The Daily SiegHeil is the favourite newspaper of the frothy tendency of the British right. The British press is renowned around the world for its extremism, its bile, and a dedication to the truth that makes Walter Mitty seem like the editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, but the Daily Mail is the worst of a bad bunch. Although it does have to be said that there’s a lot of competition. When you manage to be the most vile right wing tabloid in a field that includes the Daily Express, you have to be as appetising as a wasp byke in a cup of vomit soup, flavoured with the essence of bile and spiced up with the sour decay of lost Empire. Only in a society where the checks and balances on media ownership have gone seriously awry could the Daily Mail be a major organ. In this case it’s one which is necrotic. At least Mussolini had the decency to name his fascist organ Avanti! which means forward, the Daily Mail wants to take us all back to the 1950s. Its concept of a united society is one in which the lower orders know their place, and ethnic minorities and gay people are invisible.
Anyway, according to the far right propaganda sheet that somehow masquerades as a newspaper, Nicola Sturgeon is no longer welcome in Number 10 Downing Street. It’s not like she was ever particularly welcome. No one ever seriously thought that Theresa would have glanced out the net curtains to see Nicola coming up the street and thought, “Oh goodie, there’s that lovely Scottish woman,” and then instructed a lackey to get the kettle on and bring out the Peek Freans and some slices of Victoria sponge. We all know that Downing Street looked forward to visits from Nicola Sturgeon as much as a middle aged man looks forward to a visit to the proctologist, or indeed as much as anyone on the planet looks forward to seeing Michael Gove at any time or at any place.
According to the Mail, in a story which was picked up by some other newspapers, but not by BBC Scotland, an “unnamed minister” had told the paper that the Scottish First Minister would no longer have face to face meetings with Theresa May, but would instead have to meet with David Mundell. According to the unnamed minister, this is because Nicola needs to be taken down a peg or seven. How dare she imagine that she’s the First Minister of a constituent nation of the UK. She’s just too full of herself that Nicola, going around as though she’s the elected leader of the Scottish government with a mandate and everything.
The minister went on to add that the Prime Minister of the UK is only going to meet with really important people, like an opposition MSP with a penchant for posing for photo opportunities in military uniform or on top of a tank. Someone whom, in fact, that Mussolini could have related to. This is doubtless why she gets such glowing reviews in the Daily Mail when her entire political platform consists of giving “Scotland doesn’t want another divisive referendum” as the answer to every question as she poses for another whacky photo-op along wish some dumb beast – who happens to be a Tory list MSP for Aberdeen.
So in future, according to this unnamed person who for all anyone knows, or indeed cares, might have been Michael Gove speaking to the Daily Mail because no one else will speak to him, Nicola Sturgeon will only be meeting with Fluffy Mundell as he’s equivalent in rank to her. He can tell her what the British government position is, if anyone bothers to tell him that is. Being told things is way above his pay grade.
The Mundane One’s usual position in the British cabinet is to be the lackey who gets the tea and the Peek Freans and Victoria sponge sorted whenever Theresa spots Nicola striding up Downing Street. Although he’s not allowed to slice the Victoria sponge, as dividing up the cake is a reserved matter, and besides, no one trusts him with sharp objects. To be fair however, even if the Fluffbucket was important enough to be told the British position on Brexit, there would still need to be a position for him to be told and there’s no evidence that there is.
Downing Street has now attempted to distance itself from the unnamed minister’s comments, although it hasn’t directly contradicted them. The Prime Minister’s office released a statement claiming it “did not recognise the comments” which is a long way short of saying that they’re not true. The only representatives of a devolved administration that Theresa May has met with since March, during a time of unprecedented uncertainty and insecurity in the UK, have been Arlene Foster and Ruth Davidson.
It’s utterly sickening that there are actually people, Scottish people, on social media who have been exhulting at a report that the Prime Minister of the UK is refusing to engage with the First Minister of Scotland. Those are people who put their party political loyalties before their consideration of what is good for Scotland. Irrespective of what you think of Nicola Sturgeon or the SNP, she’s the First Minister of Scotland and the leader of the Scottish Government. It’s the whole of Scotland that the Tories want to put in a box, not just Nicola Sturgeon. The alleged refusal of a UK PM to engage with a Scottish First Minister is an attack on all of Scotland. It’s a reduction of a constituent nation of the UK to a glorified English county. Scottish Tories are apparently happy with that, but then there are some people who are in chains and who love their shackles because they think that they’re jewellery. That’s what 300 years of the cringe do.
Remember how in 2014 we were told that Scotland was an equal and valued member of a family of nations? Remember how we were told that Scotland could lead within the UK? Remember how we were told that we were loved, wanted and needed, that our distinct Scottish perspective was essential to making the UK something more than the expression of English nationalism? Well how’s that all working out then? David Cameron’s respect agenda is as dead as his career and as trashed as his reputation, and so is the UK as anything other than a nasty right wing exclusionist English nationalism masquerading as non-nationalism. The Scottish First Minister should be meeting with the UK Prime Minister, not meeting with the tea boy.
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I laughed out loud at your wonderful description of the comparative appeal of the Daily Heil, Paul, but the gist of the article should make every Scot froth at the mouth with righteous indignation. It certainly sent my blood pressure up a notch or two!
There is no limit to their disdain for our elected representatives .Nicola shouldn’t bother meeting May or fluffy just behave like we are already indi .Concentrate on the E.U we are on our way off a cliff .
If this report is true and we only have the Daily Mail’s word for it. (So it may well not be), then I believe that Nicola has firm grounds on which to make a direct approach to Barnier, asking to be copied in on all the details of the Brexit negotiation. Furthermore she should be able to reasonably ask that he defers any negotiation concerning a Scottish asset or the rights of Scots until a representative of the Scottish government is present..
Barnier has the power to do this as he has all the aces and the Brexiteers none. He should also recognise that there is no way that the Scottish Office represents Scotland in any way.
Then Teresa will deny it, reverse it, or whatever, but it will be too late.
Time the gloves were off dealing with these clowns. Little doubt this is all part of their propaganda campaign to convince Scots that they have no power, and no say.
[…] Wee Ginger Dug Meeting with the tea boy […]
Well said Paul. Worth repeating a question I posted last thread. If you’re not an equal, what are you?
Expand that.
What kind of citizen are you in today’s UK? Second class? Restricted access… to everything? Do you merit a democracy, a vote, an opinion, human rights?
Partner: noun
1. A person who takes part in an undertaking with another or others, especially in a business or firm with shared risks and profits. “a partner in a prosperous legal practice”
synonyms: colleague, associate, co-worker, fellow worker, co-partner, collaborator, ally, comrade, companion, teammate.
That’s pretty much the dictionary definition of partner and partnership. I think it’s fair to say that this is NOT Scotland’s position within the political and parliamentary union that is the United Kingdom.
There is only one union on these islands that is worth a damn and that is the social union. You don’t need a politician’s permission or labelling to maintain and expand upon this union and it has absolutely ZERO to do with political union, system of government, or effective stewardship of our rights, administration and economy.
The YES movement could use your help to set the matter of our governance to rights.
Easy ….. The FM should refuse to meet Blundell, sending one of her ministers will suffice.
Yeah I agree the foreign minister will be the right one…
Right on, Melvin.
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a 50+ Female and commented:
Love the description of the Daily Fail.
Hate the way Scotland’s Parliament is being treated.
Laughed so much at your descriptions in this post. Teresa May should be welcoming anyone who represents the scottish people with a free tin of shortbread let alone refusing to speak to her isn’t that a breach of our freedom of speech. So many matters that effect us are reserved it’s like spiting in our faces to say we’re not entitled to speak to the people who control this.
Nicola should copy Teresa and create a Scottish Minister for Communicating with the Scotland Office.
Lots can be taken to determine the lucky winner.
When Theresa comes back from her holidays she might find no-body wants to speak to her at all – her MPs all hate her, Arlene the Unreasonable had got her dosh so she’ll be off like all extortionists, until the cash runs out at least, and even non-SNP peeps are sooking in sharp intakes of free Scottish air & saying “Whit the f…..” while trying not to sound too Nationalist about it.
Whether it’s true or Daily Izal fantasy Newspeak, the fact it sounds like May Party Policy should nudge us that bit nearer to “Right that’s IT” territory. We seem to get close to “Right that’s IT” territory quite a lot in YES world but because we are gentle, worthy types we always take a wee turning just before we get there and meander along the scenic route for a wee while longer. Well, my travel sickness is not getting any better and I’m ready to go through the Magic Yes Gates of Indy
So please, can we stop faffing about, let’s not wait for Meandering May & Pottering Phil to finish their holidays to find out if this latest poke in Scotland’s eye is true or not, because even if it wasn’t, by the time she’s hobbled about Europe in a freedom of movement she wants to deny the rest of us, you can guarantee she’ll have decided it’s a fab idea.
Let’s recall our MPs from Westminster, bring Alex & Angus into the fold officially (the tories will self combust, all that will be left of Colonel Combusted will be her singed epaulets & a tankful of rage) and start implementing the policies of an independent Scotland, starting with Welfare and Land Reform.
And if Theresa complains when she returns ? Just say “Oh sorry, we thought you weren’t talking to us any more”
your proposals are tempting Molly’s Mum. but I do wonder who can decide to beat the retreat from Westminster? I think an “abstentionist” policy like Sinn Fein’s would need to be approved by SNP members.
Brilliant, Molly’s Mum! I couldn’t agree more.
Brilliant!!!
Sounds good to me!
It may well come to that. The difficulty, and I’m glad it’s not my responsibility, is picking the exact right moment to “go for it”.
“Scottish Tories are apparently happy with that, but then there are some people who are in chains and who love their shackles because they think that they’re jewellery. That’s what 300 years of the cringe do.”
How true, Paul, and I know some of these people: “Mind-forged manacles” as dear old mad-but-beautiful Blake said.
The Cringe/Stockholm Syndrome will keep Scots PhD students in clover for years once we are independent.
Another stinger, WGD.
Came across this quote from James Baldwin the other day, which is germane not only to Scotland but – in spades – to us down here in England’s First Colony:
“It is terrible to watch people cling to their captivity and insist on their own destruction.”
(PS: Paul, typo in para 8; you’ve changed the FM’s gender!)
“Jockholm” of course.
Sausage fingers!
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great post paul. It inspired me to search for these 2 songs which i hope everyone will enjoy
Thanks for those two wonderful songs, they fair cheered me up this morning and put a smile on my face.
As you rightly said, we have been here before staring over the abyss, but they never flinched back then and we must not now.
We will have our Independence, and I believe a United Ireland will follow soon after.
All of this brought about by a selfish right wing Tory party intent on reviving their long dead Empire.
In the meantime wonderful songs and music like these two examples kindly posted by you will keep the fire burning inside.
Cheers.
Noo THAT’S singin’ – fantastic !
Let’s bomb the fuck out of England.
I’m sure that I’ve got the attention of everyone with that key sentence.
That’s what the Scots Brit patriots like David Torrance and his fellow scribe whores would want the Self Determination movement to do.
Push us to the edge and the YES movement will degenerate into self destructive chaos.
Job Done.
Send a gunboat up the Clyde, shut Holyrood, and, hey presto, the job’s a good un.
What arrogant summer madness this unconfirmed slight to the people of Scotland is.
Of course Mundell, Duncan, Davidson and the Listory Boys are all away on very expensive holidays, on £1200 a week.So the obliging MSM is filling in tor them.
I expexc Kezia and Willie to join with the SNP and the Greens to protest this unsubstantiated dollop of Yoon nonsense.
What if the SNP contingent voted en masse to resign their Holyrood and Westminster seats in protest?
Think you are wishing for a lot Jack expecting Kez or Willie to complain against this crap.
What gets me, Andy, is that these Scots born chancers refuse to acknowledge that Scotland is an ‘independent’ nation already, and that this ‘rub our faces’ in it shite from their Masters’ English Press does not bother them in the slightest.
They are happy little slaves, born to subjugation, and willing to destroy Scottish lives through political culling just to hold on to their grubby little pay cheque.
They don’t give a toss about the nation of their birth, and will go to their graves in well paid servitude. Who’s a pretty boy, Willie? Here Kezzie, Kezzie. Din dins ready in your own wee special bowl on the kitchen floor.
This is MY country, this is YOUR country, Andy, and it stops now.
Let England go its own way, it’s none of my business.
And when we elect for Self Determination I’ll gladly drive Ruth, Kezia, and Wullie to the border as
they flee back into the comforting arms, and rest their battle scared wee heads on the broad shoulders, of Mother England.
This is the end game.
Scotland is our country, the English no longer have a say in it. That’s my view and the view of millions of us now.
The notion that Mundell and a bumped up political loser from nowhere, an unelected Laird of Cockpen sit in Edinburgh ‘lording’ it over us is a farce, and they pile insult after insult on the Scots nation, the very notion of which is one step away from a forced occupation of our land by a foreign power.
I make this declaration.
Such a parcel of rogues in the nation.
Very well said, Jack. “We are bought and sold for English gold” Plus ca change, eh?
And while we are at it Jack, we need to rid ourselves of the parasites that consist of the English/German royal family, and all the hangers-on. If the English wish to keep them, that’s fine by me, as long as they pay for them.
I note that Wills and Kate have stuck to the two kids Child Tax Credit rule. Good on them; surely a good example compared with all those scroungers who are selfish enough to want a bigger family.
I wonder how much the Windsors’ Universal Credit payment is every week?
It is a sick joke that Royalty and privilege in the 21st Century Developed world is one of the Oligarchy’s greatest cons.
I will genuflect or bow to no other human on this planet.
That’s not how ma dear old daddy brung me up, yee haw!
Don’t get me started on the Nobility, whose wealth, power, and bloody land grabs are there for all to see, in the portraits of their ancestors hanging in the Great Halls of their country mansions, built on the back of a subjugated population.
Some of them still live like that now.
Real Land Reform must be up there near the top of the agenda on Day 1 of Free Scotland.
Is that a tumbril I hear rumbling in the distance?
Jack, if we only had to contend with the blue bloods of the establishment, we might have had greater equality in society by now but it is the co-opted lower orders who have always protected them and stood against any real change, in every generation.
It is the typical colonial model – the masters are too few to stand against the lower orders, It is those who feel that their own status is guaranteed by that of their superiors who will protect them, acting as a bulwark against those who might threaten the whole edifice. This layer of society will always identify their interests as being the same as that of the richer upper layer.
As WGD observed in a previous article, those who who feel themselves at least to be advantaged in comparison to those beneath them, will fear most any change in the status quo which might level the playing field. Hence the strong identification with monarchy.
If anything demonstrated the very essence of irrationality and unfairness, it’s the conferring of privilege throughout the generations based entirely on being born into a particular family. It’s that very unfairness which their supporters almost instinctively wish to preserve.
Whenever, I see the sycophantic obeisance to royalty, the waving of Union Jacks at royal personages and the entirely imagined intimacy which British Nationalists seem to feel with the Royal Family, I think of Malcolm X’s analogy of the house slave and the field slave.
Yeah, land reform would be on the to do list, that and re-tasking our economy. How and ever, my ass will be making buttons until the ink is dry on a written constitution locking in Scotland’s powers, reaffirming the sovereignty of the people, their rights and responsibilities. Oh, and likewise the responsibilities and duties of our public servants.
Our written Constitution in Free Scotland is probably number one priority, Sam.
A government of the people, chosen by the people, and accountable to the people of Scotland.
Our inalienable rights and responsibilities set out in a new Proclamation.
It is happening; I can feel it in the air.
This Mundell/Laird Duncan nonsense merely underscores the desperate plight of the Establishment’s Scottish Branch.
JGedd,
Dublin at the turn of the last century had a ‘West Briton’ clique who were perfectly content with the status quo; they were making money, owned the land, and saw themselves as ‘British’.
We have their equivalent in Scotland today; an elitist Oligarchy who have control over virtually everything, Finance, Industry, Education, The Law, Agriculture, Aquaculture, and most of the very land itself.
They are never going to cede control of Scotland to the people. They rule, and will damn well carry on as before, no matter how we vote.
The MSM and particularly the BBC, and the unbelievably silent organised religions, major charities, and Unionist Councils have mounted an all out attack on the Independence Movement.
They dare not fail.
Well, we’ve got a song for that, haven’t we, Johnny?
Very well said.
When Scotland voted 56/59 SNP MPs, the PM could not hot-foot it quick enough, north of the border, in her kitten heels, to appease the jocks with warm words of ‘equality’ and ‘respect’.
When Scotland voted 24/59 Better Together MPs the PM flung off the kitten heels in favour of her dominatrix jack boots and the door is slammed shut in Scotland’s face.
The only way to end this merry go round is to have a 2nd Independence Referendum and for Scots to vote for independence from the UK’s incompetent, arrogant parody of a democracy
Well what good for Theresa May should also be good for Nicola Sturgeon, meaning she should refuse to meet with Governor General Fluffy.
WGD crowdfunding already hit target. Awesome effort. 🙂
Let’s push it.
Great, and I still have to add in my money next week.
That’s great. Is this just the Indiegogo result or is it more with Paypal and direct donations?
That’s the result on Indiegogo.
That’s just Indiegogo. There have been other donations via PayPal and directly. I’ve not totalled those up yet.
That’s great, keep up the good work Paul.
Well done Paul, and all those who contributed. This guy is one of our secret weapons in the fight. Onwards and upwards.
I agree Sam, I’ve been watching the steady rise…and still 2 months to go! Keep the bawbees coming!
I am sure the First Minister will be [not] greatly concerned that she will no longer be able to converse directly with the malfunctioning maybot since recorded responses have seldom resembled a conversation anyway, just a series of pre-recorded meaningless sound bites. The downside, though, is the prospect of having to converse with the pith helmeted Mundane One which has, quite possibly, less chance of a getting an accurate response than conversation conducted via an upturned wine glass on a Ouija board.
If this is about Brexit and the continuing unwillingness of the current UK government to countenance input from the democratically elected representatives of the people of Scotland then, so what? We have plan ‘B’ and the more obvious it is that the tory party is only interested in the perseveration of the tory party rather than anything approaching a sensible attitude to the mess they have got the country into, then the greater the chance of a successful implementation of plan ‘B’ where Scotland as an independent country can decide itself how it wants to conduct its trade and relations with the EU and rest of the world.
I see the Wee Ginger Crowdfunder has breached its target. On top of the Indiegogo money there will some from those who have chosen alternative means of transferring cash, so the target has, hopefully, been well breached. Now don’t spend it all at once. Except for the MOT bit.
Paul. Sweetheart. You know I love you to bits but please for the love of Saint Jude on a cracker can you stop with the Ruth-on-a-tank jibes? We get it, Ruth had a kinda bizarre photo op on a tank that one time. It was funny. And bizarre. Just like Ruth herself. But every time you mention her we get some comment about a tank. Look, there is a loooooooOoooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooong list of stuff to criticise and take shots at Ruth for; why fixate on that one thing? I do love your sense of humour but the tank thing is wearing a bit thin now. I hope I’ve not offended or hurt you with this, I certainly didn’t mean to. You, Sir, are the damn Queen of Shade. I know you can get more original than that ❤