I’m off to Thurso tomorrow as part of The National’s Roadshow events, and will be speaking at the Weigh Inn, Burnside, Thurso KW14 7UG from 7.30 pm to 9.30 pm. The event is free, so if you’re at the top end of the mainland, please come along and meet the National’s editor, me, and of course the dug. During the day you can speak to the National’s staff at the Caithness Horizons Museum, from where The National will also be hosting a series of live interviews.
The following day I’ll be speaking for The National Roadshow again, this time in Orkney. Like the Caithness event, the Orkney event is free and open to all and has been organised by those lovely people at Yes Orkney. It’s taking place at the St Magnus Centre in Kirkwall from 7.30 pm and I’ll be giving a talk along with Callum Baird, the editor of The National. Naturally the canine star of the show will be there to shake paws with his public. During the day from 12 noon The National will host a stall at the top of Castle Street, next to The Reel live music venue.
Because I’ll be away doing some speaking events that involve overnight stays and long drives, there won’t be any blog articles for the next few days. In the meantime, here’s a couple of snippets to help keep you amused.
Journey to Yes Number 17 – AC Grayling
One of the UK’s leading intellectuals, Professor A.C. Grayling is Master of the New College of the Humanities, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford. Anthony has written and edited over thirty books on philosophy and other subjects. Anthony is a leading campaigner for human rights and Vice President of the British Humanist Association.
Anthony was one of the leading intellectual voices who strongly argued for maintaining the union in the Scottish independence referendum of 2014. His argument was based on the strong historical role and cultural bonds Scotland had within the union. However, the UK’s vote to leave the EU changes everything and Anthony now believes Scotland, faced with being dragged out against its will, has every right to choose the path of self-determination if Brexit goes ahead. Scotland could flourish and independence may even bring about a much needed reform of English politics.
Learn more about A.C. Grayling and his work at
http://acgrayling.com/
The Indy App National Tour
by Jason Baird
The National Yes Registry, in conjunction with participating local members, are holding our second nationwide Tour of the Groups. Are you interested in how the grass-roots are coming together in preparation for Independence campaigning? Want to know how we are getting ready? Why not come along to your local event… all are welcome!
The IndyApp is the NYR’s concrete response to the many practical problems commonly encountered at grass-root level by Yessers during the heat of IndyRef1. The way that IndyApp helps tackle those problems will have strategic and tactical benefits in how we fight any new ScotRef campaign, both at local group level and at national movement level too.
So, these tour meetings are designed to start marking out where we think those campaigning benefits are, and encourage everyone to get involved in exploring how best to identify and fully exploit every new opportunity created by the IndyApp as a network.
Purpose of each Meeting: To help everyone collectively understand the networking platform tool The Indy App. We will show how the current version allows communication between individual members of a group, communication as a group and finally, communication between all groups at a national level. This system of communication is the bedrock of our grass-root network and is ready for all groups to start using now.
We will also discuss how to use the platform to initiate your campaigns. How it can help organise those campaigns across the full group network and within local communities (as well as across them nationally). This will include open floor discussions on the practical campaigning functions of the platform, such as the forums, resource archives and committee rooms. All currently under development and central to the next download version of the IndyApp.
We welcome questions direct from the audience throughout the tour and encourage everybody's feedback. This process is essential to tailoring the IndyApp to the needs of all its grass-root members. So, if your group would like to hold a meeting on any of the Free Dates, please contact Jason on info@nationalyesregistry.scot as soon as possible.
For full details on listed events, please visit each group’s facebook page or contact each group direct via the IndyApp. To download your IndyApp Free, visit https://chuffed.org/project/indyapp scroll down and click iOS or Android We would like to thank the participating groups for all their hard work and enthusiasm in setting up each local event. Everyone interested in advancing the grass-root Indy movement are most welcome to attend, there’s lots to talk about…
Wee Ginger Dug 
Let me know if you ever want me to tour with you to sing my “National” song I’d happily walk the dug while I’m at at:-)
We’ll miss your excellent blogs for a few days Paul, but go and fight the good fight (the dug too) and take the message of hope all around Scotland.
Looking forward to The National Roadshow in the Weigh Inn tomorrow night. But especially looking forward to meeting wee Ginger!
Will you be speaking anywhere near Dumfries in the next couple of months Paul?
I was in Dumfries just a couple of weeks ago.
This is not a very good translation, but you will get the gist of it:
In this French article about Nicola Sturgeon and Scotland re Brexit and Independence, the comments from French people are the best. Only 1 negative comment which was well answered by all other comments. Here is a google translation of the comments
LeClos 26/06/2016
I cannot imagine Cameron and Johnson closing their eyes for a second the last couple of nights. Their country leaves in total mess each of them responsible, each in its own way, and it is the tactics they thought fit to satisfy their personal ambition that brought them to this result. Tragic. But it is essential that tomorrow the euro institutions send Scotland all the necessary positive messages (first on its place at the negotiating table).
Mad Frog 27/06/2016 –
Hey LeClos it is better for you to be “CIOSED” because Scotland has 30% share of Polish, 10% of Indian, 18% of French it remains almost 42% of Scots 30% work in London and the rest are parliamentarians and unemployed then for the next vote in 2019 they have a little luck because if they want to stay in the e.u it’s just for the euros nothing else !!!!!!!! !!!! Hello
Stéphane Bertin 28/06/2016 @MadFrog.
It’s funny, I’m looking for “PIB Scotland” on the net and I find a slew of article (All of them serious)) that speak of the wealth of Scotland (the oil makes for many). So: troll or just commentate who comes out of the assertions without taking 2 minutes to check them out?
Dubitatif 26/06/2016 –
Pragmatic, courageous, and voluntary. Scotland is right to take this path and to be heard if its vision of the future is not that of the Brexites. We can only approve and encourage!
Somnambulie 27/06/2016 –
I am afraid they will be for their expenses. Between England and Scotland, the European choice will soon be made. Europe will have been caught in the act of denying democracy twice in less than 10 years: a feat.
Cynique du Bon Sens et Raison 27/06/2016 –
Ms. Sturgeon seems to be the leader the UK should have. This woman has her head on her shoulders and does not pour into demagogy like the English “leaders”. How much Europe could work better with Scotland than with the perfidious Albion.
Blue sky, beautiful sea in Marseille 26/06/2016 –
Well this woman (Sturgeon) has clear ideas and she expresses them clearly. Bravo. Like what an exceptional situation can reveal people! “Our argument is that we do not want to go out, we do not want to go out, and then come back.” A strategy can not be explained more clearly. The uneducated, the old, the peasants, who mostly chose the Brexit, must begin to regret having believed the nonsense that the English press poured!
Squeezed lemon 26/06/2016 –
The EU has loosened the crown of the Crown of England.
A French citizen 26/06/2016 – 20h06
The Scottish Prime Minister made it very clear: “She also called for a place at the negotiating table with Brussels in the framework of the British withdrawal negotiations.” What do Junker, Holland, Merkel and Renzi say about this request?
Bdul Al Hazred 26/06/2016 – 21h20
It’s simple. They are afraid. Scotland scares them. Because it represents all that frighten them: the people, democracy.
Kinda makes you weep to hear the positive way our FM is seen everywhere else. Our “media”, in collusion with unionists shame themselves.
Hell mend them as sales tumble…
I know, I agree with you. Sometimes I think that the EU citizens care more about Scotland’s future than the Scots!
Like that French citizen, I would also like to know what the EU negotiators think about Scotland not being included in the Brexit talks.
I was kind of hoping you’d be at the first Fife Pride tomorrow
Ah the great proud Scottish People, half of them a dumb cowards that can’t see or believe any and all the evidence presented to them.
It’s like being on the only lifeboat approaching shore, and half the people on it are knocking lumps out of the bottom of the boat while shouting it’s all the SNPs fault, we are surrounded by useless bloody idiots, how do you convince fools & Idiots .
While the Dug has taken Paul walkies I’ve been busy ‘family-ing’.
My niece is visiting from Toronto for 2 weeks and she who is the Light Of My Life has given our humble little but’n’ben the Mother of All Spring Cleans, because obviously we live in filth and squalor normally. There will be the usual round of relatives, gallons of tea and home made scones, and a good old fashioned chance to ‘catch up’.
Dear Reader, I describe what happens in thousands of families throughout Scotland.
The Return of the Native.
In the mid ‘sixties, many young men and women left our shores bound for Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand as successive English centric Governments closed down heavy industry in Scotland, the North of England and Wales.
Historians in decades to come may argue that the industrial rape of Scotland marked the beginning of the end of the UK.
I live on the banks of the Clyde.
When emigres return the barren wasteland that was once the pride of the Clyde still lies derelict, ugly, overgrown, like a scarred battlefield; and they ask the obvious questions.
Why did this happen? Why is it still happening?
Why haven’t the politicians been taken to task over the wilful decades-long neglect, and the ugly ruins that still scar the Upper Reaches of the river whose ‘name thrills me and fills me with pride.’ a living testament to the lazy Labour dominated regimes that have lined their pockets and to this very day actively thwart the hopes and aspirations of their fellow scots.
Kezia Dugdael voted against removing the 1% Public Sector Pay Cap.
In Ayrshire they are cutting Teaching assistant posts.
Yet they will get on their pins of a Thursday at Holyrood and call NS all the names under the subn and blame her and the BAD EssEnnPee for all Scotland’s woes.
We are within a whisker of the UK finally imploding.
We have One Chance, probably by Oct. ’18, April ’19 to right this terrible wrong.
Decades of lazy New Labour chancers, with their noses in the trough are good at building Exhibition Centres of Rock venues made out of Bacofoil.
Lots of lovely zero hours no skills no future paid buttons wee jobs serving up burgers and fries.
I want to look my niece in the eye, and declare, we are doing something about it, oh daughter of Scotland.
At long last, we shall rebuild your father’s homeland.
I can’t bear to watch FMQs any more Jack. Nicola is absolutely brilliant at putting them down, but it’s heart wrenching to watch her having to. The hatred emanating from Ruthie, Kezia and Willie is palpable! They won’t allow the SNP credit for anything.
I just cannot understand why any MSP or MP would vote against removing the 1% pay cap, except maybe the couldn’t care less Tories. The way they cheered and applauded in Westmonster when they won that vote was absolutely disgraceful, particularly after heaping praise on the emergency services so many times in recent times!
It’s beginning to scare me now the route the UK government is taking. Although Labour may be moving rapidly up the polls, they are back to being no opposition to the Tories so I don’t see that they would be any better as a government.
Must admit to a leave of absence meself the past few days and today especially Jack. Just back in and catching up (birthday treats, lunch and such).
On FMQs? Haven’t watched it in weeks tbh. I’m tired of them, the opposition that is and their constant whining and dishonesty. They’re not worth it and they’re simply irrelevant to Scotland’s electorate. The very second that DUP deal went through, all Ruthie’s big talk disappeared like morning mist. Thirteen useless irrelevant creatures who will simply obey their party whip because they’re good little lap dogs.
They won’t fight for Scotland or Scottish interests because Scotland isn’t their home or their country. Scottish people aren’t their fellow countrymen and women. They’re Britishyou see and Scotland is a north British region. They vote with the UK and their UK party whip, end of. What’s good for the people of Devon, is good for the people of Dumfries and Galloway kinda thing. Except it’s not and never has been.
People suspect this now of course, but very, very shortly it’s about to be driven home with a vengeance. You get who and WHAT you vote for.
I’d urge people to remember that when the UKs humiliation on the world stage is made complete over the Brexit settlement. Remember it when subsidies are trashed and not renewed. When your already steadily rising shopping bill goes through the roof and businesses collapse. Remember it as farms are sold and the rural economy falls off a cliff.
Remember who you voted for and why.
Remember what was promised by Westminster, the ‘union’ and the Tory party. Remember who’s tactical voting helped put them there too by the by. Labour’s hands carry the same dirt.
To date those new MPs haven’t got off to the best of starts. Not exactly encouraging, now is it?
Finally, I’d ask folk to remember who is waiting patiently to help them put this right. All they need do is hold out a hand.
I too have been caught up in real life things over the past week or so,Sam.
Dugdale, Davidson and Rennie see their roles as destroyers of Scottish Democracy, and would close Holyrood tomorrow without a backward glance.
As you say, the world is about to give WM a reality check.
I think I’ll get a T shirt printed:
‘Don’t blame me, I… (fill in the blank)
Off out to meet the aging rat pack at the ol’ watering hole, and set the world to rights.
Later.
‘ageing’ even.
Slainte.
Uh huh!
https://archive.is/oKr2x
Who knew?
Who knew indeed?
Accordng to The Independent France has already removed Britain from the EU map for school children.
I trust the have not removed L’Écosse? For that would be quite sad. I quite like them and their revolution.
At the moment all except Eire Douglas, but I hope that will change before too long.
How sad and pathetic is this when compared to the joyful and friendly independence march? The indy march was a great deal bigger too!
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15384909.Bloodshed__drunkenness_and_triumphalism__the_Orange_Order_on_the_streets_of_Scotland/