the two short plancks length

Oct22 by weegingerdug

Ungrateful Scotland and Wales have, in a development that he says he could never have foreseen, turned him into an English nationalist. Although it’s a development that absolutely everone else could have seen coming from the distance between Douglas Ross and his last self-inflicted instance of oral pedalism, which I am informed by my physiotherapist is the distressing medical condition of sticking your foot in your mouth, Although to be fair to Toby this is not a very great distance at all, as Douglas sticks his foot in his mouth about as often as a social media yoonboot shares a prettily coloured graph which purports to demonstrate that Scotland is poorer than Bangladesh until recently pysicists believed that thes shortest measurable distance was the Planck length or the distance travelled by light in one unit of Planck time , a measurement related to the wavelength of a subatomic particle, thanks to Douglas this has now been replaced in the physics text books by an even shorter distance, the two short planks length, which is the distance that Douglas is able to travel between incidents of oral pedalism I am likewise informed by my physiotherapist that no amount of remedial intervention will ever prevent either Douglas or Toby from making pricks out of themselves on a regular basis nor indeed is there any form of therapy that can stop a dickhead from being dickhead , In any event Toby is quite wrong when he characterises Scotland as ungrateful, Scotland is very gratefulindeed every time that Toby ‘the Celt whisperer’ Young decides to pontificate upon matters Scottish or Welsh, because it saves us the bother of having to organise independence campaigns for ourselves. it is particularly useful for us to steer any remaining soft No voters or undecideds in the direction of Toby’s spittle flecke a nglo-entitlement as it will provide them with a sobering illustration of what those Tory britnats are really thinking when they bang on about the preciousss Union and how much they Love Scotland. This is what a Tory thinks about you. Still Better Together Mind you if given the Opportunity the entire UK would probably vote for independence from Toby Young. Toby is what you’d get if you took Piers Morgan and Surgically removed any Compassion, empathy or basic human decency that you could find.

in today’ example of Douglas smashing the two short planks barrier, it was just a few short weeks ago that Douglas took to Twitter to promise that the SCOTTish Tories promised to guarantee a free school dinner to every child in Scotland who needed one the only thing with a shorter life expectancy than a Tory promise to Scotland are those insects whose adult stage is without any mouth parts and whichh as a life expectancy measured in hours. we canonly dream of living in a universe where the Tories lacked mouth parts, because then at least we wouldn’t have to listen to their lies. The second that Douglas’s free school meals promise was put to the test, theScotiish Tories lived up to their usual standards of hypocritical cant. on Tuesday evening the House of Commons voted on a Labour motion to support th footballer Marcus R ashford’s idea to guarantee a free school meal to every child over the coming school breaks.EVERY Single Scottish Tory MP voted against except for Douglas himself., who bravely abstained. So in future when someone says that the Conservatives steal food out of the mouths of babies, That is a not hyperbole, but merely a simple statement of fact.It is an absolute and unforgivable disgrace that in 2020, in this UK that was sold to Scotland on its supposed security, stability, and decency that tens of thousands of children go to bed hungry and their working parents are forced to rely on foobanks in order to put th most basic of meals on the table. There was nothing inevitable about that, rather it is the direct and deliberate outcome of policy decisions made by a Conservative party which Scotland has consistently rejected at the ballot box. The problem for Scotland is that as long as we remain a part of this benighted kingdom, The Conservatives can ontinue to lie to us with impunity, because they don’t need our votes, they have no incentive to listen to us and no incentive to change their ways.So children will continue to go to bed hungry and Douglas Ross will continue to make glib promises that he will never keep, because currently the only sanction he faces is being shamed on social media, which has no chance of success because you cannot shame the shameless. just like his oral pedalism there is no therapy for that either. All we can do is to strive for an independent Scotland where all political parties can be held to account by the electorate of Scotland. The real reason that the Tories are so terrified of independence is because it means that they will face consequences for their lies, their deceit, and their decision to prioritise the interests ofwealth and greed over the right of a child not to go to bed hungry.

THat is why Toby Young is anggr with us, it’s because we are determined to ensure that this Conservative government keeps its word, that it remembers that Scotland is not its plaything, toy or possession, But for English nationalists like Toby and the Johnson government, Scotland can never be a partner in a union, but only a posession that must do as it is told and which must never assert its right to a voice and which can never dare imagine that it can hold th government of England to account.The UK cannot be reformed because that entails the Conservatives agreeing to a mechanism which will enable Scotland to hold them to account. There is as much chance of that happening as there is of Toby Young learning to understand empathy, compassion and human decency. This evening we witnessed another consequence of Scotland’s powerlessness within the UK when it came to light that the Westminster Government has decided that the extra funding announced today to help English businesses through the Covid crisis would not be reflected in Barnett consequentials for Scotland. so there will be no help for Scotland The Tories don’t need our votes so they don’t care if Scottish businesses go to the wall, taking jobs and livelihoods with them and condemning even more children to cry themselves to sleep on an empty stomach. the pride of a Conservative politician is not worth the tears of a child. It’s time to leave.

he stroke has left me paralized down one side. It is still too early to say whether I will be left with a permanent disability but it is a very real possibility. What worries me most is that I live in a top floor tenement flat which is now totally unsuitable for my changed circumstances. I am doing this crowdfunder to raise money to put towards buying a wee cottage or a ground floor flat that can be adapted to my needs. I hope to raise £50,000 which is around what I would need after selling my wee Barlanark flat. It is a huge amount of money and I really don’t want to seem greedy or unreasonable. I am more grateful than you can possibly imagine for all the love and support, it has fair lifted my battered spirits.

You can donate directly to the crowdfunder on gofundme by clicking the following link, https://www.gofundme.com/f/wee-ginger-rehab-fundraiser?utm_medium=email&utm_source=product&utm_campaign=p_email%2B2300-co-team-welcome

Alternatively you can donate by Paypal, using the donate button or log into Paypal and send a payment to the email address weegingerbook@yahoo.com. Or just click the donate button. If you don’t have a Paypal account, just select “donate with card” after clicking the button. If you would prefer to donate some other way, e.g. by bank transfer or cheque please email me at weegingerbook@yahoo.com for further details. Once again thank you all so much. You are giving a practical demonstration of the better more loving and caring Scotland that we are all striving for.

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the way home

Oct20 by weegingerdug

According to a report in the National, the Tories are ‘wargaming ‘to prevent Scottish independence. which probably entails them sitting in their underwear throwing dice at a board upon which sits a brightly coloured miniature army of orcs and trolls otherwise known as The Moray Conservative Association, which Michael Gove painted at university during a depressive come down from a cocaine binge because it was the only way he could find any friends, you get extra points if you can remove theannoying yellow painted one which once appeared an episode of BBC Question time and has been dining out on it ever since although truth be told it is now very difficult to find a Scottish Tory constituency association office bearer who has not popped up in a BBC QT audience posing as a particularly smug and self-satisfied ordinary member of the public the memo, from a PR company which works closely with the minions of Sauron, which is reportedly the official title of the Number 10 Staff who like Bojo the Clown report directly to Dominic Cummings, warns the Tories that continuing to refuse Scotland another indy referendum is doomed to be counterproductive. by which it meant hat when the Tories kept throwing the sixteen sided dice on the no Section 30 order square it didn’t deliver the power of invincibility after all, instead it just led to the section in the gaming manual entitled ‘end of Empire as a horde of very angry Scottish people rose up and flushed all of Michael’ s beloved gaming pieces down the toilet. as a stalling tactic, the Tories are being advised to offer Scotland considerably more powers and to put that to us in a referendum instead. Although unless that also includes the power to tell de Pfeffel Johnson and his Poxy Brexit to Get Tae it’s unlikely that Scotland is going to be interested. but even in the vanishingly unlikely event that the Conservatives were indeed willing to give Scotland all the powers necessary to protect itself from Brexit their fundamental problem is one of credibility. Scotland was promised all sorts of devolution goodies in 2014 which Tories and their allies conspicuously failed to deliver on . So if they are dumb enough to attempt another vow it will only be met with a resounding chorus of ‘why the hell should we believe you this time?

ln a sign of just how out of options they are, the Tories are even being advised to pressure the European Union to reject the idea of Scotland rejoining thehich is way up there in the wishful thinking stakes along with asking your ex girlfriend for the loan of £100 and a lift to Ulapool after you had drunkenly snogged her mother at your engagement party and then shat in the bed. You probably shouldn’t need a very expensive PR company to tell you that at this stage in the proceedings the EU isn’t going to be in the mood to do the Johnson ministration a favour in order to save the British prime minister from the political consequences of his own arsewankery. However it is an indication of just how clueless this jumped up bunch of incompetent turdmonkeys really are that they are unable to work it out for themselves. So while it is never wise to under estimate one’s political opponents it’s not like we are up sgainst political master strategists here. this is a bunch of wannabe wide boys who have just realised that they’re going to go down in the annals of British history along with theapocryphal inhs inhabitants of the anottinghamshire village who one night trawled the village pond with nets in an attempt to catch the moon. and who do not have the foggiest ideahow to prevent themselves being remembered as one of the great face palms of history like that US union general in the Civil war who attempted to rouse his reluctant troopers into battle by riding his horse up and down in front of the ranks while waving his sword at their Confederate opponents and yelling cOMe on lads!. They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dis………….

Finally I have some awful news to end an awful week. I am devastated to tell you that Ginger the dug has gone off to the great big dog park in the Sky. his arthritis had got so bad he could no longer stand. he had stopped eating and wouln’t take his medicine, There was nothing more the vet could do. The end was very peaceful. Peter was with him and Ginger knew he was loved. Ginger arrived in a Scotland that was uncertain and unsure about independence. He leaves a Scotland that is determined that independence is the path we must take. He came into my life as a lost and abandoned Spanish dug and over the course of his life, he showed an entire nation the way home. He was a VERY good boy.

Much love Ginger I am going to miss you. You’ll never be lost or abandoned again. there’s a place for you in the 5 million hearts that you showed the way home.

this stroke has left me paralized down one side. It is still too early to say whether I will be left with a permanent disability but it is a very real possibility. What worries me most is that I live in a top floor tenement flat which is now totally unsuitable for my changed circumstances. I am doing this crowdfunder to raise money to put towards buying a wee cottage or a ground floor flat that can be adapted to my needs. I hope to raise £50,000 which is around what I would need after selling my wee Barlanark flat. It is a huge amount of money and I really don’t want to seem greedy or unreasonable. I am more grateful than you can posssibly imagine for all the love and support, it has far lifted my battered spirits.

If you have trouble using the button, or you prefer not to use Paypal, you can donate or purchase a t-shirt or map by making a payment directly into my bank account, or by sending a cheque or postal order. If you’d like to donate by one of these methods, please email me at weegingerbook@yahoo.com and I will send the necessary information.

Please also use this email address if you would like the dug and me to come along to your local group for a talk.

Gaelic maps of Scotland are available for £15 each, plus £7 P&P within the UK for up to three maps. T-shirts are £12 each, and are available in small, medium, large, XL and XXL sizes. P&P is £5 for up to three t-shirts. My books, the Collected Yaps Vols 1 to 4 are available for £11 each. P&P is £4 for up to two books. Payment can be made via Paypal.

My new book has just been published by Vagabond Voices. Containing the best articles from The National from 2016 to date. Weighing in at over 350 pages, this is the biggest and best anthology of Wee Gingerisms yet. This collection of pieces covers the increasingly demented Brexit years, and the continuing presence and strength of Scotland’s independence movement.

You can order the book directly from the publisher. Ordering directly means that postage is free. You can order here –
https://www.vagabondvoices.co.uk/rants/barking-up-the-right-tree-2019

You can also order a book directly from me. The book costs £11.95 and P&P is an additional £3.50, making a total of £15.45. To order just make a Paypal payment to weegingerbook@yahoo.com, or alternatively use the DONATE button below. Please make sure to give me your postal address when ordering. Orders to be sent outwith the UK will incur extra postage costs, please email me for details. If you can’t use Paypal, or prefer an alternative payment method, please email weegingerbook@yahoo.com

Wee Ginger Rehab Fundraiser is now live

Oct19 by weegingerdug

This stroke has left me paralized down one side. It is still too early to say whether I will be left with a permanent disability but it is a very real possibility. What worries me most is that I live in a top floor tenement flat which is now totally unsuitable for my changed circumstances. I am doing this crowdfunder to raise money to put towards buying a wee cottage or a ground floor flat that can be adapted to my needs. I hope to raise £50,000 which is around what I would need after selling my wee Barlanark flat. It is a huge amount of money and I really don’t want to seem greedy or unreasonable. I am more grateful than you can posssibly imagine for all the love and support, it has far lifted my battered spirits.

Please also use this email address if you would like the dug and me to come along to your local group for a talk.

You can order the book directly from the publisher. Ordering directly means that postage is free. You can order here –
https://www.vagabondvoices.co.uk/rants/barking-up-the-right-tree-2019

The Brexit pinocchio and a very big question

Oct18 by weegingerdug

’

As I painfully and slowly peck at the keyboard trying to teach myself to type again following my stroke I am taking immense pleasure reading articles written by a group of folk who are obviously having a worse time of it than I am, British nationalists desperately facing the realisation that their precious union is, to use a technical geopolitical term, gubbed. https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/only-a-good-brexit-can-stop-scottish-independence although when I say facing the realisation what that really means is that they are still trying to blame everyone else and are refusing to acknowledge that they are the architects of their own misfortune, classic in the genre is a piece in the telegraph by guido fawkes refugee the Brexit skelf Tom Harwood who is what you would get if pinocchio joined UKIP

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/09/18/blame-labour-not-brexiteers-risk-second-scottish-independence/

Tom maintains that opposition to indy held a commanding and growing lead in Scottish polls through 2017 but things only started to change after the Labour party introduced Scotland the radical notion that if we were unhappy with the failure of British nationalism to deliver on the promises that it made to keep us in the uk then we could demand another vote , because we would never have thought of that for ourselves.
Tom’s big idea for blame shifting is that we uppity jocks would have resigned ourselves to our lot if remain campaigners had not legitimised the idea of re-running referendums, who knew that Jo Swinson was so masssively influential in the indy movement , here’s a wee bit of advice for you tom, save your metrobritsplaining for some telegraph tory boy to splain to. I am beginning to suspect that Tom’s grasp of the nuances of the Scottish constitutional debate begins and ends with deep fried mars bars, as proof of his thesis, if that is what we can call it, he presents us with some graphs – what the hell is it with BRITNATS and graphs? – which purport to show a correlation between Labour calls for a rerun of the EU ref and rising support for independence however there is also a correlation between the rise in support for indy and the number of movies that Nicholas Cage has done in a year but this does not necessarily mean that the desire for Scottish independence is predicated upon Nicholas Cage being spittle flecked and manic onscreen however I could be wrong, because – Yoongraph.

weeTom , who is an expert in all things northern because he went to Durham Uni froths for weeks now the separatists in Scotland have been consistently outpolling the unionists. It’s an uphill road for the pro-Union parties as the SNP, abetted by an acquiescent media, swells in formidability. Curiously this party and its divisive agenda has been able to present its extreme, duplicitous constitutional agenda as if it were politically respectable

ok so that’s it then -it’s because of all those scottish newspapers desperately looking for nice things to say about that ESSEMPEE and a BBC Scotland that never stops banging on about how great it would be if Scotland were independent.I Really hate to say this Tom, well actually I don’t, but I am thinking more clearly and coherently about Scottish politics than you are – and I have just had a stroke.

not to be outdone, Roger Tombs,who unlike the Telegraph Pinocchio is apparently actually a proper grown up tells us in the spectator https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/only-a-good-brexit-can-stop-scottish-independence that only a ‘good’ Brexit can stop Scottish independence however since as far as a large majority in Scotland is concerned the only ‘good Brexit is no Brexit at all it would appear that Robert’s suggestions for stopping Scottish independence were doomed even before he pressed the ‘send’ button to email his colonialist style nostrums to his editor Frayzeur’ irritable vowel syndrome Neylseun. Robert thinks that the current demand for independence is all based on a false victimhood from 1314, when in fact it has considerably more to do with the fact that the UK which was promised to Scotland by the likes of Robert in 2014 is not the UK which has been delivered , it’s like we responded to an advert promising World cup seats only instead of receiving match tickets in the post we got delivered a knackered wooden stool with a broken leg and ENGLAND 1966 painted on the seat in flaking red white and blue paint. Robert is miffed because in his view the UK graciously allowed 5 million Scottish people decide the fate of the UK and having conceded the extraordinary privilege’ that Scotland is a nation naturally it ought to be for British nationalists like Robert to decide who should get to vote in the next indyref. There is absolutely nothing in the article which shows that its author has any grasp at all of Scotland’s view of itself as a supposedly equal partner in a union. instead the piece oozes imperialist arrogance and takes it for granted that whatever England decides is a ‘good’ Brexit is something that Scotland should just have to swallow.

But you only know things are really serious when you get a Broontervention, and as reliably as a BBC Scotland debate about independence without any actual independence supporters, up the gordosaurus pops in the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/18/we-need-a-new-way-to-run-a-truly-united-kingdom-gordon-brown
to tell us how important it is to do all those things that he vowed he was going to do on faux parchment style newsprint just before the indyref in 2104 except once he got the no vote in the bag he was quite happy for Labour and the Tories to play devolution Jenga in the Smith Commission. What he conspicuously fails to address is why the hell Scotland should believe him or even listen to him, this time. Because we all know that when the time comes for Gordie to deliver on his vows to Scotland he will disappear as quickly as Boris Johnson does after one of his girlfriends tells him the pregnancy test was positive. It’s going to take a whole lot more than a suggestion from Gordie Broon that we’ve heard two dozen times before that the Uk needs to start discussing decentralisation. But so far that seems to be the best that they’ve got. The UK is out of ideas and it is rapidly running out of time. For millions around the globe the British Empire was a tale of tragedy, it is ending as a circus headed by a clown.

Typos, there’s going to be a lot of them, sorry, as I am having to learn to type all over again, please be patient. (Peter Here, I went back and cleaned it up some, but my writing skills are not why he married me so there still some mistakes I am sure.)

An important question. the stroke has left me paralized down one side. It is still too early to say whether I will be left with a permanent disability but it is a very real possibility. What worries me most is that I live in a top floor tenement flat which is now totally unsuitable for my changed circumstances. So my question is , should I start a crowdfunder to raise money to put towards buying a cottage or ground floor flat that can be adapted to my needs. I would probably seek to raise £50,000 which is around what I would need after selling my wee Barlanark flat. it is a huge amount of money and I really don’t want to seem greedy or unreasonable. What do you all think?

Please also use this email address if you would like the dug and me to come along to your local group for a talk.

You can order the book directly from the publisher. Ordering directly means that postage is free. You can order here –
https://www.vagabondvoices.co.uk/rants/barking-up-the-right-tree-2019

Getting used to it

Oct11 by weegingerdug

getusedtoit

Tory Boy Andrew Bowie, who has never knowingly managed to look as though he’s not smug despite having nothing to be smug about, has declared that the Johnson administration’s internal market bill which undermines the devolution settlement is just the start. Get used to it, he smugly declared on Twitter where his account is bedecked with a photie of himself looking smug. You couldn’t read that comment without realising that it’s finished by an implicit “or else”.

It’s an attitude which might play well with the staunch mob who comprise the dwindling base of Tory support in Scotland, to the rest of us it smacks of a rank arrogant colonialist mentality. “The UK Government is back in Scotland. Get used to it,” he declares, not even pretending to hide the triumphalism and the fact that this bill represents an assault on the devolution settlement and an assault on Scotland itself. Eat your cereal, Scotland.

What he really means is that England’s choice of government is determined to overrule and override the democratic choices made by the people of Scotland. Screw you, Scotland, and screw your devolution. We won’t be getting used to that, Andrew. And we won’t be lectured to by a smug over promoted and pompous six chip pretentious fish supper from a Conservative party students association.

In an article for Scotland on Sunday, the smug MP smugly wrote that the Internal Market Bill was good for Scotland. It’s been rejected by the Scottish Parliament. It’s been condemned by the Farmers Union, the General Teaching Council for Scotland, and the Scottish Council for Development and Industry. Theresa May – with whom a smug looking Andrew pictures himself in his tweet – cannot bring herself to support this bill, which threatens to break international law. She described it as reckless and said that it damaged the UK’s reputation. Is she one of those “separatists” that you castigate too, Andrew?

This bill unilaterally makes far reaching changes to devolution despite the promise made by the Conservatives themselves that they would not meddle with the devolution settlement without the express consent of the Scottish Parliament and despite the fact that they lost heavily in Scotland in the General Election of December 2019. The only people who think this bill is a good thing are those Tories who seek to destroy the devolution settlement and who have no respect for the promises that they themselves made in order to keep Scotland as a part of the UK.

The Tories haven’t won an election in Scotland since 1955, but they still think that they have a god given right to tell Scotland what’s good for it. In the space of just six years we’ve gone from “We love you Scotland. Lead us don’t leave us. Let us deliver the most powerful devolved parliament in the world” to “Suck it up. Do what you’re told. We own you.” Despite what Andrew Bowie so smugly claims, this bill will not save the UK, it is another reason why it’s being destroyed. And it’s being destroyed by those who claim to love it the most. Keep up the good work Andrew. That smug grin of yours is the smugness that comes from self-delusion. It’s as hollow and shallow as support for the UK in Scotland.

What is truly astonishing is that at this juncture in Scottish history, the Conservative branch office in Scotland believe that this is the correct tone to take. He represents a minority party, led by a wildly unpopular leader, and clearly doesn’t care that the attitude he displays will only alienate most people in Scotland even further. He displays that classic case of mistaken identity commonly found amongst Conservative politicians – the difficulty in remembering that they are not gods. There is no egoism more insufferable than the Scottish Conservative belief that they are untouchable. It has been said that complacency is the biggest struggle that we all have to fight. The Scottish Conservatives gave up that struggle a long time ago. The biggest problem of the Scottish Conservative elite is that it is neither smart, nor competent, nor capable. In fact they are not an elite at all. They’re simply what floats to the top in a barrel of rot and decay.

Andrew’s smugathon came on the very same day that an opinion poll was published showing that 64% of people in Scotland believe that this country will vote for independence at the next referendum. 53% are currently in favour of independence according to the same poll, and 56% believe that a pro-indy majority in the next parliament provides Scotland with an absolute right to another referendum. What these figures mean is that there is a significant number of of people within Andrew’s own support base who believe that the precioussss union is already lost. Not even his own supporters believe that what this Conservative government is doing is good for Scotland. They’ve given up on the precioussss union just as Andrew and his colleagues have given up on the battle against complacency. Get used to it, Andrew tells us, as Scotland tells Andrew that it has no intention of getting used to his party’s arrogant contempt.

There is now a strong and consistent majority support in Scotland for independence. There’s a growing expectation that Scotland will soon leave the clowns and the balloons of British nationalism to their own sad and squeaking devices. If there was a time for tact and conciliation from the British Government, this would be it. Instead what we get is an adolescent triumphalism from a Tory boy who can’t even manage to stand out in a field of six. A word to the wise Andrew, if you’re going to be triumphalist it helps a lot if you first do what’s needed to make sure you’re going to win. Instead all that your government is doing is to drive ever more people in Scotland into the welcome arms of the yes movement. It started as a trickle. It’s now a torrent. It will become a flood when your Brexit strikes. We refuse to get used to your party’s lies, its deceit, and its incompetent chaos.

Scotland will soon be out of here. Out of the grasp of Johnson and Cummings. Out of the malign cage into which Westminster has imprisoned our aspirations and dreams. Out of the sinking ship of British exceptionalist nostalgia. Your party, your Brexit, and your xenophobic regressive bunting-fest that passes for politics are finished in Scotland – get used to that, Andrew.

The purpose of this blog is to make a positive case for independence, to attack the pretensions of British nationalism, and to formulate arguments which will help to persuade no voters, undecideds, and soft yes voters to support independence. It’s also to boost the morale of those of us who are already involved in this campaign. I do not provide this platform to allow people to attack others in the movement with whom they disagree. Other people might choose to use their platforms to do so, I don’t.

So if you want to share your favourite conspiracy theories about Nicola Sturgeon or anyone else in this movement – you can go elsewhere. I am past caring whether you think that this means you are being censored. You have no absolute right to use this blog and you most certainly don’t have the right to abuse my hospitality by insulting me personally.

Please also use this email address if you would like the dug and me to come along to your local group for a talk.

GINGER2cropped Gaelic maps of Scotland are available for £15 each, plus £7 P&P within the UK for up to three maps. T-shirts are £12 each, and are available in small, medium, large, XL and XXL sizes. P&P is £5 for up to three t-shirts. My books, the Collected Yaps Vols 1 to 4 are available for £11 each. P&P is £4 for up to two books. Payment can be made via Paypal.

newbook My new book has just been published by Vagabond Voices. Containing the best articles from The National from 2016 to date. Weighing in at over 350 pages, this is the biggest and best anthology of Wee Gingerisms yet. This collection of pieces covers the increasingly demented Brexit years, and the continuing presence and strength of Scotland’s independence movement.

You can order the book directly from the publisher. Ordering directly means that postage is free. You can order here –
https://www.vagabondvoices.co.uk/rants/barking-up-the-right-tree-2019

CROWDFUNDER: A third Scot Goes Pop poll on independence as No Deal looms

Oct10 by weegingerdug

Click here to go straight to the fundraising page.

Hi, I’m James Kelly, and I write the pro-independence blog Scot Goes Pop, which has a particular emphasis on opinion poll analysis. Earlier this year I crowdfunded two exclusive Panelbase polls on independence, and although they both showed exactly the same result (Yes 52%, No 48%), they were both landmarks in their own ways. The poll in January showed Yes at the highest level of support since the immediate aftermath of the EU referendum in 2016, suggesting that the general election result had been a gamechanger. And the poll in June was the first to show that, entirely against the initial expectations, the events of the pandemic had pushed Yes back into the lead after a slight dip. It turned out to be the first in an unprecedented string of seven polls showing a pro-indy majority.

With your help, I’d like to commission a third poll before the year is out. Once again, we’re in a new environment, and public opinion may have moved on as a result. The Internal Market Bill has trashed both international law and the devolution settlement that was so overwhelmingly endorsed by the Scottish public in the 1997 referendum. A No Deal Brexit appears to be moving closer. On the other hand, there have also been recent high-profile events that may have worked against the Yes side. So there are no guarantees of what a poll will show, but I firmly believe that polls on independence are good things in themselves. At this stage our opponents would dearly love the issue to be forgotten about, which perhaps explains why around half of the indy polls this year have been commissioned by Yes-supporting alternative media clients. If we weren’t doing the job ourselves, it’s almost true to say that it wouldn’t be done at all. The mainstream media have all but given up on indy polling.

To be clear about what you’ll get for your donations: if the target is reached (or close), I’ll commission a poll from a firm affiliated to the British Polling Council at some point between now and Christmas. It will ask the question “Should Scotland be an independent country?”, a party political voting intention question, and a number of supplementary questions of interest to the Yes movement. Bear in mind, as always, that there’s no way of knowing whether there’ll be a Yes lead or a No lead. It’s always a bit of a gamble, but with the right result and the right timing, the impact can be considerable.

Click here if you’d like to donate.

Whatever happened to the positive case for the union?

Oct10 by weegingerdug

There are few certainties in life, just death, taxes, and a Labour party that promises that it’s going to listen to the people of Scotland when it’s out of power. There’s also a Conservative party that keeps claiming to be speaking for the majority in Scotland despite the fact that its vote share has been stuck in the 20th percentile for the past couple of decades, but that’s not so much a certainty as it is a delusion and a failure of basic arithmetic.

The Labour leadership has been making overtures to the Scottish electorate again, in much the same way that you keep getting text messages from your creepy ex telling you that they’ve changed. After taking you for granted during your entire relationship, after ignoring what you wanted and only when you threatened to leave managing the most basic lip service to your needs, Labour now wants Scotland to know that it’s listening to us, and that it wants our trust back.

Speaking at the Labour party’s virtual conference, New Leader Keir Starmer did he mention he’s the New Leader with capital letters and everything and that he’s not Jeremy Corbyn, said that he didn’t think that the values of the people of Scotland had changed. And this would be true. It’s just that the values of the Labour party did. Scotland still sees itself as a European nation, the Labour party now accepts Brexit. Scotland wanted greater powers for Holyrood, whether independence or the devo-max promised to us by Gordon Brown, and we got a Labour party which was even less willing to devolve new powers after the indyref of 2014 than the Tory party was. That would be the indyref when the Labour party stood shoulder to shoulder with the Tories, gleefully grinning outside a branch of Asda in Falkirk after David Cameron leant on his pals who’re the heads of supermarket companies to issue a statement claiming food prices would be higher in an independent Scotland. That one image was Labour’s Scottish epitaph, the physical embodiment of their betrayal.

Labour is now promising to listen, just as they promised to listen and to reflect after their defeat in the 2007 Scottish elections, just as they did following their defeats in 2011, the route they suffered in the General Election of 2015, their losses in 2016 and 2019. Yet here we are with a Labour party still promising to listen and showing no sign at all that it has learned any lessons except a burning resentment that the Scottish votes to which it feels entitled have gone elsewhere.

Meanwhile the Conservatives continue to trash any residual faith that people in Scotland might have had that Scotland’s interests can be met within the UK. Despite the Conservatives claiming that they’re the only ones who are standing up for the interests of the agricultural sector, it has been reported in The Times that the real prime minister, Dominic Cummings, has instructed Conservative MPs not to support any amendments to the Agriculture Bill which is currently passing through the Commons. I seem to recall the Leave campaign during the EU referendum demanding that the UK should ‘take back control’ so that unelected bureaucrats could no longer tell British government ministers and MPs what to do, and here we are with an unelected bureaucrat telling British government ministers and MPs what to do.

If passed with no amendments the bill ensures that ministers will be able to enforce lower food standards in the interests of doing trade deals. The UK doesn’t welcome migrants, asylum seekers, or refugees fleeing wars and brutality amply weaponised by the British arms trade, but it will welcome chlorinated chicken with open arms. It opens the floodgates to food produced to lower standards, which is less safe to the public, and which undercuts domestic agricultural producers. There’s your global Britain for you.

Just a few months ago, in news you may have missed what with the apocalypse and everything, leaked emails from Tim Leunig, an advisor to Number 10 and a close associate of Dominic Cummings, suggested that the UK really doesn’t need an agriculture sector at all. This is the same man who also reportedly once suggested that the British Government should pull all state support from “failed Northern cities” and should encourage their inhabitants to move south.

Agriculture forestry and fishing makes a larger proportional contribution to the Scottish economy than it does to UK’s. Food and drink represent the largest single export sector in the Scottish economy. The Conservatives’ new bill risks significant and lasting damage to that sector. They will happily sacrifice Scotland in order to extract some advantage for their pals in the City of London. The Conservatives have no one’s interests at heart except their own. They represent the politicisation of selfishness, the elevation of greed to a religion.

The performance artiste with the stage name Boris Johnson couldn’t be less popular in Scotland if he’d run naked and maskless down the fresh meat aisle in Morrisons and then done a dump at the checkout while screaming about a post he’d read on Facebook from his uncle that proved that the virus is all a lie. Meanwhile Douglas Ross is far too busy opening his gob and putting his foot in it to be an effective Saviour of the Union™. So now the Tories are looking to Rishi Sunak to save them and their precioussss union – by which they mean Scotland’s incorporation into a unitary Brexitland with its chlorinated chicken, its third rate genuine Scotch whisky made in India, and its union flegs plastered on everything. This is because Rishi has spent the past few months spaffing borrowed money around and the Conservatives are hoping that no one in Scotland will realise that we don’t need the UK Treasury to borrow money for us when we could just as easily do it for ourselves. However Rishi’s reputation as the Tory Santa Claus is about to come to an end when the furlough system ends soon and people start to lose their jobs. And all this just as we reach the crunch point in the Brexit process where the absolute best possible outcome we can hope for is a crappy deal that will still do massive damage to an economy that’s already been battered by the lockdown.

So we have a Labour party that always promises to listen when it’s in opposition but which never seems to manage to do anything about it or to show any concrete evidence that it’s actually heard the voters. We get nothing but repeated mouthings about a federalism fairy that never comes close to flying. We have a Conservative party that’s hell bent on the hardest possible Brexit and which will sacrifice even their traditional support base in Scotland in order to do so. Remember when opponents of independence used to promise us that they’d make a positive case for the union? This is where it is now.

Please also use this email address if you would like the dug and me to come along to your local group for a talk.

You can order the book directly from the publisher. Ordering directly means that postage is free. You can order here –
https://www.vagabondvoices.co.uk/rants/barking-up-the-right-tree-2019

Dugcast fae the dughoose – with Elaine C Smith

Oct9 by weegingerdug

WeeGingerDug · Dugcast 9 10 2020 With Elaine C Smith

This week I’m delighted to be joined by one of Scotland’s best known actors and a stalwart of the independence movement – Elaine C Smith. Elaine talks about the effects of the pandemic on the performing arts, the woeful support that is being given to this vital sector by the Conservative Govt, and the mental health effects on performers of no longer being able to perform. We also chat about how this crisis has boosted support for independence and how the SNP needs the wider Yes movement and the wider Yes movement needs the SNP.

And of course, much more besides.

If you are unable to use the embedded link, you can download the podcast by clicking on this link: https://soundcloud.com/user-291670852/dugcast-9-10-2020-with-elaine-c-smith

Please also use this email address if you would like the dug and me to come along to your local group for a talk.

You can order the book directly from the publisher. Ordering directly means that postage is free. You can order here –
https://www.vagabondvoices.co.uk/rants/barking-up-the-right-tree-2019

The proof from the puddings

Oct7 by weegingerdug

Yesterday on this blog I wrote about the way in which the Conservatives in Westminster systematically sideline and marginalise the devolved administrations. This isn’t just because the Tories hate Thatessempee and – as British nationalist zoomers on social media constantly claim – that Nicola Sturgeon would only use it to further her agenda. The governments of Wales and Northern Ireland receive the same cold shoulder treatment. When it becomes politically commonplace occurence for ministers in devolved governments to complain that it’s only when they read about it in the right wing press that they find out about British government policies which will have a direct effect on devolved government, this can only be because of a deliberate decision by the Westminster Tories.

As yesterday’s blog piece was published, the right wing Brextremist British nationalist website Guido Fawkes published leaked British Government documents relating to planning for the UK’s exit from the EU transitional period. The documents detail the plans that the British Government has to abolish EU laws by statutory instrument, in other words by the exercise of ministerial fiat and not following a debate in that British Parliament the restoration of whose sovereignty we were constantly told was the whole aim of Brexit. The documents also detail how UK Government ministers will take control of state aid throughout the entire UK. They also details some of the possible scenarios which might result following a no-deal Brexit, such as serious disruptions to the supply chain and a “tightening” on the supply of certain food items.

The plans and policies contained within these pages have a direct impact on all the devolved governments, relating as they do to devolved competencies. However the documents, which were prepared in June this year, are clearly marked as not to be shared with the devolved governments. It’s there as plain as day, as plain as the lies that utter from Michael Gove’s mouth, as plain as Boris Johnson’s lack of credibility. The British Government is deliberately setting out to restrict the flow of relevant information to the devolved governments which makes it impossible for those governments to plan accordingly. The Conservatives in Westminster are deliberately and consciously as an act of policy trying to create a political atmosphere which suffocates the devolved governments.

The Conservatives have already admitted that they are willing to break international law. This latest revelation shows beyond any shred of doubt that the British Government not only intends to press ahead with an extreme form of Brexit against Scotland’s will but that it also sought to disguise its plans to do so and to hide them from Scotland.

Food standards are a devolved matter. The Scottish Government not only has the right, it has a legal duty to formulate policies on food standards and to give advice which is appropriate to Scotland’s needs. They need to have the information necessary which allows them to minimise any potential disruptions. But they can’t do that because the British Government took a political decision not to share the relevant information. The Westminster Tories did so because they decided that they didn’t want the Scottish Government to criticise its plans – because that might have damaged the Conservative party. Yet again the Tories are putting their own narrow party interests above the public good. They preach union but practise deception. There are teenage YouTube influencers pumping out tearful apology videos about comments made about a rival’s weight during a post about a make up regime who have a more mature approach to life than the Conservative party.

You can’t get a clearer illustration of the pathetically adolescent approach to politics espoused by the Conservatives than the remarks of the Scotland Secretary Alister Jack this week. Speaking at the Conservatives’ virtual party conference, the Governor General for the Northern Colony spoke about the controversial UK Internal Market bill, the bill that threatens to break international law and which undermines the devolution settlement. The pith helmeted one said that he liked the new bill even more because the SNP hate it and that opposition to the bill from Scotland had only increased his support for it. The UK Government develops policy on the basis of yah boo sux to you. Their priority is to bring about a Brexit which benefits their disaster capitalist friends, not to benefit Scotland, and despite what they constantly claim it’s not to strengthen the UK either.

We no longer need to suspect that the Conservative Government in Westminster is deliberately marginalising Scotland and putting its narrow party interests before what’s good for the people of this country, we have it in writing from the British Government itself. We no longer need to put two and two together and present a narrative that we have constructed from a series of slights and slurs to the devolution process. We have it in black and white in the words of the British Government itself. We have the proof from the puddings.

The leaking of documents which prove conclusively that the British Government has deliberately set out to undermine the Scottish Government and the other devolved administrations was naturally the leading item on the news broadcast from Scotland’s publicly funded national broadcaster. This is the final nail in the coffin for the Conservatives’ respect agenda, and it puts beyond doubt the claims of independence supporters that the British Government is not now and rarely has acted in the best interests of Scotland. BBC Scotland has been shouting from the rooftops about it, because as the Scottish section of a UK national broadcaster they are naturally concerned to act as the voice of Scotland within the UK. BBC Scotland is well aware of the huge significance of this moment and wants to fulfil its duty to the public by ensuring that the people of Scotland know it too.

Yeah… One day it will be possible to write a passage like that without it dripping redolently with sarcasm, but today is not that day. It’s never that day. It’s never going to be that day. This is why it remains vital that as independence campaigners we cannot cease to highlight the damaging and harmful actions of the British state and the Conservative party. We cannot rely on the media in Scotland to do it. We have to do it ourselves, and that’s the only way that we will ever persuade no voters and undecideds that Scotland’s interests will never be met within the UK. The good news is that we are winning, and that’s every reason to keep going.

Please note there won’t be a blog article tomorrow because I have to go to the funeral of an old friend and neighbour who gave me a lot of support when my late husband Andy was in the last stages of his terminal illness.

Please also use this email address if you would like the dug and me to come along to your local group for a talk.

You can order the book directly from the publisher. Ordering directly means that postage is free. You can order here –
https://www.vagabondvoices.co.uk/rants/barking-up-the-right-tree-2019

A question of respect

Oct6 by weegingerdug

When a bad thing happens once, it can be considered accidental. When it happens twice, that’s deeply unfortunate and a sign that someone isn’t paying attention. When it happens a third, fourth, and fifth time it’s a deliberate act of policy. That’s the case with the Conservative administration in Westminster not keeping the governments of Scotland and Wales informed.

This week it happened again. Scottish finance secretary Kate Forbes was not consulted or informed about the surprise decision of the UK Treasury to scrap the VAT exemption rules which allow tourists to claim back VAT on shopping that they’ve done while on a trip to the UK. The scheme is to be cancelled at the end of the Brexit transitional period on 31 December. In response to a written question from Labour’s Jackie Baillie, Kate Forbes said that the decision had been made without any consultation with the Scottish Government.

Scotland has a massive tourism industry. Or rather it had before the pandemic. The sector is already struggling due to the effects of months of lockdown and quarantine restrictions on foreign travel. The retail sector is in crisis due to the lack of footfall in city centres. This measure will make it even harder for retail businesses which depend upon tourist spending to get back on their feet. However the Scottish Government is unable to say how much of an effect it’s going to have, and so cannot implement any measures to help to mitigate it, because since it was introduced without any consultation or warning Scottish Government officials have not been able to carry out any analyses of the impact it will have on retail businesses dependent on tourist spending. To compound matters, the British Government has not seen fit to share with the Scottish Government any analyses that it may have carried out itself.

The Conservative attitude in this as in so many other things is that the British Government has made its decision and Holyrood must obey. They don’t consult with the devolved administrations for the same reason that a patrician upper class Tory sees no need to consult with the household servants. And that’s precisely how they see us. That respect agenda that was once promised is as much in the realms of fantasy as that time that Johnson and Gove told the truth during a press conference.

Today Johnson delivered his speech to the virtual Conservative conference. He spoke of his “passion” for the union. By which he meant his belief that Scotland and the rest of the UK exist solely to serve his ego and ambitions. He has no interest in what’s good for Scotland. All he cares about is himself.

This is not, as some British nationalist zoomers on social media like to claim, merely the SNP pursuing a grievance. Today the finance secretaries of all three devolved adminstrations have jointly called upon the British Government for clarity about the finances of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The Chancellor has decided to cancel the Autumn Budget saying that because of the financial effects of the pandemic it was not an appropriate time. However this means that Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland now have no certainty about how much the block grants upon which devolved spending depends will be over the coming months.

Last month Kate Forbes revealed that the UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak hadn’t even done her the basic courtesy of informing her that his budget was to be scrapped, despite the fact that this has an enormous impact on the Scottish Budget. Scotland can’t plan a properly detailed budget if the British Government doesn’t even bother to let Scotland know how much money it’s going to have. The Scottish Conservatives have been typically silent about their contempt for devolution displayed by their colleagues in Westminster, but you can bet that they will be the first to try to make political capital by criticising the Scottish Government for delays to the Scottish budget. And they will be aided in this by their friends in the press.

This lack of consultation, indeed a lack of even the most basic courtesy in keeping the Scottish Government informed, is nothing new from the Conservatives. We saw it all the way through the Brexit process when Theresa May’s government cold shouldered Scotland at every opportunity. We saw it again during the pandemic when the British Government didn’t keep the devolved administrations in the loop about decisions which affected them. It’s worth asking why the Conservatives are behaving this way, because in doing so they are creating an open goal.

The answer is twofold. Firstly it’s because they genuinely don’t care. In their worldview the successful operation of their precious union means that they give the orders and the little nations obey. They still operate with the British Imperial model of government in which Westminster reigns supreme. The no more see why the Scottish Government needs to be consulted than they see any need to consult with a local authority in England. In fact UK Government ministers have made that explicit equivalence before. In March 2018 when the Scottish Government suggested that aspects of immigration policy should be devolved – as Michael Gove said could be possible during the EU referendum campaign – Caroline Nokes, then the UK immigration minister, said: “Immigration is a reserved matter. We are not going to grant an ability to the Scottish government that I might not also be granting to Lincolnshire county council.” Scotland, you’re just a glorified Englandshire county council.

Secondly the Conservatives routinely ignore the devolved administrations because they have no understanding at all of how their actions are perceived in Scotland. The have come to believe that the UK is a unitary state, that the only nationalism which needs to be taken into account is their British nationalism which is functionally identical to English nationalism and which of course isn’t nationalism at all – it’s patriotic. They have lost the traditional Scottish Conservative understanding that Scotland is a distinct nation within the UK – an understanding the Scottish Tories themselves have lost too. Any aspect in which Scotland is different from the rest of the UK represents a threat to the unity of the UK and must be squashed. This is not a world view with which devolution can coexist. The Conservatives cannot tolerate any limits on their power, and a strong Scotland within the UK is a constant reminder that they don’t rule supreme.

The only respect that the Conservatives understand is the forelock tugging of their lackeys and servants. That’s the ‘respect agenda’ that they have in mind for us. Devolution isn’t safe with the Tories. Scotland isn’t safe with the Tories. The only safety is when we escape this malign British nationalist Brextremist state for good. Then and only then will Scotland enjoy the respect of equality.

Please also use this email address if you would like the dug and me to come along to your local group for a talk.

You can order the book directly from the publisher. Ordering directly means that postage is free. You can order here –
https://www.vagabondvoices.co.uk/rants/barking-up-the-right-tree-2019

	Golfnut on the two short plancks len…
	Golfnut on the two short plancks len…
	Golfnut on the two short plancks len…
	Golfnut on the two short plancks len…
	Golfnut on the two short plancks len…

Wee Ginger Dug

Biting the hand of Project Fear

the two short plancks length

the way home

Wee Ginger Rehab Fundraiser is now live

The Brexit pinocchio and a very big question

Getting used to it

CROWDFUNDER: A third Scot Goes Pop poll on independence as No Deal looms

Whatever happened to the positive case for the union?

Dugcast fae the dughoose – with Elaine C Smith

The proof from the puddings

A question of respect

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