have been uttered around 8 times, over the two programmes, including by Glen Campbell on the BBC.
The thing is, I don’t know what these “Labour Values” are, because no explanation was given. Are they Labour (Scotlandshire Branch) values, or Jeremy Corbyn values, or Liz Kendall values, or Tony Blair values?
Does anybody know?
“O/T: The public break up of erstwhile lovers Daisley and the Rev is heartbreaking.”
Well?
dont stop there!
Cue the sad fiddle, John…
@ steveasaneilean:
“O/T I know Stu but are you going to do anything on the DR coming out for Corbyn?
“Putting his pro-Union to the side does this mean the DR is now anti-Trident, pro renationalisation of the public utilities, etc.
“If not how can they be supporting him?”
I expect Stu is still trying to process that information. I know I am.
If Mr Purcell was embarrassed by the remarks that is something.This guy had a permanent white top lip, (figure it out),and was known for hanging out with some famous ganglang figures whilst he was leader of Glasgow Council.
Now Mr Failed Kelly is telling everybody where we are going wrong. It would never dawn on these narcissists that they are being rejected for being completely inept.
Please excuse the slightly O/T Rev.
But I just watched BBC REPORTING LABOUR love-in .You gotta check out the 6.30 show.
Jings Bejeezus and crivvens Kes and her new (see old) team are gonna save Scotland from herself…….again!!!
Whooooosh.
Priceless!!!
Here’s the ‘intellectual Tory’ equivalent of Kelly’s idiot claims from Prof Tomkins.
link to notesfromnorthbritain.wordpress.com
SNP are peaking, and then there is only down – ie voters will return to ‘sensible’ unionist voting.
Do you think someone should tell him there is more chance of Celtic and Rangers sharing a stadium?
So how does Kelly explain the quasi-religious “Corbynmania” currently sweeping his own party…?
Bert Brecht mocked a party functionary who expressed the same views as Kelly in this poem
link to mrzine.monthlyreview.org
@Lesley-Anne
Business Manager:James Kelly an oxymoron surely… and where is
The Truth Commission promised by Johann?
We’re going to have a tough time until you come to your senses, you idiots.
And they really can’t see that’s why they’re losing voters hand over fist.
Gabby Logan on a trailer for another mindless britnat shit program says
RELEASE THE SHEEP!
says it all really.
This stupidity virus affecting us is very infectious judging by the number of people supporting Jeremy Corbyn!
Usual propaganda blast from BBC Scotland
link to bbc.co.uk
Top half says-
“Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale announces new frontbench team”
Bottom half-
“By Glenn Campbell, BBC Scotland political correspondent
If Labour’s new team looks a lot like the old team assembled by Jim Murphy, when he was leader, then that’s because it is.
The names and faces are mostly the same.
One exception is that Hugh Henry has stood down as justice spokesman, to be replaced by former police chief, Graeme Pearson.”
Interesting stretching of written BBC English there, “mostly the same” one change in BBC propaganda speak.
Why don’t Glen Campbell and co just stand for SLab frontbench, who could tell the difference.
Extraordinary bunch cheats in that mob.
I am an idiot.
But I’m still not daft enough to vote Labour.
call me dave says:
@Lesley-Anne
Business Manager:James Kelly an oxymoron surely… and where is
The Truth Commission promised by Johann?
Don’t worry CMD that is in hand … honestly.
As soon as John Chilcot has completed and published his report into Iraq, due any second now
, he will be right on the case. 
Here is a good quote from Jeremy Corbyn: “There’s no God-given right for political parties to exist – they have to mean something to people”.
Looks like Labour in Scotland is an extinct party then – Dead as a dodo – like Lally.
Will they never see the wood for the trees ????
I know we all poke fun at kezzy and Scottish labour and how, well, there a bit thick.
But image labour actually won and kez was first minister and had to mingle and stuff with other world leaders. Imagine kez sitting talking to Putin.
How scary is that huh!
I might be nae wise but I am no a daftie, well no enough of a daftie to vote for any Brit Nat Party or its stooges.
@Fiona, 4.36pm
Spot on. Labour was complacent, high-handed and small-minded in government but in opposition even worse – utterly peevish, pusillanimous and pea-brained.
Without effective opposition, however, that same kind of complacency may begin to creep into SNP attitudes, indeed some might say there are already signs of it. With all the best will in the world, people can and do get confused about personal or political expediency and loyalty to the party and lose focus on the bigger picture and building a consensus for the cause.
Building that consensus is a long, difficult job but more possible than ever, especially if it builds on the fabulous broad-based grassroots movement that was Yes. Yes was not the SNP, nor should it have been, so I hope people will bear in mind; the SNP is not the sole vehicle for independence and indeed cannot achieve it on its own. I hope too people will bear that in mind at the Holyrood elections next year – eye on the bigger picture and the long road to winning the consensus.
A genuine opposition led by a Yes-supporting party would achieve far more for the quality of government in Scotland AND for independence politics in the long-term.
Nice impartial BBC unbiased Glenn Campbellesque display via Jim Naughty this time, sneering, malice dripping, knocking the UKOK stuffing out of SNP Scots.gov at 7am yesterday, kicks off 0.54. You have to some sympathy for Constance here, a raging cringer at 6.45am:-(
Fair to say Naughtie OBE not a YES vote, retiring the way that one old fraud started and very much enjoying the last, fingers crossed, ever SLabour MP in Westminster, they look like the could be related too.
link to bbc.co.uk
Naughty
link to twitter.com
Murray
link to theguardian.com
“I’m sorry for blaming you for everything I just couldn’t do.”
? Christina Aguilera, Christina Aguilera: “Back to Basics”
@ Bill McDermott
I totally agree. I have never been able to get my head around these Irish Republican/British Nationalists. I used to work alongside one, it made for many an interesting debate!
One of the many reasons past and present members of the Labour party will always side with the union is, they are “ALL TROUGHERS”.
Come hell or high water they will cling on to any lie, scare story or anything they can say to try and fleece the electorate.
They have no principles, no decency and will eventually realise they have been found out, because Scotland has woken up.
@Brian Doonthetoon says: 19 August, 2015 at 6:54 pm:
” … Are they Labour (Scotlandshire Branch) values, or Jeremy Corbyn values, or Liz Kendall values, or Tony Blair values?
Does anybody know?”
More to the point, Brian, does anybody care?
“Here’s the ‘intellectual Tory’ equivalent of Kelly’s idiot claims from Prof Tomkins.
Last year at this time it was, “there’s no more than 30% support for independence.”
Third rate academics like Tomkins get paid for talking nonsense because they have ‘professor’ as a handle.
Cordite used to detonate Corbinites.
link to twitter.com
Lesley-Anne 5.53pm
Fitba park? The new carriers are each about the length of the palace of Westminster – slightly shy of 3 pitches long by slightly more than a pitch wide.
The contract for both is £6.2 billion, but then you’ll need some shiny new warplanes to go with it, otherwise what’s the point? It is not my area by any stretch but from what I’ve read, they will be able to carry amongst other things, 40 Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II ‘stealth multirole fighters’.
It seems there are 48 of these aircraft on order- struggling to find exact costs but it looks like about £100 million per plane.
Now this was a programme where it was seriously discussed punting or mothballing the second carrier but it turned out cancelling the contract wasn’t cost effective. This suggests to me that the government thought 2 carriers of this class were unnecessary.
So here we are in the UK of 2015- we are closing the vice around those unfortunate enough to be reliant on the state whilst simultaneously building an aircraft carrier and a spare aircraft carrier, the construction and the procurement of one type of aircraft alone (there are choppers and all kinds of other munitions to consider) is costing £11 billion.
If IS decide to construct a navy we will be able to take it down no bother.
And if the Russians start sniffing about near Europe’s largest arsenal situated, as it is on the doorstep of our largest city, we will have these 2 vast carriers that can travel at 25 knots from wherever they are to intervene.
I suppose the cost of these 2 beasts will mean that other naval vessels will be sucked in to defend them… concentrating the navy and reducing the spread further. Luckily for us, they don’t bother devoting any vessels to protecting the Scottish coastline so we’ll hardly notice the difference.
Funny thing about the Royal Navy website- they justify all this because 95% of Britain’s economic activity depends on the oceans. Yet we were constantly told during the indyref that the vast majority of our exports were to the rest of UK!
That’s me done. Apologies for any inaccuracies. Wake me up when we’re independent.
It’s funny but just when you think UK politics can’t get any more ‘effed’ up, it just goes and does it.
Tam Jardine, don’t forget that the new aircraft, which arent even going to be there for years yet, 2020 if I recall correctly are actually pretty crap. They’re multi-role which means they’re not actually very good at any of the individual roles. From memory, stealth capability means no external pylons thus limited payload for bomber. Limited loiter time, so no use as ground support and so on.
There is absolutely nothing about Kelly’s performance on BBC Labour Radio that is in any way strange. The Labour Scottish Branch Office have been spouting their own particular brand of propaganda for as long as I can remember, (and that memory goes as far back as WWII).
Their present problem is that the only people who now actually believe it are Labour themselves. Idiots like Kelly actually do genuinely believe it is the electorate who are wrong and Labour who are right and they lack the basic intellect to figure out that, as there are far more voters who do not accept the Labour mantras than who subscribe to them, then the probability is the voters are right and the Labour party, (branch office), who are wrong.
No one should ever begin to believe their own propaganda.
Re f35’s for the carriers, there was a report on Russian RT news the other day which
Claimed that their was an American report that said that the F35’s did not have the capability to compete against Russian fighters from the 80’s never mind modern fighters.
Remember it was crash Gordon who signed the order for two carriers with cancellation clauses so severe it is cheaper to build one and mothball it rather than cancel.
What did that song say again – Gordon is a moron
Alan Mackintosh
Aye- when I was reading up on it (briefly) there were phrases like “inferior acceleration, inferior climb, inferior sustained turn capability” cropped up. I feared mission creep- there is a much bigger article to be written on this.
Lenny Hartley
Indeed – I think this is the link to that report:
link to archive.is
Lmao.
More of the utterly petulant, complacent, derisory, sneering elitist shite that got Labour in this mess in the first place. Very very thick-skulled people, with an aural cavity that starts in one ear and progresses to exit straight out the other, bypassing the brain entirely, assuming there is one in there at all.
A party that is conspiring to destroy its own massively-popular leadership candidate with the added help of the most-unwelcome senile dinosaur that is Gordon why-won’t-you-just-bore-off-already Brown.
And they think they can offer advice to the Scottish electorate?
What a totally horrendous trainwreck. I hope the Tories paid off the Blairite hardcores well for their services, because they are dead and buried up here, courtesy of their own spades no less.
The Labour Party. Like Tories, minus the smarts.
P.S. Know something. In the short term I’ve kind of drifted away from thinking about independence. I think it’s inevitable; it’s just a matter of guessing how long away it is. So with regards to my repeated SNP vote. I like them. They mess up some stuff; they’re good at other things. Ho hey. The reason they get my vote is that each and every one of them genuinely looks like they’re aspiring to be good public representatives. Nobody’s perfect. They do a competent job and make full use of a devolved parliament. That’s why I vote for them.
So ironically, post-referendum-fury, I stand by them more than ever.
I do admit to being *ahem* economical with the truth re the football pitch Tam.
As far as the 48(ish) Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II ‘stealth multirole fighters’ are concerned Tam I would suggest that 40 would be, as you say, intended to used on board the carrier. The remaining 8 will I suspect be intended to used as two seat trainers etc for aircrew training.
No doubt there will be some Merlins on board the sea going flat top as well as the F35’s but at the end of the day these are one hell of a size of flat top for around 60 – 70 aircraft, in my view. Thanks Broon the Loon ya MUPPET!
One thing we can not forget either Tam is that these *ahem* aircraft will not become fully operational until AFTER 2020.
In terms of once they become *ahem* operational Tam then this may be the make up, possibly, of the Carrier Battle Group that we may see in peacetime:
1 QE class carrier
1 type 45 Destroyer
1-2 type 23/26 frigates equipped with towed array sonar
1 Astute class SSN
1 Tide class tanker/supply ship
Obviously when we next go to war under Cameron, any day now I suspect, then this CBG will be increased.
I wouldn’t worry about protecting Scotland’s coastline Tam, remember we have Scotland’s fishermen, Twitter and Facebook to rely on for OUR defence. Let’s face it the Scottish fishermen, Twitter and Facebook are definitively MORE reliable than anything pushed out by the M.O.D. in London!
Lenny Hartley says:
What did that song say again – Gordon is a moron
That would be this song you are referring to then Lenny?
link to youtube.com
Tam Jardine says:
Lenny Hartley
Indeed – I think this is the link to that report:
link to archive.is
Reading that first sentence Tam brought back memories of when the Tornado F3 first entered service.
The pricey new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter?—?the main new warplane for the U.S. military and many of America’s closest allies?—?can’t turn fast enough to defeat other jet fighters in close aerial combat.
They had gone over to Norway to fly in a joint air exercise and lo and behold this sentence almost replicates exactly what the thoughts were back then. Nice to see nothing has changed in 30 years.
Lesley-Anne
CBG? Who ARE you?
“cynicalHighlander says:
19 August, 2015 at 8:55 pm
Cordite used to detonate Corbinites.”
Thanks for all those tweets, CH. It seems Labour is in meltdown on both sides of the dyke, what with Kooky Kelly blaming the electorate up here and The Party banning union members down there. It’s a party which long ago forgot its purpose but I just wish it would do us all a favour and hurry up and do the decent thing.
Oops, silly me! The very idea!
The question that must be asked is why the QE2 class carriers can only fly the F35B, a variant of one aircraft from one manufacturer? Nothing else.
What a situation to be in. Why? Who?
This is not funny at all!
@Lesley=Anne
“FORMER social justice minister Jackie Baillie is to spearhead the opposition attack on the SNP Government in the forthcoming Holyrood election campaign.”
Baillie probably did more to erode Labour’s credibility than any other Slabber. and that is some achievement.
Sorry for derailing the thread somewhat but there is only so much to say about Michael Kelly
ha ha their biggest problem now is they have lied as much during the referendum that even if the snp do fail on something like the police no one is going to believe them
Its their own bloody fault all people who cried wolf
Robert Kerr
That isn’t the case from what I’ve read. Take a look at the Wikipedia entry – there’s a list of aircraft it is designed for, planes and choppers
Tam Jardine says:
Lesley-Anne
CBG? Who ARE you?
Sorry Tam … I just couldn’t be bothered writing out Combat Battle Group out in full … AGAIN!
As for who I am … well I could tell you … but then I’d have to kill you!
To be fair Robert I believe the QE2 carriers could launch a Harrier type aircraft if only WE had some. I wonder whatever happened to all those Harriers we once had … oh that’s right some bozzo P.M. sold the whole kit and caboodle, including ALL the spares, to … the U.S. Marines at a KNOCKDOWN price!
I have to admit Chic good old Kezia has some real dooby doo’s in her *ahem* NEW *cough* OLD front bench team. What can I say except FMQ’s is going to be a real joy to watch. Make sure you are well stocked up with pop corn and cold drinks every Thursday folks!
@Robert Kerr says:
The question that must be asked is why the QE2 class carriers can only fly the F35B, a variant of one aircraft from one manufacturer? Nothing else.
Propulsion of take off systems electric or rubber bands.
Maybe that’s Labour’s election slogan for next year:
“Hey morons, Have you come to your senses yet?”
Yes, harriers no more. USMC has them all.
How about choppers versus Sukhoi Su-35s?
I stand by my statement. There is only the F35-B that can use the carriers.
The F35-B has only one real customer. The USMC. A legacy of Guadacanal!
Just watched the profile of Brian Wilson on Alba, if all political careers are doomed to failure it’s certainly true of Wilson. Rejected repeatedly by the people of the west coast, who he identified with, he found a safe Ayrshire seat but it was a case of “Smart Boy Wanted, but not too Smart”. For a man whose favourite words are I, Me & My it was difficult to make common cause with anybody. Labour back-stabbery & factionalism (sounds familiar) saw Oor Brian hit the glass ceiling and the retired socialist now concentrates on laying expensive tweed on the backs of the rich rather than clothing the poor.
A full supporting cast of clapped-out Unionist has-beens, Crichton, Galloway, Forsyth, Darling & Alexander contributed to this rather strange exercise in failure. It was almost an obituary. Needless to say, the elephant in the room, the SNP, were not consulted.
Maybe that’s Labour’s election slogan for next year:
“Hey morons, Have you come to your senses yet?”
A John McTernan classic if ever I saw one
Robert Kerr
Sorry Robert I read that entry again and you are right on that. A bizarre business. And like I say there is an article to be written on this but mibbe by one of our many Wingers expert in this field.
@Lesley-Anne
Regarding the need for behemoth Aircraft Carriers,whatever happened to the technology behind the vertical take off Harrier Jump Jet.
Instead of two massive sitting ducks you could have more smaller faster frigates that could each carry vertical take off fighter jets and various helicopters.
You could have maybe eight jet carrying frigates for the price of two Carriers with runways.
The MOD seems to be gearing up for 20th century wars in the 21st century.
Michelle Thompson’s coming in for the usual Britnat vile filthy abuse on the web tonight over this dating web site thing that she was never a part of
Bile pouring out of folk who haven’t even heard of her just because she’s one of ours, needless to say they manage to work in the First Ministers name into as well
I wont even link it but it’s the Guardian of course
I am sure, Michael, that your ancestors are so proud of you for aligning yourself so closely with the Orange Order and the state that sent the Black and Tans into Ireland.
The F-35B, never mind the software problem which is huge and may never be resolved, there’s this.
link to archive.is
We have Blair, Brown, and now Blunket all decrying Corbyn, their duly elected Fellow Labour Party Member.
We also have all three leadership candidates demonising Corbyn.
Every branch of the UK’s corrupt media ridicule Corbyn.
The Tory party cock a snoot at Corbyn.
You just know that you have got to vote for Corbyn if his politics are diametrically opposite these sycophantic gangsters.
Just for good measure we have Lord Loser Kinock and his Jobs for all the family scheme telling Labour how to win?
Surely every one of these anti-democratic bullies must sever all ties with the real Labour Party, if Corbyn wins?
If Corbyn doesn’t win, surely he, his fellow MP supporters and their Trade Union supporters must sever all ties with New Red Tory Labour?
The Glasgow contenders waiting in the wings.
link to archive.is
How the hairy Leftie went from rank outsider to odds-on favourite and what it means for Scotland
link to archive.is
Fred said: “Just watched the profile of Brian Wilson on Alba
Excellent post.
The new blacklist: ‘Are you now, or have you ever been, a socialist’
link to grousebeater.wordpress.com
Heedtracker @ 8.02 pm
That Naughty link should have a health warninig .
Thats a bloody awful interview .
Naughty , the coupon a mither wid slap !
On a +ve Angela Constance ,to her credit , was very good at holding steady.
Ian Murray link , yuk , couldna look.
Nochty’s Book , it will soon be in the Dump Bins @ £3 along with Federal Broon’s
Just been viewing a few other sites tonight , seams like trouble@mill , ASDA feeling the heat .
Sounds like loads of folk, inc me , still boycotting .
I’m really starting to think the “YES” movement as such has indeed had a massive effect on a lot more than Labour Politicians.
Well done to you all .
The problem you have Scot with the suggestion about flying Harrier type aircraft off the decks of Frigates is that to do so does tend to severely limit the aircraft’s range and/or capabilities. This is why when WE had Harriers they never took off vertically, they always used the Ski Ramp.
The problem is, as it has always been, getting the aircraft airborne. Once they are airborne then things get easier, allegedly.
In order for any fixed wing jet fighter to be effective then it really needs as much fuel as possible with as much stores as possible. This can only be achieved either from a fixed runway or a Ski Ramped carrier.
Many words spring to mind when Jackie Baillie is mentioned. For most people, ‘spearhead’ is not one of them.
Never mind. Good luck to her in her ‘new’ post, and to all her colleagues. Credit where it’s due, eh? – they’ve done well to survive the veritable tsunami of young and ambitious talent clamouring to join Labour’s North Britain outlet.
LA, yer soundin’ less and less like the village idiot…(ah knew it wiz aw a ruse
)
Tam, a resume of the F35 from the designer of the A10 (warthog) and the F16 (Falcon) Pierre Sprey with the reasons behind its inception.
link to youtube.com
Glesga Labour,you go to love them
link to corruptglasgow2014.com
K1 says:
LA, yer soundin’ less and less like the village idiot…(ah knew it wiz aw a ruse
)
Wheest K1. Do you want everyone to know my wee *ahem* secret?
Oh wait a minute it’s not you … it’s me. Think I’ll shut up and crawl back under my wee cozy stone.
Does this interview support the theory that although we all share the same umwelt (the environment in it’s broadest sense), we all inhabit our own individual umwelten (environments/bubbles)? I think it does.
We may share the same locality in time and space, yet perceive a vastly divergent reality to one another. I’m beginning to wonder if Mr. Kelly might be dyslexic or such, so is unable to intemperate the signposts in front of him. Either that, or has he completely distanced himself from reality and doitered up the wrang dreel?
@Tam Jardine
Re Wikipedia entry on QE2 class carriers.
The only fixed wing aircraft the carriers can fly is the F35b variant.
This variant requires the ramp at the end of the deck to aid take off for the short take off F35b.
The UK Govt initially decided on f35b variant, then realised that it can’t carry much of the internal payload that gives the conventional variant its stealth characteristics.
They changed their minds in favour of conventional f35 variants, but realised that in order to fly a conventional f35 off the deck, they would need steam powered catapults.
The carriers were by now way over budget and it was going to cost another billion per carrier to install some kind of catapult, so they decided to go back to f35b with the ramp at the end of the deck.
This, despite the US going on record to say they would share the new catapult design they are fitting to their carriers….and bear a lot of the cost.
So, the RAF\Fleet Air Arm are now stuck with an aircraft that can carry less, has a lesser range and is less stealthy. Oh, and the f35b is more expensive than conventional f35.
The carriers are designed as strike carriers for strike aircraft to carry out operations from. The other helicopters you see listed on Wikipedia are support aircraft for carrying troops and doing anti sub patrols round the carriers to protect them (aside from the Apache helicopters, which are of course slow flying helicopter gunships)
By the way, the US have also gone on record stating that UK would be better off spending defence money on conventional armaments rather than nukes.
In short, UK govts are desperate to sit at the top table in military terms on a shoestring budget. It’s all smoke and mirrors.
Oh, and sorry to sound like such an anorak.
scotspine says:
Oh, and sorry to sound like such an anorak.
No need to apologise about being an anorak SP anoraks are useful don’t you realise it is raining outside?
Oops … sorry … wrong type of anorak!
Ach Scotspine you’re only an anorak if you’ve got the hood pulled up, dinnae fash yersel
This discussion about aircraft for the carriers is all very interesting but surely the major problem with the carriers is that the RN does not have enough surface ships to protect them. The carriers are sitting ducks without frigates, destroyers etc. to protect them.
The RN does not have enough ships to protect the UK’s coastline let alone form two carrier groups.
This issue was covered in a CH4 Despatches programme some months ago and the lack of surface ships to protect the carriers was one of the issues raised with no apparent solution other than the suggestion that if the carriers were required to go into action the UK might be able to ‘hure’ ships from some other countries. I am not sure if they were being serious with that idea.
Tackety Beets says:
19 August, 2015 at 11:24 pm
Heedtracker @ 8.02 pm
On a +ve Angela Constance ,to her credit , was very good at holding steady.
They can say what they like about the SNP but they certainly have Zen like powers of patience with twerps like Naughty. If his book, The Madness of July is a bad as his title, we’re all fcuked/voting SLab.
Only BBC sized egos could think anyone would go for The Madness of July, right up there with one of the greatest novels ever written, Faster Than the Speed of Love, by Brian Griffin. JK Rowling must be green with envy.
Aye, walked the dog in it earlier and found the waterproofing has gone!
The voters have got it wrong; is that like the wrong kind of leaves on the rail tracks?
A floating football pitch? how big a target is that? one missile-SUNK
@legerwood.
Indeed. The number of destroyers on order were reduced and there is a lot of debate ongoing whether the pending order for 13 replacement type 26 will be reduced too.
The only RN ships regularly in Scottish waters (subs aside) are unarmed fishery protection patrol boats (not actually RN) or the unarmed small cabin cruiser type training patrol boats used by university naval cadet types and the RN reserve.
link to theguardian.com
Libby Carrell of rancid The Graun back from hols. If Scotland’s oil so worthless, hand it all back to Scotland teamGB, pretty please, with ribbons on, dear imperial masters.
Right enough Hazel, where are they gonnae find aw the ‘right’ voters to replace aw the ‘left’ wans…oops I mean ‘wrong’ voters!
smithie says:
A floating football pitch? how big a target is that? one missile-SUNK
So true Smithie now if onlywe could find out who might have a suitable missile … oh that’s right WE do … Coulport and Faslane any one?
If there’s one thing that pisses off the electorate, it’s being told that they are thick, but the likes of Kelly and the rest of the labour eejits are so far up their own arseholes that they assume that they know best. As their coffin is lowered into the ground, I’m sure we shall hear the fading cries, “We’ll listen next time.”
Sorry labour, there will be no next time. It’s over, finito. Even with wall to wall coverage from BBC Scotlab, the ‘new’ shadow cabinet will continue to utter the same mince as before. They just can’t seem to recognise that only having the one policy (SNP Bad) doesn’t appear to cut it with the thick electorate.
Re the Aircraft Carrier. I had the fortune,(or misfortune) to be present when Betty and Phil popped by Rosyth to name our governments new toy. I was extremely annoyed when Alec Salmond was booed by sections of the workforce, whose jobs would have been under threat had we voted for Independence. (or so they were informed by Babcock) How pleasing it is that many of them are to be replaced by Polish workers. Must be something to do with that pooling and sharing.
As some have already pointed out, the F35B’s (Four of them) will be available 2020 at the earliest. The aircraft is crap. Easily outmanoeuvred, short on range and with a reduced payload, it can hardly be described as state of the art. Oh, and just one other thing, we don’t have any pilots.
Talking of pooling and sharing, it would appear that the government has arranged a funding package to the tune of £1.34million to facilitate the removal of jobs from Fraserburgh to Young’s premises in Grimsby. It appears that they may have breached EU aid rules, which do not permit the funding of private companies.
The term fresh fish takes on a new meaning after a 400 mile road journey, unless of course they plan to land the catches directly at Grimsby, but that would also breach EU law, and they need our fish. Perhaps we should set up a company in direct competition, owned and based in Scotland.
It’s high time we started playing them at their own game. We need a central bank, our own electricity grid (and we’ll charge them accordingly for the power we supply) and a competitive direct RoRo link to the continent, not forgetting our own independent broadcaster.
This deliberate attack on our economy will be their downfall.
Just so we are clear regarding the *ahem* massive size of the Royal Navy here is a wee snippet from Wiki detailing the breakdown of the surface/sub surface fleet that is currently commissioned.
The Royal Navy is the principal naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. As of 1 August 2015, there are 76 commissioned ships in the Royal Navy. 19 of the commissioned vessels are major surface combatants (six guided missile destroyers and 13 frigates) and 10 are nuclear-powered submarines (four ballistic missile submarines and six fleet submarines). In addition the Navy possesses a landing platform helicopter, two amphibious transport docks, 15 mine countermeasures vessels, 22 patrol vessels, four survey vessels, one icebreaker and two historic warships (Victory and Bristol).
link to en.wikipedia.org
I’m thinking that H.M.S. Victory and H.M.S. Bristol may yet be re-commissioned any day now.
With you 100% Rob James.
Jobs going at Fraserburgh to make way for new jobs doing the same work in Grimsby.
Power stations being closed in Scotland because the subsidies paid to generating companies nearer to SE England make Scots ones non viable.
Daily attacks on Scottish public services (NHS, Schools, Police) through the Unionist media.
The only nugget of comfort I take from your post is the hope that it was those who booed Alex Salmond who lost their jobs.
Its about time some of these pricks at BBC Scotregion lost their jobs.
Rule Britannia if only we can get the aircraft aligned to the ships then what a killing machine we could have, then we would demand some respect (What?) Yea right.
@ Lesley-Anne
As some disgruntled fellow I once knew said:
“At this rate, the navy will soon consist of three rubber dinghys and a marching band”.
Meanwhile, here in Scotland. We don’t even have a marching band.
Seems the Herald is not scared off by the recent threats issued by M. Mone. It pursues her Wiki page changes.
link to archive.is
Money Money Money. Hey that’s close to Mone above but not connected.
link to archive.is
@Rob James
Bravo! I agree with all that.
Once upon a time, in a galaxy far away… the Guardian used to be my regular go-to online for news, sport, opinion pieces, etc. That was before the SNP won by a majority the right to form the Scottish government in Holyrood…
From that time onward, as the Guardian became ever more hostile to Scotland, as an entity in itself, never mind Scottish independence, it didn’t take long to realise I’d been hoodwinked, made a fool of, cheated.
You see, I’d naively believed that the Guardian was, and its editor and writers were, as they themselves still claim to be, “left-leaning”…
What a fool was I.
Their being a willing part of the Better Together scam enacted upon the people of Scotland exposed them as being just one more of the British state’s right-wing propaganda outlets.
To the present.
The Guardian is now blatantly right-wing. Oh, it can’t bring itself to go full-fat Tory – yet – but they’ll say ‘Vote Lib Dem!’, or ‘Vote Labour!’ (as long as they stay Blairites and Tory-lite) to salve their comfortably-off, English middle-class, Oxbridge educated consciousness, but their underlying right-wing beliefs are coming ever more to the fore.
See their increasingly biased articles and editorials against the SNP and the Scottish government. See them giving discredited Labour henchmen lots of space to spew their lies and smears. See them getting more desperate by the day to smear the left-winger Jeremy Corbyn.
And then there is today’s disgrace, where the Guardian (and the racist Daily Mail) has decided that of all the many thousands of names on a hacked dating website, SNP MP Michelle Thompson’s is the one they must highlight on their website. It is not even certain whether she was or wasn’t using the website, or whether her e.mail address was compromised, yet they have gone ahead with a smear article and a smear “married SNP MP” headline. And, of course, open for comments, allowing the haters and trolls to pour out their bile BTL.
So then, when you think there are no more sharks to jump the Guardian outdo themselves once again.
The Guardian, a newspaper/website I used to have some respect for? Not now. Fuck the Guardian. They are now no better than any of the downmarket, gutter-dwelling red-tops. Fuck them and their pseudo-intellectual, up-their-own-arses aren’t we so right-on bullshit. Fuck them and their liberal lefty pretence, while being hardcore UKOK unionists in reality. Fuck them and their Scottish independence, the SNP, Scottish culture, Scotland in general – BAD; Britnats R-Us, Westminster, the British Establishment, God Save the Queen – GOOD!…..
Coz I’m done with it… and them.
Scotspine says:
@ Lesley-Anne
As some disgruntled fellow I once knew said:
“At this rate, the navy will soon consist of three rubber dinghys and a marching band”.
Meanwhile, here in Scotland. We don’t even have a marching band.
I somehow think we are actually slightly better off SP … WE have Scottish fishermen and having watched many a T.V. programme about OUR fantastic fishermen I would NEVER go up against any of them … so gimme £500 on the fishermen!
Just back from Scandinavia and ma heid’s nippin’.
Started with McTernan while sitting in Helsinki Airport then on to Kelly (Michael then Jamesy) at Stockholm and when I get home it’s all about aircraft carriers!
Do we really need to bother about these balloons, is anybody listening to them, does Wings give them the oxygen they crave if the DR and BBC forget them?
Took Tom Devine’s book (The Scottish Nation) with me on holiday as I’ve had it for a while and never got round to more than dipping in to it but got through a fair chunk of the early part of it covering the times prior to and following the Union and was amazed at the similarities he describes of the shennanigans among the aristocracy and the anti-Jock sentiments then and just recently.
Anyway it was great, but expensive, to get some insight into how Scandinavia, that a lot of us aspire to, go about their social democratic agenda – not perfect but *considerably* better than our current ‘blame the poor for the bankers’ and NewLabour’s mistakes’ agenda being gleefully promoted by the Tories.
Talking about aircraft, the Indian Air Force and the RAF recently took part in training exercises.
The IAR in dogfight training, shot down all RAF aircraft, with no loses.
The IAF fly russian built aircraft.
@heedtracker at 12:43 am
“Libby Carrell of rancid The Graun back from hols. If Scotland’s oil so worthless, hand it all back to Scotland teamGB, pretty please, with ribbons on, dear imperial masters.”
Berzactly!
Isn’t that Libby Carrell ‘farticle’ just another example of the scorched-earth verbal diarrhea he/she/they used to vomit out day after day after day during the independence campaign?
Dearie, dearie me, that’s just so 2014!
Oh, but wait a minute… Wasn’t that useless Scottish sludge suddenly black gold that helped the UKOK Britnats R-Us economy grow by 1.something % (cannae mind the exact figure)…?
Scottish oil, worthless. Britnats R-Us oil, priceless.
Another lovebomb from Better Together: ‘What’s yours is ours, and what’s ours you’re not getting it, GTF!’
EddieMunster says:
Talking about aircraft, the Indian Air Force and the RAF recently took part in training exercises.
The IAR in dogfight training, shot down all RAF aircraft, with no loses.
The IAF fly russian built aircraft.
WHIT?
WE give India £ millions in aid every year and THEY have the damned audacity to shoot down OUR magnificent men in their flying machines by their even more magnificent, apparently
, men in their flying machines. Well that just is not cricket (whatever that is 
) 
Jeremy Corbyn is there to counteract the SNP and to give credence to the illusion of an opposition which has never existed in my lifetime.
Do not be fooled; they are giving you what they think you want, you have been warned!
EddieMunster says:
20 August, 2015 at 1:55 am
Talking about aircraft, the Indian Air Force and the RAF recently took part in training exercises.
The IAR in dogfight training, shot down all RAF aircraft, with no loses.
The IAF fly russian built aircraft.
___________________
Aviation experts also pointed to an exercise when RAF fighters decimated the ranks of the visiting IAF pilots, prompting the then Air Chief Marshal of the RAF, Stephen Dalton, to comment: “Well, they lost.”
_______
The moral of the story; do not believe everything you read.
Commander Lesley-Anne says
“Sorry Tam … I just couldn’t be bothered writing out Combat Battle Group out in full … AGAIN! :D”
Eh?
Carrier Strike Group surely commander?
A bit behind the times aren’t we C.A.G.?
This aint the gulf of Tonkin, this aint the USS Franklin D Roosevelt and this aint Vietnam 1968 sailor!
___________________________________________________________
Lesley-Anne (again)
“Make sure you are well stocked up with pop corn and cold drinks every Thursday folks! :D”
Ive got my season ticket for the front and middle row in the public gallery in the chamber!
____________________________________________________________
Tackety Beets says
“Just been viewing a few other sites tonight , seams like trouble@mill , ASDA feeling the heat .
Sounds like loads of folk, inc me , still boycotting .”
Hahahaha
The only reason the wife and I go into ASDA now is to wait for the security alarms to go off (about once every three minutes) and tell the poor idiot it has embarrassed that we don’t go in there any more for that very reason, and point is its because their staff are so poorly trained they cant be arsed to deactivate/remove security tags!
____________________________________________________________
Ian Brotherhood says
“Never mind. Good luck to her in her ‘new’ post, and to all her colleagues. Credit where it’s due, eh? – they’ve done well to survive the veritable tsunami of young and ambitious talent clamouring to join Labour’s North Britain outlet.”
Oooh thats gonna leave a mark, ouch.
____________________________________________________________
Scotspine says
“Oh, and sorry to sound like such an anorak.”
Whats that on your top lip?
Either its a milk moustache or you’ve been getting just a little TOO friendly with Gideon Osbourne.
______________________________________________________________
Legerwood says
“months ago and the lack of surface ships to protect the carriers was one of the issues raised with no apparent solution other than the suggestion that if the carriers were required to go into action the UK might be able to ‘hure’ ships from some other countries. I am not sure if they were being serious with that idea.”
Amount of surface ships (capable of defending an aircraft
carrier)in the Royal Navy):
Over the course of the 1990s and the 2000s, the navy began series of projects to improve its fleet, with a view to providing enhanced capabilities, although many programmes were reduced in scale. This has led to the replacement of smaller and more numerous units with fewer, but larger, units. The main examples of this are the replacement of thirteen Type 42 destroyers with six Type 45s and the replacement of the three 20,000 tonne Invincible-class aircraft carriers with two operational 65,000 tonne Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.
So six type 45s that’s it!
6 ships capable of defending those two carriers never mind the duties that the current 13 type 42’s have to carry out just now which has them stretched to breaking point and the carriers aren’t EVEN in service yet!
Oh and before I forget there are about 40 admirals in the royal navy that’s about 5 for every ship. I would put a smiley but that’s REALLY not funny!
ps have a look at just how many ships were in the carrier group that sailed to the Falklands
link to en.wikipedia.org
admittedly a great many of the ships were there to form part of the assault group but the carrier screen was massive in contrast!
heres a picture of the home fleet in 1953
link to tinyurl.com
_____________________________________________________________
@Hazel Lewry
As long as the Weegie Warbler is still here all is right with the world,
Keep on truckin Hazel
People should start phoning in to BBC radio Scotland’s Morning calls on a daily basis regardless of the topic just to get in the Bias points.
Radio crash their show as a form of protest!
Let them know what the people are really thinking and stick a spanner in the cogs of the propaganda machine.
john king
Amazing how the Royal Navy has contracted during that period. What’s the solution? Replace the nuclear submarines at breathtaking expense.
The SNP were panned during the indyref for putting forward the notion of a Scottish defence force with navy, army and airforce as if such a notion was absurd. Cringe was set to maximum… All very white heather club.
And yet it strikes me that a small country building modern armed forces to suit our purpose of defending our territory and assisting allies/UN other countries when necessary is not ridiculous at all.
40 admirals just about sums it up. We had the chance to start from scratch (with our share of resources from the current armed forces) and create something that suited Scotland instead of attempting to project empire without actually having an empire.
Defence has been viewed as a strength by unionists in the debate but I think it is an area where we can really attack seeing as we’re stuck with this delusional imperial baggage which is clearly affecting the decision making process.
This is what I love about Wings by the way John – Reading informed posts about defence procurement on a thread about some labour dough ball telling the Scottish voters they are stupid for voting SNP
I’m certain this Kelly character has written some humdinger loony tune columns for newspapers in the past so anything he says should not be given credence. Further to other posters comments, that really is a strange phenomenon indigineous to mainly west coasters the peculiar Irish Nationalist/ Republican/ Brit Nat Scot. They are legion too. Maybe someone can explain the reasoning and thinking behind it as it’s a total contradiction. Hypocrisy world champs.
Wee Ginger Dug getting tore in aboot IDS in today’s National.
Its a beezer.
@Fiona 4.36pm
Absolutely right on the nail Fiona.
Very well put and very well said.
The new carriers might end up like the do call nuclear deterrent – neither being about to be operated independently but only with the cooperation of other countries.
The carriers may only be sensibly deployed as part of a larger NATO group.
It wouldn’t surprise me if any ideas of the UK being able to put together a small independent battle group is just a pipe dream.
“It’s high time we started playing them at their own game. We need a central bank, our own electricity grid (and we’ll charge them accordingly for the power we supply) and a competitive direct RoRo link to the continent, not forgetting our own independent broadcaster.
This deliberate attack on our economy will be their downfall.”
Well said, Rob James, a great shopping list.
And Dal Riata, your thoughts on The Grauniad chime exactly with mine. The mask has slipped to reveal the viscerally anti-Scottish attitudes which it holds. Even George Monbiot seems be out of touch now with Scottish affairs. What do groovy, organic quinoa-munching Modern Studies teachers read now? Hope it’s The National, for all its faults.
The attack on Michelle Thompson, a charming woman and very articulate speaker, is transparently an attack on the SNP too. She is not alone of course, Radio 4 dutifully continuing the anti-Semite smears against Corby Baby this morning. What a wonderful institution the British Brainwashing Corporation is, and a snip at £145 a year.
On that basis, Mr Kelly’s rhetoric could be applied to every Labour voter in Scotland for the past 50 years?
John King @ 6.49 am
Thank you for all the details about the ships – or lack thereof – to form a protective shield – or not – for the carriers.
What do groovy, organic quinoa-munching Modern Studies teachers read now? Hope it’s The National, for all its faults.
My sister, a lifelong organic knitting and leftie Gruaniad reader, has start reading the National! So theres some progress.
@Fiona 4.36pm
As others have said that’s a classic post. Some day when I have the time it would be good to trawl through the archives and put together a collection of outstanding posts, and there are loads.
@Fiona
“Those of us who want to live in a social democracy have been abandoned by the labour party. They no longer share that aspiration in principle or in practice. Only the SNP currently represents that strand in our electorate.”
Not strictly true, the Greens are Social Democrats too and the SLP are as well, just with a bit more oomph to it. How SLAB should be.
Does anyone suspet the non story about the SNP mp and the adultary website. Was placed on the BBC to create distortion and then report the facts later on. They go on to say that 100’s of MP’s emails have been hacked.
But they choose to report the SNP one!
This is project smear all over again. At the end of the day even if it were true is it anyones business. Is it newsworthy.
Overheard on GMS “But Mr Gray, surely labour had 50 years to close the gap”
The answer was lost in translation as I stepped into the shower and applied the soapy stuff to my ears.
Good old labour, same every day.
Legerwood – I’m not going to defend UK defence policy, but numbers of boats aren’t everything – for example, the latest frigates (Type 45) have more anti-aircraft capability each than the entire 1982 Falklands fleet, whereas Argentina has not modernised its airforce to nearly the same extent.
The number of UK admirals in relation to the size of the navy is ridiculous though.
At their heart these short sighted types of commentators are not true believers in democracy at their core. They only tolerate it as long as you obey or vote as they think you should. They’d much rather go back to the days of feudalism where they could tell you peasants what to do and think. Self serving to the core and lacking any evidence to back up their case.
Thier inner belief comes bubbling up in the form of this sort of absurd gibberish about cults and mass brainwashing across a country (something repeated over and over again by several of their kind), all because people didn’t do what they “ought” to have done if they listened to their column-writing “betters”. There’s no reasonable evidence or case made, they simply repeat the same sort of nonsense we’ve heard for months or longer, sharing hymn sheets when they get stuck for the words to the song.
Spearheid Jackie Baillie noo there,s ah vision tae conjure wie,wull that no lit awe the wind oota her.
My sister, a lifelong organic knitting and leftie Gruaniad reader, has start reading the National! So theres some progress.
My English teacher at my bog standard comp in Aberdeen always said read all the broadsheets, all the time.
Last night, rancid The Graun broke major shock news that Scotland has no oil left, this which we did not know, thank the Lord Scotland is still controlled by England, rejoice, give thanks to a bountiful Union.
And Ofcourse rancid olde Graun in conjunction with the daily Heil go massive on SNP MP exposed as an adulteress. You can just feel them getting it nastier and creepier, day by UKOK day.
At least the BBC have a bit more class than rancid Graun, if only.
link to bbc.co.uk
Another day of how the great noble British media smears Scottish democracy.
Thanks again proud Scot buts.
So Kelly and Lamont are in the same camp – we are all too thick / too stupid / too wee / not programmed properly etc. etc. Ah well I for one can live with the name calling just so long as at the end of the day we get to run our own country and the SNP get to run Glasgow council – Hail Alba
“The attack on Michelle Thompson, a charming woman and very articulate speaker, is transparently an attack on the SNP too”
Was only a matter of time somebody in GCHQ would construct a smear on an SNP MP. Marvel why Corbyn isn’t included – oh wait! They have him an ‘anti-Semite’.
They began their SNP attack on Sturgeon – remember?
Anybody observing Thompson last two years saw a woman with barely a minute to visit the toilet let alone nip off to the Bahamas for an illicit affair between canvassing, domestic duties, and now full-time MP. Sheesh.
It is kinda funny listening-watching all these arrogant pin-head unionists swivel & swithering like crazy upon untenable points of rationalization & excessive over-compensation. Its comical. Kelly et al are all just thinking in crude stereotypes & unexamined assumptions- they see imaginary demons of their own projection everywhere they look & accusing their opponents of shortcomings that they pathologically suffer from. If Kelly wasn’t so obnoxious you would have to pity his pathetic state of mind. But the likes of Kelly, Wilson, Baillie etc are unredeemable; I believe they have sold themselves long ago & are now in a soulless state of rigid automatism that condemns them to repeat the same malicious reactionary soundbites over & over. Its kinda sad, really. They’re playing an old tune the world no longer hears as the world has moved on- the really depressing aspect of it is how the likes of the BBC still give obsolete relics like Kelly or McTiernan oxygen to parrot the fossilized reactionary slogans as if it was prescient social commentary.
Ther is a long-overdue need for a full, headlights-on, rigorous investigation of the past 50 years of local government incompetence, mismanagement, nepotism and preferment, and the influence of vested interest on personal and group-political status. I’m sure that these two gentlemen would encourage such an enquiry.
In the absence, meantime, of any such institutional enquiry, where are our finest, truly-investigative journalists? We need you now.
The anthem of the New Scottish Enlightenment should be The Who’s “Won’t get Fooled Again”.
Their world is falling apart; now money isn’t everything! Run up to GE15, UKIP gets £2mil+ SNP £10,000 SNP gets 56 seats UKIP 1
The Edstone probably cost more than £10,000!
NN @1021am.
The only mass brainwashing that has been done is by the Westminster establishment over the past three hundred years. Aided of course by their pet poodle, our main enemy, the M.S.M.
“The attack on Michelle Thompson, a charming woman and very articulate speaker, is transparently an attack on the SNP too”
Just google, “MP Ashely Madison” specifically leavIng out Michelle Thompson and there’s already hundreds of UKOK press stories smearing away at Thompson, like only the malice dripping creeps we have come to feel nauseous each time they slime in.
So top of Google list here, Daily Heil, then rancid Graun, then BBC, the. independent, viewers in other search engines may find differing results . MSN yahoo, exact same as Google. UKOK tricks mob really getting going now.
The question really is the overall electoral effectiveness of UKOK fraudsters like the BBC, the Guardian, the independent and the Mail, in Scotland now and for the next five years.
heedtracker
Then we compare to Chilcott Report into Iraq war. 6 years and £10million cost for the ‘report’ and no one is going to be named.
Craig P @ 10:11
In the early 1990’s, shortly after the demise of the Soviet Union, the Russian Destroyer ‘Sovremenny’ docked in the Solent. Contrary to previous propaganda by the UK MOD, it was discovered that every crew member was at least bilingual, and was capable of performing several jobs to a very high standard. This would have been a tremendous advantage in a war situation, should certain personnel have been wounded or killed. This ability to rotate would have allowed the ship to continue to function as normally as possible, unlike the Royal Navy, who would have become sitting ducks.
Around the same time, the battle cruiser ‘Kirov’, was the most heavily armed vessel on the planet, with six different missile systems.(More than our navy had in total)
Rear Admiral Lesley Anne
I don’t know how you managed to submit so many comments in the time it took me to submit one. I hope you’re not pulling rank.
BetterTogether Slovenia branch manager here explains in great excitement, just how they intend to win the next and last referendum and above all, get SNP out of office within the next 5 years at least, maybe a little longer, pending how much hard Swinney falls into his cunning UKOK fiscal PAYE bear trap-
link to notesfromnorthbritain.wordpress.com
“With 56 MPs and perhaps as many as 70 MSPs, this is as good as it can ever get for them. And after you’ve reached your peak, the only way is down.
And what will bring the SNP down is their record in government. By the time of the next-but-one Holyrood election (assuming it takes place in 2021) the SNP will have been in power, continuously, for 14 years. If Scotland’s schools haven’t improved by then it will be no-one but the SNP’s fault (and, so far, Scottish education has got worse, not better, under the SNP).
If the Scottish health service is still in the mess in 2021 that it is in now, it will be no-one but the SNP’s fault. Moreover, well before 2021 the new tax and welfare powers agreed by the Smith Commission and currently being legislated for in the Scotland Bill will be fully in force.
Mr Swinney made a complete hash of the first tax devolved to him (stamp duty) and, when he takes charge of income tax in Scotland, which he soon will, his job will get a whole lot harder. Especially when he has a Cabinet Secretary for Welfare urging him radically to increase spending on social security provision in Scotland.”
Just another UKOK huckster lawyer, but its all laid out here by our fellow countryman, from Kent.
Still no word from Stu yet re: The Record backing Jeremy Corbyn? He’s probably still in shock.
(I know how he feels. It’s a wonder Murray Foote can walk with brass balls that size. A brass neck an’ all…)
heedtracker
“Mr Swinney made a complete hash of the first tax devolved to him (stamp duty)”
The BetterTogether Slovenia branch manager is off his heid.
Swinney made stamp duty progressive, neutral and rebalanced to help the poor a little and burden the rich a little.
Then suddenly Osborne had to do the same except Osbourne then added a £ 70 million tax subsidy to undercut the levels Swinney set at.
Funny how quick Westminster moves when people are able to see it done better.
Here is a list of the ships in The RN in 1954 from a copy of the Ian Allan abc Of British Warships retained from my boyhood:-
Battleships – 5
Fleet Carriers – 7
Light Fleet Carriers – 9
Aircraft Ferry Carriers – 4
Cruisers – 27
Minelayers – 3
Monitors – 2
Destroyers – 95
Fast A/S Frigates – 21
Frigates – 161
Ocean Minesweepers – 62
Submarines – 55
Fast Patrol Boats – 80
Seaward Defence Boats – 18
Fast Gunboats – 1
Motor Launches – 57
Seaward Defence Launches – 13
Submarine Depot Ships – 4
Destroyer Depot Ships – 2
Heavy Repair Ships – 3
Maintenance Ships – 11
Fleet Auxiliaries – 8
Radar Training and Trials Ships – 2
Surveying Vessels – 2
Boom Defence Vessels – 72
Boom Working Vessels – 18
Netlayers – 2
Coastal Minelayers – 2
Trawlers – 34
Motor Minesweepers – 72
Inshore Minesweepers – 54
Coastal Minesweepers – 60
Now that was a Navy.
During ww11. Westminster created a black propaganda unit nicknamed The Ministry of Disinforation. It was so successful it was kept in place fronted by BBC and GCHQ. I have been listening to foreign news for years to learn what was really going on in the world.
Kezia break BBC! We don’t deserve her, truly we don’t.
link to archive.is
FMQ’s next month let ‘the heartaches begin’ for those who thought Kezia was being truthful saying ‘I’m changing’ or, on reflection, Marmalade tomorrow.
I prefer Marmalade to the Jam anyhoo!
Who will folk trust… no contest.
The only good thing to have come out of this UKLabour leader contest is the exposing of their dirty tactics in attempting to ban people from joining the party to vote for Corbyn. It seems the template letter of ‘rejection’ is being widely circulated on the twittershpere by more and more people who have been lifelong Labour voters.
Can you imagine the uproar if the SNP were doing this? Stasi SNP headlines across the whole of UKOK media. The Labour party are walking into oblivion with this behaviour irrespective of Corbyn win.
Patting down the electorate before letting them join, yes a core socialist ‘principle’ at work right there! Labour™
@ chris kilby
Mr Foote’s brass neck will be his downfall, as he’s unable to turn his head to see DRs demise running in his direction
First line in Prof Tomkins blog:
This time last year I was terrified that we were about to lose our country.
Mr Tomkins geography isn’t very good. He needs the Peffer treatment.
K1 It kind of begs the question. Why is Corbyn even in the Labour party. They are clearly all paranoid and anti democratic.
I expect he will win the contest and Labour will split into left and right. Clearly they will not be able to defeat the Tories with a split party.
That’s why all this talk of yessers going back to Labour makes me laugh. Ultimately this will give the SNP more supporters as the only relevent opposition with a chance to change Scotland. Trying to change the UK is a busted flush.
Unionists and their press corp can only cry wolf so many times before people start getting wise to the bullshit they spout ad nauseum daily. If the oil is so worthless as they say why dont they just hand back the proceeds? Think we know the answer to that…..
The problem isn’t that the SNP are Teflon it’s that Labour are trying to paint a whole room with a tin of non drip meant for something a whole lot smaller. So in order to do so the mix it with water and then complain that it doesn’t do what it says on the tin.
A better analogy might be that there might actually be somethingin the mud they throw that might stick but before they give it a chance to set they throw even more so diluted with pish that it washes it of. It’s also a bit of a mugs game as they risk it all getting blown back in their face.
If the electorate are “stupid” it’s because there’s been so much aimed at the SNP that’s turned out to be crap that we’ve simply come to adopt the attitude that Labour as simply low grade bullshit merchants who might as well be ignored.
Amen Big Jock!
Some cannot see this though.
@Glamaig says: 20 August, 2015 at 12:23 pm:
” … Mr Tomkins geography isn’t very good.”
Neither is his history, maths, English or political history.
” … He needs the Peffer treatment.”
Oh! Whit! He/she/it has had the Peffers treatment several times but, unlike water of the proverbial duck’s back, the treatment doesn’t run off the prof, the water soaks in much like water on a dehydrated sponge.
In soaking up water the sponge just swells up and the water makes it very soggy. There can be fewer things worse than a soggy, self proclaimed expert, (that is one with watered down professed views).
Muscleguy says:
Not strictly true, the Greens are Social Democrats too and the SLP are as well, just with a bit more oomph to it. How SLAB should be.
You are correct, Muscleguy. I try to be quite accurate in what I say, but on this occasion I overstated the point I was trying to make. It is quite true that there are other parties who believe in social democracy and they have honourable platforms and honest positions which we can debate
Dr EW is also correct in stating upthread that strong opposition at Holyrood is desirable, perhaps even necessary, as a counter to the corrosive effects of too much power. The points are related, and I accept them both
What I will say, though, is that SNP are currently the only party which represents that strand in a truly effective way. That is not the fault of the smaller parties, from my point of view. It is rather a consequence of our voting traditions, whereby we are accustomed to the outcomes of FPTP and so expect a very few, very strong parties. I know that many will point out that Holyrood is not elected under that system, and that is important. But it is not yet embedded in the public mind, I don’t think. We are not (yet) persuaded by the actual effect of PR as seen in europe where a great many parties get a share of the seats and where the compromise referred to in my post can be less influential
As some here will know, I am not so persuaded by PR as most independence supporters. There is an argument to be had, and I do not think it is obvious why some system of PR is necessarily better than FPTP: but I am not decided on the issue and I hope we will have that debate after independence and have it seriously.
However we are where we are, and I believe a Holyrood in which PR worked properly would weaken the Scottish government in its dealings with a FPTP Westminster: as was clearly intended.
For the moment, I think that a great part of the electorate who would otherwise support Greens, or SLP or even tories, understand that. They vote SNP for a variety of complex reasons, but I suspect that one of them is a clear appreciation of the value of a strong voice from one position at both Holyrood and Westminster. As ever, I think that the electorate are correct in their analysis when it comes to the big picture, and so I take issue with unionists who believe that this is the result of our failure to understand the system.
I have no fears of the corruption of SNP in the short term: they have a clear aim and they have the wit and the discipline to further that aim using existing structures. That is an impressive achievement, and not likely to be undermined in the near future.
Inevitably their support will fall over time, and that does not really depend entirely on their record, or even on the beh of the mainstream parties: folk get bored, to put it crudely, and that will happen. But not yet, I think.
After independence all those other parties will emerge stronger, and there is no doubt in my mind that politics will be stronger and more engaging because there will be real choices to make. Even if we got FFA, that would be true, though less so, I believe.
For now, and without wishing to pretend that all of those who vote SNP wish for independence (they don’t, IMO), I think SNP represents the wish for an alternative to neoliberalism which is actually achievable. While I respect those parties you mention, I do not think they do, as yet.
I am sorry if I left the impression that I do not recognise the stance of those parties or do not value it
Now it appears Mr Murdoch is backing Mr Corbyn.
@Glamaig
Mr Tomkins, the Scotland Offices’ expert on constitutional matters…. nuff said.
True blue, UK right or wrong, wrap me in the flag unionist and a believer in the order of things. No logic, no reasoning, no measure of empathy will ever reach such an individual. Whatever appalling austerity policies or cuts are enacted by the Westminster government, to the likes of such a believer they will always be simply in our best interests.
Its astonishing after all that has happened they still dont get it.
And if they think letting some arse loose on TV or radio to call us all morons or idiots is going to save them they are living in cloud cuckoo land.
As for the other numpties that think we will all go back in the box and vote Labour again,here is the reason we will not,you had your chance we gave you decades to do something to improve Scotland no ifs or buts you failed,now we idiots plan to give the SNP that same chance.
You can use your project fear pish all you want the end result will be your downfall as a political entity in Scotland,you have been rumbled by the electorate and we are not amused.
tick tock
Agreed Big Jock, Labour are in implosion mode, even if Corbyn does win, there will be a coup, it’s going to destroy UKLabour. As well as bolstering SNP position, it’s going to bolster the Tories too…those ‘shy’ tories won’t be shy in 2020…leading to greater majority at Westminster.
There won’t be a ‘better together’ strategy involving Labour, left, by the time we are going for Indyref2. I’m eager to see whether SNP put it in their manifesto for 2016, in light of the developments after Labour leader contest and the fall out?
There’s a lot to be said for capitalising on the weakness of one of the ‘establishment’s’ political ‘pillars’ collapsing internally. We can advance through that exposed flank, especially if the ‘right wing’ coup within the Labour party is successful: the direction of travel (in the UK) is going to be much less opaque to those who have stuck with Labour in the belief that they are somehow ‘oppositional’ to Tory policies.
We have the ‘Corbyn’ effect to thank for this, I suppose, but this effect was only possible on the back of Scotland’s renewed political engagement of which the SNP are the beneficiaries in real terms of much increased support.
There’s a lot to be positive about from an Independence point of view.
Has Nicola Sturgeon got the easiest job in the world? She hasn’t been in the news for weeks, and the SNP following gets bigger every day!
Do the likes of Kelly never learn? They tried smear and fear during indyref and it nearly kicked them in the face ( I believe only some imaginative arithmetic saved them ). They repeated it during the ge, and SNP returned 56 mp’s. They’re now trying it direct with the voters, and there can only be one response.
They’re also rubbishing Corbyn, so much that he’s now a certainty for the leader’s job. Don’t they see that these labour passengers are so mistrusted that anyone will do the opposite to their advice – even idiots?
Do they really not care that industries like Longannet are being strategically removed, so that, come the next, and final, referendum, Scots will look around and think “we need england, because there’s nothing up here”.
I’m not interested in Corbyn, and I’m sure he cares less about us; still, it’s very amusing to watch these fools shoot each other in the feet.
Craig P says
“Legerwood – I’m not going to defend UK defence policy, but numbers of boats aren’t everything – for example, the latest frigates (Type 45) have more anti-aircraft capability each than the entire 1982 Falklands fleet, whereas Argentina has not modernised its airforce to nearly the same extent.”
One missile one ship sent to the bottom,
put all you anti aircraft capability in one ship rather than a dozen isn’t the smartest thing you can do!
Mr Tomkins geography isn’t very good. He needs the Peffer treatment.
Prof Tomkinski co-authored historic Smith Commission fraud but he should really stand for election now. He’s not a UKOK civil servant or even a life Lord, not yet anyway. Let the electorate decide how UKOK democracy could work.
The historic The Vow fraud begged Scotland to vote NO for devo-max and a federal UK. And Prof Tomkins is what we actually got. A spivy law lecturer from Kent and his spivy plan to destroy SNP Scots.gov, all backed up by the whole of the English media in Scotland.
Prof Tomkins says he nearly lost his country but if his cunning plan does work out, who really suffers? Prof T’s North Britain. But that’s fine for rule britannia britnats in Scotland, anything is, just as long as England keeps control of Scotland.
Check Prof T’s use of “force” in his North Britain blog. A UKOK hatchet man in action.
“If the Scottish health service is still in the mess in 2021 that it is in now, it will be no-one but the SNP’s fault. Moreover, well before 2021 the new tax and welfare powers agreed by the Smith Commission and currently being legislated for in the Scotland Bill will be fully in force.
Yes we also must remember that Corbyn is going to be the leader of a failed opposition party. He is not going to be changing anything, other than the furniture.
The right wing Labour mp’s will not back him at Westminster. They will do what they always do and sit on their hands. The SNP and Corbyn’s lefties will try and oppose bills. Without the Labour whip Corbyn will be lucky to muster 50 of his mp’s in support.
It is in Westiminster that the fragmentation of Labour will occur. Corbyn will be put in an untenable position and end up resigning. He will take his supporters and form a new socialist Labour party. The other Blairites will continue the Tory light policies.
Mark my words the end is coming for Labour and Corbyn will be the key catalyst in it’s demise.
Glamaig@12.23
Re Prof Tomkins being ‘terrified’.
I and many others were terrified we were about to lose our integrity with a no vote.
Added to that, the thought of losing large amounts of our so called budget from westmonster and suffering the horrendous consquences of their deliberate attacks on our most vulnerable, was terrifying. It still is.
These people do not care about anyone but themselves. The ones making the decisions about peoples’ lives, tory and labour, are the most terrifying being on the whole an incredibly cruel and uncaring
bunch.
Nicola Sturgeon must act, The SNP must do something
The Labour Party are a laugh aren’t they, for around fifty years they sold Scotland the politics of Apathy and Depression, this is your lot get on with it nothing we can do about the bad English Tories, and then we never had it so good, thing is they always did OK didn’t they
But now, they want to talk about our country, we gave Scotland Devolution Blah Blah, heard it
Corbyn Miliband Kinnock, whoever,……
Tell you what I think “Show me the Money” or shut your lying Effing Mouths
Too Little Too Late, Too Often Scotland’s been Labours ash tray left for us to empty
In defence of the Union is it? How many times did we see workers march, strike, work to rule at the behest of Labour Union shop stewards, only to have a wee secret meeting and then say OK boys that’s it sorted, back to work because everything’s going to be fine now
How often was it fine then?
That must mean it’s fine now eh?
I really don’t like being Englands fag end
This isn’t about Mr and Mrs English person they don’t have a clue because they’re sold the same lies in reverse
even the posh ones sipping their Gin and Tonic of which BTW 70% of is made in Effing Scotland
Jeeez
@orri says: 20 August, 2015 at 12:41 pm:
” … If the electorate are “stupid” it’s because there’s been so much aimed at the SNP that’s turned out to be crap that we’ve simply come to adopt the attitude that Labour as simply low grade bullshit merchants who might as well be ignored”.
The salient point, orri, is that Labour have now become as irrelevant to the majority of the Scottish electorate as the long irrelevant Tories.
You do not need a giant intellect to realise that as the Unionists propaganda has long succeeded in conflating the terms UK, Britain and England as mutually interchangeable terms, and as Scots cannot really identify themselves as English, then the voters in Scotland have become increasingly alienated with all things connected to, “The Establishment”.
Note how the majority of Scots now identify the Scottish Branch office of the Westminster Labour Party as, “Red Tories”, and regard the LibDems as no better than Tories with their brains removed to prove the point. Note also the many Scottish Labour Unionist pontifications that claimed, “If the Scots vote for independence they will cease to be British”.
Quite obviously these numpties actually do conflate the United Kingdom and Britain as exactly the same thing. Then, as they also conflate the terms, “England”, and, “Britain”, then it follows they believe that we are all really just a branch of England.
Don’t just take my word for it. Did not, David Mundell, (“The Hecht Heid Ain”, of the Conservative & Unionist Party in Scotland), quote from a UK Government commissioned paper thus : – “The Treaty of Union extinguished the Kingdom of Scotland and renamed the Kingdom of England as the United Kingdom”.
That paper was produced during the pre-referendum debate and seems now rather much buried amid official document titles in the Westminster archives. (I do, though, have a copy of it filed away on a computer).
The document is long and rambling but does indeed express the official views that the three country Kingdom of England of 1706/7 did indeed absorb Scotland and not, as the actual treaty reads, join with an equally sovereign kingdom. Their problem is they have not, after 408 years, managed to persuade the Scottish electorate of its veracity.
Methinks they never will. The very title, “United Kingdom”, gives the lie to the idea of a legal English takeover. Fact is, though, the reality of Westminster is that it is the de facto Parliament of the Kingdom of England but is masquerading under the title of, “The Parliament of the United Kingdom”, and that’s without the very idea of, “EVEL”.
I can’t take a word Tomkins says seriously. He is so over the top in his Col Blimp unionist nonsense he reads more like one of the more deranged Telegraph below the line reactionaries.
That said anyone that calls my country North Britain is hardly going to get much of a hearing.
With regards 2021 the backdrop will the utter shambles that the Tories have wrought on public services and UK international relations. I think the SNP will look pretty damned good by comparison.
Prof Tomkins could very well be touting himslef as a potential Tory MSP candidate given the forthcoming retirement of many of the current bunch.
john king says: at 6:49 am
Commander Lesley-Anne says
“Sorry Tam … I just couldn’t be bothered writing out Combat Battle Group out in full … AGAIN! :D”
Eh?
Carrier Strike Group surely commander?
A bit behind the times aren’t we C.A.G.?
This aint the gulf of Tonkin, this aint the USS Franklin D Roosevelt and this aint Vietnam 1968 sailor!
Well to be fair John I was trying, and obviously failing
, NOT to Americanise too much what might eventually pass as a floating football pitch and a couple of team buses. 
Boy, I love a wee side discussion these days. I get promoted from Village Idiot to Commander to C.A.G. (Commander Air Group) to Rear Admiral all in the space of 24 hours!
Thanks John and Rob for my multiple promotions I’ll try and keep up my high, or should that be LOW standards, in future.
Don’t worry though folks I’ve left my books at the back of the class … I won’t be *ahem* front and centre for too much longer.
Prof Tomkins could very well be touting himslef as a potential Tory MSP candidate given the forthcoming retirement of many of the current bunch.
He wants to close down Holyrood and turn it into a Travel Lodge. Anyway his whole Tory thing is scrapping everything Scotland, so MSP Tomkins not likely. Lord Adam Of Kent and Glasgow is the holy North Britain goal and why not, lady Mone’s set the bar very high for that ghastly outfit membership.
ArtyHetty, the “incredibly cruel and uncaring bunch” you describe were forensically dissected and analysed by one of our greatest 20th century Scots in his most famous address. I used to have a newspaper facsimile edition of it on my classroom wall, for the edification of the tinies. When I returned after a short period of absence, it had disappeared, which I took to be a compliment.
Macart’s mention of it on another blog brought it all back. It is as fresh and relevant now as it was forty years ago. Mrs Balls was wrong to talk about the politics of the past when referring to socialism: the notions of fairness, equality and justice are never out of date and indeed drove most of the Yes campaign. In this respect I think we are way ahead of the English people at the moment.
link to scottishleftreview.org
Robert Peffers at 1:51pm
Spot on as ever.. Thankyou.
..quote from a UK Government commissioned paper thus : –
“The Treaty of Union extinguished the Kingdom of Scotland and renamed the Kingdom of England as the United Kingdom”
There we have it. I’m getting it on a t-shirt. With an ‘explicit lyrics’ warning tag!
1:34pm
“Mark my words the end is coming for Labour and Corbyn will be the key catalyst in it’s demise.”
Then sometime before the GM in 2020 hopefully many more Labour-voting Scots will see that the Tories are likely to control the UK for decades, are going to continue in the planned destruction of Scotlands economy and democracy, and the only way out is independence. The longer the Tories are in power the more corrupt and vicious they become. We’ve seen it before.
Labour have been exposed as the fake/champagne socialists they are.
Fat cat Council cronyism and public sector nouveaux riche was their last hurrah.
Michael Kelly should take a good look in the mirror and join the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party.
Either that or just ‘cut his own throat and feed himself’.
On you are all idiots topic, hard core Toryboy Press and Journal give Keiza Dugdale a massive full page boost today. It’s been over 24 hours since the last UKOK blast from those sneaky shits but it’s still a bit of a creepout watching hard core Tories boosting SLabour to victory and beyond.
Keiza says vote SLabour because she’s a Quine from the North East. As good a reason as any other red and blue Tory freak out. Usual better together stuff after that, local girl for local issues, SNP bad, rule Britannia. UKOK propaganda writes itself really and all of it free gratis from hard right, roylas grovelling, Holyrood hating P&J.
Also there no oil left now says P&J at front of their organ, slide further in to their crapola of Britishness and all their oil industry stuff is How Norway’s oil and gas construction sector is booming. Funny that.
heedtracker says:
Keiza says vote SLabour because she’s a Quine from the North East. As good a reason as any other red and blue Tory freak out. Usual better together stuff after that, local girl for local issues, SNP bad, rule Britannia. UKOK propaganda writes itself really and all of it free gratis from hard right, roylas grovelling, Holyrood hating P&J
I have one, or is it two, question(s) here HT.
If she is a *ahem* local girl for local issues etc why then did she stand, as a list candidate I believe, in GLASGOW in 2011 and why is she now standing in EDINBURGH in 2016?
Surely as a local girl for local issues she should be standing where she is *ahem* local … in the NORTH EAST!
@Glamaig
Now that the Tories have a majority there is nothing to stop them driving through the Electoral reforms they wanted to enact the last time, the ones that the Fib Dooms blocked when they realised they would lose a pile a seats on the reduction of MP numbers and the subsequent boundary changes.
The Tories will be locking everybody out of Govt not just for decades to come but probably the rest of the century.
Labour will never win another election in my lifetime though I live by some miracle to be a 140 which would just about take me to the end of this century. The Brit Nat Press and Media will try to create the impression that Labour can though to keep the grasping Brit Nat mitts round our Scottish throats.
@Tinto Chiel
Its the only politics I have Tinto and its all in that speech. The values and aspirations expressed in that address will never grow old, no matter how hard others try to convince you of their impracticality in todays politics.
Tinto Chiel @ 2.36pm.
Re: Jimmy Reid’s Rectorial Address. It’s worth reading over and over again.
Thanks for reminding me of it. So true.
@Tinto Chiel
Jimmy was also the first person I heard say “I did not leave the Labour party, they left me.”
At Stuart McMillan’s adoption night some years ago.
Think I still have it on VT somewhere.
@louis.b.argyll says:
20 August, 2015 at 2:38 pm
Robert Peffers at 1:51pm
Spot on as ever.. Thankyou.
..quote from a UK Government commissioned paper thus : –
“The Treaty of Union extinguished the Kingdom of Scotland and renamed the Kingdom of England as the United Kingdom”
There we have it. I’m getting it on a t-shirt. With an ‘explicit lyrics’ warning tag!
Thanks for the complement, louis.b, but the paper in question is very long and couched in legal terms by a couple of the U.K’s tame Professors. These two claim to be experts in International Law. However, it is so clearly not as they depict it, as to make their learned paper very clearly a work of pure fiction.
The actual Treaty of Union could not be clearer. The wording is unambiguous and a fairly bright primary one pupil could not fail to understand it. Here are articles I & III, (Article II only concerns the monarchy’s succession and accession).
It could not be any clearer when the reader knows the Kingdom of England of 1706/7 was composed of an England that had already annexed the former sovereign states of Wales and all Ireland.
However, in 1688, the legal system of the Kingdom of England had changed from, “Divine Right of Kings”, into that of, “A Constitutional Monarchy”, after the English Parliament deposed King James II and imported King Billy & Queen Mary but removed from them the royal veto over the English Parliament.
The above quote clearly unites two equally sovereign kingdoms and there isn’t a single mention of countries in the entire document. Which is the very easy to understand reason that the resultant union is entitled, “The United Kingdom”, and not either, “The Kingdom of England”, nor referred to as a single country of any kind.
Scotland’s population reaches a new high.
link to nationalrecordsofscotland.gov.uk
PS:
Good for a laugh on a quiet day.
One of James Kelly’s finest moments.
He’s on Kezia’s team you know.
“That’s not the point” he says. We say “James it is the point”!
link to youtube.com
Surely as a local girl for local issues she should be standing where she is *ahem* local … in the NORTH EAST!
Well its a full vote Keiza blast from P&J with lovely photo of Keiza, next to lovely ladies, lovely but endless loveliness of lovely Keiza, who’s lovely say Press and Journal, who’s also lovely, really really lovely.
Actually for fairness, Kaiza says headline is “I’m a north-east quine who will speak up for Scotland” which is lovely. This lovely loveliness is actually an interview with lovely Keiza in the Punjabi cafe Leith, Embro.
More of all new and lovelier than ever lovely Keiza in TOMORROW’s lovely Press and Journal, when lovely Keiza “talks of her passion for education.”
Its just me but has Bliar McBloater and his idiot side kick Macternan moved to Aberdeen Journals lately.
Five more years of this red and blue tory fraud Scotland, five more yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaars:D
Press and Journal also farted likes of toryboys Michael Gove and Jim(The Madness of July)Naughty into the universe, so that’s all you probably need to know about these toryboys.
To Macart, Anne Bruce and Chic McGregor: amen to all that. I go back to this speech when I am fed up and things seem pretty dark and it restores my hope for the future. There is a better way of living and we can do it here in Scotland, if we can drain the swamp of the Union and break free. I think we all feel that on here.
@call me dave
Dearie, dearie me, cmd! Has he been taking lessons from from Kooky Kelly? As Bugs Bunny used to say, “What a maroon!”
Glamaig says: 20 August, 2015 at 2:41 pm:
“Then sometime before the GM in 2020 hopefully many more Labour-voting Scots will see that the Tories are likely to control the UK for decades, are going to continue in the planned destruction of Scotland’s economy and democracy, and the only way out is independence.”
Personally I concluded, after the GE vote, that the Labour Party were already finished – wi the mauks a’ready crawling aa ower the mankit bouk o the aince great pairty.
The residue of those, elected to office members at Holyrood and local council level, were already dead men, (and women), walking. They just have not realised they are dead yet.
Kezia probes the SG about new powers says Hootsman.
‘There are more questions than answers’ from Kezia which is strange as the SNP are always stealing their clothes, allegedly.
Hey Kezia! What are the labour party plans for using the new powers and all the rest…Answers on a post card.
link to archive.is
————————————————————-
link to youtube.com
So she plans to *ahem* “Shake up the establishment” then does she CMD?
I wonder, would that be:
1) Labour HQ, London
2) Labour HQ (Branch Office), Glasgow
3) Labour party in Holyrood
4)The Orange Order
The wheel WILL turn, but whilst it is true that the only sure thing is that things change, what they never do is change back to the way they were. Just as it’s hard to imagine the SNP being in power at Holyrood indefinitely, it’s equally hard to imagine going back to state where Labour have a monopoly of power in Scotland.
Quite simply, the Nationalist party has became the national party of Scotland.
Ironically that’s in the wake of a vote of the Scottish people to stay part of Britain, and it’s interesting to speculate as to whether the SNP’s success is due to an out and out desire for independence or because even unionists see that Scotland needs a powerful voice within the union and Labour was not providing this.
Maybe Scotland will settle down within the United Kingdom but this will only be because Scotland’s concerns are answered, not dismissed as ‘grievances’ by those down south. Quite simply the likes of Michael Kelly need to acknowledge this.
Of course Michael Kelly will no doubt simply die rather than ever do this and it will be left for the next generation of Labourites to deal with the issue.
Although I am not a celtic fan,Many years ago a mate of mine had a spare ticket for a mid week European game at parkhead, and asked me to attend.During the half time interval, a bemused and terrified urban fox ran onto the pitch, and the home support immediately started to sing “There’s only one Michael Kelly”. Even back then they had him pegged for what he is !
A previous post went missing, apologies.
@Macart, Anne Bruce, Chic McGregor: amen to all that. I go back to this speech whenever I get a bit fed up with our situation and it gives me hope for the future. We can have a better way of living in Scotland, everyone on here feels that. However, we need to drain the swamp of this Union and break free from its malign influence.
@call me dave. 3.33
Dearie, dearie, me, he’s not very good is he? He must have been taking lessons from Kooky Kelly. As Bugs Bunny would say, “What a maroon!”
Richardinho, the referendum changed Scotland permanently and the really great teams prepare the next winning generation. Its a universal thing in a lot of things. Just look at how New Labour collapsed and before that the empty Major years that dribbled down the drain.
Sturgeon hit the UKOK ground running, so hopefully Swinney’s another Salmond.
O/T The Lottery ticket, the tax by another method, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the sop for the poor to give us false hope, the one that was to be a £1 a ticket and no more is not £2. Can anybody tell me which political party had that increase in their manifesto?
Lottery is not a tax: you do not have to pay it. It is a for profit business some of whose profits are diverted for public purposes, because it is run as a franchise
I think it is important to keep a clear distinction between tax and these other arrangements. The mantra that tax is a bad thing is all pervasive, by design, and so govts do go to great lengths to raise money by other means. Another example is PFI. But that is not a tax either, nor is govt dependent on raising money in order to finance spending: all of that narrative is wrong and needs to be challenged at its root
If we accept that such things are tax we collude with the underlying fiction, and that leads to the austerity agenda. It is regressive in its effect and so as a metaphor it is legitimate to describe it as a “tax on desperation” but it is not a true tax, and the price of a ticket is not under direct govt control. You have not seat on the lottery board, and there is no representation accompanying payment, so it is fundamentally at odds with democratic conceptions of the legitimacy of tax
Just another example of the utter contempt liebor hold for the electorate in scotland. Jeez i hate these b******s even more than i hate the tories, and thats saying something.
So many country’s fighting and dieing for independence as Scotland did in its past and 55% of its people voted it down. 55%!!! Pox on ’em! Ya feckin turds! Unfortunately most people are reactionary and thoughtless. The SNP is at the top now but as soon as something goes awry it will be the red headed stepchild and people will turn against them rather than trying to fix it. Thinking people question, nonthinking people just knee jerk react. It is the same old psychological ploy, ‘truthiness’, if not downright lies to mislead those who don’t question. But then that’s politics, pray on the ignorant.
HAA!! I’m only a wee Half wit. Who’s the Moron now? Every politician should line up so I can kick them in the teeth. Warning from America, the parties are Garbage. The democratic system is a complete failure. Government will only work if the people can call to vote any time on any member or law. As far as British should be concerned, their business is whether or not Scottish residents agree to secede. Its not their place to be involved in any other aspect of an election.